Believe me, I appreciate the efforts of professional editors, and I wish they weren't suffering such collateral damage from disintermediation. I greatly prefer reading professionally-edited material instead of the stuff 90% of scientists (and everyone else) write when left to their own devices.
However, I don't think that it raises the scientific value of journal articles enough to justify today's pricing trends -- and, more to the point, the information-blocking publishers do in an attempt to enforce those prices. I also don't think all the gamesmanship of breaking things into least-publishable-units, optimizing submission patterns by impact factor, and so forth serves the cause of science.
I value editors a lot. I think part of your marginalization arises from your employers' efforts to cling to outdated publishing models. I wish I had a solution.
Evolution has a lot of time to scope out all simple neurochemical effects, so beware studies that suggest they've found a "smart pill". Sure, it's possible to take a drug to make you better at one specific task to the detriment of some others, but the idea that there is any simple cognitive enhancing substance would imply either "evolution couldn't mimic the effect of this substance on the brain" or "cognitive enhancement isn't an evolutionary good move". Neither seems very likely.
I'm not seeing the evidence for strong forces selecting for better cognitive performance. It seems like there are a lot of evolutionary niches where brain-power loses out to other specializations.
Suppose there's a substance that improves overall cognitive processing, but at a metabolic cost that requires 30% more caloric intake? Or suppose it interferes with efficient storage of fat? Either of those would be a deleterious trait in pre-modern populations.
Suppose it improves cognitive processing, but reduces fertility by 50%? Again, it would be bred out rapidly.
Many of the constraints that guided our evolutionary history no longer apply. I don't expect a miracle pill, either, but saying "if cognitive enhancers existed we'd already have evolved to produce them" seems kind of disingenuous.
I do have quite a lot of sympathy for the view that there are circumstances where a fall is so unlikely that a helmet is a waste of time -- cycling in light traffic, with warm dry weather and no recklessness.
I disagree strongly, partly because my own accident didn't involve traffic, bad weather or recklessness. (There will always be people who disagree about "recklessness", I suppose -- one definition of "reckless riding" is "failing to ride in a way that avoids accidents". I find that annoyingly tautological.)
I finally bought a comfortable helmet, and since it's comfortable I always wear it. It's easier to do that than to evaluate the conditions every morning.
That's what I did, too. I also don't have a high-maintenance hairstyle.
Research suggests drivers tend to believe helmeted cyclists are more serious and less likely to make unexpected moves [2,3]; the helmet effect seen here is likely a behavioural manifestation of this belief.
Drivers expect helmeted cyclists to behave more predictably. What are the obvious conclusions?
1. As helmet use becomes more prevalent, drivers may be less likely to interpret it as a sign of competence.
2. If you want drivers to give you space, do your best to look and act like an incompetent idiot. Note: this works for motor vehicle operators as well.
Okay, I didn't see this post before my mocking response about anti-seat-belt arguments.
I am very skeptical of meta-studies that claim helmets increase injury rates (in fact, I'm somewhat skeptical of meta-studies in general -- they smack of running the results repeatedly through the blender until you get the consistency you want). But I haven't done extensive homework, so I can't actually dismiss what you say.
I do take issue with one detail, though: the assumption that helmet laws will disincentivize cycling. You're assuming that uneducated and unreasonable attitudes about helmets can't be changed. They were changed for safety belts, and (to a large degree) for cigarettes; why not for helmets?
Why do these arguments sound so familiar? Probably because they're so similar to the arguments people used to make against seat belts.
"They'll increase accidents because they make it harder for drivers to stretch and look around!"
"They'll trap me in a burning or sinking car!"
And, my all-time personal favorite (yes, I've actually heard people say this):
"They'll prevent me from being thrown clear of the collision!"
People will persistently find the very stupidest reasons for not doing something that bugs them. Yes, each of these eventualities might have killed a few drivers who would've been spared if not for their safety belts. But those numbers are absolutely dwarfed by the number of lives saved and serious injuries prevented.
I've only been in one significant bike accident, and I was lucky enough in that one that my helmet didn't come into play. But looking back at the accident and the pattern of my injuries, I can't explain how the helmet was spared. I sure as hell am not tempted at this point to ride out without it.
Although the article didn't make it explicit, I'm assuming that the helmet gets a coat of resin or something to water-proof it. Speaking for myself, I don't need rain to get a helmet wet -- I don't have great strength, endurance, or aerobic capacity, but I sweat like a champ.
If they were ancestors of modern humans, I'd say that they "made the evolutionary cut" quite nicely. We may not be "the fittest", but we are still around.
Thank you. I'm glad it wasn't just me. You've done a great job of explaining some of the things that were bugging me.
Others in the thread seem to be debating the science itself. My problem is with its presentation. I've seen some articles on Medium.com over the last few weeks that I considered quite good, but this one was really jarring.
I wasn't talking about the science, I was talking about this particular article's attempt to explain it. Which, in my opinion, was a terrible failure, regardless what I may think of the science itself.
I know it's karma suicide to post on something like this saying "I don't get it", but, well, I don't get it.
I've been reading about inflation, multiverses, and whatnot for a very long time at this point, and I like to think that I can give a reasonable explanation comprehensible to nontechnical people. I've come across some articles that were a lot of work to get through, and I've given up on some because I don't have the necessary math.
But this article was terrible. Its grammar is good and not overly complex; it doesn't use a lot of obscure words. It's written like a nice popularization piece, with important parts called out in bold and lots of illustrations. But the illustrations are baffling -- what's that "getting closer to a sphere" four-panel diagram credited to Ned Wright, and where does the text refer to it? What the heck is going on with those diagrams from Narlikar and Padmanabhan? What's with the black space-balls rolling around on the mini-golf course at the end?
I'd wonder if this is a Sokol-type troll, but I don't see anything obviously wrong in it -- there's just a bunch of stuff there that looks like explanations, but apparently isn't. Or maybe I'm just having a bad night.
If I have three monitors and one of them flakes out, I lose 33% of my desktop. If I have one monitor and one of them flakes out, I lose 100% of my desktop.
I'd rather have failures cost me 33% of my desktop, even if they happen three times as frequently as the 100% failures. And with 4K displays so new, I don't know whether they'll be as reliable as legacy tech.
There's hope. Panasonic just announced a 15:10 tablet (3840x2560). I still think a 20" tablet is dumb at this point on the technology curve, but if tablets start driving higher availability of squarer display panels, it'll make me really happy.
You just might get better results from high-DPI monitors -- you'd see your text at the same size, but it would be a lot more smoothly rendered, and that might make it easier for your visual system to process. All we need is widespread software (and design) support. High-DPI mobile devices are helping to drive that.
I share your disdain for normal 16:9 displays, but the fact is, one 4K display has exactly the same resolution and aspect ratio as a 2x2 tiling of 2K displays.
At these sizes, though, I think 16:9 might be more acceptable. Instead of taking away important vertical real estate from a normal-sized display, this is like adding potentially-useful horizontal space to a display that's (finally!) big enough in the vertical dimension.
I just want a display that's big enough to show a lot of text without scrolling vertically. I don't want to use a periscope to see the top.
I would weep with glee to have 200 rows of legible text in a vi window, with room for eight such windows side-by-side on my screen. In fact, I'd probably be a lot happier with full vi keybindings (which my fingers still remember after all these years) instead of an editor that expects me to mouse around for text selection and menu commands.
I've been clamoring for larger, higher-resolution displays since the days when I chose a 16x64-character TRS-80 instead of a 24x40 PET or Apple II, and longed for the luxury of a 24x80 terminal.
The sad thing is that now, with higher-DPI displays finally coming into the mainstream, my eyes are losing their ability to focus on close objects. My iPad could display hundreds of columns of text, but I wouldn't be able to read them. Yeah, yeah, computer glasses.
I spent quite some time drooling over the 4K displays at my local big-box retailer -- one of the demo images was multiple newspaper pages, and yep, the detail was all there. I'm starting to think hard about how I can arrange a desk so one of these beasts can fit on it.
One interesting note: Panasonic just announced a 20" 4K "tablet" (yeah, right) with a 15:10 aspect ratio and 3840x2560 resolution. I've been clamoring for taller displays, too, and I'd welcome this aspect ratio -- but I wonder if a 39" desktop display has finally reached the point where it could be too tall. I also, partly because of those focal-accommodation issues, begin to wonder whether it's time to hold out for one of the curved displays.
Ah, who am I kidding. I'm cheap and stuck in my ways -- it'll be years before I make the leap.
It was reminding me of the Fast Protosun. Of course, there's a big gap between 10^6 mph and 0.8c. Not to mention a number of other likely differences (not least because they would be spoilers).
Ah, yes, now I remember reading about the short-display approach. That still doesn't help with latency, though, if you have to render the entire frame before you can "blink" it, and then wait a full frame interval before "blinking" the next frame.
The flow I assumed is something like this: acquire the tracking image (takes one tracking-camera-frame-duration), then read it out (can be arbitrarily fast), then process it for localization (can be arbitrarily fast), then render the next frame of your scene (can be arbitrarily fast), then send it to your display (takes one display-frame-duration), then display it (can be arbitrarily fast). You can't get around the (tracking-camera-frame-duration + display-frame-duration) latency without doing some partial-frame trickery, as far as I can see.
Not if you have to capture an entire tracking image before you process it, and render an entire frame before you display it. That may be an invalid assumption, though -- if they can break these down into line-by-line processing (or some other smaller-than-a-screen increment), then yes, improvement is possible.
Slashdot Mirror
Believe me, I appreciate the efforts of professional editors, and I wish they weren't suffering such collateral damage from disintermediation. I greatly prefer reading professionally-edited material instead of the stuff 90% of scientists (and everyone else) write when left to their own devices.
However, I don't think that it raises the scientific value of journal articles enough to justify today's pricing trends -- and, more to the point, the information-blocking publishers do in an attempt to enforce those prices. I also don't think all the gamesmanship of breaking things into least-publishable-units, optimizing submission patterns by impact factor, and so forth serves the cause of science.
I value editors a lot. I think part of your marginalization arises from your employers' efforts to cling to outdated publishing models. I wish I had a solution.
Evolution has a lot of time to scope out all simple neurochemical effects, so beware studies that suggest they've found a "smart pill". Sure, it's possible to take a drug to make you better at one specific task to the detriment of some others, but the idea that there is any simple cognitive enhancing substance would imply either "evolution couldn't mimic the effect of this substance on the brain" or "cognitive enhancement isn't an evolutionary good move". Neither seems very likely.
I'm not seeing the evidence for strong forces selecting for better cognitive performance. It seems like there are a lot of evolutionary niches where brain-power loses out to other specializations.
Suppose there's a substance that improves overall cognitive processing, but at a metabolic cost that requires 30% more caloric intake? Or suppose it interferes with efficient storage of fat? Either of those would be a deleterious trait in pre-modern populations.
Suppose it improves cognitive processing, but reduces fertility by 50%? Again, it would be bred out rapidly.
Many of the constraints that guided our evolutionary history no longer apply. I don't expect a miracle pill, either, but saying "if cognitive enhancers existed we'd already have evolved to produce them" seems kind of disingenuous.
I do have quite a lot of sympathy for the view that there are circumstances where a fall is so unlikely that a helmet is a waste of time -- cycling in light traffic, with warm dry weather and no recklessness.
I disagree strongly, partly because my own accident didn't involve traffic, bad weather or recklessness. (There will always be people who disagree about "recklessness", I suppose -- one definition of "reckless riding" is "failing to ride in a way that avoids accidents". I find that annoyingly tautological.)
I finally bought a comfortable helmet, and since it's comfortable I always wear it. It's easier to do that than to evaluate the conditions every morning.
That's what I did, too. I also don't have a high-maintenance hairstyle.
See also the discussion section of that report:
Research suggests drivers tend to believe helmeted cyclists are more serious and less likely to make unexpected moves [2,3]; the helmet effect seen here is likely a behavioural manifestation of this belief.
Drivers expect helmeted cyclists to behave more predictably. What are the obvious conclusions?
1. As helmet use becomes more prevalent, drivers may be less likely to interpret it as a sign of competence.
2. If you want drivers to give you space, do your best to look and act like an incompetent idiot. Note: this works for motor vehicle operators as well.
Okay, I didn't see this post before my mocking response about anti-seat-belt arguments.
I am very skeptical of meta-studies that claim helmets increase injury rates (in fact, I'm somewhat skeptical of meta-studies in general -- they smack of running the results repeatedly through the blender until you get the consistency you want). But I haven't done extensive homework, so I can't actually dismiss what you say.
I do take issue with one detail, though: the assumption that helmet laws will disincentivize cycling. You're assuming that uneducated and unreasonable attitudes about helmets can't be changed. They were changed for safety belts, and (to a large degree) for cigarettes; why not for helmets?
Why do these arguments sound so familiar? Probably because they're so similar to the arguments people used to make against seat belts.
"They'll increase accidents because they make it harder for drivers to stretch and look around!"
"They'll trap me in a burning or sinking car!"
And, my all-time personal favorite (yes, I've actually heard people say this):
"They'll prevent me from being thrown clear of the collision!"
People will persistently find the very stupidest reasons for not doing something that bugs them. Yes, each of these eventualities might have killed a few drivers who would've been spared if not for their safety belts. But those numbers are absolutely dwarfed by the number of lives saved and serious injuries prevented.
I've only been in one significant bike accident, and I was lucky enough in that one that my helmet didn't come into play. But looking back at the accident and the pattern of my injuries, I can't explain how the helmet was spared. I sure as hell am not tempted at this point to ride out without it.
Although the article didn't make it explicit, I'm assuming that the helmet gets a coat of resin or something to water-proof it. Speaking for myself, I don't need rain to get a helmet wet -- I don't have great strength, endurance, or aerobic capacity, but I sweat like a champ.
And most of you survived to adulthood -- although, as your post illustrates, some did suffer lasting cognitive issues.
If they were ancestors of modern humans, I'd say that they "made the evolutionary cut" quite nicely. We may not be "the fittest", but we are still around.
Thank you. I'm glad it wasn't just me. You've done a great job of explaining some of the things that were bugging me.
Others in the thread seem to be debating the science itself. My problem is with its presentation. I've seen some articles on Medium.com over the last few weeks that I considered quite good, but this one was really jarring.
I wasn't talking about the science, I was talking about this particular article's attempt to explain it. Which, in my opinion, was a terrible failure, regardless what I may think of the science itself.
I know it's karma suicide to post on something like this saying "I don't get it", but, well, I don't get it.
I've been reading about inflation, multiverses, and whatnot for a very long time at this point, and I like to think that I can give a reasonable explanation comprehensible to nontechnical people. I've come across some articles that were a lot of work to get through, and I've given up on some because I don't have the necessary math.
But this article was terrible. Its grammar is good and not overly complex; it doesn't use a lot of obscure words. It's written like a nice popularization piece, with important parts called out in bold and lots of illustrations. But the illustrations are baffling -- what's that "getting closer to a sphere" four-panel diagram credited to Ned Wright, and where does the text refer to it? What the heck is going on with those diagrams from Narlikar and Padmanabhan? What's with the black space-balls rolling around on the mini-golf course at the end?
I'd wonder if this is a Sokol-type troll, but I don't see anything obviously wrong in it -- there's just a bunch of stuff there that looks like explanations, but apparently isn't. Or maybe I'm just having a bad night.
And just too bad for the 360K people they employ, nearly none of whom could have known or done anything about this, right?
If I have three monitors and one of them flakes out, I lose 33% of my desktop. If I have one monitor and one of them flakes out, I lose 100% of my desktop.
I'd rather have failures cost me 33% of my desktop, even if they happen three times as frequently as the 100% failures. And with 4K displays so new, I don't know whether they'll be as reliable as legacy tech.
There's hope. Panasonic just announced a 15:10 tablet (3840x2560). I still think a 20" tablet is dumb at this point on the technology curve, but if tablets start driving higher availability of squarer display panels, it'll make me really happy.
You just might get better results from high-DPI monitors -- you'd see your text at the same size, but it would be a lot more smoothly rendered, and that might make it easier for your visual system to process. All we need is widespread software (and design) support. High-DPI mobile devices are helping to drive that.
I share your disdain for normal 16:9 displays, but the fact is, one 4K display has exactly the same resolution and aspect ratio as a 2x2 tiling of 2K displays.
At these sizes, though, I think 16:9 might be more acceptable. Instead of taking away important vertical real estate from a normal-sized display, this is like adding potentially-useful horizontal space to a display that's (finally!) big enough in the vertical dimension.
I just want a display that's big enough to show a lot of text without scrolling vertically. I don't want to use a periscope to see the top.
I would weep with glee to have 200 rows of legible text in a vi window, with room for eight such windows side-by-side on my screen. In fact, I'd probably be a lot happier with full vi keybindings (which my fingers still remember after all these years) instead of an editor that expects me to mouse around for text selection and menu commands.
Take four screenshots from today's standard 1920x1080 displays and tile them together, 2x2. Voila.
I've been clamoring for larger, higher-resolution displays since the days when I chose a 16x64-character TRS-80 instead of a 24x40 PET or Apple II, and longed for the luxury of a 24x80 terminal.
The sad thing is that now, with higher-DPI displays finally coming into the mainstream, my eyes are losing their ability to focus on close objects. My iPad could display hundreds of columns of text, but I wouldn't be able to read them. Yeah, yeah, computer glasses.
I spent quite some time drooling over the 4K displays at my local big-box retailer -- one of the demo images was multiple newspaper pages, and yep, the detail was all there. I'm starting to think hard about how I can arrange a desk so one of these beasts can fit on it.
One interesting note: Panasonic just announced a 20" 4K "tablet" (yeah, right) with a 15:10 aspect ratio and 3840x2560 resolution. I've been clamoring for taller displays, too, and I'd welcome this aspect ratio -- but I wonder if a 39" desktop display has finally reached the point where it could be too tall. I also, partly because of those focal-accommodation issues, begin to wonder whether it's time to hold out for one of the curved displays.
Ah, who am I kidding. I'm cheap and stuck in my ways -- it'll be years before I make the leap.
It was reminding me of the Fast Protosun. Of course, there's a big gap between 10^6 mph and 0.8c. Not to mention a number of other likely differences (not least because they would be spoilers).
So, we're assuming that all participants considered the death of (virtual) humans to be a bad thing?
Thanks for the numbers. I'd mod you up if Slashdot worked that way.
Ah, yes, now I remember reading about the short-display approach. That still doesn't help with latency, though, if you have to render the entire frame before you can "blink" it, and then wait a full frame interval before "blinking" the next frame.
The flow I assumed is something like this: acquire the tracking image (takes one tracking-camera-frame-duration), then read it out (can be arbitrarily fast), then process it for localization (can be arbitrarily fast), then render the next frame of your scene (can be arbitrarily fast), then send it to your display (takes one display-frame-duration), then display it (can be arbitrarily fast). You can't get around the (tracking-camera-frame-duration + display-frame-duration) latency without doing some partial-frame trickery, as far as I can see.
Not if you have to capture an entire tracking image before you process it, and render an entire frame before you display it. That may be an invalid assumption, though -- if they can break these down into line-by-line processing (or some other smaller-than-a-screen increment), then yes, improvement is possible.