Since it was you gentlemen (and ladies) who popularized the phrase "RTFA", we thought some of you might actually do so before overreacting. Since you gentlemen are famous for your hatred of the "mainstream media" and its poor reporting, we thought some of you might look to source material rather than unfair media soundbytes. It seems our hopes were misplaced.
Please don't call us names without actually reading at least a few of our new standards. You can find them, in an easy-to-read, color-coded format, at the Texas Education Agency website (http://www.tea.state.tx.us/) under Curriculum. You can also follow a direct link here. You will find that the new standards are accurate, equitable, honest, historically strong, and, contrary to popular belief, include quite a lot of both Thomas Jefferson and the Establishment Clause. Our previous standards were good, but the new ones are a clear improvement.
We thank you in advance for your measured consideration.
Sincerely,
Texas
"The One State That'd Dare Give Dark Helmet A Raspberry"
Oh, stop getting your panties in a twist, Slashdot, and RTFS: Here are the curriculum documents, with the TEKS and SBOE changes-color coded.
The wild-eyed claims being made about these very mild, mostly correct changes are absurd. Jefferson is not being cut or even importantly sidelined, the Founding Fathers are not being portrayed as Christian Righties, and anyone who's mentioned Orwell in this thread should be beaten to death with a bat made of cliches. So everybody calm the frak down and get informed.
As long as the average person thinks the relative likelihood of "science being right" and "nutball propaganda being right" is about the same or worse, nothing will change.
It pays to keep people uneducated: it's easier to scare, persuade, and misinform them.
So true.
Of course, as a climate change denier, it looks to me like this letter is the nutball propaganda and the real scientists are all on Fox News. So maybe painting all of society with generalizations and then grousing about the evil power elite is not the best way to keep the dialogue going on the global warming issue.
Well, that's not quite the case, rattaroaz. Actually, it's not AT ALL the case. Embryonic stem cells are derived from the "termination" of excess embryos from IVF procedures. These are often frozen embryos in storage. Sometimes, they are fresh embryos who, if they weren't killed for ECS harvesting, would probably be killed anyway. Either way, they're definitely alive and definitely can be (and have been) brought to term (often by so-called "embryo adoption").
Moreover, there are a whole lot of people who think that killing embryos for the sake of their stem cells is a terrific idea. (Indeed, one of the fastest ways to get yourself labeled a "religious fundamentalist" in this country is to propose that that's a monstrous idea.) Look up "therapeutic cloning" at Wikipedia, and, while you're at it, check the NIH's page on ECS research at http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics3.asp for a general overview of cell-harvesting techniques.
Some of the replies above attempt to skirt this issue using the ridiculous (and oxymoronic) term "fertilized egg" in a bizarre attempt to deprive the blastocyst of its biological status as a living member of the human race. This attempt to use euphemism to avoid biological and ethical challenges, however, is both transparent and silly.
At bottom, rattaroaz, yeah, I agree with you that the real question is whether the lives of fetuses are ours to do with as we please. If yes, then abortion and ECS are fine. If no, then probably not. But the fetal-life question figures just as prominently -- and directly -- into embryonic stem cell research questions as it does into the abortion question.
My understanding of the tech was that any device using a charger with the same resonance as the base station would be able to suck down power, dividing the base station's emitted power evenly between all "connected" devices. Of course, I only read the BBC article, so I might well be wrong.
A bunch of posters seem to think this is some kind of personal choice the addict can break free from anytime he wants to. That just... isn't the case. Addiction is a disease. As terrifying as it is for those watching it destroy a life from the outside, that's nothing compared to the terror felt by the person who's trapped inside the addiction.
No doubt there's some part of your friend that's terrified, too, but that part of him--the free part, the human part--is no longer in control. Worst of all, what a lot of posters have said is true: you can't save him. In the end, the only person who can fight off the addiction and reassert his freedom is him.
There are things you can do for him, though, and the fact that you're posting on Slashdot (of all places!) is all the evidence I need that your concern is sincere and deep. You could abandon him as some posters suggest (he *is* a legal adult), but that isolated, coldly individualist approach strikes me as inhuman. Part of being human is friendship, and part of friendship is supporting the friend when he's at his lowest--even if he doesn't want the support. You could cut him off, and that might even be the "smart" thing to do... but to do so would thwart something in you that runs deeper than logic.
First and most important: get in contact with everybody who's really important in his life: parents, siblings, close mentors, maybe his pastor (depending on the pastor). There's still not a lot you can do, even in numbers, but it helps. Cooperate, keep each other posted, and make sure everyone close to him is making their concerns known in a non-confrontational way. Ultimatums are not helpful, and will probably just hurt everyone involved - the addict can not freely *choose* to leave the game, and an ultimatum usually only destroys other support systems. In the end, HE has to name this addiction for what it is, and trying to force him to accept it by logical argument or appeals to his responsibilities won't help... but simply knowing that everyone in his life is ready to support him as soon as he admits his problem might make it easier for him to admit to the addiction. Addicts are often terrified of what people will think of them if they come out as addicts. If your friend knows the people closest to him already think of him as an addict, then he has nothing to lose. It would be nice to let his professors know, too. It won't change the grades they have to give him, but (speaking as the son of two professors), professors are always much more sympathetic towards students if they have an *explanation* for why their coursework suddenly imploded. And, sometimes, having a professor in your corner can be a big help when it comes time to put your life back together post-addiction.
In the meantime, if you've made your concerns known, there's not a whole lot more you can do. There are a few suggestions in here I like - teaching him to cheat, thereby robbing him of the "joy" of tedious grinding, was clever - but don't take away his computer or block his ports or grief him or hack his accounts. Your enemy isn't the *game* but the *addiction,* and if the addiction doesn't go away you solve nothing. Even if you destroy every copy of Burning Sea in the world, he'll just switch to another MMO. In the meantime, if he hasn't admitted to the addiction yet, he will interpret your forced intervention as a semi-violent assault on him. He'll gain nothing, but he'll lose his trust in one of the people he needs to trust now more than ever--his friends and family. So let me say it again: don't violate his trust, however perverse his "trust" might be right now. Just let him know that, whatever happens, you ARE his friend and you WILL be there for him whenever he decides to seek help, and, in the meantime, you'll stay out of his way. Make sure he knows that he can trust you to be there for him when he admits the addiction without directly accusing him of addiction or attacking his behavior. That's a difficult line to walk, I know, but there it is.
Once I finished The Silmarillion, after three attempts and a span of six years, I was very happy to have done so. It is an amazing, epic story, and I finished it with a definite sense of longing for more. The fact that Silmarillion greatly enhanced my appreciation of Middle-Earth's long history on my next read of LotR was purely secondary. I continue to recommend the book to friends with extraordinarily long attention spans, and the few who finish it continue to remark that it really is an excellent work.
I expect the same will be true of Children of Hurin when I finally pull it off my bookshelf and finish the last two-thirds, four or five years from now.
What prevents a computer from emulating this "non-representational" processing? Or is the human brain not subject to the laws of physics?
This sort of rhetorical question presupposes that "minds are simply what brains do," which remains to this day (outside the/. world and certain parts of the ivory tower) a hotly contested claim with strong evidence on both sides. Indeed, this entire conversation only reinforces the point that all Strong AI research is fundamentally rooted to a very particular set of philisophical claims that are espoused by a very particular set of researchers (Minsky et. al.) who, while perhaps very good neuroscientists and cognitive researchers, are terrible at doing philosophy.
Until the basic premises on which Strong AI is built are rigorously examined from a strictly neutral standpoint, the field is just going to keep spinning its stone wheels.
I, for one, welcome our new aesthetically-impaired robot overlords.
Really, it's hideous, and I can't even put my finger on why it's hideous. It just is. Gotta go uncheck the "willing to participate in new testing" box.
Pope John Paul II was, in fact, exactly as condemning--perhaps even more vocal about it--of embryonic destruction and stem cell harvesting as is Pope Benedict. And then, of course, there was Evangelium Vitae. I won't link it, because from what I'm reading most slashdotters would suffer an aneurysm and die if they tried to read it--and I value their human dignity too much to let that happen.
Artificial insemination: is considered wrong under the same complex natural law reasoning that condemns contraception. Sadly, natural law is not taught in the schools--what we laughingly call "Catholic religious education" in this country is horrifyingly inadequate for proper understanding of the Faith--and about half of you are too hostile to religion in general to care. (All-too-)Brief explanations are in CCC 2373-79, but the point is: Modern techniques for artifical insem frequently result in what the Church sees as large-scale murder. Yet, even if the techniques were revised, there would still be serious problems with artificial insemination--not nearly as serious as murder, but still not a good thing for souls or society at large. In The Church's Humble Opinion.
I just took a philosophy class, so let me try to work out your argument:
1. I have the right not to agree about the humanity of the fetus.
2. ???
3. Therefore, the Pope's pronuncement on my reproductive choices are ridiculous.
I can't figure out what your second proposition must be, because I don't see how you having the right to disagree logically must make the Pope wrong. It would be true that you disagree, but either one of you could logically be correct, and therefore it would be logical to consider the Pope's arguments and evaluate them in full. Unless you are, in fact, asserting that, because you think what you think, you are right by definition. This is, however, insane, so I wonder what you actually meant.
Slashdot Mirror
Since it was you gentlemen (and ladies) who popularized the phrase "RTFA", we thought some of you might actually do so before overreacting. Since you gentlemen are famous for your hatred of the "mainstream media" and its poor reporting, we thought some of you might look to source material rather than unfair media soundbytes. It seems our hopes were misplaced.
Please don't call us names without actually reading at least a few of our new standards. You can find them, in an easy-to-read, color-coded format, at the Texas Education Agency website (http://www.tea.state.tx.us/) under Curriculum. You can also follow a direct link here. You will find that the new standards are accurate, equitable, honest, historically strong, and, contrary to popular belief, include quite a lot of both Thomas Jefferson and the Establishment Clause. Our previous standards were good, but the new ones are a clear improvement.
We thank you in advance for your measured consideration.
Sincerely,
Texas
"The One State That'd Dare Give Dark Helmet A Raspberry"
Oh, stop getting your panties in a twist, Slashdot, and RTFS: Here are the curriculum documents, with the TEKS and SBOE changes-color coded.
The wild-eyed claims being made about these very mild, mostly correct changes are absurd. Jefferson is not being cut or even importantly sidelined, the Founding Fathers are not being portrayed as Christian Righties, and anyone who's mentioned Orwell in this thread should be beaten to death with a bat made of cliches. So everybody calm the frak down and get informed.
As long as the average person thinks the relative likelihood of "science being right" and "nutball propaganda being right" is about the same or worse, nothing will change. It pays to keep people uneducated: it's easier to scare, persuade, and misinform them.
So true.
Of course, as a climate change denier, it looks to me like this letter is the nutball propaganda and the real scientists are all on Fox News. So maybe painting all of society with generalizations and then grousing about the evil power elite is not the best way to keep the dialogue going on the global warming issue.
Unfortunately, monks have high technical support overhead.
Well, that's not quite the case, rattaroaz. Actually, it's not AT ALL the case. Embryonic stem cells are derived from the "termination" of excess embryos from IVF procedures. These are often frozen embryos in storage. Sometimes, they are fresh embryos who, if they weren't killed for ECS harvesting, would probably be killed anyway. Either way, they're definitely alive and definitely can be (and have been) brought to term (often by so-called "embryo adoption").
Moreover, there are a whole lot of people who think that killing embryos for the sake of their stem cells is a terrific idea. (Indeed, one of the fastest ways to get yourself labeled a "religious fundamentalist" in this country is to propose that that's a monstrous idea.) Look up "therapeutic cloning" at Wikipedia, and, while you're at it, check the NIH's page on ECS research at http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics3.asp for a general overview of cell-harvesting techniques.
Some of the replies above attempt to skirt this issue using the ridiculous (and oxymoronic) term "fertilized egg" in a bizarre attempt to deprive the blastocyst of its biological status as a living member of the human race. This attempt to use euphemism to avoid biological and ethical challenges, however, is both transparent and silly.
At bottom, rattaroaz, yeah, I agree with you that the real question is whether the lives of fetuses are ours to do with as we please. If yes, then abortion and ECS are fine. If no, then probably not. But the fetal-life question figures just as prominently -- and directly -- into embryonic stem cell research questions as it does into the abortion question.
Actually, that sounds like some pretty kick-ass historical fiction.
My understanding of the tech was that any device using a charger with the same resonance as the base station would be able to suck down power, dividing the base station's emitted power evenly between all "connected" devices. Of course, I only read the BBC article, so I might well be wrong.
No doubt there's some part of your friend that's terrified, too, but that part of him--the free part, the human part--is no longer in control. Worst of all, what a lot of posters have said is true: you can't save him. In the end, the only person who can fight off the addiction and reassert his freedom is him.
There are things you can do for him, though, and the fact that you're posting on Slashdot (of all places!) is all the evidence I need that your concern is sincere and deep. You could abandon him as some posters suggest (he *is* a legal adult), but that isolated, coldly individualist approach strikes me as inhuman. Part of being human is friendship, and part of friendship is supporting the friend when he's at his lowest--even if he doesn't want the support. You could cut him off, and that might even be the "smart" thing to do... but to do so would thwart something in you that runs deeper than logic.
First and most important: get in contact with everybody who's really important in his life: parents, siblings, close mentors, maybe his pastor (depending on the pastor). There's still not a lot you can do, even in numbers, but it helps. Cooperate, keep each other posted, and make sure everyone close to him is making their concerns known in a non-confrontational way. Ultimatums are not helpful, and will probably just hurt everyone involved - the addict can not freely *choose* to leave the game, and an ultimatum usually only destroys other support systems. In the end, HE has to name this addiction for what it is, and trying to force him to accept it by logical argument or appeals to his responsibilities won't help... but simply knowing that everyone in his life is ready to support him as soon as he admits his problem might make it easier for him to admit to the addiction. Addicts are often terrified of what people will think of them if they come out as addicts. If your friend knows the people closest to him already think of him as an addict, then he has nothing to lose. It would be nice to let his professors know, too. It won't change the grades they have to give him, but (speaking as the son of two professors), professors are always much more sympathetic towards students if they have an *explanation* for why their coursework suddenly imploded. And, sometimes, having a professor in your corner can be a big help when it comes time to put your life back together post-addiction.
In the meantime, if you've made your concerns known, there's not a whole lot more you can do. There are a few suggestions in here I like - teaching him to cheat, thereby robbing him of the "joy" of tedious grinding, was clever - but don't take away his computer or block his ports or grief him or hack his accounts. Your enemy isn't the *game* but the *addiction,* and if the addiction doesn't go away you solve nothing. Even if you destroy every copy of Burning Sea in the world, he'll just switch to another MMO. In the meantime, if he hasn't admitted to the addiction yet, he will interpret your forced intervention as a semi-violent assault on him. He'll gain nothing, but he'll lose his trust in one of the people he needs to trust now more than ever--his friends and family. So let me say it again: don't violate his trust, however perverse his "trust" might be right now. Just let him know that, whatever happens, you ARE his friend and you WILL be there for him whenever he decides to seek help, and, in the meantime, you'll stay out of his way. Make sure he knows that he can trust you to be there for him when he admits the addiction without directly accusing him of addiction or attacking his behavior. That's a difficult line to walk, I know, but there it is.
"Just words."
"But good words. That's where ideas begin."
--Kirk and David, TWOK
Was about to ask the same thing. What's more: how is this News For Nerds? Or even Stuff That Matters?
I believe you mean "formulae."
I've been DECEIVED!
I expect the same will be true of Children of Hurin when I finally pull it off my bookshelf and finish the last two-thirds, four or five years from now.
Or maybe six.
I thought the headline said "Pharmacists Store, Retrieve a 'Squeezed Vacuum'." Now that'd be a story.
This sort of rhetorical question presupposes that "minds are simply what brains do," which remains to this day (outside the /. world and certain parts of the ivory tower) a hotly contested claim with strong evidence on both sides. Indeed, this entire conversation only reinforces the point that all Strong AI research is fundamentally rooted to a very particular set of philisophical claims that are espoused by a very particular set of researchers (Minsky et. al.) who, while perhaps very good neuroscientists and cognitive researchers, are terrible at doing philosophy.
Until the basic premises on which Strong AI is built are rigorously examined from a strictly neutral standpoint, the field is just going to keep spinning its stone wheels.
Really, it's hideous, and I can't even put my finger on why it's hideous. It just is. Gotta go uncheck the "willing to participate in new testing" box.
Artificial insemination: is considered wrong under the same complex natural law reasoning that condemns contraception. Sadly, natural law is not taught in the schools--what we laughingly call "Catholic religious education" in this country is horrifyingly inadequate for proper understanding of the Faith--and about half of you are too hostile to religion in general to care. (All-too-)Brief explanations are in CCC 2373-79, but the point is: Modern techniques for artifical insem frequently result in what the Church sees as large-scale murder. Yet, even if the techniques were revised, there would still be serious problems with artificial insemination--not nearly as serious as murder, but still not a good thing for souls or society at large. In The Church's Humble Opinion.
1. I have the right not to agree about the humanity of the fetus.
2. ???
3. Therefore, the Pope's pronuncement on my reproductive choices are ridiculous.
I can't figure out what your second proposition must be, because I don't see how you having the right to disagree logically must make the Pope wrong. It would be true that you disagree, but either one of you could logically be correct, and therefore it would be logical to consider the Pope's arguments and evaluate them in full. Unless you are, in fact, asserting that, because you think what you think, you are right by definition. This is, however, insane, so I wonder what you actually meant.
In other words: no, I don't see.