IANAP, but I do seem to remember from physics/chemistry that the determining factor in element number is the number of protons, not the number of neutrons.
That's where the beta decay comes in. Beta decay turns neutrons into protons.
At the time everyone thought the speed of light was absolute and couldn't understand why they couldn't detect the ether that light was presumed to travel through. Einstein simply said "well what if the speed of light is relative to every observer?
That is almost exactly backwards. At first everyone thought the speed of light was relative depending on how you traveled in relation to the light source. Then experiments showed that the speed of light through a vacuum was constant no matter how the observer traveled, putting a wrench into the whole ether theory. Instead of trying to work around it like everyone else, Einstein explained away the ether.
Also, I always got the impression that Einstein being bad at math was exaggerated. Really, Einstein being bad at math meant he was worse than many other hard-core physicists but better than about 95-99% of the people who participate on Slashdot.
This assumes that Bin Laden wanted a holy war over in the middle east. I am pretty sure this is *not* what he wanted. What he wanted was for the US to get OUT of the middle east, not more involved.
Ultimately, yes. From what he's said Bin Laden wants the US and any influence the US has over the area out of the Middle East. But before that, he has also recognized that he has to weaken US power first. How? By hurting us monetarily. If you read anything he's said, you'll see that that's his biggest goal right now.
So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.
That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinises the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving those spectacular gains.
Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations - whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction - has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results.
And so it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House and us are playing as one team towards the economic goals of the United States, even if the intentions differ.
And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. [When they pointed out that] for example, al-Qaida spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost - according to the lowest estimate - more than $500 billion.
Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.
As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.
And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the mujahidin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan - with Allah's permission.
-bin Laden
I'm sorry to post that bit of propoganda, but it shows a clear plan of action by the enemy. And considering the massive cost of the Iraq War, this is pretty scary.
The fissure, which grew 8 meters wide in 3 weeks following an earthquake on Sept 14, is now splitting at about 0.8 inches per year, would eventually lead to Ethiopia eastern portions becoming an island in a million years or so.
Dear God, look out! An ocean is forming. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo *gasp* oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooo...
I think you believe that whatever lack of objectivity you think exists in the mainstream media is so small that it's not worth mentioning.
Not at all, and I'm sorry if I was misleading about this. I just feel that the average level of objectivity of established newspapers is much higher than your average alternative news source. And since these newspapers should be held to a higher standard than a blog or whatever, articles passed off as objective that are not are always worth mentioning. Of course some alternative outlets, like factcheck.org or spinsanity may come out ahead of many, possibly even most, articles in said newspapers.
I don't think the mainstream media is one tenth as worried as any businessman or physician for being sued. How often does the New York Times get sued for being unobjective and unprofessional? Did it get sued of Jayson Blair?
And I don't think your average blogger is one one-hundredth as worried about repurcussions from bad reporting as the mainstream media. Jayson Blair and Dan Rather got fired. What blogger or whomever was forced to never write again or felt the effects of lost credibility for similar sloppiness?
You keep insisting that they're "a breed apart" which is false (not to mention elitist). Lots of people are realizing this, and it's part of the reason that the mainstream media is losing.
It may be part of the reason, but it's not clear that it's the driving force. The simplest and most likely explanation is that we all lead busy lives, and it is easier to look at your favorite blog that already agrees with your viewpoint than read the in-depth newspaper article that said blog used as their source of information. It's best that we check out several blogs of divergent viewpoints and vital we check out their source material (newspaper) to catch where they may have been misleading about what was originally said. I can't even count the number of times I heard from some blowhard, "I can't believe X said Y in this article! Outrageous!" Then I read the original article and think, "Where the fuck did he even hint at that???!!"
A "hack" engineer can't beat a real engineer, but a "hack" journalist (a blogger) can beat a real journalist.
Actually on rare occassions a hack engineer can beat a real engineer and a comparatively hack scientist can come up with a sound theory that a trained scienctist did not. An engineer can get caught up in equations, rush a job, or try to put one over on their client, and some insightful average Joe who has seen something similar before will call him on it. That's the value I see in the average blog and such, and I don't mean to minimize their importance. (Or maybe I just got carried away and did anyways). I just strongly feel that it's tremendously important that people at least read the newspaper source material that these bloggers and such like to riff off of before agreeing or disagreeing with them. Does this make me an elitist in your eyes?
I never claimed you disliked those standards, criticisms, or repurcussions, so I dispute your claim that I'm making up your feelings.
Yes you did, and I quote: " The reason why the mainstream media faces the standards, criticisms, and repercussions that you dislike is because of the incredible power that they (used to) wield." Well the standards, criticisms and repurcussions the mainstream media faces is not something I dislike. You were wrong.
Thanks for admitting that the mainstream media is not objective (contrary to your prior implications). Now you're backpedaling and claiming that they're just not *as* biased as other sources of information (where did I say that I loved blogs?).
Any implications I made that the mainstream media is perfectly objective exist between your ears and nowhere else. I said, "It's just that if you compare the amount of objectivity and professionalism present in blogs and the mainstream, the mainstream is the obvious winner." The word "amount" means degree. Did you honestly think I thought the human beings in the mainstream responsible for the content they create were infallible?
So no one is perfectly objective. Does that mean we just throw up our hands, say "fuck it", and just listen to we want to hear without weighing anything that may legitimately contradict our beliefs? That it is somehow wrong for someone to even try to be objective in their reporting? I actually love reading articles that challenge my own beliefs. Hell, just point me to what you consider to be the best blogs or whatever alternative media sources out there I shoud check out.
Fabricating a document, passing it off as "true", failing to check sources, and doing it all to destroy a political enemy are all swept under the rug as mere "errors" to you.
I didn't intend to sweep any of this under the rug. They deserved to get called on for what they did and they deserved what they got. Hooray for the bloggers! Are you sure they were out to "destroy a political enemy"? Seemed more like sloppiness when attempting to fulfill the need for a sensational story.
Who is this "you" you're talking to? I'm not the blogger's champion.
Of course not. How could I ever have read your come, measured, unemotional defenses of the blogs and think of you as their champion. How silly of me.
In any case, I always invite people being held to standards of accuracy, honesty, and transparency. It's the mainstream media which has a problem with that. They think that they're superior to all the unsophisticated, non-journalist trash. They think that they're beyond judgement.
Seeing as how the mainstream media (especially newspapers) are under constant criticism by consumers on a daily basis and risk being sued for slander for certain mistakes, I kinda doubt that's the case. Do you think your average blogger has to worry about the same things as much? Since they probably don't, it is reasonable, not "elitist", to be more suspicious of their content than others. Dan Rather got fired for his misdoings. A popular blogger can just keep on churning out content after doing the exact same stuff. They just have to keep pandering to their base . See the point yet?
It's this disgusting notion that mainstream media journalists are somehow better people (or even better journalists) than everyone else which is elitist.
They're not better people. It's just that most of them go to school to learn what it is to be a good journalist. Would it be elitist of me to go to a trained engineer to design a bridge rather than some random guy off the street to just wing it? Or to trust someone who could have been sued or fired for messing up his earlier jobs rather than someone who was magically able to sidestep any culpability in their past? The former person may not do a perfect job, but it is more likely he will do a better one than the latter.
It's frightening how badly the meaning of the word "elitist" has been corrupted recently. There was a time it was used for more than disguising anti-intellectualism.
The reason why the mainstream media faces the standards, criticisms, and repercussions that you dislike is because of the incredible power that they (used to) wield.
You're making up my feelings to try and support your own argrument. I don't dislike the standards, criticisms and repurcussions that the mainstream media faces at all. As a matter of fact, I believe they should face more of them. The problem is that blogs face none of these, and yet they are taken as the gospel truth by their readers.
If it really was so "obvious" that the mainstream media is more objective and professional than alternative soures of media, why would you need to say it?
Actually, I am kind of shocked that I do.
Most everyone now knows that every source of media has a viewpoint. Mainstream media is not nearly as objective and professional as you want them to be, nor will any claims (or facades) or said objectivity and professionalism save them from their imminent demise. Almost anyone can be a journalist now, and a meritocracy will arise.
Yes, Captain Obvious. Every source of media has a viewpoint. Yes, mainstream media make factual mistakes and skewed reporting that they must be called on. But they, to a much greater extent than your beloved blogs, derive their power from how well they can establish that they are doing accurate, honest journalism. Why are you so sure that blogs will thrive or fail based on this type of merit? Many blogs I see become successful by pandering to an ill-informed, opinionated group of people (left-wing, right-wing, whatever), saying the most outlandish statements they can think of to appeal to them, and keeping the echo-chamber going. And since they don't need to live up as the same standards as other news sources, they get away with it. What kind of merit is that?
Some "non-objective", "unprofessional" bloggers got Dan Rather, one of the most powerful names in the mainstream media, FIRED for being, of all things, non-objective and unprofessional. If that isn't a big fucking deal, then I don't know what is. But I understand why you want to downplay it.
I think it's great that somebody called powerful people in the mainstream media on errors. FANTASTIC! STUPENDOUS! Give yourself and your fellow bloggers a big round of applause on these individual victories. Honestly. But now consider how many of you would get into hot water if held to the same standards that they (correctly) were and you might not feel so hot anymore. I'll acknwoledge that bloggers can be vital for checking out and correcting items missed by the mainstream. But blogs becoming the primary source of news for the general populous would be... not good.
Insisting on healthy doses of accuracy and (at least an occasional attempt at) objectivity in all media is not "elitism".
> How can you have the audacity to criticise newspapers for arrogance and elitism, and then hold blogs up as an alternative?
Perhaps because a blog got Dan Rather and Mary Mapes fired? That sure was a good day!:)
OK. Now hold all the bloggers you know out there to the same standards, criticisms and repercussions that people in mainstream media face. How many do you think will survive? Honestly.
I'm not saying that such mistakes by the mainstream media are excusable. It's just that if you compare the amount of objectivity and professionalism present in blogs and the mainstream, the mainstream is the obvious winner.
So blogs got a couple up on the major news sources. Big fucking deal. So that means it's better to get news from The Drudge Report rather than The New York Times or The Washington Post? Not bloody likely.
When I was a CS undergrad, the language of choice to learn was Pascal. And let me tell you something, writing kernels in that language (especially in the state it was in then) would be a laughable proposition at best. To give it the flexibility required to create code made to run at such a low level would result in so many convoluted structures (or if I remember correctly from the time 'records') and function (and procedure) wrappers that it wouldn't be worth it. It would be a huge, unmaintainable mess of code because the amount of abstractions necessary to pound that square peg language into the round hole of system development would make it more confusing than necessary.
Better to use a language like C that's made for the task and depend on the programmer's own know-how to create something stable and maintainable than depend on a language to put said programmer in chains and force him to hack at the thing when they prevent him from doing something he needs. System development just requires more flexiblity than application development does; it's just the nature of the beast. It's something that you have to actually try for yourself to see how that is.
Look, those people who created Unix are revered for their choices of design to bring a combination of flexibility, efficiency, portability, maintainability, and yes, stability to OS development. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps they knew what they were doing when they chose/created a programming language to do the job? Maybe there's more to the fact that 99.9% of the people doing kernel development use C with maybe some C++ than a need to stroke their egos or use existing code?
In that case the programmer used a strcpy when he should have used strncpy. In other words, the problem is with the programmer and not the programming language.
And that's the whole flippin' point. The same people who will make stupid mistakes writing system software in C will make mistakes in some higher-level language.
I'd argue that good mathematical theorems, like scientific ones, can be tested. If you can plug in hundreds of numbers and get the numbers you expect, that's pretty good evidence that you might be on to something. If you get one case where the result doesn't follow your theorem, it may be time to throw it out.
False. Mathematical theorems are statements that are proven . Mathematical statements that are thought to be true, partially because in all tested examples there are no contradictions, are called "conjectures." Hundreds of numbers supporting a conjecture is nothing when compared to all infinite possibilities.
Mathematics is an a priori discipline (independent of experience) while science, for the most part, is not.
Many Dark Tower fans praise Wizard and Glass as the best of the series.
It is? I must be out of touch then, because the book disappointed me so much that it made me give up on the series completely.
The first Stephen King book I ever read was The Gunslinger, and I was blown away. It expertly brought you in to a magical and mysterious world with curious connections to our own. You simply had to keep reading to see what was coming next, which wasn't a big deal because it used to be a very short and sweet book and didn't take much to finish.
That's right - a short and sweet novel by Stephen King. A true rarity. I always felt the strength of the thing wasn't the parts he put in but the parts he left out, if you catch my meaning. You could tell it was his first book, because this skill was lost on him forever afterwords.
Then came The Drawing of the Three. A lot more Stephen King-like writing style but still good and interesting as it ties in a lot more with our world. After that, the Wastelands and I'm still enjoying the series. More details on Roland's world, but still a good bit of mystery. Afterwords, I couldn't wait for the next in the series, as it's supposed to go into Roland's past.
So I waited. And waited. Many years waiting. Finally, when I've almost forgotten about the series, Wizard and Glass comes out. And I read it. What's it like? Some bullshit corny romance with contradictions to references to Roland's past in The Gunslinger. Also, it's hard to explain, but the way he describes the mysterious world there feels like it destroys the fantastic, surreal feel The Gunsliner so skillfully created. No more reading The Dark Tower series for me.
Then later on, when skimming other information about The Dark Tower out of curiosity, I find out that King is about to pull a George Lucas and - Jesus fucking Christ no!! - rewrite The Gunslinger to erase contradictions from later books and also to add many more pages to what was once a perfectly paced, concise book. I felt like throwing up. It's like he looked back at something good he wrote and declared, "Well shit, I can't let this stand, I've got to be a hack!"
Sorry, I know it's not my series and all, but I just had to vent.
Shit, that's nothing. The comment he responded to is currently modded higher as "Interesting" after being shown by several responses to be utterly wrong.
Those who know a lot about technology build their own machines and, nowadays, are putting GNU/Linux and other free software OSes on them. In fact, I've met tech journalists that hate Apple and all that they stand for. Apple computers have never been geared toward the tech savvy; they have always been marketed to the artistic technophobe.
Oh what utter bullshit. I just recently got my Master's in Computer Science and I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of both grad students and professors were enthusiastic about Macs and OS X. While going to school I had an assistantship helping out doing software development for the Imaging Science department. The software was targeted to run on many flavors of UNIX: Linux, Solaris, Irix (I think they still supported this) and OS X. You know what many of the grad students, developers and System Admins worked with and talked a lot about with admiration? You guessed it... OS X. I've lost count how many times I've been on Slashdot and heard engineers with a lot of experience using computers to get their work done - not technical idiots at all - saying how productive they were working with Macs.
I'm sorry, but I don't consider people who primarily like to tinker around building their own personal computers to be the ultimate elite in the computer technology realm. Wankers at best. Look, if I need my own UNIX-based server I'd opt for a machine I'd build myself and install Linux on. But when it comes to a workstation to get day-to-day work done, I prefer a Mac.
On everything I've read about relativity and gravity, gravity is thought to travel at the speed of light. See here for one of them which includes measurements.
No way in hell are you going to find a modern reputable source claiming that the effect of gravity travels instataneously.
Oh I remember plenty of the "half assed bulk games" around back at the day. But the point is that at the same time of them you'd have truly original ideas coming out regularly. A hell of a lot more regularly than now.
And some of the clones inspired by new sub-genres (inspirations from Space Invaders and Donkey Kong, for instance) were really great in their own right. From the boredom that was Space Invaders came the truly great Galaga.
I keep seeing this complaint about games. That we're evolving the technology, but the overall creativity of games is diminishing. So I ask, what exactly are people expecting, creatively that they are not getting now?
Errrrr.. if you're going to give people just what they're expecting then you're not being very creative, are you?
A great video game does something that nobody expects and totally expands views of what's possible in the genre. Great people go out to create new expectations and mediocre people try to fulfill them.
I grew up during the dawn of arcades. During that time, you'd very frequently see a new game come out and say to yourself, "Wow, I never knew they could do that," or, "Gee, I never thought of that before." (Think Tempest, Punch-Out!!!, Zaxxon or Dig-Dug for examples). Nowadays this feeling comes much more rarely, even considering the sophistication of modern games.
Nowadays people are only willing to make safe bets on the games they're willing to put out. It's time the industry grew a pair of balls and were willing to create something for the sake of doing something damn cool and just hoping that potential buyers feel the same way. It's not all that risky when you're willing to forego bleeding-edge technology and instead focus on innovative gameplay to shrink your budget.
The Byzantine Empire the cornerstone of world civilization in the Middle Ages? Bullshit.
In 754, Al-Mansur became Caliph. During that time he surrounded himself with Persian advisors who informed him about their Persian libraries. These libraries included lore of the Hindus, Persians, Greeks and Romans.
Al-Mansur decided to have all of the works translated into Arabic, a task that took one hundred years to complete. So in the 800s the study of math, science and medicine rose around Baghdad. There were writings about agriculture, medicine (where the Arabs were really strong), optics, mineralogy, meteorology, astronomy and others. The Arabs built hospitals, parks, gardens, baths, universities and astronomical observatories. Al-Mansur's family ruled through 1258.
What did the Byzantine Empire have to offer at the same time besides eye-gouging, hopelessly complex laws and a big friggin' wall?
One thing that Western Europe, the Byzantine Empire and the Arabs had in common though was that they were all some blood-thirsty, war-mongering sons of bitches.
There's another nice site I found here to go along with your two.
And damn straight about growing up during the era of arcades. It's damn near impossible to explain to the younger video game crowd the sheer wonder we felt as these now technologically antiquated games came out back when they were brand new.
OK. So I looked it up on the Usenet Physics FAQ here. I may be reading this wrong, but it looks like a change in terminology as to what is actually included as General Relativity.
If you travelled 1,000 million miles an hour the measurement of the spped of light would be screwey as you'd be moving faster than the speed of light. (Besides, 1,000 million miles of hour relative to what?) But since it's impossible for an observer to reach the speed of light all observers measure the speed of light in a vacuum to be the same.
The E=MC^2 was part of the _Special_ Theory of Relativity which says that measurements of time and distance vary as anything moves relative to anything else. This is where the twins where one goes in a rocket near the speed of light and the rocket twin comes back still young and the stationary twin is old (I really hope I didn't embarrass myself by reversing this, but I think this is right).
Actually, you need to consider General Relativity when explaining the age difference of those two twins, the so-called "Twin Paradox".
Special Relativity just considers objects moving with a constant velocity. So here's you and me, each of us moving at constant (but different) velocities and looking at actions occurring at the other person's end. To me, you are moving while I am staying still, but to you the opposite is true. Because of this, to me time is moving slower than it should be for objects moving with you. To you, the opposite is true. Which of us is right and which of us is wrong? According to Einstein, both of us are right according to our own frame of reference and nothing more can be said on the matter.
But when the twins get together, we can compare the ages of the two and can conclude that the passage of time changed for the traveller (the dude in the rocket) and not the other. How can this be? That's because the traveller experienced a significant amount of acceleration (speeding up, turning around, slowing down to land). It is the effects of acceleration that are explained by General Relativity. Since the travelling twin felt acceleration he cannot say that he was staying stationary while his twin was moving. From both twins perspectives, the twin in the rocket was moving.
Gravity is simply a form of constant acceleration.
Actually I should check on what Encyclopedia Britannica says about planets. Do they give a similar definition to the dictionary one?
The Wikipedia article is merely a historical summary on definitions used. If you find any inaccuracies from your investigations, then I'd honestly be interested in hearing them. It's quite likely that an astronomer or two had a hand in writing that, though.
I personally would put more stock into what an actual astronomer would say than any dictionary or encyclopedia. They'd know best what the most appropriate classification for a planet should be. (But it's likely there's debate between astronomers as well.)
I like reading books too, but thank you for your concern.;)
Don't be obtuse. The whole entry is about details on the definition of a planet, and why a precise definition is difficult. If you would have bothered to read it you would have known that.
Because dictionaries, ANY dictionary (except maybe OED) give such a brief definition they also miss enough details to be misleading. The definition you gave for a planet, for example, is way too broad to be useful.
Just think, you could have learned something instead of proving yourself to be a pedantic prick who completely missed the point.
Slashdot Mirror
That's where the beta decay comes in. Beta decay turns neutrons into protons.
That is almost exactly backwards. At first everyone thought the speed of light was relative depending on how you traveled in relation to the light source. Then experiments showed that the speed of light through a vacuum was constant no matter how the observer traveled, putting a wrench into the whole ether theory. Instead of trying to work around it like everyone else, Einstein explained away the ether.
Also, I always got the impression that Einstein being bad at math was exaggerated. Really, Einstein being bad at math meant he was worse than many other hard-core physicists but better than about 95-99% of the people who participate on Slashdot.
Ultimately, yes. From what he's said Bin Laden wants the US and any influence the US has over the area out of the Middle East. But before that, he has also recognized that he has to weaken US power first. How? By hurting us monetarily. If you read anything he's said, you'll see that that's his biggest goal right now.
So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.
That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinises the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving those spectacular gains.
Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations - whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction - has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results.
And so it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House and us are playing as one team towards the economic goals of the United States, even if the intentions differ.
And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. [When they pointed out that] for example, al-Qaida spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost - according to the lowest estimate - more than $500 billion.
Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.
As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.
And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the mujahidin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan - with Allah's permission.
-bin Laden
I'm sorry to post that bit of propoganda, but it shows a clear plan of action by the enemy. And considering the massive cost of the Iraq War, this is pretty scary.
Dear God, look out! An ocean is forming. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo *gasp* oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooo...
Not at all, and I'm sorry if I was misleading about this. I just feel that the average level of objectivity of established newspapers is much higher than your average alternative news source. And since these newspapers should be held to a higher standard than a blog or whatever, articles passed off as objective that are not are always worth mentioning. Of course some alternative outlets, like factcheck.org or spinsanity may come out ahead of many, possibly even most, articles in said newspapers.
I don't think the mainstream media is one tenth as worried as any businessman or physician for being sued. How often does the New York Times get sued for being unobjective and unprofessional? Did it get sued of Jayson Blair?
And I don't think your average blogger is one one-hundredth as worried about repurcussions from bad reporting as the mainstream media. Jayson Blair and Dan Rather got fired. What blogger or whomever was forced to never write again or felt the effects of lost credibility for similar sloppiness?
You keep insisting that they're "a breed apart" which is false (not to mention elitist). Lots of people are realizing this, and it's part of the reason that the mainstream media is losing.
It may be part of the reason, but it's not clear that it's the driving force. The simplest and most likely explanation is that we all lead busy lives, and it is easier to look at your favorite blog that already agrees with your viewpoint than read the in-depth newspaper article that said blog used as their source of information. It's best that we check out several blogs of divergent viewpoints and vital we check out their source material (newspaper) to catch where they may have been misleading about what was originally said. I can't even count the number of times I heard from some blowhard, "I can't believe X said Y in this article! Outrageous!" Then I read the original article and think, "Where the fuck did he even hint at that???!!"
A "hack" engineer can't beat a real engineer, but a "hack" journalist (a blogger) can beat a real journalist.
Actually on rare occassions a hack engineer can beat a real engineer and a comparatively hack scientist can come up with a sound theory that a trained scienctist did not. An engineer can get caught up in equations, rush a job, or try to put one over on their client, and some insightful average Joe who has seen something similar before will call him on it. That's the value I see in the average blog and such, and I don't mean to minimize their importance. (Or maybe I just got carried away and did anyways). I just strongly feel that it's tremendously important that people at least read the newspaper source material that these bloggers and such like to riff off of before agreeing or disagreeing with them. Does this make me an elitist in your eyes?
Yes you did, and I quote: " The reason why the mainstream media faces the standards, criticisms, and repercussions that you dislike is because of the incredible power that they (used to) wield." Well the standards, criticisms and repurcussions the mainstream media faces is not something I dislike. You were wrong.
Thanks for admitting that the mainstream media is not objective (contrary to your prior implications). Now you're backpedaling and claiming that they're just not *as* biased as other sources of information (where did I say that I loved blogs?).
Any implications I made that the mainstream media is perfectly objective exist between your ears and nowhere else. I said, "It's just that if you compare the amount of objectivity and professionalism present in blogs and the mainstream, the mainstream is the obvious winner." The word "amount" means degree. Did you honestly think I thought the human beings in the mainstream responsible for the content they create were infallible?
So no one is perfectly objective. Does that mean we just throw up our hands, say "fuck it", and just listen to we want to hear without weighing anything that may legitimately contradict our beliefs? That it is somehow wrong for someone to even try to be objective in their reporting? I actually love reading articles that challenge my own beliefs. Hell, just point me to what you consider to be the best blogs or whatever alternative media sources out there I shoud check out.
Fabricating a document, passing it off as "true", failing to check sources, and doing it all to destroy a political enemy are all swept under the rug as mere "errors" to you.
I didn't intend to sweep any of this under the rug. They deserved to get called on for what they did and they deserved what they got. Hooray for the bloggers! Are you sure they were out to "destroy a political enemy"? Seemed more like sloppiness when attempting to fulfill the need for a sensational story.
Who is this "you" you're talking to? I'm not the blogger's champion.
Of course not. How could I ever have read your come, measured, unemotional defenses of the blogs and think of you as their champion. How silly of me.
In any case, I always invite people being held to standards of accuracy, honesty, and transparency. It's the mainstream media which has a problem with that. They think that they're superior to all the unsophisticated, non-journalist trash. They think that they're beyond judgement.
Seeing as how the mainstream media (especially newspapers) are under constant criticism by consumers on a daily basis and risk being sued for slander for certain mistakes, I kinda doubt that's the case. Do you think your average blogger has to worry about the same things as much? Since they probably don't, it is reasonable, not "elitist", to be more suspicious of their content than others. Dan Rather got fired for his misdoings. A popular blogger can just keep on churning out content after doing the exact same stuff. They just have to keep pandering to their base . See the point yet?
It's this disgusting notion that mainstream media journalists are somehow better people (or even better journalists) than everyone else which is elitist.
They're not better people. It's just that most of them go to school to learn what it is to be a good journalist. Would it be elitist of me to go to a trained engineer to design a bridge rather than some random guy off the street to just wing it? Or to trust someone who could have been sued or fired for messing up his earlier jobs rather than someone who was magically able to sidestep any culpability in their past? The former person may not do a perfect job, but it is more likely he will do a better one than the latter.
It's frightening how badly the meaning of the word "elitist" has been corrupted recently. There was a time it was used for more than disguising anti-intellectualism.
You're making up my feelings to try and support your own argrument. I don't dislike the standards, criticisms and repurcussions that the mainstream media faces at all. As a matter of fact, I believe they should face more of them. The problem is that blogs face none of these, and yet they are taken as the gospel truth by their readers.
If it really was so "obvious" that the mainstream media is more objective and professional than alternative soures of media, why would you need to say it?
Actually, I am kind of shocked that I do.
Most everyone now knows that every source of media has a viewpoint. Mainstream media is not nearly as objective and professional as you want them to be, nor will any claims (or facades) or said objectivity and professionalism save them from their imminent demise. Almost anyone can be a journalist now, and a meritocracy will arise.
Yes, Captain Obvious. Every source of media has a viewpoint. Yes, mainstream media make factual mistakes and skewed reporting that they must be called on. But they, to a much greater extent than your beloved blogs, derive their power from how well they can establish that they are doing accurate, honest journalism. Why are you so sure that blogs will thrive or fail based on this type of merit? Many blogs I see become successful by pandering to an ill-informed, opinionated group of people (left-wing, right-wing, whatever), saying the most outlandish statements they can think of to appeal to them, and keeping the echo-chamber going. And since they don't need to live up as the same standards as other news sources, they get away with it. What kind of merit is that?
Some "non-objective", "unprofessional" bloggers got Dan Rather, one of the most powerful names in the mainstream media, FIRED for being, of all things, non-objective and unprofessional. If that isn't a big fucking deal, then I don't know what is. But I understand why you want to downplay it.
I think it's great that somebody called powerful people in the mainstream media on errors. FANTASTIC! STUPENDOUS! Give yourself and your fellow bloggers a big round of applause on these individual victories. Honestly. But now consider how many of you would get into hot water if held to the same standards that they (correctly) were and you might not feel so hot anymore. I'll acknwoledge that bloggers can be vital for checking out and correcting items missed by the mainstream. But blogs becoming the primary source of news for the general populous would be... not good.
Insisting on healthy doses of accuracy and (at least an occasional attempt at) objectivity in all media is not "elitism".
Perhaps because a blog got Dan Rather and Mary Mapes fired? That sure was a good day! :)
OK. Now hold all the bloggers you know out there to the same standards, criticisms and repercussions that people in mainstream media face. How many do you think will survive? Honestly.
I'm not saying that such mistakes by the mainstream media are excusable. It's just that if you compare the amount of objectivity and professionalism present in blogs and the mainstream, the mainstream is the obvious winner.
So blogs got a couple up on the major news sources. Big fucking deal. So that means it's better to get news from The Drudge Report rather than The New York Times or The Washington Post? Not bloody likely.
Better to use a language like C that's made for the task and depend on the programmer's own know-how to create something stable and maintainable than depend on a language to put said programmer in chains and force him to hack at the thing when they prevent him from doing something he needs. System development just requires more flexiblity than application development does; it's just the nature of the beast. It's something that you have to actually try for yourself to see how that is.
Look, those people who created Unix are revered for their choices of design to bring a combination of flexibility, efficiency, portability, maintainability, and yes, stability to OS development. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps they knew what they were doing when they chose/created a programming language to do the job? Maybe there's more to the fact that 99.9% of the people doing kernel development use C with maybe some C++ than a need to stroke their egos or use existing code?
In that case the programmer used a strcpy when he should have used strncpy. In other words, the problem is with the programmer and not the programming language.
And that's the whole flippin' point. The same people who will make stupid mistakes writing system software in C will make mistakes in some higher-level language.
False. Mathematical theorems are statements that are proven . Mathematical statements that are thought to be true, partially because in all tested examples there are no contradictions, are called "conjectures." Hundreds of numbers supporting a conjecture is nothing when compared to all infinite possibilities.
Mathematics is an a priori discipline (independent of experience) while science, for the most part, is not.
It is? I must be out of touch then, because the book disappointed me so much that it made me give up on the series completely.
The first Stephen King book I ever read was The Gunslinger, and I was blown away. It expertly brought you in to a magical and mysterious world with curious connections to our own. You simply had to keep reading to see what was coming next, which wasn't a big deal because it used to be a very short and sweet book and didn't take much to finish.
That's right - a short and sweet novel by Stephen King. A true rarity. I always felt the strength of the thing wasn't the parts he put in but the parts he left out, if you catch my meaning. You could tell it was his first book, because this skill was lost on him forever afterwords.
Then came The Drawing of the Three. A lot more Stephen King-like writing style but still good and interesting as it ties in a lot more with our world. After that, the Wastelands and I'm still enjoying the series. More details on Roland's world, but still a good bit of mystery. Afterwords, I couldn't wait for the next in the series, as it's supposed to go into Roland's past.
So I waited. And waited. Many years waiting. Finally, when I've almost forgotten about the series, Wizard and Glass comes out. And I read it. What's it like? Some bullshit corny romance with contradictions to references to Roland's past in The Gunslinger. Also, it's hard to explain, but the way he describes the mysterious world there feels like it destroys the fantastic, surreal feel The Gunsliner so skillfully created. No more reading The Dark Tower series for me.
Then later on, when skimming other information about The Dark Tower out of curiosity, I find out that King is about to pull a George Lucas and - Jesus fucking Christ no!! - rewrite The Gunslinger to erase contradictions from later books and also to add many more pages to what was once a perfectly paced, concise book. I felt like throwing up. It's like he looked back at something good he wrote and declared, "Well shit, I can't let this stand, I've got to be a hack!"
Sorry, I know it's not my series and all, but I just had to vent.
Shit, that's nothing. The comment he responded to is currently modded higher as "Interesting" after being shown by several responses to be utterly wrong.
The fuck is up with that?
Oh what utter bullshit. I just recently got my Master's in Computer Science and I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of both grad students and professors were enthusiastic about Macs and OS X. While going to school I had an assistantship helping out doing software development for the Imaging Science department. The software was targeted to run on many flavors of UNIX: Linux, Solaris, Irix (I think they still supported this) and OS X. You know what many of the grad students, developers and System Admins worked with and talked a lot about with admiration? You guessed it... OS X. I've lost count how many times I've been on Slashdot and heard engineers with a lot of experience using computers to get their work done - not technical idiots at all - saying how productive they were working with Macs.
I'm sorry, but I don't consider people who primarily like to tinker around building their own personal computers to be the ultimate elite in the computer technology realm. Wankers at best. Look, if I need my own UNIX-based server I'd opt for a machine I'd build myself and install Linux on. But when it comes to a workstation to get day-to-day work done, I prefer a Mac.
No way in hell are you going to find a modern reputable source claiming that the effect of gravity travels instataneously.
Oh I remember plenty of the "half assed bulk games" around back at the day. But the point is that at the same time of them you'd have truly original ideas coming out regularly. A hell of a lot more regularly than now.
And some of the clones inspired by new sub-genres (inspirations from Space Invaders and Donkey Kong, for instance) were really great in their own right. From the boredom that was Space Invaders came the truly great Galaga.
Errrrr.. if you're going to give people just what they're expecting then you're not being very creative, are you?
A great video game does something that nobody expects and totally expands views of what's possible in the genre. Great people go out to create new expectations and mediocre people try to fulfill them.
I grew up during the dawn of arcades. During that time, you'd very frequently see a new game come out and say to yourself, "Wow, I never knew they could do that," or, "Gee, I never thought of that before." (Think Tempest, Punch-Out!!!, Zaxxon or Dig-Dug for examples). Nowadays this feeling comes much more rarely, even considering the sophistication of modern games.
Nowadays people are only willing to make safe bets on the games they're willing to put out. It's time the industry grew a pair of balls and were willing to create something for the sake of doing something damn cool and just hoping that potential buyers feel the same way. It's not all that risky when you're willing to forego bleeding-edge technology and instead focus on innovative gameplay to shrink your budget.
The Byzantine Empire the cornerstone of world civilization in the Middle Ages? Bullshit.
In 754, Al-Mansur became Caliph. During that time he surrounded himself with Persian advisors who informed him about their Persian libraries. These libraries included lore of the Hindus, Persians, Greeks and Romans.
Al-Mansur decided to have all of the works translated into Arabic, a task that took one hundred years to complete. So in the 800s the study of math, science and medicine rose around Baghdad. There were writings about agriculture, medicine (where the Arabs were really strong), optics, mineralogy, meteorology, astronomy and others. The Arabs built hospitals, parks, gardens, baths, universities and astronomical observatories. Al-Mansur's family ruled through 1258.
What did the Byzantine Empire have to offer at the same time besides eye-gouging, hopelessly complex laws and a big friggin' wall?
One thing that Western Europe, the Byzantine Empire and the Arabs had in common though was that they were all some blood-thirsty, war-mongering sons of bitches.
And damn straight about growing up during the era of arcades. It's damn near impossible to explain to the younger video game crowd the sheer wonder we felt as these now technologically antiquated games came out back when they were brand new.
OK. So I looked it up on the Usenet Physics FAQ here. I may be reading this wrong, but it looks like a change in terminology as to what is actually included as General Relativity.
If you travelled 1,000 million miles an hour the measurement of the spped of light would be screwey as you'd be moving faster than the speed of light. (Besides, 1,000 million miles of hour relative to what?) But since it's impossible for an observer to reach the speed of light all observers measure the speed of light in a vacuum to be the same.
Actually, you need to consider General Relativity when explaining the age difference of those two twins, the so-called "Twin Paradox".
Special Relativity just considers objects moving with a constant velocity. So here's you and me, each of us moving at constant (but different) velocities and looking at actions occurring at the other person's end. To me, you are moving while I am staying still, but to you the opposite is true. Because of this, to me time is moving slower than it should be for objects moving with you. To you, the opposite is true. Which of us is right and which of us is wrong? According to Einstein, both of us are right according to our own frame of reference and nothing more can be said on the matter.
But when the twins get together, we can compare the ages of the two and can conclude that the passage of time changed for the traveller (the dude in the rocket) and not the other. How can this be? That's because the traveller experienced a significant amount of acceleration (speeding up, turning around, slowing down to land). It is the effects of acceleration that are explained by General Relativity. Since the travelling twin felt acceleration he cannot say that he was staying stationary while his twin was moving. From both twins perspectives, the twin in the rocket was moving.
Gravity is simply a form of constant acceleration.
The Wikipedia article is merely a historical summary on definitions used. If you find any inaccuracies from your investigations, then I'd honestly be interested in hearing them. It's quite likely that an astronomer or two had a hand in writing that, though.
I personally would put more stock into what an actual astronomer would say than any dictionary or encyclopedia. They'd know best what the most appropriate classification for a planet should be. (But it's likely there's debate between astronomers as well.)
I like reading books too, but thank you for your concern. ;)
I shut up now.
Because dictionaries, ANY dictionary (except maybe OED) give such a brief definition they also miss enough details to be misleading. The definition you gave for a planet, for example, is way too broad to be useful.
Just think, you could have learned something instead of proving yourself to be a pedantic prick who completely missed the point.
It covers the controversy with Pluto as well.