Here's the deal on 'scientific consensus' -- it's not always right, but it is the best guess at the time, supported by the majority of the evidence by smart people who know the subject.
You're right, and I agree that it's generally a safe bet to go with the "scientific consensus."
The issue is that a lot of people (including around here) seem to subscribe to what I'd say is a relatively naive form of logical positivism, otherwise known as that sitcom hit "Everybody Loves Popper." I love Popper too, but Popper's mechanisms to explain scientific progress are a little muddy. According to the naive idea of falsifiability, all scientific theories have to "falsifiable" and theoretically all open to be disproved by superior evidence at any time. The problem with this idea of science is that it doesn't specify how one actually progresses -- how do we choose our research from an infinite number of possible falsifiable statements?
The reality of scientific progress is that real science doesn't always work that way, and in fact no real philosophers of science today tend to think it does. Just to rehash the bits that happened 50 years ago, you have Kuhn's ideas of "scientific revolutions" caused by shifts in research "paradigms," and responses by intelligent philosophers of science, such as Imre Lakatos's cool idea of "research programs.
The point is, the real trajectory of scientific progress is "bumpy," and it needs to be. If everyone were ready to throw out every fundamental theory of science immediately when the slightest bit of new evidence comes along, we'd never be focused enough to do research on specific questions and make further progress. That's where most of science happens -- in fleshing out details of larger theories that are assumed to be true.
Anything else is more likely, not certainly, but more likely, to be wrong.
Yes -- and the times when the "scientific consensus" is actually less likely to be right can uncover some interesting elements about how science works, and can lead to some reasonable critiques. There were long stretches of time historically when the "scientific consensus" was actually "more likely to be wrong" on specific questions by a modern evaluation of the evidence, even assuming the knowledge of the day. But many of these times of disagreement pushed researchers on the other side to pursue evidence of the new theories even more strongly -- thus, arguably, leading to a stronger new scientific consensus on more firm ground once the "paradigm shift" occurred.
People tend to get very nervous when confronted with a "scientific consensus" that was proven wrong, particularly ones that hung around for decades (or, in a few cases, for centuries) even in the face of contrary evidence. But this is a necessary part of the messiness that forms the process of discovery.
It's kind of like having a debate without defining the fundamental terms under discussion. Until those are defined, meaningful debate can't happen. But in the process of debate, we sometimes might come to the conclusion that our initial definitions were inaccurate, or even that perhaps the disagreement can only be resolved by choosing new or different terms. That doesn't mean that the process of debate is necessarily flawed -- if we never started out with our initial terms, we'd never have been able to start making the kinds of distinctions that allowed progress to happen.
However, political scientists generally agree that for democracy to have meaning there is a cluster of other rights that are needed to make sure that people can actually elect someone based on their preferences or interests, and these rights include freedom of speech, of organization/congregation, rule of law, some form of minority protection, etc.
While of course you're right, I think that's stacking the deck in favor of desirable features of democracies, rather than actual features of historical democracies. Philosophers for thousands of years have pointed out the potential for democracies to degrade into tyranny or other totalitarian states by voluntary vote of the population, and it's happened historically quite a few times (though generally by stages).
It's not the freedom to vote and choose that protects rights -- it's the status of rights AS rights, i.e., things that are inviolate and CANNOT BE VOTED ON.
I've heard it said that what really determines the strength of a democracy and its role in keeping people free is not simply whether people can vote, but what things are NOT up for a vote. (And this includes both making sure people are actually free to cast votes for their choices, as well as restricting those votes so that they cannot violate things like fundamental rights.)
Of course, these rights are generally not seen as absolute, and no democratic society that I know allows you to falsely accuse someone in public of being a child molester
Umm, I'm pretty sure you can get away with that in the U.S., as long as the target of the accusation is a "public figure." The important precedent is here, and a case I can think of that's more directly on point is in the movie The Aristocrats, where Sarah Silverman accused Joe Franklin of raping her, implying (if I remember correctly) as a minor. Franklin threatened to sue, I think, but stopped -- probably because he knew the likelihood of winning was small, given existing precedent and the likely appearance of parody in a comedy film.
Basically, the statements against a public figure require "actual malice" to win a libel suit; for a private person as a target of the accusation, it requires at least gross negligence. And that's libel -- I think the standard is even higher if you were to try to claim defamation just on the ground of a verbal accusation.
Your concern might be less of a troll if you knew that the standard metric measure for fuel economy isn't km/l, but rather l / 100km.
While km/L is less common, it certainly does appear as an alternative measure in many countries, particularly to allow people to compare it to mpg metrics (as the GP was suggesting here, since the title of this story is about "MPG"). You are correct that in many countries, L/100km is standard.
Before we get the standard debate about this crap that comes up every time this topic comes around, let me just point out that the reciprocal relationship between these two measurements doesn't mean one is "more correct" than the other. Rather, both will give intuitive results for different questions or given different constraints.
For example, if you're buying a car primarily for commuting, gas consumption per distance (e.g., L/100km) will give you an intuitive sense of your fuel cost, since your daily distance is relatively fixed. If your L/100km doubles, your fuel cost for fixed commutes will double.
On the other hand, if you're buying a car primarily for occasional longer trips and not using it for regular commuting, distance per gas unit (e.g., mpg or km/L) will give you a more intuitive sense of how far you'll be able to travel with the same gas budget. People buying a car only for occasional trips probably are more likely to care about how far they can go with a given amount of fuel rather than how the fuel cost will vary for a fixed distance. If your MPG doubles, you can go twice as far with the same amount of fuel.
Different metrics are useful for different things. These two have a very clear relationship, but when non-math-literate people are comparing the raw numbers, one can be better than another in making decisions depending on the situation.
Twitter made a public stance in 2011 to remain a platform for free speech [snip] Or is the importance to democracy of platforms such as Twitter overblown?
There are two different things being discussed here, and it's important to keep them separate.
Free speech is a right, i.e., something that governments should not be able to restrict arbitrarily -- whether those governments are democratic, communist, monarchies, whatever.
Democracy is a form of government, and history has shown us that democracy is very capable of taking away rights, just like any other form of government. There is a reason that many philosophers from the ancient Greeks up to the Founders of the U.S. and beyond were afraid of "mob rule." When governmental policy is just determined by majority vote, there are plenty of times when the majority will vote away "fundamental rights" for various reasons (for example, to try to prevent some fear or threat to security).
Free speech is generally a necessary component to promote change in government -- whether that government is democratic or aristocratic or whatever. Thus, the fight for free speech should be about rights, regardless of the form of government. There are all sorts of "democratic" countries in the world who lack a lot of fundamental freedoms, including free speech. And, as recent history has shown us, simply "rebranding" a country as a "democracy" does NOT automatically make it "more free."
I work for a local government and am heavily involved in the property tax process. I'm sure like all things it varies by state, but here (South Carolina) I'd say that the urban subsidizes the rural even on property taxes.
Your post is interesting. But without further statistics, I'm not sure how your statements are evidence the property tax money is flowing one way or the other.
For one, there's the plain and simple situation that large tracts of rural land are worth much less per acre than land in the cities. A 0.25 acre lot in town might be $30k whilst land out in the woods is less than $10k per acre.
As far as I'm aware, almost all property tax schemes have to do with the supposed "value" of the property, not the size. If you have a 10-acre wooded lot, you'll pay less taxes than the same lot with a giant mansion built on it with a swimming pool, private tennis court, etc. Similarly, if you buy a plot in a city, it may have a significantly higher market value than a rural area.
But why is this relevant? Taxation is always dependent on the value of the thing taxed. If more wealth is concentrated in urban areas, leading to more concentration of property value, chances are that those people require more services per acre than rural areas do (at least for most services -- if you can fit 40 homes in the same space as one normal plot in a rural area, that's a lot more people requiring fire departments and police and hospitals and whatever).
Secondly, large tracts of agricultural land used for crops or timber are given an EXTREME tax break. Most of them pay taxes on less than 5% of the actual value of the land.
This one is probably the closest to being a valid argument. People have been known to take advantage of these tax breaks in ridiculous ways. On the other hand, presumably the idea of these tax breaks is to produce a net gain for society overall. If fewer people in neighboring rural areas produce crops or timber, does it raise prices significantly for everyone who wants to buy food and wood? Again, given the population density of urban areas, higher prices will disproportionately cost more for cities -- so subsidizing certain kinds of activities in rural areas may be a strategy to produce a net benefit that could be a lot greater than the tax break.
(Not saying it's true in your particular situation -- just that there's presumably an original rationale for such ideas, though often such subsidies get out of control and lead to inefficiencies.)
And last, serious tax breaks are given to "owner occupied" residential properties. Owner occupied properties are far more common in rural areas. Its not uncommon in the urban/suburban areas, but there are far more rental properties and such that end up paying nearly twice as much in property taxes.
Again, taxation is based on value. A residental property where the owner lives doesn't generate income (usually) for the owner, but a rental property does. The net amount of rental property taxes may be greater in urban areas, but that's because people are willing to pay the owners more money to rent those properties... whereas there's less demand for rental properties at all in rural areas.
As far as I'm concerned, this isn't as much an urban vs. rural issue as different types of property taxes. There's the tax you pay on property just to own it, based roughly on its market value (so if you can sell it for more, you pay more taxes). But then there's the additional tax you pay for the privilege of making money off of the property by renting it, just like you might pay a significant business license fee to operate a business on a property or whatever.
If this is the main thing that actually ends up subsidizing rural areas, I think the story should be that landloads end up subsidizing rural areas -- not urban areas in general.
I find the super-animated artsy PowerPoints to be more annoying than the boring, static, bullet-list crap my boss slaps together. Our customers want to be wowed by numbers, statistics, and a few pictures. They couldn't care less about how artsy the PowerPoint is.
There is this odd audience demographic that seems to be impressed by fancy slide animations. Frankly, when I've talked with such people, it usually comes from people who are presenters themselves, and are a little jealous -- they want the cool eye candy too.
But people who are just trying to get content? Well, slide animations or cool slide transitions aren't going to help convey content or ideas in most cases. I have inevitably found them to be the tools of choice for people who give poor presentations, communicate poorly, and use Powerpoint (or whatever) as a way of keeping the audience at least minimally engaged by stupid visual tricks.
In my own presentations, I don't put up a picture unless I'm actually going to talk about the picture, or unless it's needed as a reference to identify a thing or person or whatever I'm talking about. I don't play music or a video unless I'm actually talking about the content of the music or the video -- not just for random eye candy. And I've been known to frequently throw up a blank black slide when I don't need the visuals at the moment: suddenly, the audience turns and starts to LISTEN to what I'm saying. (I know -- crazy.)
Of course, to get away with this style, you need to have an engaging presentation demeanor and keep people's attention just by talking. Not everyone can do this well -- it takes practice. (And I still am discovering new things about it all the time from good speakers.)
But the benefit is that you can actually communicate MORE ideas in a more concise way than if you have a hundred slides of meaningless photos and whatever just to punctuate when you say "happy" with a photo of kids playing or something. That's just sloppy, stupid, and the hallmark of a presenter who doesn't trust the content of the talk to be enough to engage the audience.
PowerPoint presentations are a way to communicate ideas; a super-duper-polished PowerPoint, in most cases, represents a poor use of one's time as it's an inefficient way to communicate ideas.
I think of Powerpoint sort of like movie music. Generally, you're not supposed to actually notice it -- it's in the background, subtly changing your mood and helping to enhance your understanding of the movie. Once in a while, it comes to the foreground to make a point: the hero has finally achieved the goal, and there comes the trumpet fanfare to highlight that.
In a similar way, you can make your Powerpoint a bit "slick" and "polished" as long as it isn't distracting from the actual content. It shouldn't be noticed except when you actually NEED a visual to make a point (like a graph or chart or something). The moment people start paying more attention to your cool visuals, fancy animations, and slide transitions than they are to your content -- it's like some random orchestra blaring loudly during a quiet dramatic movie scene... and that's not going to help you appreciate the story or understand the content.
Autosave that saves at regular time periods or whatever totally ruins that. I don't want earlier versions automatically overwritten, especially with work-in-progress changes
No decently implemented autosave would overwrite your manually saved version without asking. That's an implementation flaw (admittedly seeming to become more common these days). But most applications that have that flaw these days don't even give you a choice -- it simply saves periodically, and you live with it. You often can't turn it off.
nor do I want multiple versions saved so I then have the hassle of figuring out *which* version to go back to
I think you're confusing "autosave" with "incremental backup." Unless you have something specially configured, autosave generally implies saving ONE version of a document periodically (perhaps, as I mentioned above, one TEMP version, as opposed to the more permanent manually saved version).
In either case, the only time you should ever have to choose is when your application or computer crashes. And if your application/computer is crashing often enough that this is a significant concern -- I think you need a new application/computer.
and possibly on-top all the manual housekeeping of regularly having to manually clear out multiple old versions.
Again, this sounds like bad implementation to me, and again this should be an incredibly rare occurrence unless you have continuous crashes. When it does occur, a decent application these days should warn you when you open a file that there are multiple saved versions -- and usually there are only two. Generally, your choice is between what you last saved manually and the last autosave. You make a quick choice, and the application should delete the other version automatically.
I can't really imagine why any other implementation would be desirable, except in very unusual situations. Why would ANYONE want their system that was doing autosave every 10 minutes to have 30 different copies of the same file at various stages after 5 hours of editing... and would then require you to clean them out manually? (Yes, I'm sure someone can come up with an unusual situation where this is warranted, but it's certainly not common or like most autosave implementations.)
Yeah, no problem. I was agreeing with the main idea of your post completely -- and also just pointing out the funny role music often plays in these complaints over the generations.
Same thing here, they're probably not idiots, but they might be looking for idiots.
Absolutely possible. But (1) the guys mentioned leading up this project have some real science credentials, and (2) they mention that they plan to do studies that involve applying for drug testing, which one can hardly do without things like control groups. (Not saying that drug studies are perfect -- many of them have serious flaws. But an absence of a control group is generally not acceptable.)
So... until I hear otherwise, I'm going to assume these guys are trying something on the basis of a sound scientific hypothesis. Will it be proven? Is the current experiment well-designed? I don't know -- all I've read is a blog post about an ongoing experiment.
But, on the basis of TFA, I'm NOT going to immediately assume that these guys can't figure out the basics of experimental design, especially since they explicitly mention in TFA that they are being hesitant about claims until they collect more data.
This was the earliest, but by far not the only example of "kids today and their rock-and-roll music", as you put it.
Yeah, probably not the "earliest." Certainly there are sentiments like this Plato and Socrates. But we can go even earlier -- and even more specifically complain about the new pop music. For example, Heraclitus, a pre-Socratic from 500 years or so before your quotation:
For what sense or understanding have they? They follow minstrels and take the multitude for a teacher, not knowing that many are bad and few good. For the best men choose one thing above all--immortal glory among mortals; but the masses stuff themselves like cattle.
It's not precisely clear who "they" is here, but the reference to a "teacher" probably implies that we're talking about youth or a younger generation... who follow around the "bad" musicians ("aoidoi" or "minstrels") who were becoming more prominent in society in Heraclitus's day. And it led them to be more stupid.
Popular culture critics are much older than we think -- as is the supposed influence of bad music.
Was the reduction of body stench independently verified? Maybe she just got used to it.
Absolutely possible. This is just her anecdotal report. She has other anecdotal reports in TFA, though:
Jamas, a quiet, serial entrepreneur with a doctorate in biotechnology, incorporated N. eutropha into his hygiene routine years ago; today he uses soap just twice a week. The chairman of the company's board of directors, Jamie Heywood, lathers up once or twice a month and shampoos just three times a year. The most extreme case is David Whitlock, the M.I.T.-trained chemical engineer who invented AO+. He has not showered for the past 12 years. He occasionally takes a sponge bath to wash away grime but trusts his skin's bacterial colony to do the rest. I met these men. I got close enough to shake their hands, engage in casual conversation and note that they in no way conveyed a sense of being "unclean" in either the visual or olfactory sense.
And, honestly, it makes some sense on an intuitive level. Perspiration doesn't really have an odor on its own -- the odor comes with the bacteria and such that start growing in the minutes and hours after perspiration.
If we get rid of all of them every day, we're going to select for certain strains of fast-growing bacteria.
If we instead let things "ferment" over weeks or months, we'll probably select for other types of bacteria, which tend to be adapted to our bodies, rather than whatever random fast-growing stuff happens to land there after a daily shower. Undoubtedly, the odors produced with a hygiene regimen change will be DIFFERENT.
And, since soap and daily showers are a relatively recent invention, one would think that humans would be less likely to find the build-up of long-term bacterial colony odors offensive, since from an evolutionary perspective, natural body odor shouldn't drive potential mates away. And it's therefore more likely that we'd be adapted to not care about such odors (of even sometimes be attracted to them -- historically, we have lots of accounts of people who describe natural body odor as a significant aphrodisiac).
I'm not saying all of this is true. But it at least makes sense that a DIFFERENCE in body odor seems likely when bacterial colonies are allowed to establish themselves over time and be selected for in daily body excretions.
Kind of like trying to create a sourdough starter: if you just mix together flour and water and let it sit for a few days, you have a high likelihood of mold or undesirable things forming over time. If you just empty the container, scrub it out, and try again, you're likely to have similar results. But if you let it sit over a period of weeks and gradually feed it, eventually you'll select for specific bacteria and yeasts. And after a while, you end up with robust bacterial colonies that won't likely mold or grow nasty stuff -- because the microorganisms create an environment conductive to their own growth, rather than the undesirable stuff.
Where are the control groups? Shouldn't there also be at least a few of these:
Perhaps I missed this, but it doesn't seem that TFA is reporting official results of a study -- it's just the anecdotal description of somebody who participated in a study that's been going on. All she says is: "I was Subject 26 in testing a living bacterial skin tonic." I don't think there's anything in TFA that mentions what control groups there may have been, nor does it imply that there were not any.
This is just one subject's experience that she decided to blog about... so should we really be questioning the validity of the study or its design when she doesn't even discuss methodology (and perhaps doesn't even know the details, since she was... you know... a PARTICIPANT in the study)?
About the only thing in TFA that suggests anything about research design is this:
A regime of concentrated AO+ caused a hundredfold decrease of Propionibacterium acnes, often blamed for acne breakouts. And the company says that diabetic mice with skin wounds heal more quickly after two weeks of treatment with a formulation of AOB.
Soon, AOBiome will file an Investigational New Drug Application with the F.D.A. to request permission to test more concentrated forms of AOB for the treatment of diabetic ulcers and other dermatologic conditions. "Itâ(TM)s very, very easy to make a quack therapy; to put together a bunch of biological links to convince someone that somethingâ(TM)s true," Heywood said. "What would hurt us is trying to sell anything ahead of the data."
"A hundredfold decrease," "wounds heal more quickly" -- these imply that there are comparison groups. And if they are applying to do testing with the FDA, they're going to have to do control groups.
Seriously -- what is it with Slashdot and the "But didn't they think of doing a real science experiment, with, you know, data and stuff" comments? This is a link to a blog post by subject in a study. You want details? Wait until an actual study comes out.
But if this company is planning on getting its stuff approved as a medical treatment or marketing it on its particular benefits, it would actually be incredibly counterproductive to design poor experiments, since they wouldn't allow them to refine or further develop their products.
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but I've feeling frisky...
No -- that's certainly not why people buy newspapers, except for those people who just want the coupon section (which is generally segregated from the rest of the paper). Who the heck buys a newspaper just for the ads?
People buy the sunday paper because of the ads. The big coupon supplement is the whole reason to buy it.
Wow, is there an echo in this room?
Not just some, MOST magazines that have a growth business model exist because people buy them for the ads.
I acknowledged about five different types of magazines that people buy for ads.
But here's the difference between magazines and most web advertising: when I buy a magazine for the ads, I'm buying a magazine for the ads. I know what I'm getting, and I'm making a conscious decision to have contact with something that will give me a lot of ads.
There's nothing wrong with that. I made the choice to buy the magazine.
On the internet, things are different. Ads come flying at you, popping up at you, etc., regardless of whether you're at some sort of consumer site where you might want ads, or whether you're actually trying to get something else done.
I acknowledge that I'm not like most people in what I do online, but even all the "non-geeks" and "non-nerds" out there periodically are trying to get some other task done on the internet, like writing or reading a message, or learning about something, or reading news. Say you wanted to write an old-fashioned letter. Would you seriously buy a pack of paper that would shove things in your face as you were trying to write? Or would you buy a set of encyclopedias that required you to click three times to get rid of images that popped up before you could read the next paragraph?
I know what your response is: "But the internet is free! You would pay for those things." Yeah, well -- people are willing to TOLERATE inconveniences for free things. It doesn't mean they want them disrupting whatever else they are trying to do. If you want to buy the newspaper for the coupons or the classified section, sure -- lots of people do that. But if you actually want to read the news, the advertisements get in the way... and lots of people actually want to do that SOMETIMES too, but they tolerate the ads interspersed with the news. And apparently they're willing to tolerate all sorts of crap popping up at them when they're trying to do other things online, as long as they get stuff "free."
You're not in the target market for the ads you see, then.
I wasn't talking about myself. I was talking in the sentence you quoted about other people. I've heard many, many, many people -- "non-geeks" -- complain about excessive ads online. I have NEVER heard anyone say they want more -- certainly not on random sites they are visiting and trying to get some other important task done.
You really should study how people in the real world respond to advertising... they fucking love it. A fashion shopper goes apeshit when they see their favorite Miu Miu shoes go on sale at Net-a-porter. They get so excited that they email their friends about telling them to buy it.
Yep -- which is the reason fashion magazines exist, which I explicitly mentioned. Great. We agree.
It is only the narcissist libertarian geek that tries to avoid ads. "I'm so important, look at me, I hate advertising because i am more important than advertisers. I am so important that I don't want ads on the website I don't pay to visit! Look at me! WEEE!"
I'd HAPPILY pay for websites without ads, if they delivered quality content. I already do so in some cases. Why does this make me narcissistic? Because I want to pay for quality content rather than have idiotic nonsense shouting at me that I don't want to see? That's "narcissi
You must be a youngun'. Back in the pre-web days there were magazines that were pretty much 100% ads.
Seriously?!? This gets modded "insightful" when you just regurgitated what I said in my post?!
Let me refresh your memory, since you obviously have trouble with reading comprehension. Here's what I said:
As for magazines, there are some which clearly seem to be able [sic, "about"] the ads -- particularly style magazines and such. Mostly it's something to allow people to drool over clothes and other luxury fashion items they can't afford (or could barely afford). But yeah -- SOME magazines seem to be bought for the ads. [snip] In some cases, like trade magazines or foodie magazines, the ads can be targeted better, so I can see how some people want that.
I'm not a "youngun'." I remember these things well, and they still exist in various areas, as I point out (though the ones that have survived seem more targeted to "style" conscious groups these days and such).
I have bought many, many newspapers/magazines "just for the ads".
No -- you just said you bought many MAGAZINES for the ads. You said this after quoting the sentence where I asked who buys a NEWSPAPER for the ads. I realize the boundary between these concepts is not exact, but I'd say the percentage of people who buy NEWSpapers for ads is much smaller than the number of people who buy MAGAZINES for ads...
And I explicitly said that in my previous post.
Before going around insulting people, please take a minimum amount of time to read what they've actually said. If you can't be bothered, don't insult people -- you can still state your opinion, but arguing that an OP is ignorant of something when it was explicitly addressed in the post is just nonsense.
To think of all the hours wasted on arguments about what a "soul" is when it's really just a word that can be associated with various underlying concepts...
Why are semantic arguments necessarily "wasted" time? If different people have different perspectives, discussing them can often lead to new insights for both of them -- if they are open to thinking outside their own worldview. At a minimum, a collision between these different perspectives can lead to a realization that a word could mean A or B, i.e., it doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. It can also lead to a refinement of ideas -- perhaps the recognition that A and B both share elements of C in their meaning (hence using the same word), but differ in elements D and E. That can lead to future dialogue or prevent future misunderstandings.
Perhaps you don't care about what a "soul" is, in which case such arguments seem stupid. But words are fundamentally about communication, and they only function if we have some sort of pragmatic social agreement about what we mean, or what we could mean, or what multiple meanings could be enumerated to let us expand upon the nuances.
For example, relevant to the present article -- what is "intelligence"? Biologists may have one view, computer scientists another, philosophers even more variety. But if we never discuss those nuances and just use the word "intelligence" without qualification, it's less useful for communicating anything, particularly among a variety of people.
"Like a brain" might mean shaped like a brain to one person, able to fit inside the same space.. while to another it might only be "like a brain" if it can process input and output the same way, regardless of its shape or size.. while a third might only consider "like a brain" to mean the way that a liver is like a brain, composed of organic cells that collaborate to carry out a function.
Yeah, in AI "like a brain" usually means that "we assume it shares some functionality with the brain" or something like that. And it's usually wrong... very wrong.
The problem with using analogies like this is that it leads to all sorts of inaccurate assumptions. Why not just use more accurate terminology? "My neural nets are learning" is a crappy, meaningless statement that doesn't define "neuron" or "learning" at all for people outside AI. It's useless for communication. But "I'm using adaptive clusters of specialized algorithms" doesn't sound as sexy when it comes to getting research funding. "I'm using a deep learning model." No you're not! There's very little in common with biological "learning" in any sense -- you're using a multilayered set of adaptive algorithms. Superficially, there may be some vague correspondences between human "learning" and AI, but often the number of differences far exceeds the similarities.
It's kind of like someone who never encountered a car before. He asks what it does. "It runs." What do you mean it runs? Does it have two legs? No, it has four wheels. Okay, does it get out of breath when it goes faster? No, it doesn't really breathe like a human does, and it actually functions more efficiently as it runs faster. Okay, does it swing its body back and forth in alternate motions like other quadrupeds that run? No.
Well, what do you mean it "runs"? Just that it gets from point A to B at a relatively fast velocity? In other words, it "runs" in the same sense that a raindrop "runs" down a window?
Imagine that conversation. Why not just be more specific then -- the car is a self-propelled machine that can travel quickly from A to B. Yeah, in some sense it "runs," but it has as much in common with a raindrop "running" as a human.
With brains, it's even worse, because things like "intelligence" and "learning" and "neural" have all sorts of associations -- why not just be more accurate in what these things are doing and how they are structured?
I never said that the same tactics would be necessary against terrorists as were used in WWII. My post was solely in response to the GP's claims that the Axis powers WWII were always behaving rationally in their military efforts and were happy to surrender as soon as they made some sort of "reasonable" strategic decision.
The bigger issue that no one wants to admit is that we are dealing lunatics and engaging them, is a mistake. During World War II, both Germany and Japan eventually admitted defeat and gave up. But that's because you were dealing with people who were somewhat rational.
Yep. 'Cause gathering up millions of people and mass murdering them is "somewhat rational" behavior. (Germany -- see "Concentration Camps") Or ordering thousands of soldiers to go on suicide missions, sometimes without any hint of success, and without any good evidence that it actually was a more successful strategy... very rational. (Japan -- see "Kamikaze") Or... well, isn't that enough for a start?
The people we are dealing with today are literally insane.
Yeah, I know. They are willing to blow themselves up in suicide attacks, and they don't even care about whether they take women or children with them. Oh wait... that sounds just like some of the things Germany and Japan did.
No amount of military action will ever convince them to quit.
No amount of military action convinced Hitler to quit -- when surrounded, he simply committed suicide, along with convincing a lot of others to do the same. As for Japan, well, the militarists who were basically running the show through much of the war would have never given in -- in fact, they staged a coup against the Emperor's wishes to surrender, taking over the Imperial Palace. Luckily, the surrender broadcast recording had been hidden, and once that was played on the radio, it was over.
There was a "whole lotta crazy" going on during WWII as well -- and it was only through superior military forces and intervention at the highest level of leaders (the general staff in Germany after the suicide of Hitler, the emperor himself in Japan, who had previously been less assertive in reining in the militarists) that they were "convinced to quit."
Right now, most geeks think of advertising as bad things, because they hate the ads served to them as geeks are a horrible audience demographic. They don't know, that in the real world, people actually WANT advertising. That's why people buy things like newspapers and magazines, BECAUSE of the ads.
No -- that's certainly not why people buy newspapers, except for those people who just want the coupon section (which is generally segregated from the rest of the paper). Who the heck buys a newspaper just for the ads?
As for magazines, there are some which clearly seem to be able the ads -- particularly style magazines and such. Mostly it's something to allow people to drool over clothes and other luxury fashion items they can't afford (or could barely afford). But yeah -- SOME magazines seem to be bought for the ads.
Many others, however, like ones focused on news or politics or science or literature or whatever, are definitely not about the ads. At best, they're a minor annoyance that readers put up with -- very few people buy a copy of Scientific American or The New Yorker for the ads. In some cases, like trade magazines or foodie magazines, the ads can be targeted better, so I can see how some people want that.
In any case, the point is that "in the real world" people do NOT want advertising incessantly. How many people prefer to watch TV with advertisements thrown in (other than as a break to go to the bathroom or get a sandwich)? If everybody did, there would be little reason for technology that allows you to record and fast forward through the commercials.
People are often happy to receive ads on their terms and when they want to receive them. They know what they're getting if they buy a newspaper for the coupon section or if they buy a magazine 90% full of photos of expensive designer clothing ads.
But "real everyday people" are just as annoyed by pop-up ads or random ad interjections getting in their way of accomplishing tasks as anyone else is. And, let's face it, that's what MOST of the advertising on the web is. If I want to buy something on the web, I go to a freakin' merchant site and browse for things. It's not like I have to go out and buy a magazine to show me ads for designer clothes, when I can just go to the websites of the companies that sell this stuff and see the stuff directly!
In sum -- yeah, sometimes people buy things that have ads when they want to see ads. But on the internet, people often just want to get tasks done too -- whether it's sending email via webmail or interacting on Facebook or whatever. I have NEVER EVER in my life heard a person say, "Gee -- I really love how Facebook keeps adding more ads to my newsfeed" or "I really wish that my webmail would have more pop-ups to get in my way when I'm trying to read a message."
Look, unless its an actual group of independent musicians, can we just assume WIN is a group of agents, managers, and lawyers suckling for cash?
So does that mean you haven't even bothered to determine who members of this organization are before posting? You're just arbitrarily ranting, in case something *might* be true?
As it stands, WIN is basically an organization of organizations. It basically advocates for "independent" labels and such. You could read about their supposed priorities in their manifesto.
1. We, the independents, will work to grow the value of music and the music business. We want equal market access and parity of terms with Universal, Warner and Sony, and will work with them in areas where we have a common goal. We will work to ensure that all companies in our sector are best equipped to maximize the value of their rights.
2. We support creators' freedom to decide how their music may be used commercially, and we will encourage individual artists and labels to speak out directly against unauthorized uses of music as well as commercial uses of music that stifle that freedom. We support creators' right to earn a living from their work, which should be respected as a basic human right. We expect any use of music by commercial third party operators to be subject to fairly negotiated licensing terms, in a market where any use of music is an end in itself, not so-called promotion driving a subsequent sale.
3. We support independent music labels that treat their artists as partners and who work with them on reasonable commercial terms, noting that labels are investors who deserve a fair return alongside their artists.
4. We promote transparency in the digital music market; artists and companies are entitled to clarity on commercial terms.
........
Etc.
Is this empty rhetoric? I don't claim to know for sure. But these are the top points (out of their 10 "manifesto" statements), much of which seems to be about giving voice and power to creators, as well as maintaining transparency in the way creators deal with other people.
Its not as though the musicians couldnt form their own group, start up a listserv, and send a strongly worded email to google insisting they be paid fairly in order to stream content.
Many musicians don't want to worry about the technical details required to do recording, distribution, etc. Many don't even have that expertise. So they get independent labels to help them with those aspects. This is an organization formed from those groups. Maybe it's evil... but maybe it's also just a practical distribution of labor thing, which can allow artists to do what they're actually best at.
Either you negotiate with your agent, manager whatever, or you negotiate with google directly.
If you don't then you can go sit on the street playing for coins.
So, if I want to make music for a living, I could spend time on the phone, writing emails, etc. hashing out contracts for every random dude who wants to use my music. (Some speaker wants to use my song as an intro for his presentations... great... gotta negotiate. Some people want to play my song at a public ceremony or wedding or bar mitzvah... time to negotiate... etc.)
OR -- I could just join some sort of association that sets standard fees for use of the music, and/or have a manager who keeps track of these things. I negotiate once or twice, rather than every other day of the week.
Language is dictated by usage, not semantics. It's the reason why the word "ain't" is in the dictionary today.
And what exactly is wrong with "ain't"? It's a reasonable contraction of the phrase "am not," given that "amn't" (the original) is difficult to pronounce and will tend to naturally morph to something better. The usage war against "ain't" is just another one of those stupid arbitrary battles started by random guys in the 19th century who were often imposing their personal preferences rather than any "rules" based on usage or logic. In this case, it was probably motivated by class differences, rather than any sense of grammatical impropriety.
And don't pretend there are no other contractions like this -- see "won't," for example, as a contraction of "will not," which is much easier to say that "willn't."
If anything, the language police should be after people who utter such grammatical monstrosities as "Aren't I great?" As far as I'm concerned, the MORE CORRECT version of that sentence is "Ain't I great," unless you're the sort of person who goes around saying things like "I are sad. I are going to walk the dog. I are stupid for talking like this."
Please explain how the link you provided supports your claim of a quadrupling of inflation-adjusted per-pupil costs since 1962.
As GP already noted, the table can be found via another link. But also, the table he quotes was in a link at the bottom of the first page he cited -- which would be pretty clear if you scrolled down and read the table heading until you found the one on topic.
I know that's asking a lot -- looking at the table on the linked page that actually is on point. But if you did, you'd find (Table 213):
Expenditure per pupil in average daily attendance:
Unadjusted dollars - 1961-62: total $517, current expenditures $419
2009-10: total $13,041, current expenditures $11,445
Constant 2011-12 dollars - 1961-62: total $3,915, current expenditures $2,905
2009-10: total $13,692, current expenditures $12,017
The "current expenditures" excludes things not directly relevant to student instruction, like community services, adult education, as well as expenditures NOT on the current school year, like capital outlay, interest on debt, etc.
So the best numbers to compare would be the inflation-adjusted "current expenditures," which would be $2,905 compared to $12,017. That's actually slightly greater than quadrupling.
Perhaps that, accounting for inflation, $1 in 1962 is worth $7.77 today? This indicates that the "quadrupling of funding!" is really "slashing the inflation-adjusted budget by half". Would that be on topic, and a worthwhile point to make?
It might be, if you had actually bothered to read the GP's link... where the table he quotes has the following figures (from table 213):
Expenditure per pupil in average daily attendance:
Unadjusted dollars - 1961-62: total $517, current expenditures $419
2009-10: total $13,041, current expenditures $11,445
Constant 2011-12 dollars - 1961-62: total $3,915, current expenditures $2,905
2009-10: total $13,692, current expenditures $12,017
(The "current expenditures" excludes things not directly relevant to student instruction, like community services, adult education, capital outlay, interest on debt, etc.)
So, in other words, in dollars unadjusted for inflation, the funds increased by approximately 25 TIMES.
When you adjust for inflation, the numbers for actual per pupil spending have roughly quadrupled.
Also, it's not clear how that chart reflects the "recentering" that change the way scores were calculated from 1995 onwards...
Nor is it clear how that chart might take into account various changes in the test over the years in content, some of which could have "dumbed it down" (according to some people). For example, verbal sections used to have analogies and antonyms, math used to have quantitative comparisons and did not allow calculators. (On the other hand, math has added some more advanced algebra II type questions over the years.)
The test was hardly static over all this time, so it's very difficult to pinpoint the reason for the trends, and how much they could be the result of changes in design, rather than changes in student performance.
You need to assume that a business will first and foremost look after its own interests, which is to make money.
Isn't any corporation composed on individual humans? Don't those individual humans have any responsibility or culpability for wrong-doing?
If I get mad and kill somebody, I go to jail. But if I band together with a lynch mob and go out and kill people as a group, am I absolved because the mob was "looking after its own interests, which is to" kill people?
Perhaps you think I'm being inflammatory. But "make money" is not a morally neutral goal -- it can easily result in serious harm and even deaths to people.
it is not their role to be nice to society, unless we make them.
Why isn't that part of their role? Or -- well, I agree their role may not necessarily be to "be nice to society," but surely part of their role should be not to significantly harm society, no? After all, they only exist as legal fictions created by a government that is enabled by the collective social contract of civilization. If they aren't contributing a net positive impact to society, they aren't serving a purpose for the collective good -- and therefore they should be dissolved.
Why do you wish to absolve collections of people from ethical behavior? As a civilized society, if we would not tolerate that behavior from an individual, it should not be tolerated from a corporation. Otherwise, there is no reason to allow their existence.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the deal on 'scientific consensus' -- it's not always right, but it is the best guess at the time, supported by the majority of the evidence by smart people who know the subject.
You're right, and I agree that it's generally a safe bet to go with the "scientific consensus."
The issue is that a lot of people (including around here) seem to subscribe to what I'd say is a relatively naive form of logical positivism, otherwise known as that sitcom hit "Everybody Loves Popper." I love Popper too, but Popper's mechanisms to explain scientific progress are a little muddy. According to the naive idea of falsifiability, all scientific theories have to "falsifiable" and theoretically all open to be disproved by superior evidence at any time. The problem with this idea of science is that it doesn't specify how one actually progresses -- how do we choose our research from an infinite number of possible falsifiable statements?
The reality of scientific progress is that real science doesn't always work that way, and in fact no real philosophers of science today tend to think it does. Just to rehash the bits that happened 50 years ago, you have Kuhn's ideas of "scientific revolutions" caused by shifts in research "paradigms," and responses by intelligent philosophers of science, such as Imre Lakatos's cool idea of "research programs.
The point is, the real trajectory of scientific progress is "bumpy," and it needs to be. If everyone were ready to throw out every fundamental theory of science immediately when the slightest bit of new evidence comes along, we'd never be focused enough to do research on specific questions and make further progress. That's where most of science happens -- in fleshing out details of larger theories that are assumed to be true.
Anything else is more likely, not certainly, but more likely, to be wrong.
Yes -- and the times when the "scientific consensus" is actually less likely to be right can uncover some interesting elements about how science works, and can lead to some reasonable critiques. There were long stretches of time historically when the "scientific consensus" was actually "more likely to be wrong" on specific questions by a modern evaluation of the evidence, even assuming the knowledge of the day. But many of these times of disagreement pushed researchers on the other side to pursue evidence of the new theories even more strongly -- thus, arguably, leading to a stronger new scientific consensus on more firm ground once the "paradigm shift" occurred.
People tend to get very nervous when confronted with a "scientific consensus" that was proven wrong, particularly ones that hung around for decades (or, in a few cases, for centuries) even in the face of contrary evidence. But this is a necessary part of the messiness that forms the process of discovery.
It's kind of like having a debate without defining the fundamental terms under discussion. Until those are defined, meaningful debate can't happen. But in the process of debate, we sometimes might come to the conclusion that our initial definitions were inaccurate, or even that perhaps the disagreement can only be resolved by choosing new or different terms. That doesn't mean that the process of debate is necessarily flawed -- if we never started out with our initial terms, we'd never have been able to start making the kinds of distinctions that allowed progress to happen.
However, political scientists generally agree that for democracy to have meaning there is a cluster of other rights that are needed to make sure that people can actually elect someone based on their preferences or interests, and these rights include freedom of speech, of organization/congregation, rule of law, some form of minority protection, etc.
While of course you're right, I think that's stacking the deck in favor of desirable features of democracies, rather than actual features of historical democracies. Philosophers for thousands of years have pointed out the potential for democracies to degrade into tyranny or other totalitarian states by voluntary vote of the population, and it's happened historically quite a few times (though generally by stages). It's not the freedom to vote and choose that protects rights -- it's the status of rights AS rights, i.e., things that are inviolate and CANNOT BE VOTED ON.
I've heard it said that what really determines the strength of a democracy and its role in keeping people free is not simply whether people can vote, but what things are NOT up for a vote. (And this includes both making sure people are actually free to cast votes for their choices, as well as restricting those votes so that they cannot violate things like fundamental rights.)
Of course, these rights are generally not seen as absolute, and no democratic society that I know allows you to falsely accuse someone in public of being a child molester
Umm, I'm pretty sure you can get away with that in the U.S., as long as the target of the accusation is a "public figure." The important precedent is here, and a case I can think of that's more directly on point is in the movie The Aristocrats, where Sarah Silverman accused Joe Franklin of raping her, implying (if I remember correctly) as a minor. Franklin threatened to sue, I think, but stopped -- probably because he knew the likelihood of winning was small, given existing precedent and the likely appearance of parody in a comedy film.
Basically, the statements against a public figure require "actual malice" to win a libel suit; for a private person as a target of the accusation, it requires at least gross negligence. And that's libel -- I think the standard is even higher if you were to try to claim defamation just on the ground of a verbal accusation.
Your concern might be less of a troll if you knew that the standard metric measure for fuel economy isn't km/l, but rather l / 100km.
While km/L is less common, it certainly does appear as an alternative measure in many countries, particularly to allow people to compare it to mpg metrics (as the GP was suggesting here, since the title of this story is about "MPG"). You are correct that in many countries, L/100km is standard.
Before we get the standard debate about this crap that comes up every time this topic comes around, let me just point out that the reciprocal relationship between these two measurements doesn't mean one is "more correct" than the other. Rather, both will give intuitive results for different questions or given different constraints.
For example, if you're buying a car primarily for commuting, gas consumption per distance (e.g., L/100km) will give you an intuitive sense of your fuel cost, since your daily distance is relatively fixed. If your L/100km doubles, your fuel cost for fixed commutes will double.
On the other hand, if you're buying a car primarily for occasional longer trips and not using it for regular commuting, distance per gas unit (e.g., mpg or km/L) will give you a more intuitive sense of how far you'll be able to travel with the same gas budget. People buying a car only for occasional trips probably are more likely to care about how far they can go with a given amount of fuel rather than how the fuel cost will vary for a fixed distance. If your MPG doubles, you can go twice as far with the same amount of fuel.
Different metrics are useful for different things. These two have a very clear relationship, but when non-math-literate people are comparing the raw numbers, one can be better than another in making decisions depending on the situation.
Twitter made a public stance in 2011 to remain a platform for free speech [snip] Or is the importance to democracy of platforms such as Twitter overblown?
There are two different things being discussed here, and it's important to keep them separate.
Free speech is a right, i.e., something that governments should not be able to restrict arbitrarily -- whether those governments are democratic, communist, monarchies, whatever.
Democracy is a form of government, and history has shown us that democracy is very capable of taking away rights, just like any other form of government. There is a reason that many philosophers from the ancient Greeks up to the Founders of the U.S. and beyond were afraid of "mob rule." When governmental policy is just determined by majority vote, there are plenty of times when the majority will vote away "fundamental rights" for various reasons (for example, to try to prevent some fear or threat to security).
Free speech is generally a necessary component to promote change in government -- whether that government is democratic or aristocratic or whatever. Thus, the fight for free speech should be about rights, regardless of the form of government. There are all sorts of "democratic" countries in the world who lack a lot of fundamental freedoms, including free speech. And, as recent history has shown us, simply "rebranding" a country as a "democracy" does NOT automatically make it "more free."
I work for a local government and am heavily involved in the property tax process. I'm sure like all things it varies by state, but here (South Carolina) I'd say that the urban subsidizes the rural even on property taxes.
Your post is interesting. But without further statistics, I'm not sure how your statements are evidence the property tax money is flowing one way or the other.
For one, there's the plain and simple situation that large tracts of rural land are worth much less per acre than land in the cities. A 0.25 acre lot in town might be $30k whilst land out in the woods is less than $10k per acre.
As far as I'm aware, almost all property tax schemes have to do with the supposed "value" of the property, not the size. If you have a 10-acre wooded lot, you'll pay less taxes than the same lot with a giant mansion built on it with a swimming pool, private tennis court, etc. Similarly, if you buy a plot in a city, it may have a significantly higher market value than a rural area.
But why is this relevant? Taxation is always dependent on the value of the thing taxed. If more wealth is concentrated in urban areas, leading to more concentration of property value, chances are that those people require more services per acre than rural areas do (at least for most services -- if you can fit 40 homes in the same space as one normal plot in a rural area, that's a lot more people requiring fire departments and police and hospitals and whatever).
Secondly, large tracts of agricultural land used for crops or timber are given an EXTREME tax break. Most of them pay taxes on less than 5% of the actual value of the land.
This one is probably the closest to being a valid argument. People have been known to take advantage of these tax breaks in ridiculous ways. On the other hand, presumably the idea of these tax breaks is to produce a net gain for society overall. If fewer people in neighboring rural areas produce crops or timber, does it raise prices significantly for everyone who wants to buy food and wood? Again, given the population density of urban areas, higher prices will disproportionately cost more for cities -- so subsidizing certain kinds of activities in rural areas may be a strategy to produce a net benefit that could be a lot greater than the tax break.
(Not saying it's true in your particular situation -- just that there's presumably an original rationale for such ideas, though often such subsidies get out of control and lead to inefficiencies.)
And last, serious tax breaks are given to "owner occupied" residential properties. Owner occupied properties are far more common in rural areas. Its not uncommon in the urban/suburban areas, but there are far more rental properties and such that end up paying nearly twice as much in property taxes.
Again, taxation is based on value. A residental property where the owner lives doesn't generate income (usually) for the owner, but a rental property does. The net amount of rental property taxes may be greater in urban areas, but that's because people are willing to pay the owners more money to rent those properties... whereas there's less demand for rental properties at all in rural areas.
As far as I'm concerned, this isn't as much an urban vs. rural issue as different types of property taxes. There's the tax you pay on property just to own it, based roughly on its market value (so if you can sell it for more, you pay more taxes). But then there's the additional tax you pay for the privilege of making money off of the property by renting it, just like you might pay a significant business license fee to operate a business on a property or whatever.
If this is the main thing that actually ends up subsidizing rural areas, I think the story should be that landloads end up subsidizing rural areas -- not urban areas in general.
I know in our specific locale
I find the super-animated artsy PowerPoints to be more annoying than the boring, static, bullet-list crap my boss slaps together. Our customers want to be wowed by numbers, statistics, and a few pictures. They couldn't care less about how artsy the PowerPoint is.
There is this odd audience demographic that seems to be impressed by fancy slide animations. Frankly, when I've talked with such people, it usually comes from people who are presenters themselves, and are a little jealous -- they want the cool eye candy too.
But people who are just trying to get content? Well, slide animations or cool slide transitions aren't going to help convey content or ideas in most cases. I have inevitably found them to be the tools of choice for people who give poor presentations, communicate poorly, and use Powerpoint (or whatever) as a way of keeping the audience at least minimally engaged by stupid visual tricks.
In my own presentations, I don't put up a picture unless I'm actually going to talk about the picture, or unless it's needed as a reference to identify a thing or person or whatever I'm talking about. I don't play music or a video unless I'm actually talking about the content of the music or the video -- not just for random eye candy. And I've been known to frequently throw up a blank black slide when I don't need the visuals at the moment: suddenly, the audience turns and starts to LISTEN to what I'm saying. (I know -- crazy.)
Of course, to get away with this style, you need to have an engaging presentation demeanor and keep people's attention just by talking. Not everyone can do this well -- it takes practice. (And I still am discovering new things about it all the time from good speakers.)
But the benefit is that you can actually communicate MORE ideas in a more concise way than if you have a hundred slides of meaningless photos and whatever just to punctuate when you say "happy" with a photo of kids playing or something. That's just sloppy, stupid, and the hallmark of a presenter who doesn't trust the content of the talk to be enough to engage the audience.
PowerPoint presentations are a way to communicate ideas; a super-duper-polished PowerPoint, in most cases, represents a poor use of one's time as it's an inefficient way to communicate ideas.
I think of Powerpoint sort of like movie music. Generally, you're not supposed to actually notice it -- it's in the background, subtly changing your mood and helping to enhance your understanding of the movie. Once in a while, it comes to the foreground to make a point: the hero has finally achieved the goal, and there comes the trumpet fanfare to highlight that.
In a similar way, you can make your Powerpoint a bit "slick" and "polished" as long as it isn't distracting from the actual content. It shouldn't be noticed except when you actually NEED a visual to make a point (like a graph or chart or something). The moment people start paying more attention to your cool visuals, fancy animations, and slide transitions than they are to your content -- it's like some random orchestra blaring loudly during a quiet dramatic movie scene... and that's not going to help you appreciate the story or understand the content.
Autosave that saves at regular time periods or whatever totally ruins that. I don't want earlier versions automatically overwritten, especially with work-in-progress changes
No decently implemented autosave would overwrite your manually saved version without asking. That's an implementation flaw (admittedly seeming to become more common these days). But most applications that have that flaw these days don't even give you a choice -- it simply saves periodically, and you live with it. You often can't turn it off.
nor do I want multiple versions saved so I then have the hassle of figuring out *which* version to go back to
I think you're confusing "autosave" with "incremental backup." Unless you have something specially configured, autosave generally implies saving ONE version of a document periodically (perhaps, as I mentioned above, one TEMP version, as opposed to the more permanent manually saved version).
In either case, the only time you should ever have to choose is when your application or computer crashes. And if your application/computer is crashing often enough that this is a significant concern -- I think you need a new application/computer.
and possibly on-top all the manual housekeeping of regularly having to manually clear out multiple old versions.
Again, this sounds like bad implementation to me, and again this should be an incredibly rare occurrence unless you have continuous crashes. When it does occur, a decent application these days should warn you when you open a file that there are multiple saved versions -- and usually there are only two. Generally, your choice is between what you last saved manually and the last autosave. You make a quick choice, and the application should delete the other version automatically.
I can't really imagine why any other implementation would be desirable, except in very unusual situations. Why would ANYONE want their system that was doing autosave every 10 minutes to have 30 different copies of the same file at various stages after 5 hours of editing... and would then require you to clean them out manually? (Yes, I'm sure someone can come up with an unusual situation where this is warranted, but it's certainly not common or like most autosave implementations.)
Yeah, no problem. I was agreeing with the main idea of your post completely -- and also just pointing out the funny role music often plays in these complaints over the generations.
Same thing here, they're probably not idiots, but they might be looking for idiots.
Absolutely possible. But (1) the guys mentioned leading up this project have some real science credentials, and (2) they mention that they plan to do studies that involve applying for drug testing, which one can hardly do without things like control groups. (Not saying that drug studies are perfect -- many of them have serious flaws. But an absence of a control group is generally not acceptable.)
So... until I hear otherwise, I'm going to assume these guys are trying something on the basis of a sound scientific hypothesis. Will it be proven? Is the current experiment well-designed? I don't know -- all I've read is a blog post about an ongoing experiment.
But, on the basis of TFA, I'm NOT going to immediately assume that these guys can't figure out the basics of experimental design, especially since they explicitly mention in TFA that they are being hesitant about claims until they collect more data.
This was the earliest, but by far not the only example of "kids today and their rock-and-roll music", as you put it.
Yeah, probably not the "earliest." Certainly there are sentiments like this Plato and Socrates. But we can go even earlier -- and even more specifically complain about the new pop music. For example, Heraclitus, a pre-Socratic from 500 years or so before your quotation:
For what sense or understanding have they? They follow minstrels and take the multitude for a teacher, not knowing that many are bad and few good. For the best men choose one thing above all--immortal glory among mortals; but the masses stuff themselves like cattle.
It's not precisely clear who "they" is here, but the reference to a "teacher" probably implies that we're talking about youth or a younger generation... who follow around the "bad" musicians ("aoidoi" or "minstrels") who were becoming more prominent in society in Heraclitus's day. And it led them to be more stupid.
Popular culture critics are much older than we think -- as is the supposed influence of bad music.
Was the reduction of body stench independently verified? Maybe she just got used to it.
Absolutely possible. This is just her anecdotal report. She has other anecdotal reports in TFA, though:
Jamas, a quiet, serial entrepreneur with a doctorate in biotechnology, incorporated N. eutropha into his hygiene routine years ago; today he uses soap just twice a week. The chairman of the company's board of directors, Jamie Heywood, lathers up once or twice a month and shampoos just three times a year. The most extreme case is David Whitlock, the M.I.T.-trained chemical engineer who invented AO+. He has not showered for the past 12 years. He occasionally takes a sponge bath to wash away grime but trusts his skin's bacterial colony to do the rest. I met these men. I got close enough to shake their hands, engage in casual conversation and note that they in no way conveyed a sense of being "unclean" in either the visual or olfactory sense.
And, honestly, it makes some sense on an intuitive level. Perspiration doesn't really have an odor on its own -- the odor comes with the bacteria and such that start growing in the minutes and hours after perspiration.
If we get rid of all of them every day, we're going to select for certain strains of fast-growing bacteria.
If we instead let things "ferment" over weeks or months, we'll probably select for other types of bacteria, which tend to be adapted to our bodies, rather than whatever random fast-growing stuff happens to land there after a daily shower. Undoubtedly, the odors produced with a hygiene regimen change will be DIFFERENT.
And, since soap and daily showers are a relatively recent invention, one would think that humans would be less likely to find the build-up of long-term bacterial colony odors offensive, since from an evolutionary perspective, natural body odor shouldn't drive potential mates away. And it's therefore more likely that we'd be adapted to not care about such odors (of even sometimes be attracted to them -- historically, we have lots of accounts of people who describe natural body odor as a significant aphrodisiac).
I'm not saying all of this is true. But it at least makes sense that a DIFFERENCE in body odor seems likely when bacterial colonies are allowed to establish themselves over time and be selected for in daily body excretions.
Kind of like trying to create a sourdough starter: if you just mix together flour and water and let it sit for a few days, you have a high likelihood of mold or undesirable things forming over time. If you just empty the container, scrub it out, and try again, you're likely to have similar results. But if you let it sit over a period of weeks and gradually feed it, eventually you'll select for specific bacteria and yeasts. And after a while, you end up with robust bacterial colonies that won't likely mold or grow nasty stuff -- because the microorganisms create an environment conductive to their own growth, rather than the undesirable stuff.
Where are the control groups? Shouldn't there also be at least a few of these:
Perhaps I missed this, but it doesn't seem that TFA is reporting official results of a study -- it's just the anecdotal description of somebody who participated in a study that's been going on. All she says is: "I was Subject 26 in testing a living bacterial skin tonic." I don't think there's anything in TFA that mentions what control groups there may have been, nor does it imply that there were not any.
This is just one subject's experience that she decided to blog about... so should we really be questioning the validity of the study or its design when she doesn't even discuss methodology (and perhaps doesn't even know the details, since she was... you know... a PARTICIPANT in the study)?
About the only thing in TFA that suggests anything about research design is this:
A regime of concentrated AO+ caused a hundredfold decrease of Propionibacterium acnes, often blamed for acne breakouts. And the company says that diabetic mice with skin wounds heal more quickly after two weeks of treatment with a formulation of AOB.
Soon, AOBiome will file an Investigational New Drug Application with the F.D.A. to request permission to test more concentrated forms of AOB for the treatment of diabetic ulcers and other dermatologic conditions. "Itâ(TM)s very, very easy to make a quack therapy; to put together a bunch of biological links to convince someone that somethingâ(TM)s true," Heywood said. "What would hurt us is trying to sell anything ahead of the data."
"A hundredfold decrease," "wounds heal more quickly" -- these imply that there are comparison groups. And if they are applying to do testing with the FDA, they're going to have to do control groups.
Seriously -- what is it with Slashdot and the "But didn't they think of doing a real science experiment, with, you know, data and stuff" comments? This is a link to a blog post by subject in a study. You want details? Wait until an actual study comes out.
But if this company is planning on getting its stuff approved as a medical treatment or marketing it on its particular benefits, it would actually be incredibly counterproductive to design poor experiments, since they wouldn't allow them to refine or further develop their products.
Do you really think these people are idiots?
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but I've feeling frisky...
No -- that's certainly not why people buy newspapers, except for those people who just want the coupon section (which is generally segregated from the rest of the paper). Who the heck buys a newspaper just for the ads?
People buy the sunday paper because of the ads. The big coupon supplement is the whole reason to buy it.
Wow, is there an echo in this room?
Not just some, MOST magazines that have a growth business model exist because people buy them for the ads.
I acknowledged about five different types of magazines that people buy for ads.
But here's the difference between magazines and most web advertising: when I buy a magazine for the ads, I'm buying a magazine for the ads. I know what I'm getting, and I'm making a conscious decision to have contact with something that will give me a lot of ads.
There's nothing wrong with that. I made the choice to buy the magazine.
On the internet, things are different. Ads come flying at you, popping up at you, etc., regardless of whether you're at some sort of consumer site where you might want ads, or whether you're actually trying to get something else done.
I acknowledge that I'm not like most people in what I do online, but even all the "non-geeks" and "non-nerds" out there periodically are trying to get some other task done on the internet, like writing or reading a message, or learning about something, or reading news. Say you wanted to write an old-fashioned letter. Would you seriously buy a pack of paper that would shove things in your face as you were trying to write? Or would you buy a set of encyclopedias that required you to click three times to get rid of images that popped up before you could read the next paragraph?
I know what your response is: "But the internet is free! You would pay for those things." Yeah, well -- people are willing to TOLERATE inconveniences for free things. It doesn't mean they want them disrupting whatever else they are trying to do. If you want to buy the newspaper for the coupons or the classified section, sure -- lots of people do that. But if you actually want to read the news, the advertisements get in the way... and lots of people actually want to do that SOMETIMES too, but they tolerate the ads interspersed with the news. And apparently they're willing to tolerate all sorts of crap popping up at them when they're trying to do other things online, as long as they get stuff "free."
You're not in the target market for the ads you see, then.
I wasn't talking about myself. I was talking in the sentence you quoted about other people. I've heard many, many, many people -- "non-geeks" -- complain about excessive ads online. I have NEVER heard anyone say they want more -- certainly not on random sites they are visiting and trying to get some other important task done.
You really should study how people in the real world respond to advertising... they fucking love it. A fashion shopper goes apeshit when they see their favorite Miu Miu shoes go on sale at Net-a-porter. They get so excited that they email their friends about telling them to buy it.
Yep -- which is the reason fashion magazines exist, which I explicitly mentioned. Great. We agree.
It is only the narcissist libertarian geek that tries to avoid ads. "I'm so important, look at me, I hate advertising because i am more important than advertisers. I am so important that I don't want ads on the website I don't pay to visit! Look at me! WEEE!"
I'd HAPPILY pay for websites without ads, if they delivered quality content. I already do so in some cases. Why does this make me narcissistic? Because I want to pay for quality content rather than have idiotic nonsense shouting at me that I don't want to see? That's "narcissi
Who the heck buys a newspaper just for the ads?
You must be a youngun'. Back in the pre-web days there were magazines that were pretty much 100% ads.
Seriously?!? This gets modded "insightful" when you just regurgitated what I said in my post?!
Let me refresh your memory, since you obviously have trouble with reading comprehension. Here's what I said:
As for magazines, there are some which clearly seem to be able [sic, "about"] the ads -- particularly style magazines and such. Mostly it's something to allow people to drool over clothes and other luxury fashion items they can't afford (or could barely afford). But yeah -- SOME magazines seem to be bought for the ads. [snip] In some cases, like trade magazines or foodie magazines, the ads can be targeted better, so I can see how some people want that.
I'm not a "youngun'." I remember these things well, and they still exist in various areas, as I point out (though the ones that have survived seem more targeted to "style" conscious groups these days and such).
I have bought many, many newspapers/magazines "just for the ads".
No -- you just said you bought many MAGAZINES for the ads. You said this after quoting the sentence where I asked who buys a NEWSPAPER for the ads. I realize the boundary between these concepts is not exact, but I'd say the percentage of people who buy NEWSpapers for ads is much smaller than the number of people who buy MAGAZINES for ads...
And I explicitly said that in my previous post.
Before going around insulting people, please take a minimum amount of time to read what they've actually said. If you can't be bothered, don't insult people -- you can still state your opinion, but arguing that an OP is ignorant of something when it was explicitly addressed in the post is just nonsense.
To think of all the hours wasted on arguments about what a "soul" is when it's really just a word that can be associated with various underlying concepts...
Why are semantic arguments necessarily "wasted" time? If different people have different perspectives, discussing them can often lead to new insights for both of them -- if they are open to thinking outside their own worldview. At a minimum, a collision between these different perspectives can lead to a realization that a word could mean A or B, i.e., it doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. It can also lead to a refinement of ideas -- perhaps the recognition that A and B both share elements of C in their meaning (hence using the same word), but differ in elements D and E. That can lead to future dialogue or prevent future misunderstandings.
Perhaps you don't care about what a "soul" is, in which case such arguments seem stupid. But words are fundamentally about communication, and they only function if we have some sort of pragmatic social agreement about what we mean, or what we could mean, or what multiple meanings could be enumerated to let us expand upon the nuances.
For example, relevant to the present article -- what is "intelligence"? Biologists may have one view, computer scientists another, philosophers even more variety. But if we never discuss those nuances and just use the word "intelligence" without qualification, it's less useful for communicating anything, particularly among a variety of people.
"Like a brain" might mean shaped like a brain to one person, able to fit inside the same space.. while to another it might only be "like a brain" if it can process input and output the same way, regardless of its shape or size.. while a third might only consider "like a brain" to mean the way that a liver is like a brain, composed of organic cells that collaborate to carry out a function.
Yeah, in AI "like a brain" usually means that "we assume it shares some functionality with the brain" or something like that. And it's usually wrong... very wrong.
The problem with using analogies like this is that it leads to all sorts of inaccurate assumptions. Why not just use more accurate terminology? "My neural nets are learning" is a crappy, meaningless statement that doesn't define "neuron" or "learning" at all for people outside AI. It's useless for communication. But "I'm using adaptive clusters of specialized algorithms" doesn't sound as sexy when it comes to getting research funding. "I'm using a deep learning model." No you're not! There's very little in common with biological "learning" in any sense -- you're using a multilayered set of adaptive algorithms. Superficially, there may be some vague correspondences between human "learning" and AI, but often the number of differences far exceeds the similarities.
It's kind of like someone who never encountered a car before. He asks what it does. "It runs." What do you mean it runs? Does it have two legs? No, it has four wheels. Okay, does it get out of breath when it goes faster? No, it doesn't really breathe like a human does, and it actually functions more efficiently as it runs faster. Okay, does it swing its body back and forth in alternate motions like other quadrupeds that run? No.
Well, what do you mean it "runs"? Just that it gets from point A to B at a relatively fast velocity? In other words, it "runs" in the same sense that a raindrop "runs" down a window?
Imagine that conversation. Why not just be more specific then -- the car is a self-propelled machine that can travel quickly from A to B. Yeah, in some sense it "runs," but it has as much in common with a raindrop "running" as a human.
With brains, it's even worse, because things like "intelligence" and "learning" and "neural" have all sorts of associations -- why not just be more accurate in what these things are doing and how they are structured?
Note that it's not just a problem whe
I never said that the same tactics would be necessary against terrorists as were used in WWII. My post was solely in response to the GP's claims that the Axis powers WWII were always behaving rationally in their military efforts and were happy to surrender as soon as they made some sort of "reasonable" strategic decision.
The bigger issue that no one wants to admit is that we are dealing lunatics and engaging them, is a mistake. During World War II, both Germany and Japan eventually admitted defeat and gave up. But that's because you were dealing with people who were somewhat rational.
Yep. 'Cause gathering up millions of people and mass murdering them is "somewhat rational" behavior. (Germany -- see "Concentration Camps") Or ordering thousands of soldiers to go on suicide missions, sometimes without any hint of success, and without any good evidence that it actually was a more successful strategy... very rational. (Japan -- see "Kamikaze") Or... well, isn't that enough for a start?
The people we are dealing with today are literally insane.
Yeah, I know. They are willing to blow themselves up in suicide attacks, and they don't even care about whether they take women or children with them. Oh wait... that sounds just like some of the things Germany and Japan did.
No amount of military action will ever convince them to quit.
No amount of military action convinced Hitler to quit -- when surrounded, he simply committed suicide, along with convincing a lot of others to do the same. As for Japan, well, the militarists who were basically running the show through much of the war would have never given in -- in fact, they staged a coup against the Emperor's wishes to surrender, taking over the Imperial Palace. Luckily, the surrender broadcast recording had been hidden, and once that was played on the radio, it was over.
There was a "whole lotta crazy" going on during WWII as well -- and it was only through superior military forces and intervention at the highest level of leaders (the general staff in Germany after the suicide of Hitler, the emperor himself in Japan, who had previously been less assertive in reining in the militarists) that they were "convinced to quit."
Right now, most geeks think of advertising as bad things, because they hate the ads served to them as geeks are a horrible audience demographic. They don't know, that in the real world, people actually WANT advertising. That's why people buy things like newspapers and magazines, BECAUSE of the ads.
No -- that's certainly not why people buy newspapers, except for those people who just want the coupon section (which is generally segregated from the rest of the paper). Who the heck buys a newspaper just for the ads?
As for magazines, there are some which clearly seem to be able the ads -- particularly style magazines and such. Mostly it's something to allow people to drool over clothes and other luxury fashion items they can't afford (or could barely afford). But yeah -- SOME magazines seem to be bought for the ads.
Many others, however, like ones focused on news or politics or science or literature or whatever, are definitely not about the ads. At best, they're a minor annoyance that readers put up with -- very few people buy a copy of Scientific American or The New Yorker for the ads. In some cases, like trade magazines or foodie magazines, the ads can be targeted better, so I can see how some people want that.
In any case, the point is that "in the real world" people do NOT want advertising incessantly. How many people prefer to watch TV with advertisements thrown in (other than as a break to go to the bathroom or get a sandwich)? If everybody did, there would be little reason for technology that allows you to record and fast forward through the commercials.
People are often happy to receive ads on their terms and when they want to receive them. They know what they're getting if they buy a newspaper for the coupon section or if they buy a magazine 90% full of photos of expensive designer clothing ads.
But "real everyday people" are just as annoyed by pop-up ads or random ad interjections getting in their way of accomplishing tasks as anyone else is. And, let's face it, that's what MOST of the advertising on the web is. If I want to buy something on the web, I go to a freakin' merchant site and browse for things. It's not like I have to go out and buy a magazine to show me ads for designer clothes, when I can just go to the websites of the companies that sell this stuff and see the stuff directly!
In sum -- yeah, sometimes people buy things that have ads when they want to see ads. But on the internet, people often just want to get tasks done too -- whether it's sending email via webmail or interacting on Facebook or whatever. I have NEVER EVER in my life heard a person say, "Gee -- I really love how Facebook keeps adding more ads to my newsfeed" or "I really wish that my webmail would have more pop-ups to get in my way when I'm trying to read a message."
Look, unless its an actual group of independent musicians, can we just assume WIN is a group of agents, managers, and lawyers suckling for cash?
So does that mean you haven't even bothered to determine who members of this organization are before posting? You're just arbitrarily ranting, in case something *might* be true?
As it stands, WIN is basically an organization of organizations. It basically advocates for "independent" labels and such. You could read about their supposed priorities in their manifesto.
1. We, the independents, will work to grow the value of music and the music business. We want equal market access and parity of terms with Universal, Warner and Sony, and will work with them in areas where we have a common goal. We will work to ensure that all companies in our sector are best equipped to maximize the value of their rights.
2. We support creators' freedom to decide how their music may be used commercially, and we will encourage individual artists and labels to speak out directly against unauthorized uses of music as well as commercial uses of music that stifle that freedom. We support creators' right to earn a living from their work, which should be respected as a basic human right. We expect any use of music by commercial third party operators to be subject to fairly negotiated licensing terms, in a market where any use of music is an end in itself, not so-called promotion driving a subsequent sale.
3. We support independent music labels that treat their artists as partners and who work with them on reasonable commercial terms, noting that labels are investors who deserve a fair return alongside their artists.
4. We promote transparency in the digital music market; artists and companies are entitled to clarity on commercial terms.
Etc.
Is this empty rhetoric? I don't claim to know for sure. But these are the top points (out of their 10 "manifesto" statements), much of which seems to be about giving voice and power to creators, as well as maintaining transparency in the way creators deal with other people.
Its not as though the musicians couldnt form their own group, start up a listserv, and send a strongly worded email to google insisting they be paid fairly in order to stream content.
Many musicians don't want to worry about the technical details required to do recording, distribution, etc. Many don't even have that expertise. So they get independent labels to help them with those aspects. This is an organization formed from those groups. Maybe it's evil... but maybe it's also just a practical distribution of labor thing, which can allow artists to do what they're actually best at.
Either you negotiate with your agent, manager whatever, or you negotiate with google directly.
If you don't then you can go sit on the street playing for coins.
So, if I want to make music for a living, I could spend time on the phone, writing emails, etc. hashing out contracts for every random dude who wants to use my music. (Some speaker wants to use my song as an intro for his presentations... great... gotta negotiate. Some people want to play my song at a public ceremony or wedding or bar mitzvah... time to negotiate... etc.)
OR -- I could just join some sort of association that sets standard fees for use of the music, and/or have a manager who keeps track of these things. I negotiate once or twice, rather than every other day of the week.
Which sounds more reasonable to you?
Language is dictated by usage, not semantics. It's the reason why the word "ain't" is in the dictionary today.
And what exactly is wrong with "ain't"? It's a reasonable contraction of the phrase "am not," given that "amn't" (the original) is difficult to pronounce and will tend to naturally morph to something better. The usage war against "ain't" is just another one of those stupid arbitrary battles started by random guys in the 19th century who were often imposing their personal preferences rather than any "rules" based on usage or logic. In this case, it was probably motivated by class differences, rather than any sense of grammatical impropriety.
And don't pretend there are no other contractions like this -- see "won't," for example, as a contraction of "will not," which is much easier to say that "willn't."
If anything, the language police should be after people who utter such grammatical monstrosities as "Aren't I great?" As far as I'm concerned, the MORE CORRECT version of that sentence is "Ain't I great," unless you're the sort of person who goes around saying things like "I are sad. I are going to walk the dog. I are stupid for talking like this."
Please explain how the link you provided supports your claim of a quadrupling of inflation-adjusted per-pupil costs since 1962.
As GP already noted, the table can be found via another link. But also, the table he quotes was in a link at the bottom of the first page he cited -- which would be pretty clear if you scrolled down and read the table heading until you found the one on topic.
I know that's asking a lot -- looking at the table on the linked page that actually is on point. But if you did, you'd find (Table 213):
Expenditure per pupil in average daily attendance:
Unadjusted dollars - 1961-62: total $517, current expenditures $419
2009-10: total $13,041, current expenditures $11,445
Constant 2011-12 dollars - 1961-62: total $3,915, current expenditures $2,905
2009-10: total $13,692, current expenditures $12,017
The "current expenditures" excludes things not directly relevant to student instruction, like community services, adult education, as well as expenditures NOT on the current school year, like capital outlay, interest on debt, etc.
So the best numbers to compare would be the inflation-adjusted "current expenditures," which would be $2,905 compared to $12,017. That's actually slightly greater than quadrupling.
Perhaps that, accounting for inflation, $1 in 1962 is worth $7.77 today? This indicates that the "quadrupling of funding!" is really "slashing the inflation-adjusted budget by half". Would that be on topic, and a worthwhile point to make?
It might be, if you had actually bothered to read the GP's link... where the table he quotes has the following figures (from table 213):
Expenditure per pupil in average daily attendance:
Unadjusted dollars - 1961-62: total $517, current expenditures $419
2009-10: total $13,041, current expenditures $11,445
Constant 2011-12 dollars - 1961-62: total $3,915, current expenditures $2,905
2009-10: total $13,692, current expenditures $12,017
(The "current expenditures" excludes things not directly relevant to student instruction, like community services, adult education, capital outlay, interest on debt, etc.)
So, in other words, in dollars unadjusted for inflation, the funds increased by approximately 25 TIMES.
When you adjust for inflation, the numbers for actual per pupil spending have roughly quadrupled.
Next time read the link before being an ass.
Also, it's not clear how that chart reflects the "recentering" that change the way scores were calculated from 1995 onwards...
Nor is it clear how that chart might take into account various changes in the test over the years in content, some of which could have "dumbed it down" (according to some people). For example, verbal sections used to have analogies and antonyms, math used to have quantitative comparisons and did not allow calculators. (On the other hand, math has added some more advanced algebra II type questions over the years.)
The test was hardly static over all this time, so it's very difficult to pinpoint the reason for the trends, and how much they could be the result of changes in design, rather than changes in student performance.
You need to assume that a business will first and foremost look after its own interests, which is to make money.
Isn't any corporation composed on individual humans? Don't those individual humans have any responsibility or culpability for wrong-doing?
If I get mad and kill somebody, I go to jail. But if I band together with a lynch mob and go out and kill people as a group, am I absolved because the mob was "looking after its own interests, which is to" kill people?
Perhaps you think I'm being inflammatory. But "make money" is not a morally neutral goal -- it can easily result in serious harm and even deaths to people.
it is not their role to be nice to society, unless we make them.
Why isn't that part of their role? Or -- well, I agree their role may not necessarily be to "be nice to society," but surely part of their role should be not to significantly harm society, no? After all, they only exist as legal fictions created by a government that is enabled by the collective social contract of civilization. If they aren't contributing a net positive impact to society, they aren't serving a purpose for the collective good -- and therefore they should be dissolved.
Why do you wish to absolve collections of people from ethical behavior? As a civilized society, if we would not tolerate that behavior from an individual, it should not be tolerated from a corporation. Otherwise, there is no reason to allow their existence.