I agree with UnknownSoldier on this one. The evidence I've seen for Dark Matter is unconvincing. I'm sure it's useful to assume in certain calculations but I find no reason to elevate it to some kind of 'truism' about the Universe. Had they simply named it 'Unexplained Discrepancy' we probably would not be having this discussion.
Maybe science should just stop coming up with interesting names for things because I've seen this same problem come up with String Theory and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Relatively benign observations or approaches to solve a physics (calculation) problem somehow get repeated and hyped to a somehow become a deep Matrix-like truism about reality.
One more item. I remember why I stopped coming by here it's because of comments like these:
"Your post shows a large amount of ignorance on this matter, and ignorance on the scientific process."
"The story of humanity is full of whole chapters...................."
Not so much that they were made... rather that they were moded up.
I miss being around smart people and slashdot is full of smart people. However every time I come by I'm reminded that smart people are often pretty unpleasant to be around.
So I consider myself fairly knowledgeable person when it comes to the nerd/tech culture. I grew up with marvel comics X-men Wolverine etc, love Star Wars, enjoy star Trek every now and then, and played AD&D as a tween. I've always been a video game fan and put in a few good years playing WOW along with all the classics. I'm at least familiar with other tech topics to be able to easily follow all but the most technical of articles.
So I am baffled by the reverance for and the level to which this movie has been elevated to by the tech/nerd culture. Not only had I not heard of this series prior to the movie but no one I know has ever heard of it either. I looked it up on wikipedia and it appeared to be a relatively short lived series. Is this a Great Britian thing? My only conclusion is that this love affair must have been very regional or that there is an entire swath of the tech/nerd culture that I am totally unaware of. Can anyone give me the back story on this?
Sorry for picking but I believe you mean "for our other readers" not "for are other readers" in the title.
Those phonetic word swaps are a pet peeve of mine. Anyway carry on.
FYI there is about a 4 year lag between a President's fiscal policy and the effects on the economy. So your graphic is the equivalent to blaming Obama for the Iraq war. Inheriting a boom or bust doesn't make you a better or worse president. In the area of fiscal responsibility I would put Bush senior first and Clinton second, not sure about Carter but Regan and Bush Jr were atrocious.
What's more worrying is that only 21% knew all three questions. One might expect that around 50% of people would be 'well educated' and know all of them and the other 50% wouldn't be and wouldn't know any of them but that's not the case.
Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.
Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth's surface that is covered with water.(*)
Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly.
If you assume everyone has roughly the same amount of education and had a random chance of knowing any one of these three facts then 14.7% (.53*.59*.47) would have 'randomly' known the answer to all three without really being any more educated than the next guy. So since the actual number is only 6% higher (and theoretically it could be as high as 47%) it means that knowing the answer to one question doesn't necessarily mean you have a much better chance of getting the next question right.
So basically very few people have a well rounded education that has prepared them to answer those questions. Without going into the math too much around 10% of the population could be expected to get all similarly difficult questions right while the rest of the population would have no better chance than the next guy.
Yea 'Peak Oil' is suck a lie. If prices got high enough we'd just mine the US oil shale reserves which are 1.5 Trillion Barrels (5 times Saudia Arabia's reserves). It's just too expensive of a proceedure right now.
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/rpt/OilShale.html
Microsoft never robed me, nor did it point a gun at me. In may have robbed some other companies but that's a civil matter to be settled by the courts. Why punish the OEM who are an disinterested third parties? Harming OEMs to get back at Microsoft is like dropping a nuke on Redmond a lot a people who have nothing to do with Microsoft will get hurt.
As you point out it's against the law to abuse a monopoly. So therefore the regulations should be focused on forcing Microsoft to not abuse its position in the market, NOT regulating OEMs who don't have anything to do with Monopoly's abuse of power.
One regulation could be no contract that Microsoft makes can preclude the OEM from doing business with one of Microsoft's rivals or hinder that business in any way. This includes giving an OEM a better deal (or any other financial incentive) to no longer offer another operating system such as Linux (Quid pro quo).
Your points are valid however the OP article advocates forcing OEMs to not allow Windows to be pre-installed. It's a totally lame and unreasonable argument. Yours is much better. Here's a question from the OP article:
"But if we don't ship PCs with pre-installed Windows, wont there be rampant piracy?"
Yea I would still be against requiring them to also install any OS the consumer wanted because I think that's an undue burden but merely requiring OEMs to allow the option of not installing (or paying for) Windows is much less offensive requirement.
Hey I know! A free market sounds really great so let's have government tell everyone how to run their business so that we can have a 'truly' free market! We should unbundle everything why stop at Windows? Engines from cars, nails and wood from houses, lead from pencils everything! In a truly free market any products that can be sold separately are!
Extreme situation indeed... "Oh my God mom! What honey? I was robbed at gun point! Oh honey I know just how you feel, my computer got packaged with Windows on it. Truly we are both victims."
YAY! Let's make a law against allowing companies to install operating systems for the buyer! That's the 'real' free market for you. Clearly the auto industry does the same things and all cars should be purchased without the engine pre-installed so consumers can really have an open choice as to what kind of engine they'd want.
Shesh imagine Federal troops raiding Dell arresting hundreds after they get a tip off that some Dell employees are operating a shadow Windows installation ring for $20 and no questions asked. "Yea, I can get Windows installed for ya..."
Forcing OEMs to unbundle is really a horrible idea. If more than 50% of the people involved in the Linux project can't see that then Linux will *never* be more than a nerd's plaything.
Regulatory action should be focused on stopping Microsoft from exercising monopoly power not regulating the business model of other independent companies that interact with the Monopoly. Two other wildly better approaches off the top of my head would be:
-No contract that Microsoft makes can preclude the OEM from doing business with one of Microsoft's rivals or hinder that business in any way. This includes giving an OEM a better deal (or any other financial incentive) to no longer offer another operating system such as Linux (Quid pro quo).
-Informational regulations such as requiring the price of Windows to be disclosed to the buying in large type and plain language.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with UnknownSoldier on this one. The evidence I've seen for Dark Matter is unconvincing. I'm sure it's useful to assume in certain calculations but I find no reason to elevate it to some kind of 'truism' about the Universe. Had they simply named it 'Unexplained Discrepancy' we probably would not be having this discussion.
Maybe science should just stop coming up with interesting names for things because I've seen this same problem come up with String Theory and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Relatively benign observations or approaches to solve a physics (calculation) problem somehow get repeated and hyped to a somehow become a deep Matrix-like truism about reality.
One more item. I remember why I stopped coming by here it's because of comments like these:
"Your post shows a large amount of ignorance on this matter, and ignorance on the scientific process."
"The story of humanity is full of whole chapters...................."
Not so much that they were made... rather that they were moded up.
I miss being around smart people and slashdot is full of smart people. However every time I come by I'm reminded that smart people are often pretty unpleasant to be around.
So I consider myself fairly knowledgeable person when it comes to the nerd/tech culture. I grew up with marvel comics X-men Wolverine etc, love Star Wars, enjoy star Trek every now and then, and played AD&D as a tween. I've always been a video game fan and put in a few good years playing WOW along with all the classics. I'm at least familiar with other tech topics to be able to easily follow all but the most technical of articles. So I am baffled by the reverance for and the level to which this movie has been elevated to by the tech/nerd culture. Not only had I not heard of this series prior to the movie but no one I know has ever heard of it either. I looked it up on wikipedia and it appeared to be a relatively short lived series. Is this a Great Britian thing? My only conclusion is that this love affair must have been very regional or that there is an entire swath of the tech/nerd culture that I am totally unaware of. Can anyone give me the back story on this?
Sorry for picking but I believe you mean "for our other readers" not "for are other readers" in the title. Those phonetic word swaps are a pet peeve of mine. Anyway carry on.
FYI there is about a 4 year lag between a President's fiscal policy and the effects on the economy. So your graphic is the equivalent to blaming Obama for the Iraq war. Inheriting a boom or bust doesn't make you a better or worse president. In the area of fiscal responsibility I would put Bush senior first and Clinton second, not sure about Carter but Regan and Bush Jr were atrocious.
Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun. .(*)
Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.
Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth's surface that is covered with water
Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly.
If you assume everyone has roughly the same amount of education and had a random chance of knowing any one of these three facts then 14.7% (.53*.59*.47) would have 'randomly' known the answer to all three without really being any more educated than the next guy. So since the actual number is only 6% higher (and theoretically it could be as high as 47%) it means that knowing the answer to one question doesn't necessarily mean you have a much better chance of getting the next question right.
So basically very few people have a well rounded education that has prepared them to answer those questions. Without going into the math too much around 10% of the population could be expected to get all similarly difficult questions right while the rest of the population would have no better chance than the next guy.
Yea 'Peak Oil' is suck a lie. If prices got high enough we'd just mine the US oil shale reserves which are 1.5 Trillion Barrels (5 times Saudia Arabia's reserves). It's just too expensive of a proceedure right now. http://www.dailyreckoning.com/rpt/OilShale.html
Microsoft never robed me, nor did it point a gun at me. In may have robbed some other companies but that's a civil matter to be settled by the courts. Why punish the OEM who are an disinterested third parties? Harming OEMs to get back at Microsoft is like dropping a nuke on Redmond a lot a people who have nothing to do with Microsoft will get hurt.
As you point out it's against the law to abuse a monopoly. So therefore the regulations should be focused on forcing Microsoft to not abuse its position in the market, NOT regulating OEMs who don't have anything to do with Monopoly's abuse of power.
One regulation could be no contract that Microsoft makes can preclude the OEM from doing business with one of Microsoft's rivals or hinder that business in any way. This includes giving an OEM a better deal (or any other financial incentive) to no longer offer another operating system such as Linux (Quid pro quo).
Your points are valid however the OP article advocates forcing OEMs to not allow Windows to be pre-installed. It's a totally lame and unreasonable argument. Yours is much better. Here's a question from the OP article:
"But if we don't ship PCs with pre-installed Windows, wont there be rampant piracy?"
Yea I would still be against requiring them to also install any OS the consumer wanted because I think that's an undue burden but merely requiring OEMs to allow the option of not installing (or paying for) Windows is much less offensive requirement.
Hey I know! A free market sounds really great so let's have government tell everyone how to run their business so that we can have a 'truly' free market! We should unbundle everything why stop at Windows? Engines from cars, nails and wood from houses, lead from pencils everything! In a truly free market any products that can be sold separately are!
Extreme situation indeed... "Oh my God mom! What honey? I was robbed at gun point! Oh honey I know just how you feel, my computer got packaged with Windows on it. Truly we are both victims."
YAY! Let's make a law against allowing companies to install operating systems for the buyer! That's the 'real' free market for you. Clearly the auto industry does the same things and all cars should be purchased without the engine pre-installed so consumers can really have an open choice as to what kind of engine they'd want.
Shesh imagine Federal troops raiding Dell arresting hundreds after they get a tip off that some Dell employees are operating a shadow Windows installation ring for $20 and no questions asked. "Yea, I can get Windows installed for ya..."
Forcing OEMs to unbundle is really a horrible idea. If more than 50% of the people involved in the Linux project can't see that then Linux will *never* be more than a nerd's plaything.
Regulatory action should be focused on stopping Microsoft from exercising monopoly power not regulating the business model of other independent companies that interact with the Monopoly. Two other wildly better approaches off the top of my head would be:
-No contract that Microsoft makes can preclude the OEM from doing business with one of Microsoft's rivals or hinder that business in any way. This includes giving an OEM a better deal (or any other financial incentive) to no longer offer another operating system such as Linux (Quid pro quo).
-Informational regulations such as requiring the price of Windows to be disclosed to the buying in large type and plain language.