University is where you go to get an in-depth set of concepts, critical thinking skills, research skills, and theory foundations.
Whoa... what school did you go to? I thought it was where you go to get an in-depth understanding of alcohol, marijuana, and the joys and frustrations of the opposite sex?
Do you think names mean anything more than names anyways? As far as I can tell the Democrats are Republicans and visa-versa for most intents and purposes. Sure, they fight each other, but it's primarily for the sake of empire building. Not because they stand for anything particular. They all pretty much agreed on the war, for example. You can find people on each side of the fence with the same views, and people on the same side of the fence with different views. It's just about names. Republicans are supposed to vote Republican and hate Democrats, and visa-versa. Big Endian, Little Endian.
Anyways, I try to pick individual candidates based on their individual views. My two favorites at the moment are Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich.
because when one company adopted a new technology, its competitors did the same
That's probably true, but that doesn't mean you don't have to keep up. That's like saying that there's no point spending money on marketing because your competitors will do the same. There's a name for that type of competition escalation (it's not zero-sum, but it's a similar idea). One side increases a particular outlay to gain an advantage, their competitors do the same, and everyone ends up pretty much where they were before except working harder or spending more. Unfortunately you kind of have to keep playing.
This ties into a little bit of a Bertrand Russell piece I read recently, about how when the means of production go up beyond market demands, say by double, instead of the people employed by that industry working half as hard, half the workforce is laid off and the remainder work just as hard. Well, maybe it doesn't tie that precisely, but it reminds me that no matter how efficient we get, we always end up working just as hard as before.
Being a business is not mutually exclusive with being ethical.
I would also argue that good will can increase the bottom line. This is why many companies promote the idea that they take part in charity projects.
And to claim Negroponte is being unrealistic? Would a better course of action be to encourage Intel in undermining the success of OLPC? It would seem to me that Intel is being unreasonable trying to undermine the project while being on the board.
Kentucky Capitol election example -- Memphis Voters
That would be Tennessee's capitol you're talking about. Sorry, as an ex-KY resident, I had to say that:) And while I'm being a nit-picker...
there cannot be any perfect system,
True, but that doesn't mean that different systems aren't better than the other. I worry that because none are perfect some people might assume the argument is pointless. It's not: the voting system matters. I mean, there's no perfect presidential candidate either, but that doesn't mean we should leave Bush in office:)
two-candidate elections also can't be gamed like preference voting can.
Or, I might say they're pre-gamed. That is, you've somehow already limited the field to two candidates somehow. That process, whatever it is, can be gamed and is part of any two candidate system.
in California, a state with no chance of a Republican carrying the state
And as a current California resident, I must point out that our current govinator is Republican:)
Sorry -- not trying to be a picky pain in the ass. I found your post interesting, but it's 5AM, I can't sleep, and those little things stood out to me.
If there is a non-computable system that exists in the real world, then it cannot be the product of a simulation, no matter how advanced the computer is.
Of course it could be a product of the simulation. You think the "people" who run this simulation are using the same notion of "computing" we are? They may not have the same universal laws we do. I wouldn't even assume that even math holds outside our universe.
I do understand that TV is business. And though observation would provide some weight to your argument, I still don't believe that being a business means they have to cater to one particular segment, i.e. mindless entertainment. I'm not even making a value judgement: mindless entertainment is fine. It's just that it's not the only thing that people want. There are people who want something else, and they're not being served. Or maybe it's the same people, but sometimes they want something else, and during those times they're not being served.
Is the claim really that there is no viable business model for serving anything smaller than the largest single type of viewer?
I hear what you're saying but that seems a bit circular to me. I don't think there's inherently anything about TV that precludes it from having smart people watch it except for the fact that they don't cater to that audience. Reading books is a form of passive entertainment too, and I don't read the best selling thrillers that dominate the best seller lists, but there are books out there that cater to me, and I buy them.
I think we could both be brought back into that market if someone put in the effort. Long tail and all that.
Why cover real news when rehashing a poll, showing a live feed from a local station, or summarizing whatever happens to be in the latest tabloid can make the money?
I hear you, and you're right. But I keep thinking that a lot of people are driven by passion too, instead of just money by itself. No really, don't laugh... I've met a few. I may be one. My point is: doesn't anyone in media care about doing something great? Even if it isn't the most financially successful thing? Or even if it's not the most profitable? Aren't there journalists, TV producers, talent, etc, that want to do something revolutionary, memorable, powerful, and right? Like... reporting the news?
Most people don't watch TV to be educated. They watch to be entertained.
Except it shouldn't only matter what "most" people watch TV for. Some people watch TV to be enriched in some way, at least some of the time. I do. Or rather, did. There should be stations to cater to that, but there is this endless obsession with being #1 so everyone tries to capture the largest market share. Which means they're all competing over the same piece of pie, while there are other smaller pieces that nobody is trying to get at all. Doesn't that seem a little stupid?
A strong leader of the Discovery channel, with real vision, could have accepted that they weren't going to compete with idiot TV, and that they shouldn't try to. They should compete to bring a more specialized product to market for a smaller, hopefully more educated customer base. Not every restaurant has to be McDonalds.
Anyone who believes the market solves everything care to explain why this happens in so many arenas?
I'm sorry, but I feel the same thing with every new programming language and/or paradigm. It's just a bunch of busy work to learn a new syntax, find all the best-of-breed libraries, and work around the unforeseen limitations. In the end, you're not more than a negligible amount better than before, and you've wasted a year of your life.
Are there still people out there who believe in the silver bullet? I mean, I understand there are always new people coming into the practice, but I believe we can mature as a group. Nobody advocates GOTO any more, maybe we can stop advocating the endless language churn? It seems like an enormous waste of time.
I mean, follow your bliss, if you've got great ideas, implement them. I've written redundant libraries because I wanted to see how it would be done. Explore, enjoy. But understand that since LISP we've been able to do whatever we wanted to do, so it's all just hand waving at this point.
More power to Ruby. Rails. Python. Whatever. I'm still hacking Perl at the moment and I don't see any compelling reason to switch. I can do what I need to do. I'm sure that your language of choice cuts the mustard too. When the next 10 Super Languages Of The Future (tm) come out in the next decade, I'll enjoy reading about them and watching as they run into their own particular issues because...
Right on. Not that I have any idea what to do myself beyond recycling, conserving energy, etc... I try to be a good USIan but I probably still consume many times more than just about anyone in India.
But I reply because your comment reminded me of some thing I read a while back... abut how a bunch of USian leaders were pointing fingers and crying foul because some international treaty had pollution exemptions for developing nations. And because of that we wouldn't play ball.
And I was blown away at the idiocy of it. What kind of low life wouldn't want to hold our beloved nation to a higher standard? They want us to be competing for last place? I want us to be leading the way to a better world. And then they say I'm the one who's anti-American?
Without having performed any research at all, I'm going to speculate that actual sleep is very important. In the wild it is dangerous to be unconscious for hours at a time. If it wasn't absolutely necessary, then nature would have found a way to avoid it. Or, more correctly stated, not needing sleep would seem to be a pretty amazing advantage.
But, almost anything with measurable cognitive abilities needs sleep. So there must be some very important work going on there. Probably laying down neural hardlines where temporary chemicals were making pathways before? I'm just guessing, but it's got to be something that requires a partial shutdown.
I think the technology is cool and would be useful for some things, though. I'm always in favor of exploring the outer limits of our abilities. It will be very interesting to see what happens if a person uses this chemical sleep exclusively for, say weeks at a time. Maybe we'll learn what sleep is really for by seeing what stops working correctly. My guess is that they'll not be able to recall anything beyond the past couple days. Things that happened too far back in their wakefulness will not get layed down as long term memories and will be permanently lost.
That is, it'll be kind of like Memento except with, say, a 72 hour working memory instead of 10 minutes.
Yeah, I hear you. However in general I feel it's worth the effort to advocate my lifestyle than to hide it away. Even with women:) Isn't it unfortunate that the accepted solution to a girl not liking her guy watching porn is "lie to her"? Ah well.
Or, you know, you could just admit that you look at porn. Is there really anyone that close to you who still thinks looking at porn is an awful stigma? Why?
But 10, 20, 30 years from now, that crowd will be *everybody*. What will happen then?'"
Most likely, they'll do an about face when their paycheck depends on IP. Some of the will work for media companies and will suddenly "see the light" about copyright infringement. It's like how today's "conservatives" (whatever that means in today's context) were dodging the draft and speaking out against the Vietnam war when they were of drafting age. And how all the folks who smoked pot back in the sixties sear that it's bad for today's young people to do it.
In other words, not much will change. Kids will still use tech to circumvent copyright and execs and such will still preach against it.
Personally, i believe in limited IP (I'm age 34). I think it's a useful concept, but it's been abused. By abusing it, by extending it beyond it's intent, I have little sympathy for the IP royalty (pun intended) now. I'm not at all surprised today's college kids don't care.
CxOs have a huge downside. Most get one shot and that's it.
But even if they blow their one shot -- most of them end up as multi-millionaires. I just don't see the downside.
I'm not saying it's easy to get to that level, but there's not a lot of risk involved. Risking a few million when you've got hundreds of millions more is not a risk. Really. So it's just weird to watch bad execs get reward after reward.
Sure, that all makes sense from the perspective of the company, but it makes no sense whatsoever from the standpoint of the job market for CEOs: they get enormous rewards no matter the performance. The performance is almost irrelevant. Isn't that... odd?
Man. I get that the reality is people are super judgemental and that we're always playing the reputation game whether we like it or not... but it does bum me out that people have to be so fake all the time. People haven't come to accept that others are sometimes as wild and crazy as we are. Everyone has skeletons in the closet, so why is everyone so shocked when they find other people's skeletons in the closet? Meh.
I suppose I'm an idiot: I wear my freakdom like a badge of honor most of the time. Anyone could find out pretty easily that I was part of a white rap group, an offensive punk band, and that I directed a film that features Jesus smoking a joint. So far it hasn't been a problem, and I've had some good jobs. But I bet it will bite me eventually. Oh well... I'm going to try to represent: you can be wild and crazy at times and still be extremely diplomatic and professional when called for.
I hope someday we can deal with people being multi-faceted.
Slashdot Mirror
University is where you go to get an in-depth set of concepts, critical thinking skills, research skills, and theory foundations.
Whoa... what school did you go to? I thought it was where you go to get an in-depth understanding of alcohol, marijuana, and the joys and frustrations of the opposite sex?
Cheers.
Do you think names mean anything more than names anyways? As far as I can tell the Democrats are Republicans and visa-versa for most intents and purposes. Sure, they fight each other, but it's primarily for the sake of empire building. Not because they stand for anything particular. They all pretty much agreed on the war, for example. You can find people on each side of the fence with the same views, and people on the same side of the fence with different views. It's just about names. Republicans are supposed to vote Republican and hate Democrats, and visa-versa. Big Endian, Little Endian.
Anyways, I try to pick individual candidates based on their individual views. My two favorites at the moment are Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich.
Cheers.
because when one company adopted a new technology, its competitors did the same
That's probably true, but that doesn't mean you don't have to keep up. That's like saying that there's no point spending money on marketing because your competitors will do the same. There's a name for that type of competition escalation (it's not zero-sum, but it's a similar idea). One side increases a particular outlay to gain an advantage, their competitors do the same, and everyone ends up pretty much where they were before except working harder or spending more. Unfortunately you kind of have to keep playing.
This ties into a little bit of a Bertrand Russell piece I read recently, about how when the means of production go up beyond market demands, say by double, instead of the people employed by that industry working half as hard, half the workforce is laid off and the remainder work just as hard. Well, maybe it doesn't tie that precisely, but it reminds me that no matter how efficient we get, we always end up working just as hard as before.
Cheers.
Being a business is not mutually exclusive with being ethical.
I would also argue that good will can increase the bottom line. This is why many companies promote the idea that they take part in charity projects.
And to claim Negroponte is being unrealistic? Would a better course of action be to encourage Intel in undermining the success of OLPC? It would seem to me that Intel is being unreasonable trying to undermine the project while being on the board.
Cheers.
Superman died ... Batman was paralyzed ... Robin died
;)
Doh! Where was the spoiler warning!?!
Kentucky Capitol election example -- Memphis Voters
:) And while I'm being a nit-picker...
:)
:)
That would be Tennessee's capitol you're talking about. Sorry, as an ex-KY resident, I had to say that
there cannot be any perfect system,
True, but that doesn't mean that different systems aren't better than the other. I worry that because none are perfect some people might assume the argument is pointless. It's not: the voting system matters. I mean, there's no perfect presidential candidate either, but that doesn't mean we should leave Bush in office
two-candidate elections also can't be gamed like preference voting can.
Or, I might say they're pre-gamed. That is, you've somehow already limited the field to two candidates somehow. That process, whatever it is, can be gamed and is part of any two candidate system.
in California, a state with no chance of a Republican carrying the state
And as a current California resident, I must point out that our current govinator is Republican
Sorry -- not trying to be a picky pain in the ass. I found your post interesting, but it's 5AM, I can't sleep, and those little things stood out to me.
Cheers.
Man, what kind of geek site is it when everyone cries foul and gets all down and incredulous on a light and trippy sci-fi dicsussion like this?
We're so scared of science falling apart, I tell you, the ID advocates have already won!
The idea may be mental masturbation, but so what? Are you going to tell me next that you don't masturbate?
Cheers.
If there is a non-computable system that exists in the real world, then it cannot be the product of a simulation, no matter how advanced the computer is.
;)
Of course it could be a product of the simulation. You think the "people" who run this simulation are using the same notion of "computing" we are? They may not have the same universal laws we do. I wouldn't even assume that even math holds outside our universe.
You think that's air you're breathing?
If I had mod points today, I'd mod you up. But as I don't, I'll just parrot you: "Don't Make Me Think" is a great book on UI.
I do understand that TV is business. And though observation would provide some weight to your argument, I still don't believe that being a business means they have to cater to one particular segment, i.e. mindless entertainment. I'm not even making a value judgement: mindless entertainment is fine. It's just that it's not the only thing that people want. There are people who want something else, and they're not being served. Or maybe it's the same people, but sometimes they want something else, and during those times they're not being served.
Is the claim really that there is no viable business model for serving anything smaller than the largest single type of viewer?
Cheers.
Because smart people don't watch TV anyway?
I hear what you're saying but that seems a bit circular to me. I don't think there's inherently anything about TV that precludes it from having smart people watch it except for the fact that they don't cater to that audience. Reading books is a form of passive entertainment too, and I don't read the best selling thrillers that dominate the best seller lists, but there are books out there that cater to me, and I buy them.
I think we could both be brought back into that market if someone put in the effort. Long tail and all that.
Cheers.
Why cover real news when rehashing a poll, showing a live feed from a local station, or summarizing whatever happens to be in the latest tabloid can make the money?
I hear you, and you're right. But I keep thinking that a lot of people are driven by passion too, instead of just money by itself. No really, don't laugh... I've met a few. I may be one. My point is: doesn't anyone in media care about doing something great? Even if it isn't the most financially successful thing? Or even if it's not the most profitable? Aren't there journalists, TV producers, talent, etc, that want to do something revolutionary, memorable, powerful, and right? Like... reporting the news?
Cheers.
Most people don't watch TV to be educated. They watch to be entertained.
Except it shouldn't only matter what "most" people watch TV for. Some people watch TV to be enriched in some way, at least some of the time. I do. Or rather, did. There should be stations to cater to that, but there is this endless obsession with being #1 so everyone tries to capture the largest market share. Which means they're all competing over the same piece of pie, while there are other smaller pieces that nobody is trying to get at all. Doesn't that seem a little stupid?
A strong leader of the Discovery channel, with real vision, could have accepted that they weren't going to compete with idiot TV, and that they shouldn't try to. They should compete to bring a more specialized product to market for a smaller, hopefully more educated customer base. Not every restaurant has to be McDonalds.
Anyone who believes the market solves everything care to explain why this happens in so many arenas?
Cheers.
I don't want to be a 'Ruby guy' anymore
I'm sorry, but I feel the same thing with every new programming language and/or paradigm. It's just a bunch of busy work to learn a new syntax, find all the best-of-breed libraries, and work around the unforeseen limitations. In the end, you're not more than a negligible amount better than before, and you've wasted a year of your life.
Are there still people out there who believe in the silver bullet? I mean, I understand there are always new people coming into the practice, but I believe we can mature as a group. Nobody advocates GOTO any more, maybe we can stop advocating the endless language churn? It seems like an enormous waste of time.
I mean, follow your bliss, if you've got great ideas, implement them. I've written redundant libraries because I wanted to see how it would be done. Explore, enjoy. But understand that since LISP we've been able to do whatever we wanted to do, so it's all just hand waving at this point.
More power to Ruby. Rails. Python. Whatever. I'm still hacking Perl at the moment and I don't see any compelling reason to switch. I can do what I need to do. I'm sure that your language of choice cuts the mustard too. When the next 10 Super Languages Of The Future (tm) come out in the next decade, I'll enjoy reading about them and watching as they run into their own particular issues because...
Effective Software Design Is Hard.
Cheers.
Right on. Not that I have any idea what to do myself beyond recycling, conserving energy, etc... I try to be a good USIan but I probably still consume many times more than just about anyone in India.
But I reply because your comment reminded me of some thing I read a while back... abut how a bunch of USian leaders were pointing fingers and crying foul because some international treaty had pollution exemptions for developing nations. And because of that we wouldn't play ball.
And I was blown away at the idiocy of it. What kind of low life wouldn't want to hold our beloved nation to a higher standard? They want us to be competing for last place? I want us to be leading the way to a better world. And then they say I'm the one who's anti-American?
Cheers.
It's worth noting that when America got cars out to the masses, they weren't safe either. That came much later.
Growing pains and all.
And suddenly the hypocrisy of our lifestyle becomes clear...
Without having performed any research at all, I'm going to speculate that actual sleep is very important. In the wild it is dangerous to be unconscious for hours at a time. If it wasn't absolutely necessary, then nature would have found a way to avoid it. Or, more correctly stated, not needing sleep would seem to be a pretty amazing advantage.
But, almost anything with measurable cognitive abilities needs sleep. So there must be some very important work going on there. Probably laying down neural hardlines where temporary chemicals were making pathways before? I'm just guessing, but it's got to be something that requires a partial shutdown.
I think the technology is cool and would be useful for some things, though. I'm always in favor of exploring the outer limits of our abilities. It will be very interesting to see what happens if a person uses this chemical sleep exclusively for, say weeks at a time. Maybe we'll learn what sleep is really for by seeing what stops working correctly. My guess is that they'll not be able to recall anything beyond the past couple days. Things that happened too far back in their wakefulness will not get layed down as long term memories and will be permanently lost.
That is, it'll be kind of like Memento except with, say, a 72 hour working memory instead of 10 minutes.
Yeah, I hear you. However in general I feel it's worth the effort to advocate my lifestyle than to hide it away. Even with women :) Isn't it unfortunate that the accepted solution to a girl not liking her guy watching porn is "lie to her"? Ah well.
Cheers.
Or, you know, you could just admit that you look at porn. Is there really anyone that close to you who still thinks looking at porn is an awful stigma? Why?
Cheers.
But 10, 20, 30 years from now, that crowd will be *everybody*. What will happen then?'"
Most likely, they'll do an about face when their paycheck depends on IP. Some of the will work for media companies and will suddenly "see the light" about copyright infringement. It's like how today's "conservatives" (whatever that means in today's context) were dodging the draft and speaking out against the Vietnam war when they were of drafting age. And how all the folks who smoked pot back in the sixties sear that it's bad for today's young people to do it.
In other words, not much will change. Kids will still use tech to circumvent copyright and execs and such will still preach against it.
Personally, i believe in limited IP (I'm age 34). I think it's a useful concept, but it's been abused. By abusing it, by extending it beyond it's intent, I have little sympathy for the IP royalty (pun intended) now. I'm not at all surprised today's college kids don't care.
Cheers.
CxOs have a huge downside. Most get one shot and that's it.
But even if they blow their one shot -- most of them end up as multi-millionaires. I just don't see the downside.
I'm not saying it's easy to get to that level, but there's not a lot of risk involved. Risking a few million when you've got hundreds of millions more is not a risk. Really. So it's just weird to watch bad execs get reward after reward.
Cheers.
Sure, that all makes sense from the perspective of the company, but it makes no sense whatsoever from the standpoint of the job market for CEOs: they get enormous rewards no matter the performance. The performance is almost irrelevant. Isn't that... odd?
Nope, it was Vendetta: A Christmas Story.
Cheers.
Man. I get that the reality is people are super judgemental and that we're always playing the reputation game whether we like it or not... but it does bum me out that people have to be so fake all the time. People haven't come to accept that others are sometimes as wild and crazy as we are. Everyone has skeletons in the closet, so why is everyone so shocked when they find other people's skeletons in the closet? Meh.
I suppose I'm an idiot: I wear my freakdom like a badge of honor most of the time. Anyone could find out pretty easily that I was part of a white rap group, an offensive punk band, and that I directed a film that features Jesus smoking a joint. So far it hasn't been a problem, and I've had some good jobs. But I bet it will bite me eventually. Oh well... I'm going to try to represent: you can be wild and crazy at times and still be extremely diplomatic and professional when called for.
I hope someday we can deal with people being multi-faceted.
Cheers.