I understand what you're saying, and I follow you to a point.
Yes, name-calling is not necessarily harassment. But repeated name-calling is harassment, IMHO.
Harassment is not about lashing out at someone during a brief period of anger. (We have all done that -- even the best of us.) Harassment a systematic pattern of abuse that lasts for a longer period. And yes, it happens online. And some of the members of this site engage in it.
That's a brilliant self-perpetuating delusion, worthy of the best conspiracy theorists. If a voter-fraud study turns up no evidence, it's not because there's no voter fraud, it's because the fraudsters are too good at it! And there are millions of them! Millions, I say!
You can't state that it's rare or a "minuscule" problem without at least a basic investigation into the votes cast and counted.
Sorry, hit Post too soon. Correction/clarification:
If Trump didn't think the popular vote counted, he wouldn't be claiming that he would have won it if "millions" of illegal voters hadn't voted for Clinton. There is not, and there never has been, proof that "millions" of people vote illegally. Quite the contrary: voter fraud numbers are miniscule. It's just not a problem. Trump is trying to claim that it is, and the Pence commission is political cover for that narrative.
There is a popular vote. It just doesn't count for anything.
No, it counts for something. Just not the Presidency.
If Trump didn't think it counted, he wouldn't be claiming that he would have won it if, as he claims with no proof, that millions voted illegally for Clinton.
They insist on teaching things in a very despotic manner, creating grammar nazis.
We need to teach people that it is ok to create a word, as long as you define it clearly. Spelling should explain legal variations and why they are accepted.
despotism != precision.
The vast majority of people who misspell words are not doing it to be creative in a literary or poetic sense. They're just being careless, ignorant, or both.
Expressing yourself with proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar shows to others that you care about what you say, and you want others to do the same. But I give a pass to those who may have trouble with a language due to education or cultural challenges (.e.g, ESL speakers.) The point is to do the best you can, and not be sloppy because you think it looks cool or you don't give a damn.
Not a stupid question. And the answer is: there is no reason you shouldn't be able to talk to animals.
I speak English to my dogs all the time. I used to have a German Shepherd, and sometimes I spoke to him with a few words of German (platz, sitz, steh, bleib, hier, etc.) Just like with young children, sometimes I have to spell-talk certain words to keep them from understanding.
Dogs and other animals are perfectly capable of understanding many words of a human natural language. A quick google search reveals that, on average, dogs can be trained to understand about 165 words.
Thinking you can talk to animals is not crazy. Thinking they can "talk" back is not crazy either. Hearing their "voices" in your head? That's crazy.
We shouldn't accept things as true simply because gathering accurate data is hard. Quite the opposite.
Of course not. But that's not what I was talking about. We may have varying degrees of certainty about something based on the data we have. That doesn't change the utility and importance of trying to infer something from what data we do have.
Particle physics, however, by it's very nature is very statistical these days. You don't observe anything directly, you observe things 3-4 steps removed from the interesting event, with a statistical model of what the decay products can be at each step. There's nothing but statistical inference typing actual measurements back to theory. Given that level of indirection, caution is called for.
Let me share a story I heard once about indirect evidence.
Do you know for certain that electrons exist? How? Have you ever seen one? All of the evidence for their existence is indirect.
Compare this with...
Do you know for certain that the Pope exists? How? Have you ever met him? All of the evidence for his existence is indirect.
By that logic, burning books isn't censorship because your can always go visit the author to find out what the original story was.
I'm guessing that logic is not your strong point. Here, let me help you.
First of all, burning books is not censorship. Banning books is censorship.
Second, nobody is "burning" a comment by modding it down. It's still available for you to see. And you don't have to "go visit" the poster to see it. You merely adjust your browse level.
Physics: 4 sigma error, question the model Climate: 4 sigma error, jail those who dare to disagree
Not quite.
Everything: 4 sigma error, question the model Everything: shame those who think a 6 sigma error is the truth
I agree with where you're going, but in all fairness, the sigma-level that matters depends on the field.
Not all fields can gather very large amounts of data the way particle physics can. For example, psychological and drug-trial studies must live with small sample sizes for moral and practical reasons. Even astronomy sometimes has to cope with large error-bars in results, yet the conclusions they draw can be significant. I think climate science lies somewhere in the middle in this regard.
To remove yourself from a position where you can (hopefully) continue to try to influence Trump, to a position where you cannot influence him harms everyone.
Make your objections, make them loudly, but don't quit the council. We need you there.
If Musk feels that he cannot actually influence Trump, and he's just there for window-dressing, then he should leave.
And I doubt Musk would succeed. Trump pretty much listens only to himself.
allow this to happen since they want to force everyone to work, which is slavery.
No, slavery is a system in which people are treated as property, i.e., one human being can legally own another. A system that Republicans brought to an end in the USA.
Being forced by the government to work (and get paid) may or may not be just, but it is not slavery.
We all should work if we can, but people should have the freedom not to work. Some simply can't, for legitimate reasons. But not working can have consequences, including an indigent lifestyle.
Also I can't square "has zero side effects" with "blocks conception". It either does something or it doesn't. There is no such thing as "zero side effects" for compounds that are active in the body.
If the only thing it does is block conception, then it has zero side effects. I'll wait to hear whether that's actually true, but the definition of a side effect is an effect other than the primary one.
in engineering college, the foreign kids were sitting in the library on Friday night of a holiday weekend while most of the natives were out partying.
The families of foreign students sacrifice a great deal to send their children to Western schools. The "foreign-devil fees" are much higher than for domestic students. If foreign students don't go home with As, they go home shamed.
Being a foreign student in a Western school is a brutal existence. Show them some compassion.
What exactly will Goldwind "milk" from the residents of Carbon County, Wyoming? Wind turbines don't require a continuous supply of products to keep them going, like inkjet printers do. Okay, they will need maintenance, but it's not like Goldwind will be sending them a bill for the wind.
It's not just for their employees, they're offering this program to unemployed coal miners as well.
Apparently with the hope that these unemployed miners will provide support for Goldwind turbines where they live. This is a loss-leader for the company, but IMHO, it looks like a win-win-win for Goldwind, the residents of Carbon County, and the environment.
Slashdot Mirror
I understand what you're saying, and I follow you to a point.
Yes, name-calling is not necessarily harassment. But repeated name-calling is harassment, IMHO.
Harassment is not about lashing out at someone during a brief period of anger. (We have all done that -- even the best of us.) Harassment a systematic pattern of abuse that lasts for a longer period. And yes, it happens online. And some of the members of this site engage in it.
No, "harassed" is the correct spelling. Both Oxford and Merriam-Webster say so.
There. I corrected you without harassing you.
There'll be a free option if you let Google use your lawn to display ads. It'll be called ... [sunglasses] ... Google Grass.
Successful voter fraud isn't detected.
That's a brilliant self-perpetuating delusion, worthy of the best conspiracy theorists. If a voter-fraud study turns up no evidence, it's not because there's no voter fraud, it's because the fraudsters are too good at it! And there are millions of them! Millions, I say!
You can't state that it's rare or a "minuscule" problem without at least a basic investigation into the votes cast and counted.
Well, you have a point there. Oh wait, you don't:
https://www.brennancenter.org/...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
http://www.politifact.com/flor...
http://www.scholarsstrategynet...
http://fortune.com/2016/10/18/...
http://www.projectvote.org/blo...
[Ignoring the remainder of your speculative, strawman-filled, fact-challenged rant.]
Sorry, hit Post too soon. Correction/clarification:
If Trump didn't think the popular vote counted, he wouldn't be claiming that he would have won it if "millions" of illegal voters hadn't voted for Clinton. There is not, and there never has been, proof that "millions" of people vote illegally. Quite the contrary: voter fraud numbers are miniscule. It's just not a problem. Trump is trying to claim that it is, and the Pence commission is political cover for that narrative.
There is a popular vote. It just doesn't count for anything.
No, it counts for something. Just not the Presidency.
If Trump didn't think it counted, he wouldn't be claiming that he would have won it if, as he claims with no proof, that millions voted illegally for Clinton.
They insist on teaching things in a very despotic manner, creating grammar nazis.
We need to teach people that it is ok to create a word, as long as you define it clearly. Spelling should explain legal variations and why they are accepted.
despotism != precision.
The vast majority of people who misspell words are not doing it to be creative in a literary or poetic sense. They're just being careless, ignorant, or both.
Expressing yourself with proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar shows to others that you care about what you say, and you want others to do the same. But I give a pass to those who may have trouble with a language due to education or cultural challenges (.e.g, ESL speakers.) The point is to do the best you can, and not be sloppy because you think it looks cool or you don't give a damn.
Not a stupid question. And the answer is: there is no reason you shouldn't be able to talk to animals.
I speak English to my dogs all the time. I used to have a German Shepherd, and sometimes I spoke to him with a few words of German (platz, sitz, steh, bleib, hier, etc.) Just like with young children, sometimes I have to spell-talk certain words to keep them from understanding.
Dogs and other animals are perfectly capable of understanding many words of a human natural language. A quick google search reveals that, on average, dogs can be trained to understand about 165 words.
Thinking you can talk to animals is not crazy. Thinking they can "talk" back is not crazy either. Hearing their "voices" in your head? That's crazy.
On this site, I've seen worse.
We shouldn't accept things as true simply because gathering accurate data is hard. Quite the opposite.
Of course not. But that's not what I was talking about. We may have varying degrees of certainty about something based on the data we have. That doesn't change the utility and importance of trying to infer something from what data we do have.
Particle physics, however, by it's very nature is very statistical these days. You don't observe anything directly, you observe things 3-4 steps removed from the interesting event, with a statistical model of what the decay products can be at each step. There's nothing but statistical inference typing actual measurements back to theory. Given that level of indirection, caution is called for.
Let me share a story I heard once about indirect evidence.
Do you know for certain that electrons exist? How? Have you ever seen one? All of the evidence for their existence is indirect.
Compare this with...
Do you know for certain that the Pope exists? How? Have you ever met him? All of the evidence for his existence is indirect.
Damn, /. dropped my link. Let's try again.
By that logic, burning books isn't censorship because your can always go visit the author to find out what the original story was.
I'm guessing that logic is not your strong point. Here, let me help you.
First of all, burning books is not censorship. Banning books is censorship.
Second, nobody is "burning" a comment by modding it down. It's still available for you to see. And you don't have to "go visit" the poster to see it. You merely adjust your browse level.
Physics: 4 sigma error, question the model
Climate: 4 sigma error, jail those who dare to disagree
Not quite.
Everything: 4 sigma error, question the model
Everything: shame those who think a 6 sigma error is the truth
I agree with where you're going, but in all fairness, the sigma-level that matters depends on the field.
Not all fields can gather very large amounts of data the way particle physics can. For example, psychological and drug-trial studies must live with small sample sizes for moral and practical reasons. Even astronomy sometimes has to cope with large error-bars in results, yet the conclusions they draw can be significant. I think climate science lies somewhere in the middle in this regard.
The straw man parade continues.
Like physicists, climatologists demand solid evidence. If you want to disagree with theirs, present yours.
This. It's easy to criticize science. It's a lot harder to do your own.
(Disclosure: IAAP)
Specifically books 6 and 7.
Also wish I'd played Half Life 3 sooner.
I heard that Chuck Norris has done all of those things. And he has heard the third and fourth movements of Schubert's 8th Symphony.
by Thomas S. Kuhn
To remove yourself from a position where you can (hopefully) continue to try to influence Trump, to a position where you cannot influence him harms everyone.
Make your objections, make them loudly, but don't quit the council. We need you there.
If Musk feels that he cannot actually influence Trump, and he's just there for window-dressing, then he should leave.
And I doubt Musk would succeed. Trump pretty much listens only to himself.
Why do these journals have a dog on their editorial board, but no cats? This is yet another example of the canocentric world that had to be changed.
Cats may not be on editorial boards (yet) but at least one cat is a published author. In Physical Review Letters, no less.
allow this to happen since they want to force everyone to work, which is slavery.
No, slavery is a system in which people are treated as property, i.e., one human being can legally own another. A system that Republicans brought to an end in the USA.
Being forced by the government to work (and get paid) may or may not be just, but it is not slavery.
We all should work if we can, but people should have the freedom not to work. Some simply can't, for legitimate reasons. But not working can have consequences, including an indigent lifestyle.
Disclosure: I am not a Republican.
Also I can't square "has zero side effects" with "blocks conception". It either does something or it doesn't. There is no such thing as "zero side effects" for compounds that are active in the body.
If the only thing it does is block conception, then it has zero side effects. I'll wait to hear whether that's actually true, but the definition of a side effect is an effect other than the primary one.
"Carbon County, Wyoming (yes, that's a real place)"
Is there an issue with the word carbon happens to be a very useful element unless your'e a death cult worshiper that thinks carbon is a curse.
SRSLY?
You have to wonder what it says when a county names itself after an element.
Copper County
Lithium County
Nitrogen County
Fluorine County
Chlorine County
Sodium County
Plutonium County
All elements are useful. Whether their compounds are useful as a component of our environment is another question.
in engineering college, the foreign kids were sitting in the library on Friday night of a holiday weekend while most of the natives were out partying.
The families of foreign students sacrifice a great deal to send their children to Western schools. The "foreign-devil fees" are much higher than for domestic students. If foreign students don't go home with As, they go home shamed.
Being a foreign student in a Western school is a brutal existence. Show them some compassion.
What exactly will Goldwind "milk" from the residents of Carbon County, Wyoming? Wind turbines don't require a continuous supply of products to keep them going, like inkjet printers do. Okay, they will need maintenance, but it's not like Goldwind will be sending them a bill for the wind.
It's not just for their employees, they're offering this program to unemployed coal miners as well.
Apparently with the hope that these unemployed miners will provide support for Goldwind turbines where they live. This is a loss-leader for the company, but IMHO, it looks like a win-win-win for Goldwind, the residents of Carbon County, and the environment.
loosing
Why do so many people insist upon using "loose" wherever they should be using "lose"?
Because Trump. You're not a loser, you're a loosah!