What's been missing from the coverage the David Patterson press conferences has been the shrewd, insightful experience and reportage from the OMG ponies! perspective.
(PS I honestly can't tell if you were making that same point only more subtly, or if you were honestly implying bloggers had less credibility than "real news.")
as a photographer who makes part of my income with press/arts photography, im not looking forward to this. It just means more morons crowding events and creating problems for the rest of us. Yeah, im real happy you write/shoot for some blog with 5 people who read it.
I too wish there was less competition... er uh... morons crowding events in my field of biological research. Yes, I'm really happy about having to be competitive. It would be so much easier if they would start issuing "scientist licenses" which were very difficult to get so I would have less competition and more time to procrastinate without worrying someone else will scoop me. Ooh, and with less competition, I bet demand would be higher for me and I'd get more money.
Man, this really does suck for you AC. Now you'll have to actually, you know, be competitive at your job. I feel so bad for you.
Valve spends way too much effort developing the latest bit of overblown DLC for the 6-year-old title they've been milking to death (Half-Life 2)
Exactly what DLC are you referring to? Episode 1 and 2? You and I disagree as to what is DLC and what isn't I guess. Episodes 1 and 2 were entertaining, pushed the story and concepts forward. From my perspective, they haven't been "milking it" enough, I want episode 3 to come out more than I want portal 2.
Portal is their best property, and they seem to treat it as an red-headed afterthought to Gordon Freeman's latest round of sewer running.
the most interesting theory i've heard regarding this is that you'll have a portal gun in episode 3.
What's far more interesting to me than the idea of playing half life with a portal gun though is how exactly those two universes would meet in terms of plot.
***Spoilers***
The borealis disappearing in an apparent accident could turn out to be Glados's doing. Is glados going to team up with the combine in some way? If it weren't Valve, I'd be terrified of that possibility. If both franchises were owned by, say, activision, I'm certain they'd artlessly stitch both together to try to make some type of superprofitable supergame, but it would end up ruining both portal and half life. Since it is valve though, and valve has yet to let me down (aside from how long its been since episode 2), I think it will be done well if that's where they're going.
I know! I -hate- it when FPS have a lot of shooting. The first person perspective also gets to me when there's too much of it. Same complaint with pornos really, they all seem to have way too much sex in them, imho.
Ugh. This cup of coffee has way too much coffee in it. Not enough lobster bisque if you ask me. It's like, yeah, it's a cup of coffee and not a cup of lobster bisque, but still.:-P
As someone else said, shifting just sends a signal to the transmission. You're not directly controlling any gears.
Obviously not true of manual transmissions though, or has Toyota been putting out those fake manual transmissions some car manufacturers are convinced we want?
But what I don't understand is... the media is really putting out the impression that everybody wants to consume TV/movies/books on miniscule screens like the iPhone.
I think it's more that all of a sudden you can put movies on phones, both in terms of hardware and the customer base to justify it, so there's a massive increase in investment there without a matching sudden increase in demand to watch movies on very small screens.
Can the iPhone battery even make it through 75 minutes of video + wifi?
It definitely does not. Apple might say otherwise, I have no idea what the official statement of battery life is, but my 3GS less than 6 months old cannot do that on a full battery charge.
We're doing better because of health improvement. If not for that, IQ would be dropping by 1 to 2 points per year on an unchanging (not renormalized) scale.
Citation?
I got your citation: dagnamnit kids can't read the dagnamit sign saying keep offa my lawn!
(No I don't know that's his answer, but I would bet good money it's his own number based on how much dumber he estimates people younger than him are. This may or may not relate to his viewing of "Jersey Shore" after viewing "Idiocracy.")
The rest, though, seems like emotive reactionary twaddle.
It is, but somehow putting it like that still doesn't dismiss my concerns for me.
Do I really have the "right to determine things for myself" having been stuck with my parent's natural genes?
I don't see why your parents should have that right, they haven't earned it. Our species has gotten this far without directly determining our genetics, and I don't see anything to suggest we're smart or mature enough to do so responsibly now. Merely gaining the technology to change our children's genes doesn't give us the right, at least in my opinion.
And when they mate, they DO determine their offsprings genetic makeup, same as every preceding generation has. It's called "hereditary traits" for a reason.
From my perspective, there's something fundamentally different in directly determining one's children's genes and unintentionally determining their genes. It would be dehumanizing enough if people were running around intentionally mating to have children with specific characteristics, but few people do that because they generally have different goals in reproducing. It's fairly rare for people to -intentionally- select mates on the basis of genetics, and in the cases where they do that, I feel sorry for the children. Dumb luck rolling of the dice seems to be working well enough for us and at least allows us to think of ourselves as unique, natural people. I think that allowing parents to directly override nature and mold their children will produce some horrible mistakes, and more importantly will degrade our value of ourselves.
I'm aware that this view is probably based more in paranoia or semi-religious beliefs than real facts.
There is no moral question here...
Wrong, there are ALWAYS moral questions in every aspect of medicine and when talking about human genetics, they're non-trival.
...except for mods that are done that are intentionally not in the best interests of the next generation, and the morality and ethics of this has been dealt with extensively in sci-fi.
You seem to be implying that because fictional stories have been written about this subject, that somehow resolves something....
Serious point though: if it ever becomes culturally acceptable to modify our genes in our -germ- cells and not just our somatic cells, then we will really have lost our humanity. I'm okay with someone modifying the genome in their muscle cells to cure their muscular dystrophy, I'm even okay with modifying your genome in your muscle cells to make them stronger, not just to fix a disease. But elective OR disease curing meddling with the genes in your testes or ovaries seems like we're asking for extinction as well as stepping on the rights of the next generation to determine things for themselves. I think we should allow our kids decide how or if to modify their semi-naturally inherited genes, and we should keep the immortal germ lines free of artificial modifications. For one thing, I doubt our ability to modify it effectively, I'd expect especially the first generation of modified from the start children to have latent defects. My gut instinct is that we aren't smart enough to direct our own evolution. The real reason I'd oppose germline genetic engineering though is just that something seems terribly wrong and foolish with passing on our decisions to the next generation so directly. It's like if you got a tattoo and it would show up on all your children. And I think there would be something completely dehumanizing if some kids from the next generation were modified to be super smart, which seems like something that would require germline genetic engineering.
Maybe it ultimately won't matter, we have yet to be able to effectively genetically modify somatic cells, germ cells are a lot different and it's entirely possible that genetic modification of them will prove far too difficult.
You can always hope the current crop of Neanderthals will be bred out as their namegivers had.
I wouldn't bet [imdb.com] on that.
You do know that movie was fiction, right? Hmm... maybe the current crop of religious neanderthals will just be replaced by a moviegoing crop of neanderthals.
Yes, but this time they have CONCLUSIONS! Which is more newsworthy than an unbiased study by honest researchers who caution people not to overreact to their results. It is always this way, which is why even after that study linking vaccines to autism has been completely demolished, a depressing amount of people still run around thinking that autism is caused by vaccines. That study was poorly done, and the results were announced to the world as final proof rather than something that would merit at most one or two repeats of the experiments before it was taken seriously.
If you want to get a lot of attention and don't care that all of the serious professionals in your field will immediately see that you are a quack and will eventually prove you wrong, then make a quick study and shout your results as the word of God for all the public to hear.
""We can now say with utmost confidence that regardless of research method -- that is experimental, correlational, or longitudinal -- and regardless of the cultures tested in this study [East and West], you get the same effects,"
Yes, you can say that, Mr. Anderson. You should also point out IN THAT SAME FUCKING BREATH that regardless of research method, YOU COULD STILL EASILY BE WRONG. As you're promoting this as infallible truth, based on research you didn't even do, I'd say that increases the chances that you're wrong, because you're a complete moron.
I'm actually a bit surprised he actually says policy needs to be changed, rather than "Elect me to be supreme overlord and I'll have this whole violence thing sorted out in a month." I mean, if you're going to boldly overstate your results, then by God, overstate your results, don't pansy out at the end and suggest someone else be empowered to deal with it.
Sometimes I gets this weird feeling that for every medicine discovered nature pushes back with one that is more effective and deadly. Is the idea of world without diseases (never mind getting the medicine to all people) a utopia that will never get reached?
I think we're still ahead in terms of numbers. Far more people have been saved by antibiotics than have died from antibitotic-resistant bacteria. I guess that could rapidly change thought...
Either way you're talking about raising the prices of basic foodstuffs. You won't inconvenience the rich: the rich will still be able to afford filet mignon and Kobe beef. After all, they're rich.
I've known for years that meat is the most inefficient food out there. If we've been taking risks with public health to prop up the economics of it to make it affordable to people like me, then that's really terrible. I also know the limits of my willpower. Realistically, I wouldn't be able to not buy meat if I can afford it, even knowing that.
My friend, it goes far, FAR beyond daily routine. For instance, from cell phone data, you can tell when a person's plane just landed, because evidently there's a law that says once you land you must immediately call someone on your cell phone and announce that you just landed and then repeat that several times. You know, in case they were picking you up and refused to read the screens indicating when your plane was going to land and wouldn't stand at the gate until you actually walked out.
But I digress. From that cell phone data, you'd be able to predict someone's non-routine movements. Scary huh. And just think about if terrorists got that information.
i read this material... what is so offensive about it?
Probably offensive to some, but funny to me is the fact that this guide for law enforcement is still chock full of marketing language, it reads somewhat like a sales pitch. They describe what all their services are in language only a parent or company describing it's own products would use, and they're using it in a document meant as a guide to law enforcement. Their description of Xbox live for example notes that it is the "premier" online gaming service for the Xbox and Xbox 360.
I can imagine a conversation between the guy tasked with writing up typing up a guide for law enforcement and the head of marketing:
Gary Grunt: You wanted to talk about the draft for the criminal compliance handbook?
Mark Marketing: Yes Gary. "Xbox live allows customers to interact online..." A bit dull don't you think?
Gary: I don't follow...
Mark: Damnit Gary, I want you to punch it up a bit. How about talking about our amazing and exciting "Achievements" system! In fact, where are the adjectives!? The superlatives?!? Xbox live is the BEST online gaming system available! We want the world to know!
Gary: But this isn't for the world to read, it's a secret document!
Mark: Well then we want law enforcement to know how great our services are!
Gary: Yeah... this really isn't an advertisement
Mark: Not with that attitude Gary... Not with that attitude...
Gary: (sigh) Okay, why not? It's not like this isn't a page of useful information buried inside 16 pages of stuff they could look up on wikipedia anyway. I'll make some changes.
Mark: Make sure to mention that they can play their CIA friends at guitar hero from the comfort of their own couch and get a gold membership for just 10$ a month!
Slashdot Mirror
More specifically, I'm thinking a copy or several nodes of her will be on the borealis, still alive.
What's been missing from the coverage the David Patterson press conferences has been the shrewd, insightful experience and reportage from the OMG ponies! perspective.
Man, how on earth did they manage to exclude the cable news networks?
(PS I honestly can't tell if you were making that same point only more subtly, or if you were honestly implying bloggers had less credibility than "real news.")
as a photographer who makes part of my income with press/arts photography, im not looking forward to this. It just means more morons crowding events and creating problems for the rest of us. Yeah, im real happy you write/shoot for some blog with 5 people who read it.
I too wish there was less competition... er uh... morons crowding events in my field of biological research. Yes, I'm really happy about having to be competitive. It would be so much easier if they would start issuing "scientist licenses" which were very difficult to get so I would have less competition and more time to procrastinate without worrying someone else will scoop me. Ooh, and with less competition, I bet demand would be higher for me and I'd get more money.
Man, this really does suck for you AC. Now you'll have to actually, you know, be competitive at your job. I feel so bad for you.
Valve spends way too much effort developing the latest bit of overblown DLC for the 6-year-old title they've been milking to death (Half-Life 2)
Exactly what DLC are you referring to? Episode 1 and 2? You and I disagree as to what is DLC and what isn't I guess. Episodes 1 and 2 were entertaining, pushed the story and concepts forward. From my perspective, they haven't been "milking it" enough, I want episode 3 to come out more than I want portal 2.
Portal is their best property, and they seem to treat it as an red-headed afterthought to Gordon Freeman's latest round of sewer running.
Counterpoint: No it's not.
the most interesting theory i've heard regarding this is that you'll have a portal gun in episode 3.
What's far more interesting to me than the idea of playing half life with a portal gun though is how exactly those two universes would meet in terms of plot.
***Spoilers***
The borealis disappearing in an apparent accident could turn out to be Glados's doing. Is glados going to team up with the combine in some way? If it weren't Valve, I'd be terrified of that possibility. If both franchises were owned by, say, activision, I'm certain they'd artlessly stitch both together to try to make some type of superprofitable supergame, but it would end up ruining both portal and half life. Since it is valve though, and valve has yet to let me down (aside from how long its been since episode 2), I think it will be done well if that's where they're going.
Half Life imo has too much shooting in it
I know! I -hate- it when FPS have a lot of shooting. The first person perspective also gets to me when there's too much of it. Same complaint with pornos really, they all seem to have way too much sex in them, imho.
Ugh. This cup of coffee has way too much coffee in it. Not enough lobster bisque if you ask me. It's like, yeah, it's a cup of coffee and not a cup of lobster bisque, but still. :-P
As someone else said, shifting just sends a signal to the transmission. You're not directly controlling any gears.
Obviously not true of manual transmissions though, or has Toyota been putting out those fake manual transmissions some car manufacturers are convinced we want?
But what I don't understand is... the media is really putting out the impression that everybody wants to consume TV/movies/books on miniscule screens like the iPhone.
I think it's more that all of a sudden you can put movies on phones, both in terms of hardware and the customer base to justify it, so there's a massive increase in investment there without a matching sudden increase in demand to watch movies on very small screens.
Can the iPhone battery even make it through 75 minutes of video + wifi?
It definitely does not. Apple might say otherwise, I have no idea what the official statement of battery life is, but my 3GS less than 6 months old cannot do that on a full battery charge.
So is NetFlix big enough to avoid having the app pulled when someone realizes you can see non-PG13 films?
They are big enough to a bribe to Apple, yes. Don't know if they feel a need to or if the two will approach each other like that.
On the other hand, I'm sure a lot of AT&T customers won't complain, as US cellular bandwidth is already spread thin.
Yes we will, for the reason you mentioned earlier! We want to have our cake and eat it too!
We're doing better because of health improvement. If not for that, IQ would be dropping by 1 to 2 points per year on an unchanging (not renormalized) scale.
Citation?
I got your citation: dagnamnit kids can't read the dagnamit sign saying keep offa my lawn!
(No I don't know that's his answer, but I would bet good money it's his own number based on how much dumber he estimates people younger than him are. This may or may not relate to his viewing of "Jersey Shore" after viewing "Idiocracy.")
The rest, though, seems like emotive reactionary twaddle.
It is, but somehow putting it like that still doesn't dismiss my concerns for me.
Do I really have the "right to determine things for myself" having been stuck with my parent's natural genes?
I don't see why your parents should have that right, they haven't earned it. Our species has gotten this far without directly determining our genetics, and I don't see anything to suggest we're smart or mature enough to do so responsibly now. Merely gaining the technology to change our children's genes doesn't give us the right, at least in my opinion.
And when they mate, they DO determine their offsprings genetic makeup, same as every preceding generation has. It's called "hereditary traits" for a reason.
From my perspective, there's something fundamentally different in directly determining one's children's genes and unintentionally determining their genes. It would be dehumanizing enough if people were running around intentionally mating to have children with specific characteristics, but few people do that because they generally have different goals in reproducing. It's fairly rare for people to -intentionally- select mates on the basis of genetics, and in the cases where they do that, I feel sorry for the children. Dumb luck rolling of the dice seems to be working well enough for us and at least allows us to think of ourselves as unique, natural people. I think that allowing parents to directly override nature and mold their children will produce some horrible mistakes, and more importantly will degrade our value of ourselves.
I'm aware that this view is probably based more in paranoia or semi-religious beliefs than real facts.
There is no moral question here...
Wrong, there are ALWAYS moral questions in every aspect of medicine and when talking about human genetics, they're non-trival.
...except for mods that are done that are intentionally not in the best interests of the next generation, and the morality and ethics of this has been dealt with extensively in sci-fi.
You seem to be implying that because fictional stories have been written about this subject, that somehow resolves something....
No one's running around screaming "the sky is falling". Just that you consider the tale and its implications.
Except there are indeed people on slashdot who are running around screaming that idiocracy is coming true anytime anyone does anything stupid.
And then what? We'll all get ponies?!?
Serious point though: if it ever becomes culturally acceptable to modify our genes in our -germ- cells and not just our somatic cells, then we will really have lost our humanity. I'm okay with someone modifying the genome in their muscle cells to cure their muscular dystrophy, I'm even okay with modifying your genome in your muscle cells to make them stronger, not just to fix a disease. But elective OR disease curing meddling with the genes in your testes or ovaries seems like we're asking for extinction as well as stepping on the rights of the next generation to determine things for themselves. I think we should allow our kids decide how or if to modify their semi-naturally inherited genes, and we should keep the immortal germ lines free of artificial modifications. For one thing, I doubt our ability to modify it effectively, I'd expect especially the first generation of modified from the start children to have latent defects. My gut instinct is that we aren't smart enough to direct our own evolution. The real reason I'd oppose germline genetic engineering though is just that something seems terribly wrong and foolish with passing on our decisions to the next generation so directly. It's like if you got a tattoo and it would show up on all your children. And I think there would be something completely dehumanizing if some kids from the next generation were modified to be super smart, which seems like something that would require germline genetic engineering.
Maybe it ultimately won't matter, we have yet to be able to effectively genetically modify somatic cells, germ cells are a lot different and it's entirely possible that genetic modification of them will prove far too difficult.
You can always hope the current crop of Neanderthals will be bred out as their namegivers had.
I wouldn't bet [imdb.com] on that.
You do know that movie was fiction, right? Hmm... maybe the current crop of religious neanderthals will just be replaced by a moviegoing crop of neanderthals.
It's just another study by people with an agenda.
Yes, but this time they have CONCLUSIONS! Which is more newsworthy than an unbiased study by honest researchers who caution people not to overreact to their results. It is always this way, which is why even after that study linking vaccines to autism has been completely demolished, a depressing amount of people still run around thinking that autism is caused by vaccines. That study was poorly done, and the results were announced to the world as final proof rather than something that would merit at most one or two repeats of the experiments before it was taken seriously.
If you want to get a lot of attention and don't care that all of the serious professionals in your field will immediately see that you are a quack and will eventually prove you wrong, then make a quick study and shout your results as the word of God for all the public to hear.
""We can now say with utmost confidence that regardless of research method -- that is experimental, correlational, or longitudinal -- and regardless of the cultures tested in this study [East and West], you get the same effects,"
Yes, you can say that, Mr. Anderson. You should also point out IN THAT SAME FUCKING BREATH that regardless of research method, YOU COULD STILL EASILY BE WRONG. As you're promoting this as infallible truth, based on research you didn't even do, I'd say that increases the chances that you're wrong, because you're a complete moron.
I'm actually a bit surprised he actually says policy needs to be changed, rather than "Elect me to be supreme overlord and I'll have this whole violence thing sorted out in a month." I mean, if you're going to boldly overstate your results, then by God, overstate your results, don't pansy out at the end and suggest someone else be empowered to deal with it.
alcohol works entirely differently. There is little to no risk of resistance to these forms of santization,
Are you kidding? No risk to resistance to alcohol?!? THINK OF THE BEER!!!
Sometimes I gets this weird feeling that for every medicine discovered nature pushes back with one that is more effective and deadly. Is the idea of world without diseases (never mind getting the medicine to all people) a utopia that will never get reached?
I think we're still ahead in terms of numbers. Far more people have been saved by antibiotics than have died from antibitotic-resistant bacteria. I guess that could rapidly change thought...
Either way you're talking about raising the prices of basic foodstuffs. You won't inconvenience the rich: the rich will still be able to afford filet mignon and Kobe beef. After all, they're rich.
I've known for years that meat is the most inefficient food out there. If we've been taking risks with public health to prop up the economics of it to make it affordable to people like me, then that's really terrible. I also know the limits of my willpower. Realistically, I wouldn't be able to not buy meat if I can afford it, even knowing that.
If you dropped the regulations, the new class of designer antimicrobials that my company is developing would be on the market right now.
If the US had a nickle for every time a businessman said that about regulations, that would about pay off our current national debt.
I'm horrified that you achieved +4 insightful instead of the +5 funny that you were going for.
It was "mortician mod points" day. Free market control of worldwide health issues obviously is in their interests.
Plus I've always thought that a much better terrible video is the actual numa numa video.
My friend, it goes far, FAR beyond daily routine. For instance, from cell phone data, you can tell when a person's plane just landed, because evidently there's a law that says once you land you must immediately call someone on your cell phone and announce that you just landed and then repeat that several times. You know, in case they were picking you up and refused to read the screens indicating when your plane was going to land and wouldn't stand at the gate until you actually walked out.
But I digress. From that cell phone data, you'd be able to predict someone's non-routine movements. Scary huh. And just think about if terrorists got that information.
i read this material... what is so offensive about it?
Probably offensive to some, but funny to me is the fact that this guide for law enforcement is still chock full of marketing language, it reads somewhat like a sales pitch. They describe what all their services are in language only a parent or company describing it's own products would use, and they're using it in a document meant as a guide to law enforcement. Their description of Xbox live for example notes that it is the "premier" online gaming service for the Xbox and Xbox 360.
I can imagine a conversation between the guy tasked with writing up typing up a guide for law enforcement and the head of marketing:
Gary Grunt: You wanted to talk about the draft for the criminal compliance handbook?
Mark Marketing: Yes Gary. "Xbox live allows customers to interact online..." A bit dull don't you think?
Gary: I don't follow...
Mark: Damnit Gary, I want you to punch it up a bit. How about talking about our amazing and exciting "Achievements" system! In fact, where are the adjectives!? The superlatives?!? Xbox live is the BEST online gaming system available! We want the world to know!
Gary: But this isn't for the world to read, it's a secret document!
Mark: Well then we want law enforcement to know how great our services are!
Gary: Yeah... this really isn't an advertisement
Mark: Not with that attitude Gary... Not with that attitude...
Gary: (sigh) Okay, why not? It's not like this isn't a page of useful information buried inside 16 pages of stuff they could look up on wikipedia anyway. I'll make some changes.
Mark: Make sure to mention that they can play their CIA friends at guitar hero from the comfort of their own couch and get a gold membership for just 10$ a month!