Re:Bicycling
on
Life Recorder
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
Odly enough none of the dickhead drivers have ever done their obscentiy yelling or object throwing anywhere near stop signs, when passing them or near an intersection.
No it's always on a long stretch of road when a car full of Typical Young Male Car Enthusiasts pulls level while I'm cycling reasonably close to the side, scream some bullshit, throw a can and accelerate away laughing.
But let me guess- because you sometimes see some random cyclists breaking traffic laws you have rationalised that it's perfectly ok to act like that to any cyclist you see.
that's a political rather than economic system and still doesn't perform nearly as well as advertised since people are far less inclined to base their choices on rational thought rather than on emotion.
"The return on investment with prizes is exceptionally high as NASA expends no funds unless the accomplishment is demonstrated."
Am I the only one thinking that perhaps they should structure more government contracts like this? With a focus on "expends no funds unless the accomplishment is demonstrated".
Which I would have thought should be a requirement for all government contracts but sadly is not.
It increases the risk to the companies involved but that just means you need to make the winnings pot a decent size.
Stop fucking around with these tiny little prizes of 1 or 2 million dollars and offer pots that would make a venture capitalist salivate( like 500 million dollars for the bellow)
"put at least one human being on the moon and bring him back to earth safely and collect *list of samples* and place *list of scientific equipment* on the lunar surface"
For comparison: the space shuttle: 115 missions (as of 6 August 2006) - total cost $150 billion
at the moment prize pots seem to always be trivial quantities of money compared to the rest of the budget.
Even then you'd think some system which xors characters beyond the 8 char limit with the first 8 would make more sense than limiting the length. (Off the top of my head I can't see this introducing weakness but I'd have to check)
My old uni system used to simply truncate it to 8 characters. some people of course with the strong parts of their password at the end of course ended up with all lowercase 8 char passwords in practice. Won a couple of bets that I could type in the second half of my password with my forehead- type first 8 chars then hit keyboard with forehead and press enter to log in.
How it is: User pays their ISP for their connection Server owner pays their ISP for their connection.
How the ISP's want it: User pays their ISP for their connection Server owner pays their ISP for their connection. Server owner pays every other ISP again and again and again.
outside of the american left/right thing? Sure, different economic systems can work better within different social structures which adds another few dimensions which are not purely financial. environment, technology, etc etc.
For example increased technological advancement may make previously non-viable economic systems viable. (if we ever get the hang of von neumann machines it could really screw with current economic systems and even simple miniaturisation could change what kinds of industrys are viable in a less centralised economic system ) Social structures and how wealth is inherited or distributed through extended family groups is another aspect which could fall under social factors which have economic effects, for example if people stopped seeing it as natural that parents pass on all wealth to their children or perhaps if it went the other way and it became the social norm that wealth was split between extended family groups rather than being the property of individuals. Advances in medicine and life expectancy could alter how long people have to build up personal fortunes which could change the optimal system(a system which generally prevents wealth from accumulating with individual or families over the course of a generation or so may fail if individual life expectancies are significantly extended). This probably comes under tech again but some of the post-humanist crap could make the communist end of the spectrum more viable.
An economic system which works well under a monarcy could work terribly in a democracy or the other way round. Economic systems which rely on decent communication may work well in an open society but terribly in a censorship prone society. etc etc etc etc.
There could even be an optimal solution far to the left of communism or far to the right of laissez-faire libertarianism.
Hill climbing is a terrible way to search most interesting search spaces. Search spaces for most real world problems could be best graphed as a floor covered in porcupines and on the tip of every quill is another team of porcupines.
Hell even the left/right way of thinking about it is pretty terrible since there's far more dimensions involved.
I'd probably best fit under "Libertarian socialist".
There's a strong "leave me the hell alone and stay out of my personal business" aspect I like. Dislike of bureaucracy also comes into it too. The free market stuff isn't totally without basis to an extent, something like a free market with enough regulation to prevent monopolies is damned good at getting useful work done.
If you look only at the most simplistic Libertarian economists of course but again you'll find the same thing for every economic systems.
The serious and competent economists who study the various systems are people who primarily think in terms of understanding and altering sections of the real economy; there are various blended plans that take account real data and potential malfeasance on the part of actors.
The talking heads who get invited on chatshows are not a representative sample of any system, be it socialism, communism or libertarianism.
This would be an example of sampling bias, you're far more familiar with the real work being done in your prefered system. You are far more aware of the loud sillyness in other systems and don't hear about similar serious realistic people who do work on other systems.
I'd tend to err on the side of assuming people will be selfish at least in aggregate. If anything the bigger problem with free market economics is that it assumes perfect or at least extremely good information which is so far from reality it can't even see it in the distance.
And the fact that any economy has to be able to survive in the presence of other competing economies will keep it that way since if the actors in a competing economy have near perfect information about the actors in your economy while yours do not have near perfect information about the actors in that other economy then they'll be out-competed so there's no chance to convert an existing economy to the kind system where all relevant information is available.
So it falls under the "everyone has to adopt it at once" category on the check-list.
The same could be said for every single economic system on the planet.
No matter if it Anarchist,Capitalist,Communist,Corporatist,Fascist,Georgist,Islamic,Market socialist, Mercantilist,Participatory,Protectionist,Socialist or Syndicalist
All of them. Every single one can be described in a similar manner.
Every one relies on a ridiculously simplified model economy, with very little interaction with the real, dirty, complicated world, full of people who don't always logically pursue anything.
the difference being that half arsed libertarianism works a hell of a lot better than half arsed communism.
The first assumes people are perfectly greedy and will act almost purely in their own self interest. The second assumes people are perfectly selfless and will act almost purely in the interests of society.
The former seems to me a far better model of realistic human behaviour than the latter.
The difference is that half arsed capitalism and free markets work far better than half arsed communism. At the very least the former assumes that people will be greedy and unpleasent and try to screw the system every step of the way which puts it leagues ahead of the latter in terms of realistic assumptions.
ah yes. The thing there is that claims made in the Mirror rarely have any basis in reality or to put it more bluntly they pull figures out of their arse. As a general rule whenever the mirror says "scientists have found" or some such without naming any names or research establishments then it's almost certainly something written in the PR department. When they do name names and research establishments it's also normally bullshit but gets followed by denials from the researchers in question that their work has anything to do with what is reported in the mirror.
I'd propose that perhaps they meant *per year* but even that would make no sense as it would put your odds of surviving cancer until the age of 10 a little on the low side.
Hell lets try comparing their odds of dying of cancer with their figures for deaths on the road. They claim 2500 people die per year from traffic accidents in the UK. Reasonably close. They call that 8,000 to one odds. They give cancer 2.5:1 odds.
If you take that 2500 and multiply to figure out how many people would have to die of cancer in comparison it translates to about 8 million. Which is ballpark figure, very rounded about as many as will die over the next generation.
So what's happened is they've taken the *per year* traffic deaths and compared them to the *lifetime* cancer deaths because apparently the column writer Matt Roper is a massive retard.
Slashdot Mirror
Odly enough none of the dickhead drivers have ever done their obscentiy yelling or object throwing anywhere near stop signs, when passing them or near an intersection.
No it's always on a long stretch of road when a car full of Typical Young Male Car Enthusiasts pulls level while I'm cycling reasonably close to the side, scream some bullshit, throw a can and accelerate away laughing.
But let me guess- because you sometimes see some random cyclists breaking traffic laws you have rationalised that it's perfectly ok to act like that to any cyclist you see.
please stop thinking that you can force others to do what you want.
Stop trying to get people to do what you want and instead do what I want!!!
You forgot the most likely scenario:
The drivers are malicious arseholes.
You know the ones.
The ignorant dickheads who think that cyclists have no right to be on heavily used roads.
you forgot the catholics, the hindus, the jews and the protestants.
that's a political rather than economic system and still doesn't perform nearly as well as advertised since people are far less inclined to base their choices on rational thought rather than on emotion.
Short version:
Situation: "Sony is breaking the law."
Fanboys: Bwaaaaa! people should be happy about this!!!
Linux nuts: This sucks I want my money back
Everyone else: "huh?"
In the past?
You mean when there were even more pirates?
From:
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/428439main_Space_technology.pdf
"The return on investment with prizes is exceptionally high as NASA expends no funds unless the
accomplishment is demonstrated."
Am I the only one thinking that perhaps they should structure more government contracts like this?
With a focus on "expends no funds unless the accomplishment is demonstrated".
Which I would have thought should be a requirement for all government contracts but sadly is not.
It increases the risk to the companies involved but that just means you need to make the winnings pot a decent size.
Stop fucking around with these tiny little prizes of 1 or 2 million dollars and offer pots that would make a venture capitalist salivate( like 500 million dollars for the bellow)
"put at least one human being on the moon and bring him back to earth safely and collect *list of samples* and place *list of scientific equipment* on the lunar surface"
For comparison:
the space shuttle: 115 missions (as of 6 August 2006) - total cost $150 billion
at the moment prize pots seem to always be trivial quantities of money compared to the rest of the budget.
yes and they truncated the password.
Even then you'd think some system which xors characters beyond the 8 char limit with the first 8 would make more sense than limiting the length. (Off the top of my head I can't see this introducing weakness but I'd have to check)
My old uni system used to simply truncate it to 8 characters.
some people of course with the strong parts of their password at the end of course ended up with all lowercase 8 char passwords in practice.
Won a couple of bets that I could type in the second half of my password with my forehead- type first 8 chars then hit keyboard with forehead and press enter to log in.
No it's worse than that.
How it is:
User pays their ISP for their connection
Server owner pays their ISP for their connection.
How the ISP's want it:
User pays their ISP for their connection
Server owner pays their ISP for their connection.
Server owner pays every other ISP again and again and again.
where the hell did this silliness about "common carrier status" come from?
outside of the american left/right thing?
Sure, different economic systems can work better within different social structures which adds another few dimensions which are not purely financial.
environment, technology, etc etc.
For example increased technological advancement may make previously non-viable economic systems viable. (if we ever get the hang of von neumann machines it could really screw with current economic systems and even simple miniaturisation could change what kinds of industrys are viable in a less centralised economic system )
Social structures and how wealth is inherited or distributed through extended family groups is another aspect which could fall under social factors which have economic effects, for example if people stopped seeing it as natural that parents pass on all wealth to their children or perhaps if it went the other way and it became the social norm that wealth was split between extended family groups rather than being the property of individuals.
Advances in medicine and life expectancy could alter how long people have to build up personal fortunes which could change the optimal system(a system which generally prevents wealth from accumulating with individual or families over the course of a generation or so may fail if individual life expectancies are significantly extended).
This probably comes under tech again but some of the post-humanist crap could make the communist end of the spectrum more viable.
An economic system which works well under a monarcy could work terribly in a democracy or the other way round.
Economic systems which rely on decent communication may work well in an open society but terribly in a censorship prone society.
etc etc etc etc.
You assume the search space has no local minima.
There could even be an optimal solution far to the left of communism or far to the right of laissez-faire libertarianism.
Hill climbing is a terrible way to search most interesting search spaces.
Search spaces for most real world problems could be best graphed as a floor covered in porcupines and on the tip of every quill is another team of porcupines.
Hell even the left/right way of thinking about it is pretty terrible since there's far more dimensions involved.
Anyone figured out the optimal solution yet?
I'd probably best fit under "Libertarian socialist".
There's a strong "leave me the hell alone and stay out of my personal business" aspect I like.
Dislike of bureaucracy also comes into it too.
The free market stuff isn't totally without basis to an extent, something like a free market with enough regulation to prevent monopolies is damned good at getting useful work done.
What's your preference?
name a system which doesn't have the same flaws.
they all only work as advertised in an ideal world.
If you look only at the most simplistic Libertarian economists of course but again you'll find the same thing for every economic systems.
The serious and competent economists who study the various systems are people who primarily think in terms of understanding and altering sections of the real economy; there are various blended plans that take account real data and potential malfeasance on the part of actors.
The talking heads who get invited on chatshows are not a representative sample of any system, be it socialism, communism or libertarianism.
This would be an example of sampling bias, you're far more familiar with the real work being done in your prefered system.
You are far more aware of the loud sillyness in other systems and don't hear about similar serious realistic people who do work on other systems.
why?
I didn't damage the computer in any way.
I simply fixed a time sensitive problem.
Keep in mind that my mother was also kind of pissed with him that she hadn't been given the password when he'd gone away for the weekend.
Or perhaps he isn't as egotistical as you if that's how you'd react to someone fixing a problem you've created by lack of forethought.
yes, and I was vocally open about how bloody stupid the whole setup was that it had forced me to circumvent it.
I'd tend to err on the side of assuming people will be selfish at least in aggregate.
If anything the bigger problem with free market economics is that it assumes perfect or at least extremely good information which is so far from reality it can't even see it in the distance.
And the fact that any economy has to be able to survive in the presence of other competing economies will keep it that way since if the actors in a competing economy have near perfect information about the actors in your economy while yours do not have near perfect information about the actors in that other economy then they'll be out-competed so there's no chance to convert an existing economy to the kind system where all relevant information is available.
So it falls under the "everyone has to adopt it at once" category on the check-list.
It both work quite well certain situation though.
The same could be said for every single economic system on the planet.
No matter if it Anarchist,Capitalist,Communist,Corporatist,Fascist,Georgist,Islamic,Market socialist, Mercantilist,Participatory,Protectionist,Socialist or Syndicalist
All of them. Every single one can be described in a similar manner.
Every one relies on a ridiculously simplified model economy, with very little interaction with the real, dirty, complicated world, full of people who don't always logically pursue anything.
the difference being that half arsed libertarianism works a hell of a lot better than half arsed communism.
The first assumes people are perfectly greedy and will act almost purely in their own self interest.
The second assumes people are perfectly selfless and will act almost purely in the interests of society.
The former seems to me a far better model of realistic human behaviour than the latter.
The difference is that half arsed capitalism and free markets work far better than half arsed communism.
At the very least the former assumes that people will be greedy and unpleasent and try to screw the system every step of the way which puts it leagues ahead of the latter in terms of realistic assumptions.
ah yes.
The thing there is that claims made in the Mirror rarely have any basis in reality or to put it more bluntly they pull figures out of their arse.
As a general rule whenever the mirror says "scientists have found" or some such without naming any names or research establishments then it's almost certainly something written in the PR department.
When they do name names and research establishments it's also normally bullshit but gets followed by denials from the researchers in question that their work has anything to do with what is reported in the mirror.
I'd propose that perhaps they meant *per year* but even that would make no sense as it would put your odds of surviving cancer until the age of 10 a little on the low side.
Hell lets try comparing their odds of dying of cancer with their figures for deaths on the road.
They claim 2500 people die per year from traffic accidents in the UK. Reasonably close.
They call that 8,000 to one odds.
They give cancer 2.5:1 odds.
If you take that 2500 and multiply to figure out how many people would have to die of cancer in comparison it translates to about 8 million.
Which is ballpark figure, very rounded about as many as will die over the next generation.
So what's happened is they've taken the *per year* traffic deaths and compared them to the *lifetime* cancer deaths because apparently the column writer Matt Roper is a massive retard.