Yeah, I think you're assigning too much negative connotation with the term "insecticide". You seem to think that it means it's poisonous. To you. Some insecticides aren't even poisonous to insects, it just keeps them from eating the crop.
Some insecticides will straight-up KILL YOU if you look at it sideways, but set, meet subset.
As far as GMO goes, all the food you find in the grocery store has been genetically modified via breeding. The difference between breeders working towards certain characteristics and geneticists splicing and dicing in a lab isn't as big as you appear to be thinking.
That's not to say that your concerns are unwarrented. The lab-method of altering genes has it's own characteristics, not all of which are good. But unless the debate focuses on actual concerns rather than... well... scare-tactics from the anti-science crowd and political back-biting from anyone who is familar with Monsanto.
And hey, sometimes the Luddites are right. Because sometimes new things WILL kill you in clever innovative ways. And sometimes you can't trust anything even remotely associated with an evil corporation. But the technical aspects of GMO foods should be divorced from such chaff.
Yeah, they probably will try to use that defense. It might even get some people to feel sorry for them. Unfortunately, that pity is somewhat misplaced. It's not that these people don't have "half witted feckless personalities", they really do. But why do they have these personalities? Turns out, in a statistical way, there's a trend that lead makes you grow up into a more violent person. So, there's a very logical reason for the pity. The question is what you do about it?
Let's say you moved to the edge of civilization and learned that the locals had a policy of trepanizing their young, to appease the gods or whatever. How would you deal with the masses of obviously screwed adults that just can't think none too good?
Stop the practice? Good first step. (And the hell with their sacred culture. Relative moralism is in full effect. It's wrong to me and mine, and we have the power to stop it. Bloody hell, we're talking about trepanning kids!)
Treat the affect adults just like normal people? Doesn't work so well, they really ARE screwed in the head. Literally. They can't function like normal people.
Treat them just like the non-trepanized? The ones that, baring everything else, should know better? That seems... awfully unfair.
The individualistic streak that runs hot through libertarians faces problems when it comes to kids having an unfair childhood. Sometimes they would have been geniuses in different settings. Sometimes they'd be scalp-carving psychos no matter what. Sometimes you can elk out some of the genius, even at 40. Sometimes their personality is burned in and reform isn't possible, or simply isn't worth it.
No, that seems like a fairly petty thing to do. How about a more progressive tax system to account for runaway executive compensation instead?
And maybe tighten up those tax loopholes and deductions. Yes, even if that means getting rid of the ones I partake in. And if they funnel all their money off-shores and pay zero taxes or do a little dance with stock options and only pay capital gains, then the IRS needs to go in with guns blazing and send them to JAIL.
Right, the development is efficient. It's the testing phase we're concerned about. Quality control and acceptance testing can't just be skipped. The old method took GENERATIONS of usage to see what worked and what didn't. If you just bypass QA how do you know you have the same result?
The argument is that unit testing (I mean lab-tests), analysis, and automated scripts (I mean lab-mice) are a good substitute for testing a product out in the field. Because we all know engineers never release buggy software.
Well that took a while. Seriously, aren't there coders here who can cut through bullshit? Code modification, which includes deleting swaths of useless code and putting in something simpler, is called "refactoring". And there's been a shit-ton written about it.
The refactor vs rewrite debate is likewise ancient. See: Mozilla.
These are not unwritten rules. They're just things the author is ignorant of.
The deal awards Microsoft $617 million, which is after discounts to the software totaling in the tens of millions.
So... between $20 and $90 million out of a $617 million deal is 3.2%-14%. The most powerful military force in the world, and that's the best discount they could get? For sharepoint?
Re:What exploding middle class? The one in China a
on
Anti-GMO Activist Recants
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· Score: 3, Informative
The Gini coefficient of the US is increasing. That's income inequality. It lends weight to phrases like "the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer". While it could be that the poor are getting richer while the rich are getting ludicrously richer, that's still seems, you know, kinda unfair. It's certainly class envy, if you want to be a dick about it. But when profits are privatized while losses are socialized, as they were in the 2007 econopocalypse, you get a little angry about the weight of the yoke we bear.
(plants that produce their own insecticide and which we're supposed to eat?)
You mean like garlic? Or peppers? Cinnamon?
Why do you think they tastes like that? It's only when you dilute them that they taste good. They evolved that way, modifying their own genes, to thwart the things that would eat them. They're trying their damned best to be poison, and failing deliciously.
But yeah, snorting cinnamon or eating nothing but garlic will mess you up. Because when concentrated, they ARE poison. Dosage makes the drug. With all GMO food-stuffs, there's a need to test just what the hell is different about it. Which is... yeah... exactly what you said. But anyway, built-in insect repellant, not that crazy of an idea. There's prior art in nature.
No, I don't know what EPA regulation I'd break with a lemonade stand. But unless you point it out, I'm going to guess none.
If you CAN'T point out the exact line of regulation and link to a source I can verify (You know a real one, not some talking head blog), then you're just making shit up and fear-mongering. Because you FEEL like the EPA is over-regulating and you've heard other people bitch about the EPA and lemonade stands.
And you know what? There probably ARE a lot of bad little things that the EPA is simply a dick about. Things like an overly picky method of... hell if I know, straining poop or something, which was enacted entirely because dickass company X was being squirrely and the EPA brought out the hammer to fix it. Things like that need to be fixed. But to say that the EPA is a net negative? That we should simply get rid of it? Naw dude. No, I'd prefer to be able to breath in my city.
A system has to be absolutely horrific before tearing it down is a better idea than fixing it.
The EPA has helped the smog levels in a lot of cities. They saved the bald eagle. And while I still wouldn't drink it straight, the Cuyahoga river isn't going to be set on fire again any time soon.
Aye, a horrible system, but the best we have. Under certain conditions it works great.
And that condition is a free market. One with rational informed agents.
But guess what late-stage capitalism looks like? Feudalism. Someone starts to WIN. They own their turf and dictate what happens there. When there's just one guy in a market who bought out everyone else, that's a monopoly. The market is no longer free. It's owned. Sometimes bigger fish try to invade and take over their markets, and everything gets ugly. Now, since monopolies have been an obvious problem, they don't do that anymore. A group decides they're going to kinda-sorta compete and pay lip service the free market because otherwise uncle Sherman whips out his trust busting hammer. But if any of them get rich enough and/or powerful enough you're looking at regulatory capture.
But hey, where there's competition, low barrier to entry, a lack of natural monopolies, and moderately sane customers... yeah capitalism is great.
For everything else, there's regulation. To varying degrees.
Explain it to them like this: Know how there's weird shit with Motorola Androids vs Verizon Androids vs Google's Nexus One? How your old smartphone simply can't be updated, just because HTC couldn't be bothered?
It will be better when it's more open. If you want to shell out the cash and be restricted to what a corporation things you should do with what you own, go see what Apple is pedaling. If you prefer Android over iOS, for whatever reason, this will be more so.
I was always being told how great the mass transit was in other cities, and how much I'd like it if I didn't actually have to use a car to get around.
Well, I relocated to the D.C. area for a new job, not that long ago, and so far I'm not at all convinced...
And then spend a really long time bitching about how much it sucks to use a car in the city. That's.... exactly what you were told.
But somehow it's the government's fault that parking garage are expensive? Dude, it's space. You're in a city. Surrounded by people. They want their cars/housing/businesses to occupy the same space that you do. It's not really a scarce resource out here in Iowa. Yeah, even downtown Davenport. You're not fighting the government, you're fighting a fundamental law of economy. You can't blame the evil government unless they own all the parking garages. Unless you're one of those hippy socialists that think the government should provide for all your parking needs free of charge.
As for the freedom thing? Yeah. You're absolutely right. Because mass transit IS for poor(er) people. It's just the top 100 people per square mile can reasonably afford a car (and/or limo service), and in a big city, that's probably not you.
if production companies were offered the amazing windfall profit of free contemporary music
The issue is with your definition of contemporary. Think of the music 20 years ago. Would you consider it "hip"? Worthy of sticking behind an add for a new phone? Now consider all the songs from 40 years ago that you still hear today. The really good stuff is the classics and are tied to us culturally. As pieces of history. Often documenting historical events. The vast majority (ie, YOUR music) is simply forgotten and unplayed. If you are lucky enough to be a rockstar, you don't need the money. If you're not a rockstar, decades latter your copyright isn't worth anything.
Also, for "cold hard math" you seem to have a lack of actual numbers.
Sorry, but limiting copyright is not pro big business. The only people who care about copyright from 70+ years ago are big businesses that own portfolios of intellectual property. And get this, if 20 year later your public domain work starts getting used a lot (those thieves!), don't you think that your new works would garner a little more attention. I mean, that's why you put out some of your music for free, right?
Ehhh, they're trying to combat the oil curse. It's tough to say if it was ultimately a good idea. I mean, having resources is usually a good thing, except for when your big brawny/rich tycoon neighbor wants it.
Sigh, yes, but so is blaming an act solely on the individual. What causes these things to happen? Everything. Who/what is to blame? Everything.
From his mother, to his friends, to the society that raised him and didn't catch that he was going to go on a shooting spree. To the culture we have in place that encouraged him to hide how crazy he was. To the tools which made killing a bunch of kids that much easier.
And, most of all, the nut-job himself. Don't forget that. Blame him first. He killed a bunch of kids. Just don't stop there, because there's plenty of blame to go around.
Also, let's take a second to blame the NRA and the gun culture that was just OOZING to fight a battle about the 2nd amendment. I shit you not, I was at a business lunch, we saw the headline for half a minute and the first words out of Mr. Numbnuts-republican-midboss was that "we should have armed the students... I mean teachers... that would have saved them." Their tiny little corpses aren't even COLD and you turned this into a political debate. I'm sorry, but the conditioning and mind-washing is enough to make me gag.
Because the powers that be hate me, I have to fiddle with VBA macros about twice a year. Every God Damn Time I spend a few minutes just clicking around thinking to myself:
Where the fuck is that macro button?
Maybe it's just that I drink myself into a stupor and try to forget the entire experience, but this happens every time.
That's right. Hasn't the unvertainty principle pretty much dictated that's how it works on a very small level? Couple that with the butterfly effect, and it looks like we live in a non-deterministic universe.
If you roll one die, you have a random chance of 1 through 6. Roll two dice, and the random factor is still there, but you'll probably get around 7. Roll enough dice and the variance of the random factor are minimized and the probability chart goes from a low arch to a sharp peak. It approaches a deterministic system, but never quite gets there.
This is why the decay rate for Carbon-14 is more or less steady while we'll only ever be able to predict the CHANCE of rain tomorrow.
I thought this was settled science. As for what approach is better for AI development, awwhell if I know. My genetic algorithm killbots never got very far.
It's been used to describe homosexuality for longer than that. More like a century.
But what he's talking about is apparently the re-appropriation of the term. Similarly to how geeks embraced the insult and turned it into a badge of pride.
Well, newsflash, there was a bit of a cultural shift. At some point back there we hit a critical mass. There were enough of us, and we did enough cool things, and we had enough culture-points that we overthrew the stigma previously associated with us. Geeky is the new cool.
And as with this shift, you get the hanger-ons, the posers, the wanna-bes. Those who want to be cool, but just don't quite have it, for whatever reason.
I'm pretty sure I can say I'm a geek; I was called one back when it was an insult. But there's really no way you can discern who has it, and who doesn't. "Self-described" is as best as we can do short of whipping out our geek cred and comparing it (which is the saddest, most hilarious sort of contest you can have at a bar) in some vain hope that "true" geekdom can be measured. And like so many other labels that grew into fame, we too shall simply have to accept that the term, nay, our very culture, will eventually be watered down to the point of meaningless normal behavior. But then again, what better definition of cultural victory is there than everyone being a nerd?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I think you're assigning too much negative connotation with the term "insecticide". You seem to think that it means it's poisonous. To you. Some insecticides aren't even poisonous to insects, it just keeps them from eating the crop.
Some insecticides will straight-up KILL YOU if you look at it sideways, but set, meet subset.
As far as GMO goes, all the food you find in the grocery store has been genetically modified via breeding. The difference between breeders working towards certain characteristics and geneticists splicing and dicing in a lab isn't as big as you appear to be thinking.
That's not to say that your concerns are unwarrented. The lab-method of altering genes has it's own characteristics, not all of which are good. But unless the debate focuses on actual concerns rather than... well... scare-tactics from the anti-science crowd and political back-biting from anyone who is familar with Monsanto.
And hey, sometimes the Luddites are right. Because sometimes new things WILL kill you in clever innovative ways. And sometimes you can't trust anything even remotely associated with an evil corporation. But the technical aspects of GMO foods should be divorced from such chaff.
Yeah, they probably will try to use that defense. It might even get some people to feel sorry for them. Unfortunately, that pity is somewhat misplaced. It's not that these people don't have "half witted feckless personalities", they really do. But why do they have these personalities? Turns out, in a statistical way, there's a trend that lead makes you grow up into a more violent person. So, there's a very logical reason for the pity. The question is what you do about it?
Let's say you moved to the edge of civilization and learned that the locals had a policy of trepanizing their young, to appease the gods or whatever. How would you deal with the masses of obviously screwed adults that just can't think none too good?
Stop the practice? Good first step. (And the hell with their sacred culture. Relative moralism is in full effect. It's wrong to me and mine, and we have the power to stop it. Bloody hell, we're talking about trepanning kids!)
Treat the affect adults just like normal people? Doesn't work so well, they really ARE screwed in the head. Literally. They can't function like normal people.
Treat them just like the non-trepanized? The ones that, baring everything else, should know better? That seems... awfully unfair.
The individualistic streak that runs hot through libertarians faces problems when it comes to kids having an unfair childhood. Sometimes they would have been geniuses in different settings. Sometimes they'd be scalp-carving psychos no matter what. Sometimes you can elk out some of the genius, even at 40. Sometimes their personality is burned in and reform isn't possible, or simply isn't worth it.
I don't think there's a simple generic answer.
No, that seems like a fairly petty thing to do. How about a more progressive tax system to account for runaway executive compensation instead?
And maybe tighten up those tax loopholes and deductions. Yes, even if that means getting rid of the ones I partake in. And if they funnel all their money off-shores and pay zero taxes or do a little dance with stock options and only pay capital gains, then the IRS needs to go in with guns blazing and send them to JAIL.
Right, the development is efficient. It's the testing phase we're concerned about. Quality control and acceptance testing can't just be skipped. The old method took GENERATIONS of usage to see what worked and what didn't. If you just bypass QA how do you know you have the same result?
The argument is that unit testing (I mean lab-tests), analysis, and automated scripts (I mean lab-mice) are a good substitute for testing a product out in the field. Because we all know engineers never release buggy software.
Well that took a while. Seriously, aren't there coders here who can cut through bullshit? Code modification, which includes deleting swaths of useless code and putting in something simpler, is called "refactoring". And there's been a shit-ton written about it.
The refactor vs rewrite debate is likewise ancient. See: Mozilla.
These are not unwritten rules. They're just things the author is ignorant of.
The deal awards Microsoft $617 million, which is after discounts to the software totaling in the tens of millions.
So... between $20 and $90 million out of a $617 million deal is 3.2%-14%. The most powerful military force in the world, and that's the best discount they could get? For sharepoint?
The Gini coefficient of the US is increasing. That's income inequality. It lends weight to phrases like "the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer". While it could be that the poor are getting richer while the rich are getting ludicrously richer, that's still seems, you know, kinda unfair. It's certainly class envy, if you want to be a dick about it. But when profits are privatized while losses are socialized, as they were in the 2007 econopocalypse, you get a little angry about the weight of the yoke we bear.
(plants that produce their own insecticide and which we're supposed to eat?)
You mean like garlic? Or peppers? Cinnamon?
Why do you think they tastes like that? It's only when you dilute them that they taste good. They evolved that way, modifying their own genes, to thwart the things that would eat them. They're trying their damned best to be poison, and failing deliciously.
But yeah, snorting cinnamon or eating nothing but garlic will mess you up. Because when concentrated, they ARE poison. Dosage makes the drug. With all GMO food-stuffs, there's a need to test just what the hell is different about it. Which is... yeah... exactly what you said. But anyway, built-in insect repellant, not that crazy of an idea. There's prior art in nature.
They didn't shoot anyone's dog because they didn't have a dog. It's standard policy to alway shoot the dog. Always.
No, I don't know what EPA regulation I'd break with a lemonade stand. But unless you point it out, I'm going to guess none.
If you CAN'T point out the exact line of regulation and link to a source I can verify (You know a real one, not some talking head blog), then you're just making shit up and fear-mongering. Because you FEEL like the EPA is over-regulating and you've heard other people bitch about the EPA and lemonade stands.
And you know what? There probably ARE a lot of bad little things that the EPA is simply a dick about. Things like an overly picky method of... hell if I know, straining poop or something, which was enacted entirely because dickass company X was being squirrely and the EPA brought out the hammer to fix it. Things like that need to be fixed. But to say that the EPA is a net negative? That we should simply get rid of it? Naw dude. No, I'd prefer to be able to breath in my city.
A system has to be absolutely horrific before tearing it down is a better idea than fixing it.
Also it's "don't be evil". You're thinking of the three monkeys.
This is the weirdest persistent mistake.
The EPA has helped the smog levels in a lot of cities. They saved the bald eagle. And while I still wouldn't drink it straight, the Cuyahoga river isn't going to be set on fire again any time soon.
Aye, a horrible system, but the best we have. Under certain conditions it works great.
And that condition is a free market. One with rational informed agents.
But guess what late-stage capitalism looks like? Feudalism. Someone starts to WIN. They own their turf and dictate what happens there. When there's just one guy in a market who bought out everyone else, that's a monopoly. The market is no longer free. It's owned. Sometimes bigger fish try to invade and take over their markets, and everything gets ugly. Now, since monopolies have been an obvious problem, they don't do that anymore. A group decides they're going to kinda-sorta compete and pay lip service the free market because otherwise uncle Sherman whips out his trust busting hammer. But if any of them get rich enough and/or powerful enough you're looking at regulatory capture.
But hey, where there's competition, low barrier to entry, a lack of natural monopolies, and moderately sane customers... yeah capitalism is great.
For everything else, there's regulation. To varying degrees.
Is it right to do wickedness to wicked people just because they would do the same to you?
When it's Microsoft, yes.
Also, it's "have done", past tense. They have done the same to me and mine.
Explain it to them like this: Know how there's weird shit with Motorola Androids vs Verizon Androids vs Google's Nexus One? How your old smartphone simply can't be updated, just because HTC couldn't be bothered?
It will be better when it's more open. If you want to shell out the cash and be restricted to what a corporation things you should do with what you own, go see what Apple is pedaling. If you prefer Android over iOS, for whatever reason, this will be more so.
A move to more mass transit would not only greatly increase the subsidies required, but seriously accelerate the damage done to the roads.
Unless that mass transit were, say, on rails.
I was always being told how great the mass transit was in other cities, and how much I'd like it if I didn't actually have to use a car to get around. Well, I relocated to the D.C. area for a new job, not that long ago, and so far I'm not at all convinced...
And then spend a really long time bitching about how much it sucks to use a car in the city. That's.... exactly what you were told.
But somehow it's the government's fault that parking garage are expensive? Dude, it's space. You're in a city. Surrounded by people. They want their cars/housing/businesses to occupy the same space that you do. It's not really a scarce resource out here in Iowa. Yeah, even downtown Davenport. You're not fighting the government, you're fighting a fundamental law of economy. You can't blame the evil government unless they own all the parking garages. Unless you're one of those hippy socialists that think the government should provide for all your parking needs free of charge.
As for the freedom thing? Yeah. You're absolutely right. Because mass transit IS for poor(er) people. It's just the top 100 people per square mile can reasonably afford a car (and/or limo service), and in a big city, that's probably not you.
if production companies were offered the amazing windfall profit of free contemporary music
The issue is with your definition of contemporary. Think of the music 20 years ago. Would you consider it "hip"? Worthy of sticking behind an add for a new phone? Now consider all the songs from 40 years ago that you still hear today. The really good stuff is the classics and are tied to us culturally. As pieces of history. Often documenting historical events. The vast majority (ie, YOUR music) is simply forgotten and unplayed. If you are lucky enough to be a rockstar, you don't need the money. If you're not a rockstar, decades latter your copyright isn't worth anything.
Also, for "cold hard math" you seem to have a lack of actual numbers.
Sorry, but limiting copyright is not pro big business. The only people who care about copyright from 70+ years ago are big businesses that own portfolios of intellectual property. And get this, if 20 year later your public domain work starts getting used a lot (those thieves!), don't you think that your new works would garner a little more attention. I mean, that's why you put out some of your music for free, right?
Ehhh, they're trying to combat the oil curse. It's tough to say if it was ultimately a good idea. I mean, having resources is usually a good thing, except for when your big brawny/rich tycoon neighbor wants it.
Blaming an act on the tool chosen is laziness
Sigh, yes, but so is blaming an act solely on the individual. What causes these things to happen? Everything. Who/what is to blame? Everything.
From his mother, to his friends, to the society that raised him and didn't catch that he was going to go on a shooting spree. To the culture we have in place that encouraged him to hide how crazy he was. To the tools which made killing a bunch of kids that much easier.
And, most of all, the nut-job himself. Don't forget that. Blame him first. He killed a bunch of kids. Just don't stop there, because there's plenty of blame to go around.
Also, let's take a second to blame the NRA and the gun culture that was just OOZING to fight a battle about the 2nd amendment. I shit you not, I was at a business lunch, we saw the headline for half a minute and the first words out of Mr. Numbnuts-republican-midboss was that "we should have armed the students... I mean teachers... that would have saved them." Their tiny little corpses aren't even COLD and you turned this into a political debate. I'm sorry, but the conditioning and mind-washing is enough to make me gag.
Fuss, fuss... I think he like to scream... at us.
Because the powers that be hate me, I have to fiddle with VBA macros about twice a year. Every God Damn Time I spend a few minutes just clicking around thinking to myself:
Where the fuck is that macro button?
Maybe it's just that I drink myself into a stupor and try to forget the entire experience, but this happens every time.
events in the world are inherently uncertain
That's right. Hasn't the unvertainty principle pretty much dictated that's how it works on a very small level? Couple that with the butterfly effect, and it looks like we live in a non-deterministic universe.
If you roll one die, you have a random chance of 1 through 6. Roll two dice, and the random factor is still there, but you'll probably get around 7. Roll enough dice and the variance of the random factor are minimized and the probability chart goes from a low arch to a sharp peak. It approaches a deterministic system, but never quite gets there.
This is why the decay rate for Carbon-14 is more or less steady while we'll only ever be able to predict the CHANCE of rain tomorrow.
I thought this was settled science. As for what approach is better for AI development, awwhell if I know. My genetic algorithm killbots never got very far.
It's been used to describe homosexuality for longer than that. More like a century.
But what he's talking about is apparently the re-appropriation of the term. Similarly to how geeks embraced the insult and turned it into a badge of pride.
Well, newsflash, there was a bit of a cultural shift. At some point back there we hit a critical mass. There were enough of us, and we did enough cool things, and we had enough culture-points that we overthrew the stigma previously associated with us. Geeky is the new cool.
And as with this shift, you get the hanger-ons, the posers, the wanna-bes. Those who want to be cool, but just don't quite have it, for whatever reason.
I'm pretty sure I can say I'm a geek; I was called one back when it was an insult. But there's really no way you can discern who has it, and who doesn't. "Self-described" is as best as we can do short of whipping out our geek cred and comparing it (which is the saddest, most hilarious sort of contest you can have at a bar) in some vain hope that "true" geekdom can be measured. And like so many other labels that grew into fame, we too shall simply have to accept that the term, nay, our very culture, will eventually be watered down to the point of meaningless normal behavior. But then again, what better definition of cultural victory is there than everyone being a nerd?