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User: Ol+Olsoc

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Comments · 16,205

  1. Re:I can feel some EMF on French Woman Gets €800/month For Electromagnetic-Field 'Disability' · · Score: 1

    I'm not affected by wifi or cellphones, but when I place my MacBook Pro on my lap and wait about 30 seconds I can begin to feel tingling deep inside my legs, like in the bone. It's not heat, it's something different.

    It's because you're looking at porn. That tingling stuff, yaknow?

  2. Looks like Toulouse has gone off Lautrec.

  3. Re:39% without secondary false-positives. on Study: More Than Half of Psychological Results Can't Be Reproduced · · Score: 1

    Sound outlandish? We already have an AGW denier in here claiming psychology result replication numbers is just that proof.

    Well, they genuinely have a psychological problem, but people throw out babies with bathwater constantly just because they're too lazy to fish out the baby, so it's a widespread one.

    It's too bad that the social conservatives won't allow critical thinking to be taught in schools. Damn near as bad as the great Satan Darwin.

    oh boy - I think I just earned my agitation enginerr chops for the day...

  4. Re: The moon is for cows. on You Can Now Be "Buried" On the Moon · · Score: 1

    That's the worst pun I've heifer seen.

    Well played, Hognoxious! well played indeed, sir.

  5. Re:39% without secondary false-positives. on Study: More Than Half of Psychological Results Can't Be Reproduced · · Score: 2

    It's a structural issue inherent in what a cynic could call the publication/tenure industrial complex. Our education and tenure systems demand ever increasing and ever more impressive publications and publication rates, and our journal systems are obsessed with the "story" of the prescient scientist who confirmed a theory conceived in a vacuum. This kind of fuckery is the natural end result.

    But the cynic in me would compare people's reactions to this to the idea that if a person is arrested, gets a fair trail, and is sent to prison is somehow proof that legal justice system is broken.

    Finding non-reproducible results is exactly what the purpose is for repeating experiments.

    Now the scientist in me says "I'm a little concerned about those numbers, let's do an analysis and maybe we'll find out why."

    While the cynic in me says The denier and anti-science culture will just trot out their favorite axes to grind, whether it be construed as proof that there is no such thing as a greenhouse effect, that the world was created in October 4004 bce, that the Ancient Aliens show is a documentary, and the anti-vaxxers will claim victory.

    Sound outlandish? We already have an AGW denier in here claiming psychology result replication numbers is just that proof.

  6. Re:Comparison? on Study: More Than Half of Psychological Results Can't Be Reproduced · · Score: 1

    You know nothing of Psychological research.

    It helps to be crazy - we do know that.

  7. Re:Comparison? on Study: More Than Half of Psychological Results Can't Be Reproduced · · Score: 1

    So is medical science not "real science" because we've had quite a few stories over the last few years that a ton of results from medical research and drug trials can't be reproduced.

    The anti-science crowd sees numbers like this, and thinks Fraud! Stupid Scientists! When in fact, this is science being science.

    There can be any number of reasons a result isn't repeatable and gets rejected, from bad data to bad conclusions to insufficient control to fraud of one sort or another. Sometimes it just needs tweaked and redone.

    Case in point, some Einstein posting above has used this article about psych as evidence/ proof refuting AGW.

    With logic and reasoning like that, I'm certain he'll find the statement:

    "Its warmer down south than it is in the winter." to be logically consistent.

  8. Re: The cost of external cognition on Most People Use Their Phones During Social Events, Despite Thinking It Harms Conversation · · Score: 1

    I'm of the belief that there are no truly original ideas, just new combinations of old ideas. The more old ideas you know the more creative you can be. This is just an opinion though.

    I also think group think is more of a problem among the uneducated. I doubt making knowledge more available will increase group think, although I agree it will certainly not get rid of it either.

    That's got the parts of creativity, but what is needed is parts to do something, and then restrictions. It sounds crazy, but when we have no restrictions, creativity suffers badly. This is tied to education, where you are given a project which might sound weird, like photographing hedges ( I was assigned this once) and you have to produce something worth looking at.

    The basic preise though is very interesting, because once you have a huge tool set, the creative mind can work with th restrictions. Awesome.

    Now, to the idea that technology dumbs people down, and to the point of groupthink or stupid people - it does not dumb people down at all.

    It might look like it's making people stupid - but what it really does is allow people who are already stupid, access to technology that a few years back was only accessible by smart people.

    The young lady that brags about robbing a bank - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... - is already stupid.

    The people hwo bitch about their employers on Facebook http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... - are stupid.

    None of these are caused by the technology. They are what happens when stupid people get hold of it.

  9. Re:Humans are ... on You Can Now Be "Buried" On the Moon · · Score: 1

    Humans are idiots, dead or alive!

    What a waste of resources. The selling argument '...preserving our memorial spacecraft for eternity.' is idotic, nothing is for eternity, in particular this solar system we all know perfectly will eventually be eaten by its Sun.

    At which point your demand to not waste resources will be kinda moot, don'tya think?

  10. Re: The moon is for cows. on You Can Now Be "Buried" On the Moon · · Score: 1

    He was paralyzed, poor thing, after being conked during sex. This is all he can manage to type out with his eyelids.

    That's a MOOOOOOVING story.

  11. Re:The Homer! (FP?) on Many Drivers Never Use In-Vehicle Tech, Don't Want Apple Or Google In Next Car · · Score: 1, Insightful

    People in general (there's always exceptions) just want something simple that works, not something loaded with useless and expensive gewgaws.

    It's ironic, that understanding this is what made Apple so successful in the first place.

    aaaannnnnd it's a wrap. This whole subject is over.

    I still get asked how to change the time on a car's radio, so IoT'ing automobiles leaves me cold.

    But if anyone could do it successfully, it would be Apple.

  12. Re:Well that's great... on Wired: IBM's School Could Fix Education and Tech's Diversity Gap · · Score: 1

    The problem with your hypothesis is that the opposite happened. In the 80s and up to about the mid 90s when efforts were being made to attract more women to CS the numbers were higher

    That is factually wrong. Women participation in both education and the workforce peaked in the mid-80's. So no, the programs in "the 80s and up to about the mid 90s" did not work. Participation was still in decline.

    And I was talking about the mid-late seventies in the first place. But you are correct in what you wrote.

    Anyhow, my entire argument revolves around the idea that women are not weaker than men, and that if they want a particular job, they can go get it.

    It seems that is an unpopular view.

  13. Re:Well that's great... on Wired: IBM's School Could Fix Education and Tech's Diversity Gap · · Score: 1

    The problem with your hypothesis is that the opposite happened.

    This is an extraordinary claim! I worked with many women at that time t and your claim that I am making a hypothesis really needs backing up. Or are you making claims against my veracity?

    I'm talking about women in the 1970's who were not encouraged in any way shape or form. That is not a hypothesis. The ladies were completely the equal of any man, and no one was going to stand in their way. Dongle jokes? They'd get the joke and laugh at it.

    , Let me tell you of a story that would apparently have today's young lady jump off a bridge after having her self-esteem destroyed, her passion to pursue a career snuffed out by any negativity.

    Timeline, late 1970s. Our lab had a couple parties every year, funded by the proceeds from the employees benevolence. One was a Steak picnic for the men, and the other, a Christmas party for the women.

    One of the young women professors wanted to go to the Steak party. This caused a bit of a stir, with the lines drawn of younger folks thinking it was just fine, and the older guys thinking it was sacrilege. My father in law - whjo also worked there - in a fit of stupidity, decided to teach her a lesson in why she shouldn't go to these things that should be for just men, and in a poker game, ended up making a huge asshole of himself with swearing and farting, and hurling abuse at her. She decided she was going to weather it, and by the time the game was finished, there were very few left on his side. The mold was broken, there were no more "men only" picnics paid for by the benevolence association. She was a hero to everyone but the diminishing olde guard.

    It's an anecdote, but might just show a better approach than weakness. In a world where guys can get fired for dongle jokes, because it isn't cool, there might be a lesson in going toe to toe with your enemy and beating them with finesse.

    There is an entire spectrum of people out there. We have to choose who we listen to.

    I choose to listen to these ladies: http://womenshistory.about.com...

    You might rather listen to Chanty Binx?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    Really, you can do as you like, but in the matter of women in science, I'll listen to women in science rather than people who preach the doctrine that women are too weak to withstand any negative comment. disagreement or situation.

    I choose not to give the outliers veracity. My hypothesis, such as there is one, is that women are not weak

    and that a woman will go into a career that interests her, because that is what she is interested in, and if someone, male or female has a passion for something, that is what they will pursue. Passion doesn't listen to naysayers.

  14. Re: Good News on AT&T Hotspots Now Injecting Ads · · Score: 1

    I agree with you in principle, but I think you're missing that you're not all that important to advertisers as an individual. AT&T's actions are frustrating and dangerous, but they really aren't concerned about the buying habits of habitual ad-blockers. You are collateral damage as far as the advertising goes, not a "valued consumer".

    Perhaps. But when ordinary people can suddenly speed up the internet by blocking that shit, it starts to become a problem. I've noted in another post in this thread how I've sped up people's browsers by installing adblock and others. None of them are computing geniuses, they are just tired of paying for fast internet connections to be yanked back into dialup world because of loading all the ads. And being normal people, they don't mind the ads, just the inconvenience.

    tl;dr version

    Regular folks will put up with more for longer, but don't fool yourself thinking they will put up with everything forever.

  15. Re: Good News on AT&T Hotspots Now Injecting Ads · · Score: 1

    Sure, YOU might react like this. But they are playing a numbers game. Many users are too stupid to even realize that nasa.gov would never sell vitamins.

    Many are stupid, many aren't. I have a lot of computers I've installed adblock on after people complain how slow they've become. Then a hosts file. Then noscript.

    While there are a lot of non-rocket surgeons out there, they are smart enough to notice when they have to wait 30 seconds or more for the ads to show up so they can scroll the page.

    Ad blocking is getting more popular for just those reasons. And soon it won't be just so called smart people that have it.

    I can convert a person in a minute thst they want to block ads. Doesn't take a genius to see what happens when you turn adblock on and off. Coupled with thereduction in malware on their computers, its a win-win situation.

    Teh inttubez has got to stop being the electronic equivalent of walking down the boardwalk in Atlantic City, while at every step being accosted by hookers offering you bonus STD's and thugs who offer to trade your money in exchange for not shivving you. The sooner advertisers learn that, the sooner we start turning off our self defense mechanism

  16. Re:story fails to answer important questions on Many Android Users Susceptible To Plug-In Exploit -- And Many Of Them Have It · · Score: 1

    Is who's fault it is supposed to make some difference?

    Yes of course it is! I bought an Android device and my choice created an emotional investment in the platform.

    Someone steals my shit, I don't care exactly who. I just know my shit's been stolen. Must be the difference between myself and the normal person. Although I've liked Apple products best for years, I have all manner of computing tools, from my iPhone and iMac, on which I run bootcamp and W7, a sacrificial Windows 10 box, to a number of linux computers and even a ChromeOS laptop. I have even have an old touchpad that I rooted to run Android with Cyanogen.

    But I avoid emotional attachments with my electronic devices, and tend to use the tool that works best. Otherwise it feels like the boys down at the corner gas arguing about Fords and Chevies.

  17. Re:Well that's great... on Wired: IBM's School Could Fix Education and Tech's Diversity Gap · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Mashiki, this is getting old now. Like clockwork, you make your second standard mistake: assuming that women are not interested in tech.

    Care to explain why in the past more women went into technology than do now? Or why these courses are generally quite successful at attracting girls to study them?

    A pure bit of conjecture here. During the mid 70's the first group of women who were liberated frmo their traditional roles were entering the fields. I worked with many of them in a university research environment. There were indeed a number of men who had difficulty accepting them, although most of us had no issues.

    Those guys who often were actually real nasty to these women? They either ignored them or the put the guys in their place. After a few years, those guys either came to respect the ladies, or simply had to retreat to let their misogyny fester in private.

    Regardless, the ladies in general displayed abilities comparable to the men.

    And we tended not to think a whole lot about gender - at least as applied to work.

    Over the years however, the numbers of ladies there dropped off somewhat, finally settling down to today's anemic representation

    Why?

    Efforts to get young ladies interested in the fields were out and out failures. The polling results showed that tech fields were just about at the bottom of the career preferences. And these were the daughters of Scientists and Engineers.

    In our workplace, we attempted to attract as many women and treat them as well as possible. I voluntarily gave up a number of promotions in order to free up promotion space for a woman (silly quota system)

    But still the numbers shrunk.

    Why?

    In the end, I came to the conclusion that after an initial period of time when women were trying out different careers, they eventually as a group settled on careers they actually liked.

    I do not buy the idea that the anemic reasons given that young ladies are kept out of STEM by dongle jokes or pictures of Playboy model's faces, or all of the other lame reasons given that end up painting an exceptionally offensive picture of women as incredibly weak people, who can be cowed by any criticism or anything that they don't agree with. Those first generation liberated women I worked with at the time, would have laughed at that idea.

    People can disagree with me, but my observations are based on experience and trying to get young ladies interested, not some modern male pushback against third wave feminism.

  18. O great! on US Scientists Successfully 'Switch Off' Cancer Cells · · Score: 1

    Now we're all gonna die from Alzheimer's!

  19. Re:Focus on his current skills on Ask Slashdot: Technical Resources For Non-Technical Disciplines? · · Score: 1

    I was stuck doing animation using my CAD software (Creo) today and I was bitching the whole time. I wish I knew someone where I work that could do it. I'm sure it would have taken 1/10th the time and ended up much better quality.

    I feel for ya! 3-D is weirdworld to begin with, and if it's not on your interest set, it's torture.

  20. Re:Trap? Usually its a tarpit of unusable service on AT&T Hotspots Now Injecting Ads · · Score: 1

    I once got a 300 baud modem to handshake with me by whistling the carrier tone.

    I was going to say something snarky like "women must have been fighting over each other for you", but you know what ? That's actually damn cool!

  21. Re: Good News on AT&T Hotspots Now Injecting Ads · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The ONLY thing unsavory advertising, in any form, does is the exact opposite of the initial intent; i.e., "never buying that". Advertisers, regardless of the delivery, apparently are not smart enough to realize if you annoy people, you have LOST the sale. Plus, the whores are then really easy to spot. No resposible consumer likes a whore.

    Mod this guy up! Anything that manages to get through my defenses is put on the "Never ever" list.

    The sooner advertisers understand that, and the sooner they understand that if they put simple unobtrusive ads on web pages, the sooner we'll stop this war on web users.

    When your ads are having the opposite effect than you intended, maybe its time to change.

  22. Re:Focus on his current skills on Ask Slashdot: Technical Resources For Non-Technical Disciplines? · · Score: 2

    This! I don't know how many times I've been asked to take a couple days or weeks and help teach someone how to design and engineer mechanical thing. It's only taken me 30 years of life long learning so let me just boil that down for you. Specialization is what makes the modern world possible. This guy needs to focus on what he is good at.

    THIS!

    One part of my jobe was doing 3-D modelling and animation. And fairly often people wanted me to "teach them" how to do it. I'd been doing this stuff from Imagine on Amiga. We're talking Framebuffer and single frame VTR recorder controller days! To video Toaster Amiga to lightwave and Bryce, and now Maya. No way to impart even the beginning of anything from 25 some years of learning.

    It is most definitely not for everyone. I love it. Same with programming. Same with accounting. "Okay if we just start down and you should be able to get us up to speed in an hour or so?".

    But I got even with them. I said "Okay."

    After 15 minutes, they had to be somewhere else.

    I try to always realize that everyone's job has som real skill and experience. I'm not that impressed with most people who seem to think their job is the only complicated or difficult one.

  23. Re:story fails to answer important questions on Many Android Users Susceptible To Plug-In Exploit -- And Many Of Them Have It · · Score: 1

    You're wrong, i can disable pre-installed crap. Is it Andriod's fault that Samsung modifies the system?.

    Is who's fault it is supposed to make some difference?

    It is exactly what it is.

  24. Re:Teaching Ignorance, And Other Crutches on The Case For Teaching Ignorance · · Score: 1

    And I never had a science teacher that ever said "We know everything" .

    But how many science teachers ever said "we don't know everything?"

    All of mine.

  25. Re:Teaching Ignorance, And Other Crutches on The Case For Teaching Ignorance · · Score: 0

    I think if you have to teach that we are ignorant, you are acknowledging that your students are simply not very curious or are regurgitating data to pass the exam, get good GPA, enter workforce to earn money. .

    I gotta say - WTF on the whole concept. Sounds like its saying we have to teach what we don't know.

    And I never had a science teacher that ever said "We know everything" .

    Knowing everything is for politicians and people who answer everything as "Jesus" or "Ancient Aliens".

    Oddly enough, making the scientists the only people who admit to ig....

    Gotta go! Keeping up with the Kardashians is on now!