Or... How propaganda and political meddling manage to send science research down blind alleys for 10 years.
Science goes down dead ends plenty on it's own even without political meddling. Many if not most of the really big discoveries started out with blind discovery. Fleming discovered penicillin only by accident as a result of sloppy labwork, and when he did there was no indication that it would ever pan out. In fact, this wiki article I just read informs me that after disapointing trials, he gave up on it.
Sorry. The Hydrogen infrastructure not only isn't going to happen, it would be a disaster if it did.
Thus spoke collin smith, world renowned expert in the future of undeveloped technology, with the use of his 100% accurate crystal ball. Not so much as one link to a guy explaining why exactly it would be a disaster was needed, for his word was fact.
How do they keep it from floating away? Won't someone think of the humanity?!?!
(Kidding, I know it won't, I'm assuming the hydrogen is compressed and won't provide lift as a result, and have heard all about how the hindenburg burned because of rocket fuel paint, so don't start)
That's absurd. If you're old enough to drive, you're old enough to take responsibility for the way you do it. If a parent can't trust her kid to drive responsibly, she shouldn't be letting him drive in the first place.
Classic "everything can be solved by simplifying it into A or B" syndrome.
Taking responsibility for the way you drive, does that include injury and death? If your answer is yes, I'm hoping you are sterile. It's absurd to imply that parents should just let their kids deal with the consequences when the consequences are injury and death rather than limit their driving experience. Kids need to gain responsibility gradually.
Your alternative to giving a kid the ability to cause a major fatal accident is don't have them drive at all. That's a great option for people whose children can magically teleport wherever they want to go. Real parents might not have the time to drive their capable teens everywhere. Plus you want to allow them to build up your trust.
All or nothing is a terrible strategy if you have options, and now that's available.
More specifically if it burns away completely BEFORE hitting the earth. If it burns up in the resulting explosion...:-(
One thing I've wondered, those small asteroids that hit the earth, say that land and are about the size of my fist, did those burn down to that size from a bigger size, or are there trajectories that it could land mostly without burning up. Like if it goes in at a really steep angle, could a rock the size of a basketball before it enters be about the size of a basketball when it lands, or is that pretty much impossible?
I realize this next question depends on a lot of factors, such as asteroid composition, angle of entry, and the answer to that last question, but if a rock landed in my backyard, again about the size of a basketball, what is the range of sizes before it entered that you would expect? Volkswagon? Semi truck? Seems like something that someone would have calculated.
Basically, I'm wondering if it's possible that a pea-sized meteorite could go flying through my head like a bullet.
Blogs are a different form of communication, sure, but they're not magical.
What about blogs about magic then, smart guy!?!
Anyway, you're right about martyrdom, good point. And even without the internet, this was a well publicized event that wasn't quiet, the news in Malasia was reporting this apperantly.
I don't see any reason why sedition on a blog should be treated any differently from sedition on a streetcorner or a radio program or a billboard or a secret revolutionary committee meeting
The streisand effect comes to mind. Even if you're okay with censorship, doing it on the internet is stupid. You can arrest someone on the street corner and silence them. If you arrest someone for a post on a blog, you're only going to get more people to read that post.
Granted, it would be more effective in the long run for the fascist to jail the blogger, but it's less effective if there's a particular post you want buried. Like if you are a dictator or prime minister wanting to, say, keep quiet the fact that a friend of yours and some of your police murdered someone, arresting the blogger is stupid, since the blog is then probably going to get posted to a website for nerds and distributed around the world, increasing the number of people who know.
Yes, but getting back to what I think was the point of this, the fact that "you can see with your skin" hasn't been published in any peer-reviewed journal and instead is being published through blurbs like this is a good reason to reject it. The asumption in cases like this should be that it's not published because it's crap, not that it's not published because of a flawed peer-review system.
But the system is seriously flawed, and we should seriously consider how to do it better.
I can see bigger problems with every possible alternative.
Having no review at all would not only allow crap to get published with good results, the good studies would also get weakened. Often times, reviewers comments set a higher standard, and researchers strengthen their papers in response. We get better papers with peer-review and less bad ones. Generally it doesn't keep out legitimate research, it delays it at times, but what it contributes is more valuable.
Having non-experts review papers would be a waste of time and would ultimately be much more arbitrary.
Having a board of experts that are not peers would yeild the exact same problems as peer-review, and in most fields there aren't experts who aren't engaged in active research.
The lie detector test would be a waste of time and, well, would never happen.
Insisting that another lab repeat the experiments before publishing would at least halve the research at a funding, personel, and progress level.
Refusing to publish anything is obviously the very worst option.
Well, I don't think it's too much to ask that in this day and age we realize that any stereotypes based on race are inherently extremely fucking stupid. It shouldn't be a choice between stereotypes. The spear-carrying stereotype isn't positive, it's a stereotype of uncivilized. Is the only place you encounter black men Taco Bell, or are you so brain dead that's the only place you notice them?
Sorry for the venom, but your implication seems to be that black men are either "$200 plastic sneakers, baggy pants, droopy t-shirt, and some cheap gold chains," or some weird warrior man sex object thing that I really don't want to know anything about.
Well, it's still less broken than "No seriously, this snake oil works!"
I was in a lecture about research ethics, and the professor pointed out that research relies a lot on the honor system by necessity and also because it usually works. As I alluded to earlier, peer-reviewed is without a good alternative. What more can we do than peer-review? Lie detector tests?
Hmm... actually...
Well anyway, there's also the fact that few researchers intentionally fake their results (intentionally is key of course). You don't get into research for the money or fame. Most researchers get into it because they're genuinely interested and want to find answers, advance human knowledge, and help people. With that as your motivation, what point is there to lie? Sure, there are exceptions and extenuating circumstances, but researchers by and large don't lie.
I get dibs on being MacGyver! Sorry, but I called it. Someone else can take the nerdy professor, I bet the alien guy is going to go quick, so someone should call that.
Did anyone else find it odd that the token black guy in that show was not only an alien, but he used what looked undeniably like... well... a spear? They could have been more insensitive about it, like giving him an afro, I guess.
For street use, yes, but I'd be suprised if the car mentioned in the article were going to be made to sell. I didn't RTFA, so maybe I should be suprised already, but seems like just a concept car.
Well, that's because it's no longer an academic question. SOME of the skepticism is "economically motivated" and therefore impossible to satisfy. There's also the factor of "if it's right, then waiting until it's a fact will be too late." As someone who won't lose money directly from cutting our use of fossil fuels, of course I'm going to say we should cut them now and potentially have done it for nothing than not cut them now and wish we had.
The science of global warming is now only used as a bat in the debate because there are larger issues.
Actually it should: science doesn't work through faith. The word or untested hypotheses of even the most distinguished scientists isn't good for anything besides deciding what to test next. If Stephen Hawkings said Hawkin's radiation leaks out slightly faster from black holes than he thought and didn't offer proof, there would be plenty of people who would investigate I'm sure, but it wouldn't be accepted as more than conjecture, even though it's named after him.
Slashdot Mirror
poopreport.com you say? I'm guessing you're trying to rickroll me, better luck next time.
Or... How propaganda and political meddling manage to send science research down blind alleys for 10 years.
Science goes down dead ends plenty on it's own even without political meddling. Many if not most of the really big discoveries started out with blind discovery. Fleming discovered penicillin only by accident as a result of sloppy labwork, and when he did there was no indication that it would ever pan out. In fact, this wiki article I just read informs me that after disapointing trials, he gave up on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fleming#Work_before_penicillin
Sorry. The Hydrogen infrastructure not only isn't going to happen, it would be a disaster if it did.
Thus spoke collin smith, world renowned expert in the future of undeveloped technology, with the use of his 100% accurate crystal ball. Not so much as one link to a guy explaining why exactly it would be a disaster was needed, for his word was fact.
How do they keep it from floating away? Won't someone think of the humanity?!?!
(Kidding, I know it won't, I'm assuming the hydrogen is compressed and won't provide lift as a result, and have heard all about how the hindenburg burned because of rocket fuel paint, so don't start)
That's absurd. If you're old enough to drive, you're old enough to take responsibility for the way you do it. If a parent can't trust her kid to drive responsibly, she shouldn't be letting him drive in the first place.
Classic "everything can be solved by simplifying it into A or B" syndrome.
Taking responsibility for the way you drive, does that include injury and death? If your answer is yes, I'm hoping you are sterile. It's absurd to imply that parents should just let their kids deal with the consequences when the consequences are injury and death rather than limit their driving experience. Kids need to gain responsibility gradually.
Your alternative to giving a kid the ability to cause a major fatal accident is don't have them drive at all. That's a great option for people whose children can magically teleport wherever they want to go. Real parents might not have the time to drive their capable teens everywhere. Plus you want to allow them to build up your trust.
All or nothing is a terrible strategy if you have options, and now that's available.
If the poor kid can't find anything hotter than a playboy, he might be dumb enough to die doing that.
More specifically if it burns away completely BEFORE hitting the earth. If it burns up in the resulting explosion... :-(
One thing I've wondered, those small asteroids that hit the earth, say that land and are about the size of my fist, did those burn down to that size from a bigger size, or are there trajectories that it could land mostly without burning up. Like if it goes in at a really steep angle, could a rock the size of a basketball before it enters be about the size of a basketball when it lands, or is that pretty much impossible?
I realize this next question depends on a lot of factors, such as asteroid composition, angle of entry, and the answer to that last question, but if a rock landed in my backyard, again about the size of a basketball, what is the range of sizes before it entered that you would expect? Volkswagon? Semi truck? Seems like something that someone would have calculated.
Basically, I'm wondering if it's possible that a pea-sized meteorite could go flying through my head like a bullet.
Blogs are a different form of communication, sure, but they're not magical.
What about blogs about magic then, smart guy!?!
Anyway, you're right about martyrdom, good point. And even without the internet, this was a well publicized event that wasn't quiet, the news in Malasia was reporting this apperantly.
I don't see any reason why sedition on a blog should be treated any differently from sedition on a streetcorner or a radio program or a billboard or a secret revolutionary committee meeting
The streisand effect comes to mind. Even if you're okay with censorship, doing it on the internet is stupid. You can arrest someone on the street corner and silence them. If you arrest someone for a post on a blog, you're only going to get more people to read that post.
Granted, it would be more effective in the long run for the fascist to jail the blogger, but it's less effective if there's a particular post you want buried. Like if you are a dictator or prime minister wanting to, say, keep quiet the fact that a friend of yours and some of your police murdered someone, arresting the blogger is stupid, since the blog is then probably going to get posted to a website for nerds and distributed around the world, increasing the number of people who know.
Well, in the 3 minutes it takes to change images, just imagine you've walked around to a different side, then the picture can show that. Voila!
What? Waterplanes are a perfectly sane solution to our problem of "how to fly underwater... without using a submarine."
Yes, but getting back to what I think was the point of this, the fact that "you can see with your skin" hasn't been published in any peer-reviewed journal and instead is being published through blurbs like this is a good reason to reject it. The asumption in cases like this should be that it's not published because it's crap, not that it's not published because of a flawed peer-review system.
But the system is seriously flawed, and we should seriously consider how to do it better.
I can see bigger problems with every possible alternative.
Having no review at all would not only allow crap to get published with good results, the good studies would also get weakened. Often times, reviewers comments set a higher standard, and researchers strengthen their papers in response. We get better papers with peer-review and less bad ones. Generally it doesn't keep out legitimate research, it delays it at times, but what it contributes is more valuable.
Having non-experts review papers would be a waste of time and would ultimately be much more arbitrary.
Having a board of experts that are not peers would yeild the exact same problems as peer-review, and in most fields there aren't experts who aren't engaged in active research.
The lie detector test would be a waste of time and, well, would never happen.
Insisting that another lab repeat the experiments before publishing would at least halve the research at a funding, personel, and progress level.
Refusing to publish anything is obviously the very worst option.
I can't think of any more options. Can you?
Well, I don't think it's too much to ask that in this day and age we realize that any stereotypes based on race are inherently extremely fucking stupid. It shouldn't be a choice between stereotypes. The spear-carrying stereotype isn't positive, it's a stereotype of uncivilized. Is the only place you encounter black men Taco Bell, or are you so brain dead that's the only place you notice them?
Sorry for the venom, but your implication seems to be that black men are either "$200 plastic sneakers, baggy pants, droopy t-shirt, and some cheap gold chains," or some weird warrior man sex object thing that I really don't want to know anything about.
There really is no shortage of ignorance on the internet when it comes to my favorite scifi show.
I fixed that for you. We're not talking about, you know, something important here. In fact, we're not even discussing star-trek.
There really is no shortage of geeks overreacting to trivia on the internet.
More of a strange commentary on the emphasis of "fresh" news rather than on "relevant" news.
Then again, some news stories go for weeks when they should have been barely a mention at the CNN crawling bar. Brittney getting her head shaved?
Recently we told RIAA to go pound sand in their ass.
THAT'S all it took to get rid of them? Man, all that wasted money on lawyers, shoulda just bought some sand.
...the system has largely failed.
Well, it's still less broken than "No seriously, this snake oil works!"
I was in a lecture about research ethics, and the professor pointed out that research relies a lot on the honor system by necessity and also because it usually works. As I alluded to earlier, peer-reviewed is without a good alternative. What more can we do than peer-review? Lie detector tests?
Hmm... actually...
Well anyway, there's also the fact that few researchers intentionally fake their results (intentionally is key of course). You don't get into research for the money or fame. Most researchers get into it because they're genuinely interested and want to find answers, advance human knowledge, and help people. With that as your motivation, what point is there to lie? Sure, there are exceptions and extenuating circumstances, but researchers by and large don't lie.
Or at least google "passive voice."
I get dibs on being MacGyver! Sorry, but I called it. Someone else can take the nerdy professor, I bet the alien guy is going to go quick, so someone should call that.
Did anyone else find it odd that the token black guy in that show was not only an alien, but he used what looked undeniably like... well... a spear? They could have been more insensitive about it, like giving him an afro, I guess.
For street use, yes, but I'd be suprised if the car mentioned in the article were going to be made to sell. I didn't RTFA, so maybe I should be suprised already, but seems like just a concept car.
Well, that's because it's no longer an academic question. SOME of the skepticism is "economically motivated" and therefore impossible to satisfy. There's also the factor of "if it's right, then waiting until it's a fact will be too late." As someone who won't lose money directly from cutting our use of fossil fuels, of course I'm going to say we should cut them now and potentially have done it for nothing than not cut them now and wish we had.
The science of global warming is now only used as a bat in the debate because there are larger issues.
Actually it should: science doesn't work through faith. The word or untested hypotheses of even the most distinguished scientists isn't good for anything besides deciding what to test next. If Stephen Hawkings said Hawkin's radiation leaks out slightly faster from black holes than he thought and didn't offer proof, there would be plenty of people who would investigate I'm sure, but it wouldn't be accepted as more than conjecture, even though it's named after him.
...it makes you want to smoke something and listen to the beatles?
Yes, but does that increase or decrease what you're seeing with your forehead?
That's great, but call me when THIS car from gran turismo 4 is actually made (if it's not already)
http://www.seriouswheels.com/cars/top-Nike-ONE-Gran-Turismo.htm
http://ac520.mygallery.biz/albums/gt4/Nike_One_2022_p03.jpg