Medicine helped AGAINST natural selection (a little bit - mostly through helping babies survive, no need to overvalue its contribution though since its relevant mostly during lower ages (though not exclusively due to indirect effects when grandparents help raise children).
Such movements may help increasing natural selection.
So I'm all for it, since I'll sit at the sidelines at let other people be the lab rats to find the 0.0001% of stuff that actually works and is useful (longterm).
I am certainly NOT the 1%. Learning to fly is not more expensive than a LOT of other hobbies. The very first time I flew in a small aircraft was as passenger with a student, who certainly wasn't rich (very old scrappy car; that was in Germany - so he didn't have to pay high tuition fees), he tried to get acquaintances to fly with him and share some of the cost of most of his flights.
Hourly costs sound high, but that is the time the engine actually runs. If you do aerobatics instead of (extremely boring) cross-country flights very few if any of your flights will be longer than an hour - and that's more than enough for the weekend, it's quite exhausting. That's roughly $200/week.
You CAN spend unlimited amounts of money, same as in sailing/yachting, but you also CAN participate in these hobbies on a limited budget.
That said, I stopped flying, part of it was THIS (article) and the noise my airplanes create. When I hike through Yosemite (or anywhere) the last thing I want to hear is small aircraft noise above, but it's sooo common these days. I just don't want to be that guy. I also stopped horse riding, for similar reasons, but for the horses sake: I did not want the responsibility of owning one, and I don't want to support the horse industry where most animals spend almost all their time in small boxes. Those animals need lots of space on grass land, that's rarely what they get, at least not close to large cities (I did most of my riding in the SF Bay Area, some Oakland Hills stables) where there are lots of people keen on riding but not enough space to give horses a natural environment. Both flying and riding are VERY fun hobbies, unfortunately there is a considerable cost - to others.
This comparison (designing a car - designing software) comes up again and again and again and again.
Just a thought: The basic function of a car has not changed since car #1 beginning of last century. Everything else were millions of very tiny gradual improvements.
This is about the SCREENERS much more than about the passengers. You forgot those guys who are next to those machines all work-day long. See other articles with links right here about this very topic.
Fortunately I did not know that one can philosophize about the why, how etc. etc. (ad infinitum) of "how to program", so I just DID IT.
BASIC, then Assembler (hand-coded into machine hex code, I only had a disassembler program but no assembler so could not write text assembler statements). I learned assembler by learning about Boolean logic and the underlying electronic circuits, at some point it just "clicked".
My advice is the same as with all "how to... (get rich, become successful, find the love of your life, etc.)": If you are reading THIS discussion because you want to know how to program, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG. You should be DOING IT, RIGHT NOW.
EXACTLY what happened to me - for 1/10 of a second I thought I was reading about anti-GRAVITY in trains. Then I suddenly remembered which lousy century I was born into and it all fell apart even before the part of my brain responsible for reading comprehension could finish its job.
Coming from the US you would probably want to have a "Ltd" in the UK, because UK and US law are very similar (since US law is based on UK law, surprise). Since it's the EU you would then be able to do business in any EU country using that UK business. It is a simple operation (founding a UK "Ltd"). Advice can be found on lots of web pages.
I created a "GmbH" (a limited liability corporation) at no time (1 visit to a notary) and very little cost (the "full" version, not the "1€" version) - and that is what you want for a "real" business. This kind of legal entity can be used for businesses worth hundreds of millions, I use it only for my freelancer business. Costs are accounting (fully outsourced), I have to publish a limited version of my yearly balance sheet, and some taxes. Even with accounting 100% outsourced I consider having this possibly quite "oversized" legal entity (for my business purposes) quite cheap, which is why I decided to get it.
So don't tell me creating businesses (in Germany at least) is "difficult" or "expensive" - you obviously don't know what you are talking about.
I am German and I lived and worked in the US for 7 years, also traveled all over the place from Alaska to Key West, Maine to Hawaii.
I soon found out, much to my surprise, that Germany is MUCH less concerned about rules than the US. It is also much more individualistic. Also, in the US the climate is much more "respect uniforms" than in Germany. It seems the two countries reversed roles after WWII.
That said, Americans are much more polite, they respect parents and children (in Germany trying to get rid of a "noisy kindergarten" in the neighborhood is not uncommon, or finding that other customers in restaurants get infuriated even by NORMAL children behavior, I'm not talking about out of control children), I can occasionally have conversations in web forums with people I 100% disagree with (in Germany it's 99% a shouting match without any conversation - yes, WORSE than Dems/Reps). Lots of good and bad on both sides. I liked living in the US, I like living in Germany - I would probably like it in any other place (if good food and a mostly intact environment are available).
Yes, German pedestrians DO wait for green light on a road in the middle of nowhere at 5am, no car to be heard or seen for miles (no joke, I've seen it repeatedly). However, in cases such as the one discussed here and in other more important areas they are much less likely to quietly accept authority. Also, they are less impressed by uniforms and police than Americans. That's just how it is, whether or not that's good or bad depends on the concrete circumstances.
Hiring price fighters to aid you in arguments with your !"$%# neighbor is more expensive, and if the neighbor hires their own fraught with high risks for YOU.
I think I prefer lawyers, after thinking about this for a few seconds.
This is a stupid (sorry!!!) thing to say: If "it's their job" is a justification for something, Mafia killers won't have any problems with the law.
Please note I have no conclusion to offer as far as spying is concerned (in the above statement!), I merely want to make you think a little harder to come up with some better arguments.
You cannot get any more scientific than testing theories in REAL LIFE. You trust hot air (thoughts and words) from "experts" with a Ph.D. title more? To do science you do NOT have to belong to the church of science (priest = Ph.D). It CAN be done by the layman at home. All you need is curiosity and common sense.
...may very well be the HUGE increase in competition of websites clamoring for attention. I *do* believe that it would have behooved them (/.) well to continue to work on the moderation system - it hasn't changed much in all that time, and I see LOTS of room for improvement (not that it would be easy, but I don't even see attempts).
I submitted this story. I am only human - what was I thinking? I guess I thought of the many strange comments I could elicit...
I am so sorry, guys. I must say that shortly after reading the story reason set in (but I was too quick on/.) - there is nothing unexpected in it. It is no big deal. It is a non-story. Everything described is not "Microsoft", it is human, including the complaints. I don't think the points are invalid, it's just that one can make a long list like this for ANY large (or even medium) project. Life is messy - but I got my first story submitted (which means nothing).
My apologies.
I just hope that the guys managers, should they find out, react maturely - by doing exactly nothing (at least no punishment). Stuff like this happens, and if it does so only once it should be overlooked.
PS: On the other hand, enough people voted this to the front page...
10,000 years ago there were MILLIONS MORE "beef" on this planet than now. The North American buffalo were only the last ones to die.
Same idiocy in blaming "fat" for fat Americans: (officially available - just google) statistics show that fat consumption in the US actually continually slightly decreased since the 1960s.
THESE opinions are a form of religion too, not just "god" talk.
When you find a correlation in statistical data you don't get a prediction for the FUTURE. You just get a statement of what was (in that data from the past). If you want to find out if you've got something that can make a prediction, you have to actually MAKE one (a prediction), i.e. you have to predict something that WILL show up in FUTURE data. Only if it does that do you have something. Proving "backwards" on the time line is not a "prediction", you cannot use the same data you used to create you hypothesis to also prove it. Otherwise, whatever coincidental correlations you find in your data - and the more data you have, the more (completely random) correlations you are going to find! - is useless.
Just to clarify: "hardware acceleration" in browsers is NOT JUST FOR VIDEOS. These days everything including font rendering uses it - depending on the browser and the configuration.
And my FF 20 works just fine with that site (hardware acceleration is off, I did not test with it turned on).
What browser? I had a website crashing my Firefox. Turned out I had to turn off hardware acceleration in about:config, because somehow this feature caused an error in the (NVidia) video driver.
Well, unlimited in theory, but in practice it is "only" limited to the EXPECTED future taxable income. Expected: They can spend money today and create an IOU and the expectation is that (hopefully because of good government investments, e.g. in key infrastructure instead of wars, which are just spending with no real ROI) the people will have more income in the future, which the government then can tax to pay back the IOU.
Anyway, even while some IOUs are being paid, you DON'T WANT the government to pay off all debts - your money IS the debt! Please read up on what modern money actually IS. A simple google search will suffice to give you enough to read for a few months. Anyone repeating this stup|d stuff about the government debt needs to get an education. What that debt DOES do - in the long run - is a redistribution of wealth, of course - from tax payers to those holding government debt.
I watched all TED talk when they first became available on their website, years ago. Back then 40-60% of the talks where really, really good. Fast forward to today: some 90% of the talks are garbage, banal, mundane, trite, boring, trivial... of course, it is an American operation, and like all ideas which are great in moderation, American business acumen milks everything until it's dry. Who cares about the ideas if you can build a boring but MUCH larger franchise system? Make it more "professional" = it was time to bring in the marketing people.
TED today is mostly worthless. Something similar happened with fora.tv. At first ~10-20% of the videos were really great, today maybe 1% - at most. Lots of repetition (by other speakers at new conferences, which have nothing new or exciting to say).
Why do moronic moderators keep modding up idiotic statements such as these from people who think absence of evidence is evidence of absence? Who ARE those guys, here "Charliemopps", that they think they should have known everything? Since when is THEIR cooperation and knowledge necessary? Even if they knew all that was going on everywhere in their OWN company (which not even the CEO does), that company is not connected to others, right?
This comment is STUPID STUPID STUPID.
Sorry, I've had enough after reading through them and now can't help it. I'm not all that mad at Mr "Charliemopps", everyone is entitled to say something very stupid at least once every hour, but that a number of random people who happen to be mods today find this garbage "informative"...
Slashdot Mirror
Medicine helped AGAINST natural selection (a little bit - mostly through helping babies survive, no need to overvalue its contribution though since its relevant mostly during lower ages (though not exclusively due to indirect effects when grandparents help raise children).
Such movements may help increasing natural selection.
So I'm all for it, since I'll sit at the sidelines at let other people be the lab rats to find the 0.0001% of stuff that actually works and is useful (longterm).
Private pilot (PP-ASEL) here.
I am certainly NOT the 1%. Learning to fly is not more expensive than a LOT of other hobbies. The very first time I flew in a small aircraft was as passenger with a student, who certainly wasn't rich (very old scrappy car; that was in Germany - so he didn't have to pay high tuition fees), he tried to get acquaintances to fly with him and share some of the cost of most of his flights.
Hourly costs sound high, but that is the time the engine actually runs. If you do aerobatics instead of (extremely boring) cross-country flights very few if any of your flights will be longer than an hour - and that's more than enough for the weekend, it's quite exhausting. That's roughly $200/week.
You CAN spend unlimited amounts of money, same as in sailing/yachting, but you also CAN participate in these hobbies on a limited budget.
That said, I stopped flying, part of it was THIS (article) and the noise my airplanes create. When I hike through Yosemite (or anywhere) the last thing I want to hear is small aircraft noise above, but it's sooo common these days. I just don't want to be that guy.
I also stopped horse riding, for similar reasons, but for the horses sake: I did not want the responsibility of owning one, and I don't want to support the horse industry where most animals spend almost all their time in small boxes. Those animals need lots of space on grass land, that's rarely what they get, at least not close to large cities (I did most of my riding in the SF Bay Area, some Oakland Hills stables) where there are lots of people keen on riding but not enough space to give horses a natural environment. Both flying and riding are VERY fun hobbies, unfortunately there is a considerable cost - to others.
"Anonymous Coward" has already signed that petition. Maybe you should get a real name if you want to show support? ;-)
MUCH better than what the US used its military for most of the time since WWII.
This comparison (designing a car - designing software) comes up again and again and again and again.
Just a thought: The basic function of a car has not changed since car #1 beginning of last century. Everything else were millions of very tiny gradual improvements.
Tell me again how software design is like that?
This is about the SCREENERS much more than about the passengers. You forgot those guys who are next to those machines all work-day long. See other articles with links right here about this very topic.
Fortunately I did not know that one can philosophize about the why, how etc. etc. (ad infinitum) of "how to program", so I just DID IT.
BASIC, then Assembler (hand-coded into machine hex code, I only had a disassembler program but no assembler so could not write text assembler statements). I learned assembler by learning about Boolean logic and the underlying electronic circuits, at some point it just "clicked".
My advice is the same as with all "how to... (get rich, become successful, find the love of your life, etc.)": If you are reading THIS discussion because you want to know how to program, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG. You should be DOING IT, RIGHT NOW.
EXACTLY what happened to me - for 1/10 of a second I thought I was reading about anti-GRAVITY in trains. Then I suddenly remembered which lousy century I was born into and it all fell apart even before the part of my brain responsible for reading comprehension could finish its job.
Coming from the US you would probably want to have a "Ltd" in the UK, because UK and US law are very similar (since US law is based on UK law, surprise). Since it's the EU you would then be able to do business in any EU country using that UK business. It is a simple operation (founding a UK "Ltd"). Advice can be found on lots of web pages.
I created a "GmbH" (a limited liability corporation) at no time (1 visit to a notary) and very little cost (the "full" version, not the "1€" version) - and that is what you want for a "real" business. This kind of legal entity can be used for businesses worth hundreds of millions, I use it only for my freelancer business. Costs are accounting (fully outsourced), I have to publish a limited version of my yearly balance sheet, and some taxes. Even with accounting 100% outsourced I consider having this possibly quite "oversized" legal entity (for my business purposes) quite cheap, which is why I decided to get it.
So don't tell me creating businesses (in Germany at least) is "difficult" or "expensive" - you obviously don't know what you are talking about.
I am German and I lived and worked in the US for 7 years, also traveled all over the place from Alaska to Key West, Maine to Hawaii.
I soon found out, much to my surprise, that Germany is MUCH less concerned about rules than the US. It is also much more individualistic. Also, in the US the climate is much more "respect uniforms" than in Germany. It seems the two countries reversed roles after WWII.
That said, Americans are much more polite, they respect parents and children (in Germany trying to get rid of a "noisy kindergarten" in the neighborhood is not uncommon, or finding that other customers in restaurants get infuriated even by NORMAL children behavior, I'm not talking about out of control children), I can occasionally have conversations in web forums with people I 100% disagree with (in Germany it's 99% a shouting match without any conversation - yes, WORSE than Dems/Reps). Lots of good and bad on both sides. I liked living in the US, I like living in Germany - I would probably like it in any other place (if good food and a mostly intact environment are available).
Yes, German pedestrians DO wait for green light on a road in the middle of nowhere at 5am, no car to be heard or seen for miles (no joke, I've seen it repeatedly). However, in cases such as the one discussed here and in other more important areas they are much less likely to quietly accept authority. Also, they are less impressed by uniforms and police than Americans. That's just how it is, whether or not that's good or bad depends on the concrete circumstances.
Hiring price fighters to aid you in arguments with your !"$%# neighbor is more expensive, and if the neighbor hires their own fraught with high risks for YOU.
I think I prefer lawyers, after thinking about this for a few seconds.
This is a stupid (sorry!!!) thing to say: If "it's their job" is a justification for something, Mafia killers won't have any problems with the law.
Please note I have no conclusion to offer as far as spying is concerned (in the above statement!), I merely want to make you think a little harder to come up with some better arguments.
You cannot get any more scientific than testing theories in REAL LIFE. You trust hot air (thoughts and words) from "experts" with a Ph.D. title more? To do science you do NOT have to belong to the church of science (priest = Ph.D). It CAN be done by the layman at home. All you need is curiosity and common sense.
...may very well be the HUGE increase in competition of websites clamoring for attention. I *do* believe that it would have behooved them (/.) well to continue to work on the moderation system - it hasn't changed much in all that time, and I see LOTS of room for improvement (not that it would be easy, but I don't even see attempts).
I submitted this story. I am only human - what was I thinking? I guess I thought of the many strange comments I could elicit...
I am so sorry, guys. I must say that shortly after reading the story reason set in (but I was too quick on /.) - there is nothing unexpected in it. It is no big deal. It is a non-story. Everything described is not "Microsoft", it is human, including the complaints. I don't think the points are invalid, it's just that one can make a long list like this for ANY large (or even medium) project. Life is messy - but I got my first story submitted (which means nothing).
My apologies.
I just hope that the guys managers, should they find out, react maturely - by doing exactly nothing (at least no punishment). Stuff like this happens, and if it does so only once it should be overlooked.
PS: On the other hand, enough people voted this to the front page...
10,000 years ago there were MILLIONS MORE "beef" on this planet than now. The North American buffalo were only the last ones to die.
Same idiocy in blaming "fat" for fat Americans: (officially available - just google) statistics show that fat consumption in the US actually continually slightly decreased since the 1960s.
THESE opinions are a form of religion too, not just "god" talk.
When you find a correlation in statistical data you don't get a prediction for the FUTURE. You just get a statement of what was (in that data from the past). If you want to find out if you've got something that can make a prediction, you have to actually MAKE one (a prediction), i.e. you have to predict something that WILL show up in FUTURE data. Only if it does that do you have something. Proving "backwards" on the time line is not a "prediction", you cannot use the same data you used to create you hypothesis to also prove it. Otherwise, whatever coincidental correlations you find in your data - and the more data you have, the more (completely random) correlations you are going to find! - is useless.
Just to clarify: "hardware acceleration" in browsers is NOT JUST FOR VIDEOS. These days everything including font rendering uses it - depending on the browser and the configuration.
And my FF 20 works just fine with that site (hardware acceleration is off, I did not test with it turned on).
"Dubai opens UAE’s largest desalination plant"
http://www.waterworld.com/articles/2013/04/dubai-opens-uaes-largest-desalination-plant.html
What browser? I had a website crashing my Firefox. Turned out I had to turn off hardware acceleration in about:config, because somehow this feature caused an error in the (NVidia) video driver.
Well, unlimited in theory, but in practice it is "only" limited to the EXPECTED future taxable income. Expected: They can spend money today and create an IOU and the expectation is that (hopefully because of good government investments, e.g. in key infrastructure instead of wars, which are just spending with no real ROI) the people will have more income in the future, which the government then can tax to pay back the IOU.
Anyway, even while some IOUs are being paid, you DON'T WANT the government to pay off all debts - your money IS the debt! Please read up on what modern money actually IS. A simple google search will suffice to give you enough to read for a few months. Anyone repeating this stup|d stuff about the government debt needs to get an education. What that debt DOES do - in the long run - is a redistribution of wealth, of course - from tax payers to those holding government debt.
I watched all TED talk when they first became available on their website, years ago. Back then 40-60% of the talks where really, really good. Fast forward to today: some 90% of the talks are garbage, banal, mundane, trite, boring, trivial... of course, it is an American operation, and like all ideas which are great in moderation, American business acumen milks everything until it's dry. Who cares about the ideas if you can build a boring but MUCH larger franchise system? Make it more "professional" = it was time to bring in the marketing people.
TED today is mostly worthless. Something similar happened with fora.tv. At first ~10-20% of the videos were really great, today maybe 1% - at most. Lots of repetition (by other speakers at new conferences, which have nothing new or exciting to say).
Why do moronic moderators keep modding up idiotic statements such as these from people who think absence of evidence is evidence of absence? Who ARE those guys, here "Charliemopps", that they think they should have known everything? Since when is THEIR cooperation and knowledge necessary? Even if they knew all that was going on everywhere in their OWN company (which not even the CEO does), that company is not connected to others, right?
This comment is STUPID STUPID STUPID.
Sorry, I've had enough after reading through them and now can't help it. I'm not all that mad at Mr "Charliemopps", everyone is entitled to say something very stupid at least once every hour, but that a number of random people who happen to be mods today find this garbage "informative"...
I also forgot an ENTIRE WORD ("it"). I'm glad some people are able to concentrate on what's important.