The model is based on the evidence of hundreds of past experiments. Yes, it's possible that those experiments could have missed something, but you'll need your own pile of evidence that can stand toe-to-toe with all the evidence you're effectively dismissing to show it.
Put another way, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
If you're in London and you know 6ms before anyone else that the price of oil in New York just shot up, you can buy oil right now and then sell it in 6ms for a tidy profit.
If you have the apparatus to infiltrate criminal organizations, you have the apparatus to infiltrate political organizations too [guardian.co.uk].
If you have a hammer, you have an apparatus to bash someone's brains in. We don't ban hammers, we prosecute people who use or try to use them to bash someone's brains in.
I think anyone sensible would agree that infiltrating a nonviolent political organization is a bad thing and shouldn't happen. We should have laws against that and those laws should have teeth. There should be oversight and review to prevent abuse as much as possible and to expose it when it happens.
You can reduce the ongoing costs to a trifle and pretend that makes the marginal cost of any (virtual) item zero, but that is a logically fallacy, because it assumes the existence of EVE and the player
What you call a fallacy is just the definition of the term "marginal cost". The marginal cost of any good assumes the existence of the infrastructure required to produce it. Those are sunk costs or fixed costs, precisely because they do not vary with the quantity of the transaction.
"Real" goods also have fixed costs. Designing an automobile requires powerful computers and a team of engineers working for years too. It's just that when you go to actually build an automobile, each unit sold adds to your cost in addition to your fixed costs. Virtual goods don't have those additional costs, which makes them different than automobiles and everything else. The poster I was responding to asked what the difference is and that's it. You don't have to like it, but you can't force virtual and real goods to stop being different just because you don't like it.
My father is a retired engineer. I put Ubuntu on his laptop. He only upgrades it when I'm around because he doesn't understand stuff like merging config files or restoring private repositories. I guess your dad is just better than mine.
Point is, no system configuration is going to last forever, so they're going to need somebody to maintain the computers. That person probably knows Windows better than Ubuntu. If they do know how to use Ubuntu, they can always just wipe out Windows and install Ubuntu themselves. I don't see any need to specifically remove Windows from the machine and deny them that choice if it's what they want.
Also keep in mind how long the hardware will last or is going to be used. XP will have patches for another 2.5 years (April 8, 2014 is when it stops).
Meanwhile, the current Ubuntu LTS desktop release will only be supported until April 2013. I use Ubuntu myself, but this decision seems like a no-brainer to me.
In the end, it could take years and many units of currency to figure out what's on the disc and display it.
People tried to determine the function of the Antikythera mechanism for decades before they figured it out, thanks to advanced medical imaging. If the disk proves to be historically significant or even just a rare curiosity from a time you think will be "the most undocumented century since the stone age", someone will make the effort to decode it.
Slashdot had an article not too long ago saying China's defensive security is actually quite bad. China has a huge bureaucracy that provides many opportunities for people to screw up security so inevitably they do.
The researcher quoted in the article attributes the lack of attention to the language barrier. English-speaking script kiddies doing a mass search for SQL injection vulnerabilities won't even know what they've found if they manage to break into a Chinese government website.
Still, the researcher himself has found and publicized several vulnerabilities in Chinese government websites, so I think the other aspect of this is just the attention paid by the media. If Anonymous hacks NATO, that fits into an ongoing news narrative about "The US Government vs. Hacktivists". If a white hat responsibly discloses a bug in Chinese SCADA systems, it won't make any headlines.
If you calculate the ratio of the mass of the object to the mass of all the other objects in the same orbit, there is a vast difference between the planets and the dwarf planets. The eight planets have ratios on the order of 10^4 through 10^6, meaning they are much, much more massive than everything else in their orbit combined. The dwarf planets, including Pluto, all have ratios less than one.
And your IT manager can stop you from putting apps on it. Sounds like a winner!
Indeed, that is a winner for your IT manager, who gets to decide which devices to buy for your company and which devices are allowed to access the company intranet.
You're upset that the researchers don't also assume that consciousness is some other kind of thing beyond material investigation. The researchers have no need for that assumption unless and until the evidence leads them there.
The deadlock will be solved by the market for IPv4 addresses that everyone seems to think is so horrible. The unused IPv4 addresses will get sold off first. As prices go up, even currently used IPv4 addresses start looking like a juicy money-making opportunity. Hosts that can migrate without much pain will get paid to do so. ISPs and vendors who want their business have an incentive to make the process even less painful. Gradually, the cost of IPv4 will go up, the cost of IPv6 will go down, and people will migrate naturally of their own accord.
You said "banning the words seems harsh but" and then proceeded to give a justification for the ban. I understand now that you oppose the ban after all, but I think your previous post could reasonably be read either way.
As opposed to days of yore when they'd send out a camera crew to get random sound bites from people on the street. Maybe you'd prefer they did that instead, but should anyone's preferences carry the force of law?
We have a decentralized system. It's called the web. Facebook.com/CNN is an address you can use to find CNN in that decentralized system. It happens to contain a brand name of another company, but so do many street addresses. Should we ban NBC from telling us to write to 30 Rockefeller Plaza because that would be an advertisement for the Rockefeller Center?
You can call out internationally with Google Voice, it's just not free. The rates are here. I spot checked a few countries with Skype's rates and Google seems to be cheaper.
It uses your Google Voice number. You can even receive calls. In the Voice settings page, Google Chat is listed as a linked phone so you can configure it like any other. It even works with third party chat clients that support XMPP voice calls like Pidgin.
They're claiming there are flaws in the methodology. If they're right and someone else follows the same flawed methodology, then that result is no more valid than the original result. You want the original authors and anyone attempting to replicate their results to eliminate the potential for any flaws, so somebody's got to raise the possibility. That's the stage they're at now: raising possibilities.
Slashdot Mirror
The model *never* trumps evidence.
The model is based on the evidence of hundreds of past experiments. Yes, it's possible that those experiments could have missed something, but you'll need your own pile of evidence that can stand toe-to-toe with all the evidence you're effectively dismissing to show it.
Put another way, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
It's generating steam by boiling water, right? If so, then the steam can't exceed 100 C until the water's boiled off.
That doesn't mean the answers are worth anything.
If you're in London and you know 6ms before anyone else that the price of oil in New York just shot up, you can buy oil right now and then sell it in 6ms for a tidy profit.
I didn't use the word "trust" once. I did, however, use the words "oversight", "review", "expose", and "prosecute", though.
If you have the apparatus to infiltrate criminal organizations, you have the apparatus to infiltrate political organizations too [guardian.co.uk].
If you have a hammer, you have an apparatus to bash someone's brains in. We don't ban hammers, we prosecute people who use or try to use them to bash someone's brains in.
I think anyone sensible would agree that infiltrating a nonviolent political organization is a bad thing and shouldn't happen. We should have laws against that and those laws should have teeth. There should be oversight and review to prevent abuse as much as possible and to expose it when it happens.
You can reduce the ongoing costs to a trifle and pretend that makes the marginal cost of any (virtual) item zero, but that is a logically fallacy, because it assumes the existence of EVE and the player
What you call a fallacy is just the definition of the term "marginal cost". The marginal cost of any good assumes the existence of the infrastructure required to produce it. Those are sunk costs or fixed costs, precisely because they do not vary with the quantity of the transaction.
"Real" goods also have fixed costs. Designing an automobile requires powerful computers and a team of engineers working for years too. It's just that when you go to actually build an automobile, each unit sold adds to your cost in addition to your fixed costs. Virtual goods don't have those additional costs, which makes them different than automobiles and everything else. The poster I was responding to asked what the difference is and that's it. You don't have to like it, but you can't force virtual and real goods to stop being different just because you don't like it.
You can't make another Bahamas just by hitting a button on your keyboard.
My father is a retired engineer. I put Ubuntu on his laptop. He only upgrades it when I'm around because he doesn't understand stuff like merging config files or restoring private repositories. I guess your dad is just better than mine.
Point is, no system configuration is going to last forever, so they're going to need somebody to maintain the computers. That person probably knows Windows better than Ubuntu. If they do know how to use Ubuntu, they can always just wipe out Windows and install Ubuntu themselves. I don't see any need to specifically remove Windows from the machine and deny them that choice if it's what they want.
Also keep in mind how long the hardware will last or is going to be used. XP will have patches for another 2.5 years (April 8, 2014 is when it stops).
Meanwhile, the current Ubuntu LTS desktop release will only be supported until April 2013. I use Ubuntu myself, but this decision seems like a no-brainer to me.
In the end, it could take years and many units of currency to figure out what's on the disc and display it.
People tried to determine the function of the Antikythera mechanism for decades before they figured it out, thanks to advanced medical imaging. If the disk proves to be historically significant or even just a rare curiosity from a time you think will be "the most undocumented century since the stone age", someone will make the effort to decode it.
Slashdot had an article not too long ago saying China's defensive security is actually quite bad. China has a huge bureaucracy that provides many opportunities for people to screw up security so inevitably they do.
The researcher quoted in the article attributes the lack of attention to the language barrier. English-speaking script kiddies doing a mass search for SQL injection vulnerabilities won't even know what they've found if they manage to break into a Chinese government website.
Still, the researcher himself has found and publicized several vulnerabilities in Chinese government websites, so I think the other aspect of this is just the attention paid by the media. If Anonymous hacks NATO, that fits into an ongoing news narrative about "The US Government vs. Hacktivists". If a white hat responsibly discloses a bug in Chinese SCADA systems, it won't make any headlines.
If you calculate the ratio of the mass of the object to the mass of all the other objects in the same orbit, there is a vast difference between the planets and the dwarf planets. The eight planets have ratios on the order of 10^4 through 10^6, meaning they are much, much more massive than everything else in their orbit combined. The dwarf planets, including Pluto, all have ratios less than one.
Amtrak requires ID.
Greyhound doesn't, though.
And your IT manager can stop you from putting apps on it. Sounds like a winner!
Indeed, that is a winner for your IT manager, who gets to decide which devices to buy for your company and which devices are allowed to access the company intranet.
You're upset that the researchers don't also assume that consciousness is some other kind of thing beyond material investigation. The researchers have no need for that assumption unless and until the evidence leads them there.
The deadlock will be solved by the market for IPv4 addresses that everyone seems to think is so horrible. The unused IPv4 addresses will get sold off first. As prices go up, even currently used IPv4 addresses start looking like a juicy money-making opportunity. Hosts that can migrate without much pain will get paid to do so. ISPs and vendors who want their business have an incentive to make the process even less painful. Gradually, the cost of IPv4 will go up, the cost of IPv6 will go down, and people will migrate naturally of their own accord.
You said "banning the words seems harsh but" and then proceeded to give a justification for the ban. I understand now that you oppose the ban after all, but I think your previous post could reasonably be read either way.
How about:
Write to us at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
You know most office buildings are owned by private companies, right? Is giving out the street address an advertisement for that company?
As opposed to days of yore when they'd send out a camera crew to get random sound bites from people on the street. Maybe you'd prefer they did that instead, but should anyone's preferences carry the force of law?
We have a decentralized system. It's called the web. Facebook.com/CNN is an address you can use to find CNN in that decentralized system. It happens to contain a brand name of another company, but so do many street addresses. Should we ban NBC from telling us to write to 30 Rockefeller Plaza because that would be an advertisement for the Rockefeller Center?
How about "Write to us at 30 Rockefeller Plaza"? Should that be banned as an advertisement for the Rockefeller Center, which a commercial enterprise?
You can call out internationally with Google Voice, it's just not free. The rates are here. I spot checked a few countries with Skype's rates and Google seems to be cheaper.
It uses your Google Voice number. You can even receive calls. In the Voice settings page, Google Chat is listed as a linked phone so you can configure it like any other. It even works with third party chat clients that support XMPP voice calls like Pidgin.
They're claiming there are flaws in the methodology. If they're right and someone else follows the same flawed methodology, then that result is no more valid than the original result. You want the original authors and anyone attempting to replicate their results to eliminate the potential for any flaws, so somebody's got to raise the possibility. That's the stage they're at now: raising possibilities.