but I read an interesting article on a related subject the other day. (I thought it was in Scientific American, but couldn't find it on their site.)
The gist of the study was that people have a natural tendency (apparently) to look for fairness in interactions. They took pairs of people and gave one of them $10. This person was asked to offer as much of the money to the other person as they wanted. The second person could choose to accept or reject the offer. If accepted, both people would keep the money they had but if rejected neither could keep anything. Obviously, whatever the second person received would be free money, so logically (one would think) it's in their interest to accept whatever is offered, even if it's just a penny. But what the researchers found is that this is not what happens - instead, the second person would reject offers deemed insufficient. They ran this experiment in a number of places so that they could control for cultural differences, etc. There were cultural differences (in some places the offerer would actually offer more than half the money to the second person) but they consistently found that there was a limit below which people would reject the offer - apparently viewing it as unfair.
If I remember where I found it I'll add a link, if possible, in a later post.
I have a friend who has a friend who recently got her PhD in Chemical Engineering. She implemented an interesting application of multi-variate optimization using genetic algorithms. She was trying to create sealants of some sort which had to have various properties - quick drying time, etc. Putting in various data about the compounds she could use as ingredients (and from what I understand there were hundreds of them) and comparing against known compounds and their ingredients she was able to create a program that would predict (with a fair degree of accuracy, apparently) the properties of new compounds. This could save a lot of money in research by pointing chemical engineers towards promising compounds without them wasting time on the less promising stuff. The cool thing is that because of the number of variables involved (hundreds and hundreds of them) it is difficult for a human to spot patterns in the data - but a genetic algorithm is perfectly suited for this kind of search.
I have also played with this myself and have written a program which produces geneteic algorithms. I have been very surprised sometimes by the solutions that the produced algorithms give. Even for simple stuff (like finding averages of two or three numbers) it can produce some *very* clever algorithms. Because of hte nature of how it produces them, though, there is also a lot of "noise" code which makes it confusing to read - once you work your way through it, though, I am often surprised by the "cleverness" of the code produced.
I saw the same film that the reviewer did and I think he gives it _way_ too much credit. The idea that the guy playing the vampire actually _was_ a vampire is a clever plot twist. Unfortunately, the plot never seemed to suck me in (pun intended). The acting is good, but the script was pretty bad - a friend of mine and I actually burst out laughing at a particularly corny line near the end of the movie and I might have walked out had I though my friend wouldn't have objected (it turns out she wouldn't have objected, but I don't like talking during a move (even a bad one) so I didn't ask.)
\n
Honestly, do yourselves a favor and give this one a miss.
I think Katz wrote this so that he could sound off on some of his favorite themes, not because this was worthy of a review.
The second half of the "review" was a political speech by Katz on the evils and arrogance of corporatization - but as other posters have made clear, this was a Schwarzenegger action film, not a documentary of cloning. It was full of unexplained innuendoes such as "History ought to have taught us to be wary of this Frankenstein-style hubris". An example for clarification would be useful.
I definitely agree with the idea that religion is a very personal question. However, a girl wearing a scarf or a boy wearing a yarmulke is not forcing anything on anyone. They are not attempting to convert you to their religion - they are merely following the dictates of their own, which requires them (according to their interpratation of it) to wear certain types of clothing. Catholicism and Protestantism generally make no such requirements on its followers. A clothing restriction is therefore prejudicial against people following minority religions who _do_ have such requirements in their religion.
Again, I accept that most French people who support the rules about non-religious clothing in school are genuninely interested in protecting the secular nature of school (l'ecole laic). Generally speaking this is a good thing, but the French approach is to ban religion, whereas in the United States the principle is that the school should be neutral to it. I found it disturbing that people who were definitely defenders of the right to religious freedom were in favor of restricting certain innocuous religious expression.
For me, freedom is about preserving choice, not about limiting it.
If what Katz submitted is considerd good commentary on an important issue, I'm deeply disappointed. This was not a thoughtful piece but a mere parroting of jargon. Katz didn't even _try_ to present facts in support of his position - he simply argued by assertion.
For example, he talks about a country in which a "robust economy, conformity and market research are national religions, and a nation where kids who dissent and act strangely are routinely tossed out of school or thrown in jail. " I see - and this is a new trend and something which didn't exist before? In America in the 1950's nonconformity was encouraged? I agree with him that this is a Bad Thing, but he has to convince us that this is somehow new.
Also, I lived in France for a few years a while back and can tell you that they, too, have issues with nonconformity. When I was there a young girl who was Muslim was disciplined at school for wearing a headscarf because it identified her as Muslim. Jewish boys at school are not permitted to wear yarmulkes - again because it identifies them religiously. Many of the French people who I spoke with about the girl's headscarf were astonished that anyone would take exception to her being disciplined - they genuninely felt that this rule was there to protect the secular character of the school.
This is not an anti-French rant - I'm just trying to point out that the things he's trying to identify as being specifically exported by the United States actually exist in lots of places. Had I lived in Italy (or Germany, or Thailand, or wherever) I would probably have stories to tell about them, too. (For the French speakers reading this - pour que vous sachiez, j'ai pas de complexe anti-francais - je garde de tres bonnes memoires de la France et j'y retourne assez souvent pour voir de mes amis et pour revoir mes bars preferes a Paris)
Katz completely ignores the self-interest element in what's going on here. Bove's reaction was in response to an American tariff on Roquefort cheeses, which was in response to European restrictions on hormone-enhance U.S. beef. (And if you want to, you can probably go back further and further - these disputes are like peeling an onion.) Does truly think that this is merely about lofty issues such as conformity vs. non-conformity? Doesn't he see that a lot of it boils down to grubby money issues? Bove was a cheese farmer and the tariff that converted him into an anti-globalization advocate was a tariff on cheeses. Doesn't Katz see that much of his stance is self-interested?
Can it failed also to have escaped Katz the context in which this happened? Bove is a union leader in France. There is an strong tradition of anti-Americanism in this milieu. Has Katz paused to consider that this, too, may have played a role in motivating Bove, beyond his more noble motivations?
Katz claims that Jose Bove's stance and attitudes reflect American values - which ones? It would have been interesting to hear which values Katz would consider American and which ones he thinks Bove endorses.
His entire post is long on jargon and short on specifics. He fails to look critically at the self-interested stances of the person who he wants us to admire as a selfless warrior in the battle against globalization. This was not thoughtful post - it was intellectual pap and I think that, generally speaking, the Slashdot crowd deserves better.
I agree with all of those who are saying that they're kind of sad about pinball's demise. I, too, regret this. When I was 12 years old, Santa Claus brought us a pinball machine (the local movie theater was selling the one they had next to the concession stand - the old folks had a little trouble explaining that it was mere coincidence that the pinball under the Xmas tree and the one that had just been removed from movie theater were not the same machine and that, no, really, there _is_ a Santa Claus). Anyway, the pinball was left in the basement for years while I lived in NYC. My folks finally retired down south and told me to take it or they'd have to get rid of it. Although it wasn't going to be fun moving it I didn't hesitate! Getting a pinball up five flights of stairs was no picnic, but definitely worth it. Every time friends come over they want to fire it up. The best part is that it's one of those old ones with the physical counters that roll over - not an electronic display. I miss their passing!
Slashdot Mirror
but I read an interesting article on a related subject the other day. (I thought it was in Scientific American, but couldn't find it on their site.)
The gist of the study was that people have a natural tendency (apparently) to look for fairness in interactions. They took pairs of people and gave one of them $10. This person was asked to offer as much of the money to the other person as they wanted. The second person could choose to accept or reject the offer. If accepted, both people would keep the money they had but if rejected neither could keep anything. Obviously, whatever the second person received would be free money, so logically (one would think) it's in their interest to accept whatever is offered, even if it's just a penny. But what the researchers found is that this is not what happens - instead, the second person would reject offers deemed insufficient. They ran this experiment in a number of places so that they could control for cultural differences, etc. There were cultural differences (in some places the offerer would actually offer more than half the money to the second person) but they consistently found that there was a limit below which people would reject the offer - apparently viewing it as unfair.
If I remember where I found it I'll add a link, if possible, in a later post.
I have a friend who has a friend who recently got her PhD in Chemical Engineering. She implemented an interesting application of multi-variate optimization using genetic algorithms. She was trying to create sealants of some sort which had to have various properties - quick drying time, etc. Putting in various data about the compounds she could use as ingredients (and from what I understand there were hundreds of them) and comparing against known compounds and their ingredients she was able to create a program that would predict (with a fair degree of accuracy, apparently) the properties of new compounds. This could save a lot of money in research by pointing chemical engineers towards promising compounds without them wasting time on the less promising stuff. The cool thing is that because of the number of variables involved (hundreds and hundreds of them) it is difficult for a human to spot patterns in the data - but a genetic algorithm is perfectly suited for this kind of search.
I have also played with this myself and have written a program which produces geneteic algorithms. I have been very surprised sometimes by the solutions that the produced algorithms give. Even for simple stuff (like finding averages of two or three numbers) it can produce some *very* clever algorithms. Because of hte nature of how it produces them, though, there is also a lot of "noise" code which makes it confusing to read - once you work your way through it, though, I am often surprised by the "cleverness" of the code produced.
I saw the same film that the reviewer did and I think he gives it _way_ too much credit. The idea that the guy playing the vampire actually _was_ a vampire is a clever plot twist. Unfortunately, the plot never seemed to suck me in (pun intended). The acting is good, but the script was pretty bad - a friend of mine and I actually burst out laughing at a particularly corny line near the end of the movie and I might have walked out had I though my friend wouldn't have objected (it turns out she wouldn't have objected, but I don't like talking during a move (even a bad one) so I didn't ask.) \n Honestly, do yourselves a favor and give this one a miss.
I think Katz wrote this so that he could sound off on some of his favorite themes, not because this was worthy of a review. The second half of the "review" was a political speech by Katz on the evils and arrogance of corporatization - but as other posters have made clear, this was a Schwarzenegger action film, not a documentary of cloning. It was full of unexplained innuendoes such as "History ought to have taught us to be wary of this Frankenstein-style hubris". An example for clarification would be useful.
I definitely agree with the idea that religion is a very personal question. However, a girl wearing a scarf or a boy wearing a yarmulke is not forcing anything on anyone. They are not attempting to convert you to their religion - they are merely following the dictates of their own, which requires them (according to their interpratation of it) to wear certain types of clothing. Catholicism and Protestantism generally make no such requirements on its followers. A clothing restriction is therefore prejudicial against people following minority religions who _do_ have such requirements in their religion.
Again, I accept that most French people who support the rules about non-religious clothing in school are genuninely interested in protecting the secular nature of school (l'ecole laic). Generally speaking this is a good thing, but the French approach is to ban religion, whereas in the United States the principle is that the school should be neutral to it. I found it disturbing that people who were definitely defenders of the right to religious freedom were in favor of restricting certain innocuous religious expression.
For me, freedom is about preserving choice, not about limiting it.
If what Katz submitted is considerd good commentary on an important issue, I'm deeply disappointed. This was not a thoughtful piece but a mere parroting of jargon. Katz didn't even _try_ to present facts in support of his position - he simply argued by assertion.
For example, he talks about a country in which a "robust economy, conformity and market research are national religions, and a nation where kids who dissent and act strangely are routinely tossed out of school or thrown in jail. " I see - and this is a new trend and something which didn't exist before? In America in the 1950's nonconformity was encouraged? I agree with him that this is a Bad Thing, but he has to convince us that this is somehow new.
Also, I lived in France for a few years a while back and can tell you that they, too, have issues with nonconformity. When I was there a young girl who was Muslim was disciplined at school for wearing a headscarf because it identified her as Muslim. Jewish boys at school are not permitted to wear yarmulkes - again because it identifies them religiously. Many of the French people who I spoke with about the girl's headscarf were astonished that anyone would take exception to her being disciplined - they genuninely felt that this rule was there to protect the secular character of the school.
This is not an anti-French rant - I'm just trying to point out that the things he's trying to identify as being specifically exported by the United States actually exist in lots of places. Had I lived in Italy (or Germany, or Thailand, or wherever) I would probably have stories to tell about them, too. (For the French speakers reading this - pour que vous sachiez, j'ai pas de complexe anti-francais - je garde de tres bonnes memoires de la France et j'y retourne assez souvent pour voir de mes amis et pour revoir mes bars preferes a Paris)
Katz completely ignores the self-interest element in what's going on here. Bove's reaction was in response to an American tariff on Roquefort cheeses, which was in response to European restrictions on hormone-enhance U.S. beef. (And if you want to, you can probably go back further and further - these disputes are like peeling an onion.) Does truly think that this is merely about lofty issues such as conformity vs. non-conformity? Doesn't he see that a lot of it boils down to grubby money issues? Bove was a cheese farmer and the tariff that converted him into an anti-globalization advocate was a tariff on cheeses. Doesn't Katz see that much of his stance is self-interested?
Can it failed also to have escaped Katz the context in which this happened? Bove is a union leader in France. There is an strong tradition of anti-Americanism in this milieu. Has Katz paused to consider that this, too, may have played a role in motivating Bove, beyond his more noble motivations?
Katz claims that Jose Bove's stance and attitudes reflect American values - which ones? It would have been interesting to hear which values Katz would consider American and which ones he thinks Bove endorses.
His entire post is long on jargon and short on specifics. He fails to look critically at the self-interested stances of the person who he wants us to admire as a selfless warrior in the battle against globalization. This was not thoughtful post - it was intellectual pap and I think that, generally speaking, the Slashdot crowd deserves better.
I agree with all of those who are saying that they're kind of sad about pinball's demise. I, too, regret this. When I was 12 years old, Santa Claus brought us a pinball machine (the local movie theater was selling the one they had next to the concession stand - the old folks had a little trouble explaining that it was mere coincidence that the pinball under the Xmas tree and the one that had just been removed from movie theater were not the same machine and that, no, really, there _is_ a Santa Claus). Anyway, the pinball was left in the basement for years while I lived in NYC. My folks finally retired down south and told me to take it or they'd have to get rid of it. Although it wasn't going to be fun moving it I didn't hesitate! Getting a pinball up five flights of stairs was no picnic, but definitely worth it. Every time friends come over they want to fire it up. The best part is that it's one of those old ones with the physical counters that roll over - not an electronic display. I miss their passing!
test post - please ignore