You don't need to have a degree in X from a "top-tier school" in order to understand it well enough to competently discuss the issues around it, and Nye is still implying that you do, and that's elitist.
He does no such thing. He says that scientists are good, and then starts listing a few colleges and naturally starts with the ones considered top-tier with the best programs. He stops after a few because otherwise, what, he lists several hundred colleges in this country that give science degrees?
If I were to say "companies that employ top programmers, like Microsoft, Sun, and Oracle, are..." would you seriously say that I consider anyone working at Valve, Apple, or any other company to automatically not be top-tier just because I didn't happen to mention their company in the short list that first came to mind?
WSJ is a not a secience journal, but a financial paper with a pro-big-business focus. Also, it's owned by Rupert "Fox News" Murdoch.
The linked article is written by two of the largest climate-deniers out there, Joseph Bast (effectively owned by the Koch bros., and known as a bastion of anti-science FUD, such as his claiming that there's no proof smoking is bad for you) and by an employee of his, Roy Spencer.
Their rebuttals of the 97% figure as a "myth" are based on using figures from all science fields. The 97% figure is based on asking only those in climatology fields. (This is akin to deciding that a poll asking football players who the best football coach is can't be trusted because they didn't ask hockey players as well. I mean, they're all sports people, so their opinions on other sports should carry the same weight as those actually involved in that sport, right?)
He suggests that one's view on climate change is sufficient to determine one's abilities to understand science [...] if you disagree with me on this narrow topic, you don't understand anything about any part of science.
Exactly where does he say that? He doesn't say that or even intimate it. He's using climate change as an example to demonstrate his point. (A near-unanimous consensus among scientists maintain that climate change is happening and is a serious problem; over 50% of the US population disagrees. This demonstrates that the US population is largely science-illiterate or science-hostile.) It does not follow from this that everyone who disagrees with him on this point is bad at science, but when 50+% of the population disagrees with scientists for non-science reasons (politics, propaganda, FUD) it is a very real indicator that there is a problem with basic understanding of science.
He's not saying "scientists researching this who don't agree with me are bad scientists". He's saying "non-scientists saying the bulk of scientists are liars because they don't want to believe them is a problem".
I would opine that anyone who refers to the field of software development as "software writing" hasn't had much to do with the development industry at any point in their life and wouldn't really know how science literate most developers are.
I have, and I'd agree with what he actually said. In my experience, programmers run the entire gamut from amazingly brilliant to drooling idiot - at about the same rate as most professions. But even there, their knowledge focuses much more upon the areas of science that intersect with computers and technology, and less into the areas of natural science. Likewise programmers are more likely to know about psychology and human nature that deal with aesthetics and information processing and natural interfaces, and less with the psychology of social and societal interaction.
To sum up: He's not saying that developers are science illiterates, but that they're not necessarily any better outside their fields than other non-experts are.
Wow, holy crap is this article being intentionally bad at characterizing what Nye said in the article. The "F" rating was for overall population in the USA (based on the high level of climate denial).
His comment about him writing that you need to be from a top-tier school is wrong, as well - he was taking about how we have top-tier scientists in the US (and gave a few schools as examples) and compared them not to non-ivy schools, but to farmers and CS majors who talk about climate change as if they're experts.
Read the linked article - Nye intimated nothing that the summary does.
You can always have them officially ship it to your home address, but put a "hold for pickup at UPS/FedEx location" instruction on it. Then you just grab it before/after work, or over lunch hour.
No. A bad joke delivered with the right "this joke is completely terrible and you and I both know it"-attitude is effective metahumor.
But the joke is still bad, and the humor in telling it is situational, depends heavily on the audience, and takes a masterful comedian to pull off.
A good joke, on the other hand, is funny in almost any situation, to almost any audience, and even a bad comedian can tell it well enough to get a laugh.
I agree - CenturyLink is pure shit. Thankfully we have a smaller regional cable internet company that still gives at least half a shit about its customers (Midcontinent). I live in terror of the day that Comcast / TW / whoever comes in an buys them out.
That depends. Were they both inflated under the same conditions, too? Maybe the "under-inflated" balls were inflated with warm air indoors, and the "properly inflated" balls had been inflated outside in the cold air. Or were they even just inflated an hour apart in changing weather conditions?
In this case, the sensational crap is making people want to know the real science. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. Use it and get some funding for the physics lab away from the jocks for a change.
I take it you've never heard of a Man in the Middle attack then...
Of course I have. But a man-in-the-middle attack isn't going to do much good without a man-assaulted-on-the-way-to-the-airport attack as well. You've got a key that's transmitted, and a briefcase that's physically moved. The key's kinda useless without the briefcase, after all.
The only situations I can see this having any use in is some sort of security model where you make an object that for some security reason isn't supposed to exist in more than one place. I can see this for the whole "only this key can open the briefcase with the documents/money/etc." situation, for example.
It's not exactly out of character for the short story - the main character works for a time traveling police agency, so a time traveling terrorist would be a viable nemesis. The real question is if it makes sense, and how well it meshes with the rest of the story.
FYI: There are no zombies in this movie. (Or, at least, there were none in the original story, and it doesn't look like they randomly added any to the movie.) It's just straight-up scifi time travel.
All You Zombies was a great short story to read, but I don't know how it will translate to the big screen. They've definitely expanded from the original story to make a movie out of it (the entire terrorist plot was added), and I'm hoping it's going to work. I've always had a soft spot for a well-made time travel movie, and there really hasn't been a good one in years.
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You don't need to have a degree in X from a "top-tier school" in order to understand it well enough to competently discuss the issues around it, and Nye is still implying that you do, and that's elitist.
He does no such thing. He says that scientists are good, and then starts listing a few colleges and naturally starts with the ones considered top-tier with the best programs. He stops after a few because otherwise, what, he lists several hundred colleges in this country that give science degrees?
If I were to say "companies that employ top programmers, like Microsoft, Sun, and Oracle, are ..." would you seriously say that I consider anyone working at Valve, Apple, or any other company to automatically not be top-tier just because I didn't happen to mention their company in the short list that first came to mind?
That's funny - I removed your Google Search's wsj.com requirement and the next several results were all rebuttals from much more trustworthy sources.
Let's summarize:
He suggests that one's view on climate change is sufficient to determine one's abilities to understand science [...] if you disagree with me on this narrow topic, you don't understand anything about any part of science.
Exactly where does he say that? He doesn't say that or even intimate it. He's using climate change as an example to demonstrate his point. (A near-unanimous consensus among scientists maintain that climate change is happening and is a serious problem; over 50% of the US population disagrees. This demonstrates that the US population is largely science-illiterate or science-hostile.) It does not follow from this that everyone who disagrees with him on this point is bad at science, but when 50+% of the population disagrees with scientists for non-science reasons (politics, propaganda, FUD) it is a very real indicator that there is a problem with basic understanding of science.
He's not saying "scientists researching this who don't agree with me are bad scientists". He's saying "non-scientists saying the bulk of scientists are liars because they don't want to believe them is a problem".
I would opine that anyone who refers to the field of software development as "software writing" hasn't had much to do with the development industry at any point in their life and wouldn't really know how science literate most developers are.
I have, and I'd agree with what he actually said. In my experience, programmers run the entire gamut from amazingly brilliant to drooling idiot - at about the same rate as most professions. But even there, their knowledge focuses much more upon the areas of science that intersect with computers and technology, and less into the areas of natural science. Likewise programmers are more likely to know about psychology and human nature that deal with aesthetics and information processing and natural interfaces, and less with the psychology of social and societal interaction.
To sum up: He's not saying that developers are science illiterates, but that they're not necessarily any better outside their fields than other non-experts are.
Wow, holy crap is this article being intentionally bad at characterizing what Nye said in the article. The "F" rating was for overall population in the USA (based on the high level of climate denial).
His comment about him writing that you need to be from a top-tier school is wrong, as well - he was taking about how we have top-tier scientists in the US (and gave a few schools as examples) and compared them not to non-ivy schools, but to farmers and CS majors who talk about climate change as if they're experts.
Read the linked article - Nye intimated nothing that the summary does.
You can always have them officially ship it to your home address, but put a "hold for pickup at UPS/FedEx location" instruction on it. Then you just grab it before/after work, or over lunch hour.
Arabs dream of 72 virgins, western virgins dream of star wars drones.
You don't really want to bang a virgin.
I think Dana Gould said it best.
I think that says more about crappy college poetry than the state of computer AI...
No. A bad joke delivered with the right "this joke is completely terrible and you and I both know it"-attitude is effective metahumor.
But the joke is still bad, and the humor in telling it is situational, depends heavily on the audience, and takes a masterful comedian to pull off.
A good joke, on the other hand, is funny in almost any situation, to almost any audience, and even a bad comedian can tell it well enough to get a laugh.
Tell that to any successful comedian.
In comedy, delivery is everything
I'd say the joke is important, too. A bad joke is a bad joke, regardless of delivery. Both are equally important.
A cartel implies collusion - got any evidence of that going on?
Yup. They even named it themselves: The RIAA.
I agree - CenturyLink is pure shit. Thankfully we have a smaller regional cable internet company that still gives at least half a shit about its customers (Midcontinent). I live in terror of the day that Comcast / TW / whoever comes in an buys them out.
You've got it all wrong. Tree branches are gnarly, not fish.
Sign the gategate petition to get the FBI to look into it.
I may have been a nerd, but I was the one stuffing kids into the lockers!
Yes, precisely! You need experimental data to find the proper stacking method for maximizing kids of varying masses within a locker superstructure.
That depends. Were they both inflated under the same conditions, too? Maybe the "under-inflated" balls were inflated with warm air indoors, and the "properly inflated" balls had been inflated outside in the cold air. Or were they even just inflated an hour apart in changing weather conditions?
Hey, /. commentators don't necessarily know how to spell things right. We aren't all rocket surgeons!
In this case, the sensational crap is making people want to know the real science. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. Use it and get some funding for the physics lab away from the jocks for a change.
Then you have a useless key and the briefcase, but the MITM has only a useless key.
I take it you've never heard of a Man in the Middle attack then...
Of course I have. But a man-in-the-middle attack isn't going to do much good without a man-assaulted-on-the-way-to-the-airport attack as well. You've got a key that's transmitted, and a briefcase that's physically moved. The key's kinda useless without the briefcase, after all.
The only situations I can see this having any use in is some sort of security model where you make an object that for some security reason isn't supposed to exist in more than one place. I can see this for the whole "only this key can open the briefcase with the documents/money/etc." situation, for example.
"greatest" ... "grace" ... I do not think these words mean what he thinks they mean.
It's not exactly out of character for the short story - the main character works for a time traveling police agency, so a time traveling terrorist would be a viable nemesis. The real question is if it makes sense, and how well it meshes with the rest of the story.
FYI: There are no zombies in this movie. (Or, at least, there were none in the original story, and it doesn't look like they randomly added any to the movie.)
It's just straight-up scifi time travel.
All You Zombies was a great short story to read, but I don't know how it will translate to the big screen. They've definitely expanded from the original story to make a movie out of it (the entire terrorist plot was added), and I'm hoping it's going to work. I've always had a soft spot for a well-made time travel movie, and there really hasn't been a good one in years.