I figured out an endless pattern to Atari 2600 Space Invaders and PacMan, high score stuff. Was thrilled and disappointed to read about my solution in some Atari mag several years after my discovery.
I figured I had beat the computer and was disappointed when I wasn't asked to help defeat Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada.
Yeah, but most of them can spell "holes" properly.
Oh yeah, and math.
I meant to write "whores." Stupid auto correct.
And math? Having all the math we know about correct doesn't mean it isn't based on a faulty premise to begin with. The stranger, or more Star Trek that predictions and hypotheses get, the more I wonder if people are using a little too much imagination to fill in the gaps. Maybe they are correct. Or maybe the alternate universes aren't what we typically conceive them as -- Buckaroo Banzai, et al -- and instead they are states of matter we lack the science to comprehend.
What if the other brane also has a reactor shield in the same spot?
What if this prediction is the result of too many people making a life out of academia, such that they now have to come up with ever-wackier notions? It's as though current theories leave all these wholes, and people get PhD's coming up with nonsense to fill them. It seems like the control against which their observations are measured is their own assumption about what they should not expect to see.
The 787 would make it practical / possible to fly into smaller airfields too. And be much, much cheaper - to purchase and run.
If you would eat your caviar and drink your Crystal on a smaller, cheaper plane, then you clearly lack what it takes to be president. Or in the senate.
No worries ladies and gents. Just some black hole or star being absorbed into a circle of more stable vacuum than the twitchy sort of vacuum we have over here. Move along. Move along. There's literally nothing to see there.
C'mon, there's got to be some highly implausible yet scientific sounding explanation that blames it on a time hole to the future slamming shut. Right? Maybe Elon Musk has been working on a time portal, but he hasn't quite figured out how to make it appear close enough to be usable?
Yes, ultimately I *believe* in gravity. People find evidence of God's existence; others find evidence of gravity's existence. The difference - as I'm sure you are aware - is that one passes the scientific method; the other doesn't or won't submit to it. Then again, dogma finds a way into many non-religious things (hang out with raw vegans and you'll see that in action).
Playing my own Devil's advocate - one can argue that a man-derived scientific method is insufficient to test for the existence of God; after all, if I bake a cake and it decides I don't exist, the cake doesn't disappear.
One thing I think you have wrong -- God wouldn't be inside the universe. God created it. I suppose - going back to the cake analogy - God could bake himself into the cake. But he would still be an exo-cake being, and would have existed before the cake.
The probability that life would develop on any given planet...
That doesn't prove God; it only provides a good argument that we are very likely alone in the universe, at least to the extent that life has developed here. Sure, 100 light years away there may be a planet with some kind of primordial ooze on its way to becoming life as we know it; however, I'm guessing we won't be around in 100 million years to meet them. Or perhaps by then we will be the Borg and assimilate them all.
You have that a little wrong. God *can* (in principle) be proven. If the sky breaks open, choirs of angels break forth, a 10km-long arm reaches down from the skies and an 8km golden-haired, bearded face looks down upon humanity and utters words of unshakable truth...then God is proven.
Except that isn't going to happen. If one believes the bible, at some point the believers will be vanished into heaven, which basically proves God's existence, even if he doesn't show his golden-bearded chops directly to us (which also would kill us, again, only if one believes the bible). At that point the Antichrist rises, and if we do not follow him (or her, if it is Hillary) and we choose God then we get killed. Since the obvious choice is then God is real, but the consequence for following him is death, we get a pass on our lifetime of sin and go to heaven.
Not that I actually think that is going to happen, but it made for some entertaining 1980's rapture movies. And the book of Revelation is a great read.
China has the largest population of internet users. Despite apparent continued attempts to censor what their citizens have access to, the Chinese are very interested in extending international market share of their three state-owned internet companies.
I read it as "China is enhancing the speed at which they can control the internet within their borders."
Proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims. It is foundational to the scientific method. Denial, on the other hand, is the a priori rejection of ideas without objective consideration.
That's funny. The first definition on Google states "a person inclined to question or doubt all accepted opinions.", which seems to be a good fit for those who are denying global warming. If anything, it seems as though the Fellows of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry should call themselves something different.
The Fellows of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry are Google Deniers.
While I pretty much agree with everything you say, I'd like to add one (completely subjective) detail: I don't think egotistical types are limited to government. I've seen people rise in corporate power structures as a result of ruthless and aggressive behavior. It's almost a tautology that those who crave power, who are willing to shove others aside, end up near the top of the heap. There probably aren't many auto dealerships, for example, who are run by introverted, accommodating people.
Again, it's just my opinion.
I agree. What I meant to imply is only that we don't want them in government. To reach the top level of business requires at least a little psychopathy.
Actually it kinda does. The ability to constantly abuse the system means there is a massive flaw in said system.
The flaw is how we use it. Freedom and liberty are hard to maintain, and we have allowed government to become something other than "we the people." It has become an entity unto itself, and as such it strives first and foremost to ensure its own survival. We have recast the role of statesman to celebrity, which guarantees ego rules the roost. Regulatory agencies within the executive branch are de facto law making bodies, and in the end we hinge our hopes on Supreme Court decisions, who amended their charter - at least in practice - to include filling in the legislative gaps left by Congress, who are too busy running their reelection campaigns.
If our government is car, we're passengers who are allowing a bunch of drunks to drive it. We are getting what we deserve, so long as we choose to not take the wheel.
When looking at a five-year-old article by Nate Silver that looked at political donations by car dealers, fully 88 percent of those donations went to Republican candidates, and just 12 percent to Democrats. That possibly suggests a propensity among Republican state legislators to support the interests for car dealers over those of electric-car buyers. Is the small bit of evidence enough to make a case?
But we have the best democracy you can fine anywhere. It doesn't matter if our legislators are being bribed indirectly, or get embroiled in obvious conflict of interest matters.
Welcome to the USA!
Ohh wait, let's preach to the world about free markets.
The fact that we don't use our government correctly does not make it inherently bad.
And maybe that Nate Silver stat just means that Republicans are more likely to be business owners, and that local politicians are more likely to listen to business owners.
If someone doesn't support Uber then they are acting against the principles of small government and the free market, and therefore not accurately representing Republican values.
I'm curious about the capacity to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles - or any batteries - compared to the capacity to recycle, and the environmental impacts at both ends. I found this: http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/B/239.pdf.
I was wondering what languages I should learn myself. I have some experience with C++, but that's over 10 years ago, and only as a hobby. I've been thinking about picking it back up, but wasn't sure if there were better options. Since I'm an adult and looking to be able to support my family, money certainly is one of the leading factors as to which language I want to get into.
A more relevant question than money may be what interests you? Automation, mobile apps, database, web, etc.? You may have the potential to make more money as a Python programmer, but will a few thousand on average more per year make the job itself more worthwhile? Would, say, only $95k per year to program C++ -- if the specific job was more to your liking -- be a deal breaker?
Another way to look at it: If you are happier doing the job, might that make you perform better and therefor out-perform the industry average?
Hate is probably the wrong word for most cops but it would be fair to say cops don't trust anyone who isn't a cop. Cops tend to (understandably) have an us versus them world view and see everyone's actions as those of a potential suspect. Apply a bit of low grade racism and you have a real problem with police distrusting a minority population and the minority population growing to distrust the police.
If computer repair technicians had even the remotest of chances that when they worked on certain types of machines that said machines would purposefully electrocute them, they would necessarily grow to not trust those machines or machines that looked just like them, and treat them differently than other machines.
Or, if you prefer, it is easy for us to sit back and judge when our job is never actively trying to kill us.
I'm not saying I agree with stop and frisk, nor am I saying that cops are above criticism. But the public seems to hop on the anti-cop bandwagon pretty quickly. Maybe they are victims, too; a product of how we have let society evolve?
Slashdot Mirror
I figured out an endless pattern to Atari 2600 Space Invaders and PacMan, high score stuff. Was thrilled and disappointed to read about my solution in some Atari mag several years after my discovery.
I figured I had beat the computer and was disappointed when I wasn't asked to help defeat Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada.
Fixed that for you.
Why is it that anecdotes are not data when we disagree with where the evidence points and they are when we don't?
Because people tend to accept information/data/analysis/anecdote as fact if it supports what they already believe to be true.
Yeah, but most of them can spell "holes" properly.
Oh yeah, and math.
I meant to write "whores." Stupid auto correct.
And math? Having all the math we know about correct doesn't mean it isn't based on a faulty premise to begin with. The stranger, or more Star Trek that predictions and hypotheses get, the more I wonder if people are using a little too much imagination to fill in the gaps. Maybe they are correct. Or maybe the alternate universes aren't what we typically conceive them as -- Buckaroo Banzai, et al -- and instead they are states of matter we lack the science to comprehend.
What if the other brane also has a reactor shield in the same spot?
What if this prediction is the result of too many people making a life out of academia, such that they now have to come up with ever-wackier notions? It's as though current theories leave all these wholes, and people get PhD's coming up with nonsense to fill them. It seems like the control against which their observations are measured is their own assumption about what they should not expect to see.
The 787 would make it practical / possible to fly into smaller airfields too. And be much, much cheaper - to purchase and run.
If you would eat your caviar and drink your Crystal on a smaller, cheaper plane, then you clearly lack what it takes to be president. Or in the senate.
No worries ladies and gents. Just some black hole or star being absorbed into a circle of more stable vacuum than the twitchy sort of vacuum we have over here. Move along. Move along. There's literally nothing to see there.
C'mon, there's got to be some highly implausible yet scientific sounding explanation that blames it on a time hole to the future slamming shut. Right? Maybe Elon Musk has been working on a time portal, but he hasn't quite figured out how to make it appear close enough to be usable?
Yes, ultimately I *believe* in gravity. People find evidence of God's existence; others find evidence of gravity's existence. The difference - as I'm sure you are aware - is that one passes the scientific method; the other doesn't or won't submit to it. Then again, dogma finds a way into many non-religious things (hang out with raw vegans and you'll see that in action).
Playing my own Devil's advocate - one can argue that a man-derived scientific method is insufficient to test for the existence of God; after all, if I bake a cake and it decides I don't exist, the cake doesn't disappear.
One thing I think you have wrong -- God wouldn't be inside the universe. God created it. I suppose - going back to the cake analogy - God could bake himself into the cake. But he would still be an exo-cake being, and would have existed before the cake.
Mmmmm, cake.
the nature of proof is i specifically cannot prove you're not a moron, so you must be one.
I'm a moron? I was in no way implying that it means God exists. In fact, it is just as likely that it means it was a well constructed myth.
The probability that life would develop on any given planet...
That doesn't prove God; it only provides a good argument that we are very likely alone in the universe, at least to the extent that life has developed here. Sure, 100 light years away there may be a planet with some kind of primordial ooze on its way to becoming life as we know it; however, I'm guessing we won't be around in 100 million years to meet them. Or perhaps by then we will be the Borg and assimilate them all.
You have that a little wrong. God *can* (in principle) be proven. If the sky breaks open, choirs of angels break forth, a 10km-long arm reaches down from the skies and an 8km golden-haired, bearded face looks down upon humanity and utters words of unshakable truth...then God is proven.
Except that isn't going to happen. If one believes the bible, at some point the believers will be vanished into heaven, which basically proves God's existence, even if he doesn't show his golden-bearded chops directly to us (which also would kill us, again, only if one believes the bible). At that point the Antichrist rises, and if we do not follow him (or her, if it is Hillary) and we choose God then we get killed. Since the obvious choice is then God is real, but the consequence for following him is death, we get a pass on our lifetime of sin and go to heaven.
Not that I actually think that is going to happen, but it made for some entertaining 1980's rapture movies. And the book of Revelation is a great read.
Why do we still care what the pope says?
China has the largest population of internet users. Despite apparent continued attempts to censor what their citizens have access to, the Chinese are very interested in extending international market share of their three state-owned internet companies.
I read it as "China is enhancing the speed at which they can control the internet within their borders."
The nature of God is such that it cannot be proven. Otherwise, we lose the choice to believe.
That said, science has yet to prove what the universe is, so how could we expect it to prove something outside of it?
Note: My philosophy is "when you die, you're dead."
Proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims. It is foundational to the scientific method. Denial, on the other hand, is the a priori rejection of ideas without objective consideration.
That's funny. The first definition on Google states "a person inclined to question or doubt all accepted opinions.", which seems to be a good fit for those who are denying global warming. If anything, it seems as though the Fellows of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry should call themselves something different.
The Fellows of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry are Google Deniers.
While I pretty much agree with everything you say, I'd like to add one (completely subjective) detail: I don't think egotistical types are limited to government. I've seen people rise in corporate power structures as a result of ruthless and aggressive behavior. It's almost a tautology that those who crave power, who are willing to shove others aside, end up near the top of the heap. There probably aren't many auto dealerships, for example, who are run by introverted, accommodating people.
Again, it's just my opinion.
I agree. What I meant to imply is only that we don't want them in government. To reach the top level of business requires at least a little psychopathy.
Actually it kinda does. The ability to constantly abuse the system means there is a massive flaw in said system.
The flaw is how we use it. Freedom and liberty are hard to maintain, and we have allowed government to become something other than "we the people." It has become an entity unto itself, and as such it strives first and foremost to ensure its own survival. We have recast the role of statesman to celebrity, which guarantees ego rules the roost. Regulatory agencies within the executive branch are de facto law making bodies, and in the end we hinge our hopes on Supreme Court decisions, who amended their charter - at least in practice - to include filling in the legislative gaps left by Congress, who are too busy running their reelection campaigns.
If our government is car, we're passengers who are allowing a bunch of drunks to drive it. We are getting what we deserve, so long as we choose to not take the wheel.
Democrats don't have to build a credible third party -- they are united as being "not Republicans."
When looking at a five-year-old article by Nate Silver that looked at political donations by car dealers, fully 88 percent of those donations went to Republican candidates, and just 12 percent to Democrats. That possibly suggests a propensity among Republican state legislators to support the interests for car dealers over those of electric-car buyers. Is the small bit of evidence enough to make a case?
But we have the best democracy you can fine anywhere. It doesn't matter if our legislators are being bribed indirectly, or get embroiled in obvious conflict of interest matters.
Welcome to the USA!
Ohh wait, let's preach to the world about free markets.
The fact that we don't use our government correctly does not make it inherently bad.
And maybe that Nate Silver stat just means that Republicans are more likely to be business owners, and that local politicians are more likely to listen to business owners.
If someone doesn't support Uber then they are acting against the principles of small government and the free market, and therefore not accurately representing Republican values.
More recently http://usgreentechnology.com/wind-power/wind-technology/recycling-and-reusing-electric-car-batteries-its-impact-on-environment-and-production/.
I'm curious about the capacity to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles - or any batteries - compared to the capacity to recycle, and the environmental impacts at both ends. I found this: http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/B/239.pdf.
Maybe the question we should ask is, How did we reach a point where we need a bill to prevent the government from forcing its will on manufacturers?
I was wondering what languages I should learn myself. I have some experience with C++, but that's over 10 years ago, and only as a hobby. I've been thinking about picking it back up, but wasn't sure if there were better options. Since I'm an adult and looking to be able to support my family, money certainly is one of the leading factors as to which language I want to get into.
A more relevant question than money may be what interests you? Automation, mobile apps, database, web, etc.? You may have the potential to make more money as a Python programmer, but will a few thousand on average more per year make the job itself more worthwhile? Would, say, only $95k per year to program C++ -- if the specific job was more to your liking -- be a deal breaker?
Another way to look at it: If you are happier doing the job, might that make you perform better and therefor out-perform the industry average?
Everything will still look the same except they'll all be wired to the internet so every place you go to will be tracked, in the name of safety
Everything will look the same, but be a half a degree warmer.
Hoverboards, goddammit.
It sounds like cops hate anyone who is not a cop.
Hate is probably the wrong word for most cops but it would be fair to say cops don't trust anyone who isn't a cop. Cops tend to (understandably) have an us versus them world view and see everyone's actions as those of a potential suspect. Apply a bit of low grade racism and you have a real problem with police distrusting a minority population and the minority population growing to distrust the police.
If computer repair technicians had even the remotest of chances that when they worked on certain types of machines that said machines would purposefully electrocute them, they would necessarily grow to not trust those machines or machines that looked just like them, and treat them differently than other machines.
Or, if you prefer, it is easy for us to sit back and judge when our job is never actively trying to kill us.
I'm not saying I agree with stop and frisk, nor am I saying that cops are above criticism. But the public seems to hop on the anti-cop bandwagon pretty quickly. Maybe they are victims, too; a product of how we have let society evolve?