First, if you do a simple Google Scholar search for "Boskop", you will discover that this has not been a going topic in human evolution for nearly fifty years. Most intellectual effort on the topic of "Boskopoids" happened between 1915 and 1930. I want to emphasize how easy it is to discover these things by a simple Google search. This is obscure knowledge, but for a good reason -- it's obsolete and has been for fifty years!
This selection was initially done almost without any regard for archaeological or cultural associations -- any old, large skull was a "Boskop". Later, when a more systematic inventory of archaeological associations was entered into evidence, it became clear that the "Boskop race" was entirely a figment of anthropologists' imaginations. Instead, the MSA-to-LSA population of South Africa had a varied array of features, within the last 20,000 years trending toward those present in historic southern African peoples. Singer ends his paper thusly:
It is now obvious that what was justifiable speculation (because of paucity of data) in 1923, and was apparent as speculation in 1947, is inexcusable to maintain in 1958.
That is pretty much where matters have stood ever since. "Boskopoid" is used only in this historical sense; it is has not been an active unit of analysis since the 1950's. By 1963, Brothwell could claim that Boskop itself was nothing more than a large skull of Khoisan type, leaving the concept of a "Boskop race" far behind.
Today, skeletal remains from South African LSA are generally believed to be ancestral to historic peoples in the region, including the Khoikhoi and San. The ancient people did not mysteriously disappear: they are still with us! The artistic legacy of the ancient peoples, clearly evidenced in rock art, is impressive but no more so than that of the European Upper Paleolithic or that of indigenous Australians.
I hate to think that the theme of a 2008 book was pulled straight from a 1958 essay, but I don't know where else they would have gotten the idea. No anthropologists have written much about the so-called "Boskopoids" since 1958. There is no such thing as an "IQ estimate" for a fossil human; that's entirely nonsensical.
Perhaps most important:
Both Lynch and Granger are experts in neuroscience, with a long list of publications on memory, cortical organization, and chemical regulation of brain activity. Neither of them is an anthropologist or archaeologist.
It would seem John Hawks has thoroughly debunked the idea.
A simpler answer might be to train people that they actually need to slow down if a traffic signal is not fully visible.
Having worked, in computer software, with a group of people called "users," I submit that training is almost never the answer. Many people are simply untrainable. Remember, these are people who often can't even remember what a turn signal is for, or how to correctly interpret a speed limit sign.
The USA tried something close to a laissez faire marketplace and it failed miserably.
Starting in 1898, there was an explosion of regulation and the breaking up of monopolies.
Free markets did not self-regulate. They polluted, colluded, abused the workforce,
sold unhealthy foods, caused stock/bank crashes and a 101 other things.
The EPA, SEC, FTC, FDA, OSHA, etc are all the direct result of that failed philosophy.
The "Gilded Age" featured heavy government subsidies for railroads and the opening up of formerly Indian lands on the cheap. This distortion allowed corporations to grow more than they would have in an actual free market. As far as those problems you've mentioned, some have gotten worse, some have improved, and some haven't changed at all due to the new regulations that have been introduced. The choice is one between corporate corruption and government corruption, and I'm not sure government corruption is any safer, considering the government can legally hold a gun to your head.
The problem with advocating a "free" market is that it is simply bad public policy to let
a corporation kill 100 people and then settle the matter afterwards through the court.
Ideology rarely succeeds in the real world.
The alternative being, of course, to stop people from committing a crime before they've committed it? Maybe we should have a legal system more akin to that in The Minority Report.
I guess I just don't see why you need more regulation to prevent corporations from killing people, when killing is already illegal.
Shouldn't he be the guy who provided the most opportunities for investors to make money? If so, I'd argue that their favorite person should be Alan Greenspan, because, for better or worse (almost certainly worse), he flooded the market with credit, which inflated stock prices across the board (including AAPL), and opened the door for an excellent shorting opportunity in 2007-08. His student, Bernanke, then created another way for investors to double their money by exchanging future stability for short term gain. I'm sure Greenspan made investors far more money than Steve Jobs did; it just came at the expense of pretty much anybody who is not a smart investor/trader.
Indeed. To borrow from one Mr. Churchill, it's the worst system there is, except all the others that have been tried.
Seriously, though, the ability to buy justice is not an attribute of free market capitalism, but crony capitalism. Free market capitalism has never been tried.
Wrong. The recession happened because of a misallocation of resources due, in part, to excessive leveraging. It has absolutely zero to do with whence workers originate.
2) It's not that the people won't work- it's that it's not being offered in the first place and they're claiming a "shortage" of workers (even though there's not...) and getting the H1B's in here
If you're looking for workers with a specific skill set, it's very easy to find a shortage. And if you're looking for workers whom you don't want to pay an outrageous amount just to do what amounts to menial labor, it's very easy to find a shortage.
That's true to an extent, but at the same time, those previous technological advances only improved story telling. They didn't replace it. If they use the computer graphics to merely supplement a good story with good acting and a well thought out script, there won't be any reason to resist. But if Avatar is any indication of what is to come, that won't be the case.
Avatar Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying About The Plot And Love Technology
In case you're one of the few people left who haven't bought into the Avatar hype yet, I thought I'd provide my take on the movie. I saw it last night, so it is fresh in my mind, yet I've had some time to think about it. You've probably only heard great things about it ("Sensational entertainment....Technical breakthrough" (Ebert), "Four Stars!" (probably someone), "83" (metacritic), "OMG AVATAR IS AMAZING" (Facebook)), so perhaps I can provide a different angle.
Dances With The Last Of The Pocahontas...er, I mean, Avatar...is a classic story (and I do mean classic, since it has been told several times already) about an evil, capitalist, colonizing race which will put profit over the lives of an indigenous people who like to run around without any clothes. The evil corporation has a token scientific branch filled with environmentalists who only have peace in mind (because they need to interact with aliens, Sigourney Weaver is cast for the lead alien-interaction-biologist role). They have raised Indian (whoops, that's Na'vi) bodies which are capable of being mind controlled by humans (but only humans who have a genetic "congruency" with the Na'vi body, which was presumably created through procreation with a Na'vi).
John "Jake Sully" Smith is a former marine who lost use of his legs beating up on some Venezualans (because beating up on Venezuala is undeniably American), and he happens to have a twin brother who happened to die before he was to take control of his avatar. Smith is recruited to control the avatar, and immediately runs off into the woods, gets chased by a few large CGI animals, and encounters Pocahontas, the daughter of the local Na'vi tribe's chief. Pocahontas convinces Mr. Chief to spare Smith, after which she teaches him how to appreciate nature, trains him to become a great Na'vi warrior, and they forget the words to "Colors of the Wind." Smith learns that all nature's spirits are intertwined (literally, because the audience is stupid to understand a purely figurative spiritual intertwinement).
Back at the base (which we'll call Pandora's Box), Governor Ratcliff, who manages the outpost, and General Custer, a crazed, macho military braggard, point out that the most valuable mineral known to man, Unobtainium (there must be some deep symbolic reasoning behind this choice of a McGuffin!), is, by pure coincidence, located directly under the Na'vi home, which happens to be a giant tree. They decide that diplomacy has failed, they destroy the tree, and a large battle involving spaceships and dragons ensues (Smith manages to tame a slightly better dragon by simply flying above it, which the Na'vi, who had been in tune with nature for generations, apparently never even considered).
The battle takes up the last third or so of the movie, in with the dragons fight spaceships amidst some giant floating rocks, for which James Cameron doesn't even attempt to come up with a tenuous pseudoscientific explanation (lazy writing at its finest). The biggest travesty here is that nobody attempts to ram one of the floating mountains into an enemy dragon/warship, indicating that the mountains float for no other reason than the animators thought it would be cool.
In short, this is a movie with brilliant graphics and sheer laziness in every other respect. The story is lame, the script is terrible, and the audience is constantly insulted with lame political messages about how environmentalists are better than murderous capitalists. It is worth seeing, if only for the interesting world they created, but it is ultimately wasted effort, and will most likely be forgotten soon after its theater run is finished.
Ebert may have been right... This movie will transform cinema. Unfortunately, that will be a transformation from a type of cinema where the art lies in the cinematography, to one where the art achieved through computer animation. Say goodbye to camera work, scripts, and acting; and welcome our new shiny glittery CGI overlords.
It depends on what you value. If you value effects most, sure, it's wonderful. If, on the other hand, you care more about plot, acting, and script, you might think it was a very pedestrian movie.
I personally enjoyed it while I was there, mainly because of the graphics, but after I left, I started thinking more and more about how lousy it really was.
Given the actual movie doesn't even attempt to explain any of this, my guess is that anybody who does try to explain it is simply grasping at straws. The floating mountains are there because they thought it would look cool. I wouldn't worry about resolving these contradictions, because they didn't put much effort into anything beyond the graphics.
Why should I wait, when they're available now? The only reason for that would be brand loyalty. It's not like learning how to use a new browser is rocket science.
So, let me get this straight... You want Opera to compete with Firefox by stripping out features, and adding a feature that will allow users to install those former features, which are the same, except built by untrustworthy third party developers? I suppose if that's what you want, Opera is not for you.
The funny thing is, the OP used the phrase "every Browser developer other than Google," and we're talking about whether the poster who responded is a fanboy.
I personally switched over a few years ago because, at the time, Opera was the only browser with built in speed dial, mouse gestures, email, RSS, etc. without any need for third party extensions with security vulnerabilities. Those were the killer features for me.
No, I'm pretty sure I stated that it is pure speculation on my part, but I can't think of any other reason they would have deleted the review. Like I said, there was nothing offensive in it, it was just unfavorable.
But given that article Scareduck linked, it seems like a distinct possibility. All I can base it on is the following:
* My review used to be there
* My review is no longer there
* There is a glowing five star review about that restaurant which actually mentions what time it opens
If you can think of another more likely possibility, based on that information, I'd like to hear it.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps most important:
It would seem John Hawks has thoroughly debunked the idea.
Having worked, in computer software, with a group of people called "users," I submit that training is almost never the answer. Many people are simply untrainable. Remember, these are people who often can't even remember what a turn signal is for, or how to correctly interpret a speed limit sign.
The "Gilded Age" featured heavy government subsidies for railroads and the opening up of formerly Indian lands on the cheap. This distortion allowed corporations to grow more than they would have in an actual free market. As far as those problems you've mentioned, some have gotten worse, some have improved, and some haven't changed at all due to the new regulations that have been introduced. The choice is one between corporate corruption and government corruption, and I'm not sure government corruption is any safer, considering the government can legally hold a gun to your head.
The alternative being, of course, to stop people from committing a crime before they've committed it? Maybe we should have a legal system more akin to that in The Minority Report.
I guess I just don't see why you need more regulation to prevent corporations from killing people, when killing is already illegal.
I was just trying to be funny.
Shouldn't he be the guy who provided the most opportunities for investors to make money? If so, I'd argue that their favorite person should be Alan Greenspan, because, for better or worse (almost certainly worse), he flooded the market with credit, which inflated stock prices across the board (including AAPL), and opened the door for an excellent shorting opportunity in 2007-08. His student, Bernanke, then created another way for investors to double their money by exchanging future stability for short term gain. I'm sure Greenspan made investors far more money than Steve Jobs did; it just came at the expense of pretty much anybody who is not a smart investor/trader.
Wait, you're posting on Slashdot and you didn't consider zero-indexed counting? All this time, I thought this site was just for nerds.
Indeed. To borrow from one Mr. Churchill, it's the worst system there is, except all the others that have been tried.
Seriously, though, the ability to buy justice is not an attribute of free market capitalism, but crony capitalism. Free market capitalism has never been tried.
Wrong. The recession happened because of a misallocation of resources due, in part, to excessive leveraging. It has absolutely zero to do with whence workers originate.
If you're looking for workers with a specific skill set, it's very easy to find a shortage. And if you're looking for workers whom you don't want to pay an outrageous amount just to do what amounts to menial labor, it's very easy to find a shortage.
That's true to an extent, but at the same time, those previous technological advances only improved story telling. They didn't replace it. If they use the computer graphics to merely supplement a good story with good acting and a well thought out script, there won't be any reason to resist. But if Avatar is any indication of what is to come, that won't be the case.
Avatar Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying About The Plot And Love Technology
In case you're one of the few people left who haven't bought into the Avatar hype yet, I thought I'd provide my take on the movie. I saw it last night, so it is fresh in my mind, yet I've had some time to think about it. You've probably only heard great things about it ("Sensational entertainment....Technical breakthrough" (Ebert), "Four Stars!" (probably someone), "83" (metacritic), "OMG AVATAR IS AMAZING" (Facebook)), so perhaps I can provide a different angle.
Dances With The Last Of The Pocahontas...er, I mean, Avatar...is a classic story (and I do mean classic, since it has been told several times already) about an evil, capitalist, colonizing race which will put profit over the lives of an indigenous people who like to run around without any clothes. The evil corporation has a token scientific branch filled with environmentalists who only have peace in mind (because they need to interact with aliens, Sigourney Weaver is cast for the lead alien-interaction-biologist role). They have raised Indian (whoops, that's Na'vi) bodies which are capable of being mind controlled by humans (but only humans who have a genetic "congruency" with the Na'vi body, which was presumably created through procreation with a Na'vi).
John "Jake Sully" Smith is a former marine who lost use of his legs beating up on some Venezualans (because beating up on Venezuala is undeniably American), and he happens to have a twin brother who happened to die before he was to take control of his avatar. Smith is recruited to control the avatar, and immediately runs off into the woods, gets chased by a few large CGI animals, and encounters Pocahontas, the daughter of the local Na'vi tribe's chief. Pocahontas convinces Mr. Chief to spare Smith, after which she teaches him how to appreciate nature, trains him to become a great Na'vi warrior, and they forget the words to "Colors of the Wind." Smith learns that all nature's spirits are intertwined (literally, because the audience is stupid to understand a purely figurative spiritual intertwinement).
Back at the base (which we'll call Pandora's Box), Governor Ratcliff, who manages the outpost, and General Custer, a crazed, macho military braggard, point out that the most valuable mineral known to man, Unobtainium (there must be some deep symbolic reasoning behind this choice of a McGuffin!), is, by pure coincidence, located directly under the Na'vi home, which happens to be a giant tree. They decide that diplomacy has failed, they destroy the tree, and a large battle involving spaceships and dragons ensues (Smith manages to tame a slightly better dragon by simply flying above it, which the Na'vi, who had been in tune with nature for generations, apparently never even considered).
The battle takes up the last third or so of the movie, in with the dragons fight spaceships amidst some giant floating rocks, for which James Cameron doesn't even attempt to come up with a tenuous pseudoscientific explanation (lazy writing at its finest). The biggest travesty here is that nobody attempts to ram one of the floating mountains into an enemy dragon/warship, indicating that the mountains float for no other reason than the animators thought it would be cool.
In short, this is a movie with brilliant graphics and sheer laziness in every other respect. The story is lame, the script is terrible, and the audience is constantly insulted with lame political messages about how environmentalists are better than murderous capitalists. It is worth seeing, if only for the interesting world they created, but it is ultimately wasted effort, and will most likely be forgotten soon after its theater run is finished.
5/10
It's not getting more and more difficult to have an original story. It's just getting less and less important to mainstream moviegoers.
+1
Ebert may have been right... This movie will transform cinema. Unfortunately, that will be a transformation from a type of cinema where the art lies in the cinematography, to one where the art achieved through computer animation. Say goodbye to camera work, scripts, and acting; and welcome our new shiny glittery CGI overlords.
It depends on what you value. If you value effects most, sure, it's wonderful. If, on the other hand, you care more about plot, acting, and script, you might think it was a very pedestrian movie.
I personally enjoyed it while I was there, mainly because of the graphics, but after I left, I started thinking more and more about how lousy it really was.
Unobtainium is about the worst thing they could have called it. Why not just call it MacGuffinium?
Given the actual movie doesn't even attempt to explain any of this, my guess is that anybody who does try to explain it is simply grasping at straws. The floating mountains are there because they thought it would look cool. I wouldn't worry about resolving these contradictions, because they didn't put much effort into anything beyond the graphics.
"Dances With The Last Of The Pocahontas." Once you work FernGully in there, you've incorporated pretty much every plot element.
Why should I wait, when they're available now? The only reason for that would be brand loyalty. It's not like learning how to use a new browser is rocket science.
Considering the review was up for several weeks before being deleted, its getting unintentionally "lost" seems unlikely.
Did an Opera user pick on you when you were a child or something?
So, let me get this straight... You want Opera to compete with Firefox by stripping out features, and adding a feature that will allow users to install those former features, which are the same, except built by untrustworthy third party developers? I suppose if that's what you want, Opera is not for you.
The funny thing is, the OP used the phrase "every Browser developer other than Google," and we're talking about whether the poster who responded is a fanboy.
I personally switched over a few years ago because, at the time, Opera was the only browser with built in speed dial, mouse gestures, email, RSS, etc. without any need for third party extensions with security vulnerabilities. Those were the killer features for me.
That's a morbid fetish you have, given that she's dead and whatnot.
If you hate karma whoring so much, why do you post anonymously? Worried about your karma?
No, I'm pretty sure I stated that it is pure speculation on my part, but I can't think of any other reason they would have deleted the review. Like I said, there was nothing offensive in it, it was just unfavorable.
But given that article Scareduck linked, it seems like a distinct possibility. All I can base it on is the following:
* My review used to be there
* My review is no longer there
* There is a glowing five star review about that restaurant which actually mentions what time it opens
If you can think of another more likely possibility, based on that information, I'd like to hear it.