"The hypothetical creature, not found in the fossil record but inferred from it, probably was " doesn't sound very much like 'stated as a fact' to me. TFT might be misleading but beyond that, the appropriate care in phrasing seems to be in use.
Actually, it is, in a way, an observational science.
You can observe changes of allele frequencies and phenotype frequencies in a population over time, and they do.
Also, as the TFS (and I'm assuming TFA) says "The hypothetical creature", not theoretical, not definitive, hypothentical. Evolutionary science makes it clear that all cladograms are hypothesis, if you bother looking at it from more than a surface level.
As for observation and predictability - it's hard to make predictions with evolution, but it has been done before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik I'm assuming the wikipedia article states this, but they knew about when the critter would have lived, and they knew what kind of areas had creatures from that time frame, they searched one, they found it.
So, observations and even predictions can be made for evolutionary science.
Not quite, rather everything would slowly get warmer, and life would start to die out.
A problem with this calculation, however... It puts Mars in the habitable zone. If Mars had sufficient atmosphere, would it be warm enough to support life?
And, I seriously doubt Earth is at the edge, given that we have had a lot of ice ages (and in fact, are still in one, even if it's not a glacial maxima). Given the ages stars can achieve, and that their temperature profiles change over time, it is probably better to say that the habitable zone changes over time, and having a 'static' habitable zone simply based on the star's current energy output, is not a terribly sane concept.
Actually, there are churches and belief systems where questioning your faith is considered part of growth, and that the assumption that you can be wrong, while not necessarily promoted, once you come to a leader, they will encourage that so you can think and understand your views. Believe it or not, I've run into quite a few Catholics that have mentioned this. It seems odd given the stereotypes, but I think it's part of why their faith is so strong because they are allowed (and when they start, are encouraged) to question their faith. The other place I've seen this quite a bit, is with Buddhists.
Forcing someone into believing something can be just as detrimental (if not moreso) to continued belief allowing some wavering and questioning of your convictions.
I can understand the no conflict point of view, but St. Augustine, REALLY??? The guy was a major nutjob, and I can only guess what kinds of medication he needed. It surprises me that his work can be used as anything other than the assumption that all humans are bad because he had trouble controlling himself when he was a teenager, young adult, and babies like boobs.
I wish I were joking about that last bit. I'm not. Read his book Confessions if you want learn more about how we are evil because we were one babies and babies are greedy for boobs!
It's less cheap, but it can still be fairly cheap.
Alt, you could have a bunch of cheap mass produced missiles that appear like the nicer missiles until the nicer missiles change directions and the cheap missiles don't. Increase the design cost a few bucks with placing weights at the right spots to give it a sufficiently similar flight profile until guidance systems turn on, maybe some cheap electronics to appear like it's running telemetry systems (not bother with the processing/nav bits, just radar pulses like everyone else, maybe a cheap GPR)...
The electronics and weights will still be cheap compared to the cost of things like fuel, and machining of the hull parts, I suspect. So your really cheap missiles are now slightly less cheap, and act as decoys so your nice missiles don't get shot down.
Actually, how do you define consciousness? How can you be certain anyone/thing other than yourself is conscious?
If you've found a way, you'd be the first, and if you can't reliably do it for other living creatures other than by saying "they are constructed like us", what the hell makes your judgement on computer so special?
Both have too much to lose. At one point, they appeared reasonable, but it was never reasonable that Russia would have attacked us directly (appearances aside), they played a better-intel/counter-intel game, not a better-military game.
More likely if N. Korea, or possibly Iran get a missile system in place, we might have a group desperate and nuts enough to do this (not so sure about Iran in either category), but for the most part, we currently don't have a serious threat due to lose of a trade partner, or risking a way-too-severe counterattack.
Set a missile to appear that it will land someplace harmless, and once it's over land, alter it's course. Costal cities are probably safe, but anything too far inland is will make a nice target, save the costal shots for the end of the barrage.
The author has a point. Although it's only damage mitigation, rather than prevention at that point, a mainland missile defense system would probably be a good backup.
Gonna have to give your troll a 0 out of 10 on the trollometer (where 10 is OMGSUCCESSFULTROLL111!11!11!!OENEONE!). Can't even give you a 1 for effort. Sorry. *yawn*
It uses neurons! They are mystical and MAGICAL things using organic compounds and water-dissolved ions that transmit electrical charges as conductors and semiconductors in order to process, store, and retrieve information... Watson uses plain boring metal and silicon and is in no way MAGICAL.
*ahem* seriously speaking, the brain is probably still more flexible than Watson, but in general concept, Watson is probably a HUGE step in the right direction.
Heh. Maybe MS does things different from the groups I'm used to reading whitepapers for (i.e. Oracle), but whitepapers are generally fluff to give to clueless management to convince them of whatever the hell you want to convince them of on your product, without actually saying much of anything.
I've seen that kind of thing before, to get the management to buy more licenses. Anyone making a decision on a whitepaper is a fool. It's a starting point provided by a companies marketeers with a goal of looking factual. In other words, say as little as possible, and err on the safe side with number to prevent false advertising (if your major commercial competition is worse, err on the extremely safe side to get more purchases out of ignorance for sales).
Seen this meme a lot. Yet to see them successfully manage it in practice.
They've had Mercurial on Codeplex (their "open source"ish code foundry) for years, and integration tools for it with Visual Studios (though the tools are third party). No troubles there.
Visual Studios has had Java available for a long time, though they use a different name. No troubles (from MS) there.
MS screwed up their implementations of HTML/JavaScript, and it's at most caused annoyances for those of us who have to work with it regularly. Still less than some other things (like flash *grumble grumble*).
Except this is for DNA vaccines, roofies aren't DNA, and viruses are more than just DNA. Patches have been out for medicines for decades. I'm pretty sure the threat from this particular variant is actually fairly minimal - though it depends on how much beyond DNA the patch can deliver. If it is just DNA, the risk is probably negligible for misuse.
Given the way I've seen Windows progress, if you don't clear the update cache, that'll be gone in 2-3 years. If you do clear the cache, you should still have ~20GB at EOL, minus whatever you've taken up with your stuff.
Still, it's absurd to get less than half of the advertized space available for your own use. Even if you can take off some of the reinstalled apps, what the hell warrants 41-45GB of space? Prior to seeing that, the Windows 8 non-RT tablets were rather compelling. Now, I'm not so sure... Even with the 128GB tablet, I'd need to use the SDXC card slot to hold all I'd want on there.
Just make sure you don't accidentally trigger it while it's on you...
I suspect burning thermite going down your back/legs would be quite painful.
Though if they can do it with the precision to destroy the storage unit but not the casing, that could be ok. I think the idea for dissolving electronics is "If it gets out of the case, nobody gets burning holes cut through their flesh".
Slashdot Mirror
"The hypothetical creature, not found in the fossil record but inferred from it, probably was " doesn't sound very much like 'stated as a fact' to me. TFT might be misleading but beyond that, the appropriate care in phrasing seems to be in use.
Actually, it is, in a way, an observational science.
You can observe changes of allele frequencies and phenotype frequencies in a population over time, and they do.
Also, as the TFS (and I'm assuming TFA) says "The hypothetical creature", not theoretical, not definitive, hypothentical. Evolutionary science makes it clear that all cladograms are hypothesis, if you bother looking at it from more than a surface level.
As for observation and predictability - it's hard to make predictions with evolution, but it has been done before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik
I'm assuming the wikipedia article states this, but they knew about when the critter would have lived, and they knew what kind of areas had creatures from that time frame, they searched one, they found it.
So, observations and even predictions can be made for evolutionary science.
I have mod points, and wanted to use them... but there is no "+1 Horrible".
And why should I give/allow authority to that nutjob? There are plenty of sane/rational people for that.
Not quite, rather everything would slowly get warmer, and life would start to die out.
A problem with this calculation, however... It puts Mars in the habitable zone. If Mars had sufficient atmosphere, would it be warm enough to support life?
And, I seriously doubt Earth is at the edge, given that we have had a lot of ice ages (and in fact, are still in one, even if it's not a glacial maxima). Given the ages stars can achieve, and that their temperature profiles change over time, it is probably better to say that the habitable zone changes over time, and having a 'static' habitable zone simply based on the star's current energy output, is not a terribly sane concept.
I wasn't a slashdotter, got to have sex, and not live in my parents basement, in a previous life!
Actually, there are churches and belief systems where questioning your faith is considered part of growth, and that the assumption that you can be wrong, while not necessarily promoted, once you come to a leader, they will encourage that so you can think and understand your views. Believe it or not, I've run into quite a few Catholics that have mentioned this. It seems odd given the stereotypes, but I think it's part of why their faith is so strong because they are allowed (and when they start, are encouraged) to question their faith. The other place I've seen this quite a bit, is with Buddhists.
Forcing someone into believing something can be just as detrimental (if not moreso) to continued belief allowing some wavering and questioning of your convictions.
OK.
I can understand the no conflict point of view, but St. Augustine, REALLY??? The guy was a major nutjob, and I can only guess what kinds of medication he needed. It surprises me that his work can be used as anything other than the assumption that all humans are bad because he had trouble controlling himself when he was a teenager, young adult, and babies like boobs.
I wish I were joking about that last bit. I'm not. Read his book Confessions if you want learn more about how we are evil because we were one babies and babies are greedy for boobs!
The devs probably just got tired of having to download different application/plugins or use flash-interfaces for their favorite live-chat porn sites.
It's less cheap, but it can still be fairly cheap.
Alt, you could have a bunch of cheap mass produced missiles that appear like the nicer missiles until the nicer missiles change directions and the cheap missiles don't. Increase the design cost a few bucks with placing weights at the right spots to give it a sufficiently similar flight profile until guidance systems turn on, maybe some cheap electronics to appear like it's running telemetry systems (not bother with the processing/nav bits, just radar pulses like everyone else, maybe a cheap GPR)...
The electronics and weights will still be cheap compared to the cost of things like fuel, and machining of the hull parts, I suspect. So your really cheap missiles are now slightly less cheap, and act as decoys so your nice missiles don't get shot down.
Actually, how do you define consciousness? How can you be certain anyone/thing other than yourself is conscious?
If you've found a way, you'd be the first, and if you can't reliably do it for other living creatures other than by saying "they are constructed like us", what the hell makes your judgement on computer so special?
Both have too much to lose. At one point, they appeared reasonable, but it was never reasonable that Russia would have attacked us directly (appearances aside), they played a better-intel/counter-intel game, not a better-military game.
More likely if N. Korea, or possibly Iran get a missile system in place, we might have a group desperate and nuts enough to do this (not so sure about Iran in either category), but for the most part, we currently don't have a serious threat due to lose of a trade partner, or risking a way-too-severe counterattack.
Your asterisked issue is the whole point.
Set a missile to appear that it will land someplace harmless, and once it's over land, alter it's course. Costal cities are probably safe, but anything too far inland is will make a nice target, save the costal shots for the end of the barrage.
The author has a point. Although it's only damage mitigation, rather than prevention at that point, a mainland missile defense system would probably be a good backup.
That, and some of his information is patently wrong, as stated by another reply to his original post.
Well, it's already embraced learning, and it's not yet read to extinguish humanity... That seems appropriate.
Gonna have to give your troll a 0 out of 10 on the trollometer (where 10 is OMGSUCCESSFULTROLL111!11!11!!OENEONE!). Can't even give you a 1 for effort. Sorry. *yawn*
It uses neurons! They are mystical and MAGICAL things using organic compounds and water-dissolved ions that transmit electrical charges as conductors and semiconductors in order to process, store, and retrieve information... Watson uses plain boring metal and silicon and is in no way MAGICAL.
*ahem* seriously speaking, the brain is probably still more flexible than Watson, but in general concept, Watson is probably a HUGE step in the right direction.
Of course, every business is looking for commercialization of it's products, that's what capitalism is about.
With sufficient training, Watson could probably be quite an interesting cloud resource for information gathering, synthesis and distribution.
Or mercurial. That's, in my experience, simpler still. And like SVN, GIT and unlike TFS (or VSS)... Free as in beer.
Whitepapers.
Heh. Maybe MS does things different from the groups I'm used to reading whitepapers for (i.e. Oracle), but whitepapers are generally fluff to give to clueless management to convince them of whatever the hell you want to convince them of on your product, without actually saying much of anything.
I've seen that kind of thing before, to get the management to buy more licenses. Anyone making a decision on a whitepaper is a fool. It's a starting point provided by a companies marketeers with a goal of looking factual. In other words, say as little as possible, and err on the safe side with number to prevent false advertising (if your major commercial competition is worse, err on the extremely safe side to get more purchases out of ignorance for sales).
Seen this meme a lot. Yet to see them successfully manage it in practice.
They've had Mercurial on Codeplex (their "open source"ish code foundry) for years, and integration tools for it with Visual Studios (though the tools are third party). No troubles there.
Visual Studios has had Java available for a long time, though they use a different name. No troubles (from MS) there.
MS screwed up their implementations of HTML/JavaScript, and it's at most caused annoyances for those of us who have to work with it regularly. Still less than some other things (like flash *grumble grumble*).
Except this is for DNA vaccines, roofies aren't DNA, and viruses are more than just DNA. Patches have been out for medicines for decades. I'm pretty sure the threat from this particular variant is actually fairly minimal - though it depends on how much beyond DNA the patch can deliver. If it is just DNA, the risk is probably negligible for misuse.
Given the way I've seen Windows progress, if you don't clear the update cache, that'll be gone in 2-3 years. If you do clear the cache, you should still have ~20GB at EOL, minus whatever you've taken up with your stuff.
Still, it's absurd to get less than half of the advertized space available for your own use. Even if you can take off some of the reinstalled apps, what the hell warrants 41-45GB of space? Prior to seeing that, the Windows 8 non-RT tablets were rather compelling. Now, I'm not so sure... Even with the 128GB tablet, I'd need to use the SDXC card slot to hold all I'd want on there.
Now I wish I could find a wiring web page I saw a long time ago.
Something like:
Just make sure you don't accidentally trigger it while it's on you...
I suspect burning thermite going down your back/legs would be quite painful.
Though if they can do it with the precision to destroy the storage unit but not the casing, that could be ok. I think the idea for dissolving electronics is "If it gets out of the case, nobody gets burning holes cut through their flesh".