It's an ideal -- peaceful people living in harmony with nature -- that doesn't hold up to close scrutiny. For instance, what do they do if one of their buddies is born with a genetic disease like Polycystic Kidney Disease or needs some other benefit of modern medicine. Also, in the real world packs of wolves and bears don't just leave you alone.
This stuff sounds great until you start to think about it really hard.
P.S. And at the end of the movie I was rooting for the "indians" just like everyone else.
You Don't Need a PhD to Know When a Chart's Bogus
on
The Limits To Skepticism
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· Score: 1, Troll
In my Inconvenient Truth Analysis, I point out how Al Gore and/or his graphic designers use a set of information design tricks to try to increase the visual impact of their money slide. For instance, on the right side of the chart you can see where they overlaid one set of data (the red peaks) over another (the blue peaks).
For those who are interested in how climate change is being marketed, a while back I wrote a piece called "An Inconvenient Truth?" that is an analysis of some of the charts and diagrams in Al Gore's book and movie from an information design perspective. The bottom line is that Al Gore used every trick in the book to try to strengthen his case.
The recent CRU e-mails explain some some of the things I point out in the piece.
I've long been intrigued by the idea of giving the eBook version of my book "Elevator Pitch Essentials" away (no-DRM PDF), but have been reluctant to since I'm actually making decent money via eBook sales.
Maybe part of the difference is that I self published and don't have huge distribution. My books is only available through US Amazon.com and my web site. In a year, I have sold about 80 eBook copies (at $10), mostly overseas or to people who needed it RIGHT NOW (e.g. due to presentations tomorrow). eBook sales are pure profit to me, and roughly twice as profitable as hard copy sales through Amazon.
Of course, I could be making money at the cost of awareness.
They should give us the option of not being offered it. I have tried several times to deselect it from the offer list, but that's not an option. Instead, you have to notice it in the update list. I'm not worried about what I am going to do, but about what my wife and kids are going to do. They aren't as tech savvy as me.
Pretty much everything I made out of Legos was war-related. Tanks and planes mostly, but I made some pretty cool howitzers back in the day. They'd fire the four-side black rods with a couple of rubber bands.
I would think about this as a potential product and business before you worry about patents.
You're likely to make much more money that way.
Patenting things may actually be a BAD idea because it could give away secrets that could give you a defensible (and very profitable) advantage.
It's a derivative of the SU-27, which isn't at all stealthy (note the exposed engine intakes and right-angled vertical tails). Also, the original article doesn't mention stealth at all, just supercruise and maneuverability.
They had a major problem a few years ago, where due to some poor sales policies they gave bad guys access to tons of SSNs. That led to pushes on Capitol Hill for major changes in how all personal data providers do business, and in particular how they handle SSNs.
That had a non-trivial impact on a bunch of companies, including one I worked for. It caused us to spend a lot of time and money checking to see if we had a similar vulnerability (because our business was very SSN driven).
Here's a link to a YouTube video that shows a STOL (Short TakeOff and Landing) aicraft called the QSRA that could takeoff from and land on an aircraft carrier without the use of arresting gear and catapults through the use of the Coanda effect.
The point of the Coanda effect is NOT that the flow speeds up. Rather, and as Wikipedia correctly points out, the point of the Coanda effect is that the flow stays attached to the curved surface, which allows you to redirect it...
The CoandÄf effect is the tendency of a fluid jet to stay attached to an adjacent curved surface of a specific radius. The principle was named after Romanian aerodynamics pioneer Henri CoandÄf, who was the first to recognize the practical application of the phenomenon in aircraft development.
FYI, the Coanda effect is what makes leafless gutter systems work. It allows the water to turn the corner and enter the gutter while the leaves shoot over the side.
Those are mostly issues of style and, like hemlines, they are extremely culture-dependent. Those style factors are also as much about sending messages of status and inclusion to members of the same gender (e.g. women dress up to impress women as much as men).
As was pointed out in "Legally Blonde", what heterosexual male (who isn't in the business) knows that much about women's shoes? I can given you color, height, and general style and that's it.
I'm very aware of the psychological aspects of programming; ideas like flow and how long it can take to get into a flow state. Tom Demarco has done some great writing about this.
The measure was gaze time, and the conclusion was simple...
Previous studies have shown that when newborn and young infants are shown attractive and unattractive adult faces they will look longer at the attractive faces.
Since my original reply is getting modded down as troll-ish, here's a citation for my comment that infants spend more time looking at attractive faces...
When I was a manager running a project to go live on a large web site, I knew the developers were busy. In the final weeks I limited meetings to a single, end of the day stand-up meeting. That let people report on status and issues, but limited the negative impact on people's productivity.
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Great point. Good luck fighting a pack of those wolf thingy's with 20/200 vision (like I have).
Never take too seriously an idealized society that relies on a miracle -- in this case a miracle tree -- to function.
P.S. Did you notice that the cockpits of the big mutha warship were the same as the ones from Aliens? I assume that was a hat tip to Cameron's past.
Some of this is standard noble savage stuff.
It's an ideal -- peaceful people living in harmony with nature -- that doesn't hold up to close scrutiny. For instance, what do they do if one of their buddies is born with a genetic disease like Polycystic Kidney Disease or needs some other benefit of modern medicine. Also, in the real world packs of wolves and bears don't just leave you alone.
This stuff sounds great until you start to think about it really hard.
P.S. And at the end of the movie I was rooting for the "indians" just like everyone else.
In my Inconvenient Truth Analysis, I point out how Al Gore and/or his graphic designers use a set of information design tricks to try to increase the visual impact of their money slide. For instance, on the right side of the chart you can see where they overlaid one set of data (the red peaks) over another (the blue peaks).
For those who are interested in how climate change is being marketed, a while back I wrote a piece called "An Inconvenient Truth?" that is an analysis of some of the charts and diagrams in Al Gore's book and movie from an information design perspective. The bottom line is that Al Gore used every trick in the book to try to strengthen his case.
The recent CRU e-mails explain some some of the things I point out in the piece.
I've long been intrigued by the idea of giving the eBook version of my book "Elevator Pitch Essentials" away (no-DRM PDF), but have been reluctant to since I'm actually making decent money via eBook sales.
Maybe part of the difference is that I self published and don't have huge distribution. My books is only available through US Amazon.com and my web site. In a year, I have sold about 80 eBook copies (at $10), mostly overseas or to people who needed it RIGHT NOW (e.g. due to presentations tomorrow). eBook sales are pure profit to me, and roughly twice as profitable as hard copy sales through Amazon.
Of course, I could be making money at the cost of awareness.
I figured I was offered it because my son sometimes syncs his iPod Touch using my computer.
This is wrong. I don't have the app installed and they still pushed it to me.
They should give us the option of not being offered it. I have tried several times to deselect it from the offer list, but that's not an option. Instead, you have to notice it in the update list. I'm not worried about what I am going to do, but about what my wife and kids are going to do. They aren't as tech savvy as me.
I have been offered it at least twice a couple of weeks apart, including this weekend.
Pretty much everything I made out of Legos was war-related. Tanks and planes mostly, but I made some pretty cool howitzers back in the day. They'd fire the four-side black rods with a couple of rubber bands.
I would think about this as a potential product and business before you worry about patents. You're likely to make much more money that way. Patenting things may actually be a BAD idea because it could give away secrets that could give you a defensible (and very profitable) advantage.
Is it just me or does anyone else think the Indian pilots won't be thrilled with flying a "PAK"-anything?
It's a derivative of the SU-27, which isn't at all stealthy (note the exposed engine intakes and right-angled vertical tails). Also, the original article doesn't mention stealth at all, just supercruise and maneuverability.
They had a major problem a few years ago, where due to some poor sales policies they gave bad guys access to tons of SSNs. That led to pushes on Capitol Hill for major changes in how all personal data providers do business, and in particular how they handle SSNs.
That had a non-trivial impact on a bunch of companies, including one I worked for. It caused us to spend a lot of time and money checking to see if we had a similar vulnerability (because our business was very SSN driven).
Knives are more personal.
Here's a link to a YouTube video that shows a STOL (Short TakeOff and Landing) aicraft called the QSRA that could takeoff from and land on an aircraft carrier without the use of arresting gear and catapults through the use of the Coanda effect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_eDutgh4IU
The point of the Coanda effect is NOT that the flow speeds up. Rather, and as Wikipedia correctly points out, the point of the Coanda effect is that the flow stays attached to the curved surface, which allows you to redirect it...
The CoandÄf effect is the tendency of a fluid jet to stay attached to an adjacent curved surface of a specific radius. The principle was named after Romanian aerodynamics pioneer Henri CoandÄf, who was the first to recognize the practical application of the phenomenon in aircraft development.
FYI, the Coanda effect is what makes leafless gutter systems work. It allows the water to turn the corner and enter the gutter while the leaves shoot over the side.
Those are mostly issues of style and, like hemlines, they are extremely culture-dependent. Those style factors are also as much about sending messages of status and inclusion to members of the same gender (e.g. women dress up to impress women as much as men).
As was pointed out in "Legally Blonde", what heterosexual male (who isn't in the business) knows that much about women's shoes? I can given you color, height, and general style and that's it.
I'm very aware of the psychological aspects of programming; ideas like flow and how long it can take to get into a flow state. Tom Demarco has done some great writing about this.
I got the idea from reading books about Agile development methods.
Lusting after someone is different than marrying them.
Of course, in some cases lust overcomes one's better judgment (as one's friends will, or won't, point out).
The measure was gaze time, and the conclusion was simple...
Previous studies have shown that when newborn and young infants are shown attractive and unattractive adult faces they will look longer at the attractive faces.
Since my original reply is getting modded down as troll-ish, here's a citation for my comment that infants spend more time looking at attractive faces...
http://jbd.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/3/212
When I was a manager running a project to go live on a large web site, I knew the developers were busy. In the final weeks I limited meetings to a single, end of the day stand-up meeting. That let people report on status and issues, but limited the negative impact on people's productivity.