Would you vote for a politican who admitted that he was delightfully baffled by questions of how to fix the economy? Would you hire a manager who eagerly told people that he had no idea how to rally sales or improve worker morale?
I can imagine sitting in court as the RIAA shows a jury undeniable evidence that I have downloaded and shared the newly released Bratz movie. I know I didn't do it, but turning to my lawyer to see his reaction, I am faced with his goofy grin and shrugging shoulders. Uh-oh.
Science is the only field (that I can think of) where being stumped could be considered anything other than a bad outcome. That's what sets it apart from other fields.
Life existing in a form we hadn't previously considered previously would be a theme that is dealt with all through Star Trek, but the one that springs to my mind is Devil in the Dark. I'm sure there's others that deal with the topic from other angles too:)
I used to work in the abuse department of an ISP which had been blacklisted by SORBS. SORBS require a "donation" to get your IP range off their list, and since we refused to hand over extortion money to these gangsters, there was no way for us to deal with them. Despite our best efforts, we also found that there was no way to get in contact with them, and as such no way to help our customers.
Doing a Google search for information about this lot brought up so many horror stories that I can't fathom how so many people ended up using their "service". It got to the stage where if we had a customer having trouble with SORBS blocking their mail, the only advice we could give was to contact their recipient via other means and ask them to stop using these thugs to filter mail.
First off, I'm just going to assume everybody who clicks into this thread has read the book, because otherwise half the thread is going to require spoiler warnings.
Rowling's style of writing is definitely not where her strenghts lie, and everybody I know who has refused to read Harry Potter has used this as a reason. However, I think people who say this are cutting off their nose to spite their face. What she lacks in writing skill, she more than makes up for in enjoyable, well crafted characters, and amazing plot. Deathly Hallows is by far my favourite of the series (7, 5, 4, 6, 2, 1 - fot those who are interested).
I was pretty sure that Snape was on the side of good before I started reading, but by the time he was made Headmaster, I had actually figured that I had been mistaken, and was wondering how she was going to have a decent ending with him as a bad guy. The last few chapters were magnificently brought together, with payoff after payoff after payoff.
The only disappointment in terms of plot, I felt, was that not a single Slytherin stayed behind after the evacuation of the school. I know, they are supposed to be cunning and self serving, but Harry was almost put into their house. Surely there must be a handful of Slytherins who, like him, are borderline and would have enough bravery to stand beside their schoolmates against the deatheaters.
However, that aside, I am very happy with the book, and am glad to see I didn't waste my time on a series just to have it thrown in my face at the end (*cough* Dark Tower *cough* Wheel of time).
I have no interest in funding a space program that does not have the colonisation of other planets as its end goal, and I believe that 99% of the people who are even vaguely interested in space would agree with me. Science is a means, not an end. I am probably throwing my Slashdot credentials out the window on this one, but I don't give a rats ass whether there was water on Mars thousands of years ago, or whether , unless that information is going to be used to get humanity out there.
Call it the "selfish gene" in action if you will, but what the hell is the point of robotic space exploration other than to pave the way for sending humans there and spreading our race across the solar system (and beyond!). Your comment is the equivalent of asking why we should want to visit the Grand Canyon when we can already see aerial photographs and measurements of it that give a much better understanding of what it is.
I'm sorry if you were just playing devil's advocate or trolling, but your comment reeks of the stereotypical basement-dweller attitude that has done so much damage to the sciences over the years. The people do not support what they do not like, and what is there to like in the idea that cold hard facts and figures are in any way superior to warm, passionate human experience?
People do crazy things when they are afraid. Turning a large protesting crowd into a terrified mob could potentially cause more casualties than it would prevent.
Where I work, one of the systems has us completely locked in to using Netscape 4.0. I can't see any reason for it in terms of what the system does, but it refuses to even give you access with any other browser. Netscape is installed on every PC so they can access this system, and because management hope to "eventually" get rid of the system entirely, they refuse to update it to work on any other browser.
So, when you are cracking up because of idiot webmasters locking you in to using IE7 to view their sites, just know you don't have the absolute worst of it:)
To coin a phrase, "consider the source"! By your logic, every piece of trash marketed on late night television is worth its weight in gold. I've never seen a Super-Deluxe Kitchen Knife fail to slice through anything those people have tried it on either. "Will It Blend" is a marketing gimmick, and from what I've read, its a very successful one too.
That said, I think the videos are totally awesome, and were I buying a blender based on something other than "I need a blender and am currently standing in a domestic appliance store", I'd seriously consider these guys based on that.
When people realize that Apple is no different than Microsoft, they will choose devices and software based upon need and usage requirements, rather than a religious belief to either company. You seem to make the mistake of assuming that people use apple based on fanboy-ism. That might have been true in the past, but I do not believe that the preppy college guy on the train in the morning, or the bottle-blonde, pretty-in-pink girl beside him, each with the distinctive white headphones stuck in their ears, are buying iPods because they are Apple obsessives. They buy because it is trendy, and with the iPod, Apple's domination in the area of trendy technology reached its peak. As long as they can keep themselves in with the people who buy based on how "cool" it is to own one, then they can get to and stay at the top of any market.
If you can convince enough people that it is trendy to own an Apple iToaster, even if it only toasts one at a time, then you will dominate the toaster market. Sure, there will be companies still out there, toasting 2, 4, 16 slices at a time, more suited to the needs of almost everybody. There will be people who buy those products, and don't understand why the hell you would want a one-slice toaster, but it wont matter. Its cool, so the vast majority of people will just go along with it. Its sad, but it is true - most people (at least in the "developed" world) care more about appearance than functionality.
For anybody that is interested, I recently was reading about a product that is suspiciously similar to the iPhone, called the Meizu M8. The specs are better, the cost is cheaper and all the reviews I have read have been excellent. I am considering getting one, specifically because the battery is removable, unlike in the iPhone.
It will eventually get to the stage where any figures or empirical data will be suspect because nobody has any first-hand experience. Data will be lost forever not because the records are gone, but because they are not believed.
We are less than a century after the holocaust, and we already have people trying to rewrite history, and accusing academics and people who experienced it of being part of a conspiracy. Give that a thousand years and how certain will people be that it even happened? Now imagine that not only is all empirical data from the time suspect, but all new observation indicates the exact opposite happened.
Why on earth should I accept big bang theory when all my scientific measurements indicate a static universe, and the only indications I have to the contrary are ancient texts that have no doubt been altered and cropped to fit certain peoples' political agenda down through the millenia?
I know I'm going to get modded offtopic at best here, but wasn't the point of the invasion to stop Iraq from deploying its extensive stockpiles of WMDs? Wasn't it supposed to be a pre-emptive strike to get him before he got America and its allies? Toppling Hussein was supposed to be a byproduct of that, but it was not the primary goal.
You're right, statistical prediction is unlikely to suceed if every couple of months the goal of your war changes, but its next to impossible if even the initial point of the war gets retconned. How far can this go?
We're going into Iraq to stop Saddam and his WMDs.
No WMDs found? Oh, then we came to Iraq to stop Saddam and free the Iraqi people.
Saddam gone and there's still fighting? Then we came to Iraq to fight the terrorists there so we dont have to fight them here.
Terrorism worldwide increasing despite, or possibly/because/ of the invasion? Then, erm... SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!
How far can you push this? No statistical model, no battle plan can succeed if the people in charge can't even make up their mind what they are fighting for.
I don't think its fair to say Lost has been given an end-date because of ratings. If that was the case, they might have gotten another season just to wrap things up, but they got three seasons. That doesn't sound to me like its being terminated because its not making money, it sounds like it is being terminated because the producers want a definte end-date to work towards.
If you listen to the producers' podcasts, it is very clear that the guys did not want the show to go on forever. They have joked several times about a theoretical "season seven: the zombie season", where the show has run out of ideas and they are resorting to cliches and tricks to keep viewers. Again, that sounds to me like they were very aware of how shows can head downhill fast if it is not cancelled at its peak, or at least on a pre-determined timescale, and they want to end it properly.
The dominant rumour I had head during the first three seasons on Lost was that it was intended to be five seasons and then end. I have no idea how truthful that is, but it demonstrates that the fans were more concerned with the show going out on a high note than lasting forever - something which I am convinced was inspired by the attitudes of the creative team behind the show.
While the ratings have slipped somewhat, I don't agree with your statement that the show would not have been given an end-date if they had stayed at the top of the ratings charts. Nobody involved in Lost wants it to go on forever. They are far more concerned with making as good a show as they can, and setting an end-date that gives them plenty of time to work towards an amazing conclusion is the perfect way to do that.
Speaking as an individual who in almost two days will have a Ph.D. thesis finished, and then seven days later will have to defend it, I have but one comment:
Why didn't this happen before?
It infuriates me that these products are offered at all.
I accept that dishonesty is inevitable in every aspect of academia. This activity is not a breach of any legal code. However, it is pleasing to see that Google are not giving their approval to an activity which is legally sound but morally suspect.
One major reason is that out mail server (over which I have no control), can take a long time to deliver mail, even internally. If I need to show a manager a report with information they need, I print it out so that I can go to them with it in my hand, rather than sending it to them, then walking over to wait an indeterminate length of time until they get it. In other cases, I would be dealing with people who were not even at a computer, but would still need the information. I don't think its wise to call things retarded just because you can't immediately see how they work.
There are very few stories on Slashdot (or, for that matter, anywhere), that actually make me say "wow", but this is definitely one. I work in an office where I have to use the printer a lot, but rarely for anything long term - printing a customer's emailed comments to show a manager who doesn't have our Kana email software in place etc. That's a tremendous waste of paper, as in most cases, the paper is crumpled up and in the (sometimes recycling, but usually not) bin within minutes of printing. If that paper was reusable to this extent, our paper usage would drop to a fraction of its current rate - saving us money and helping the environment in the process. You don't get much better than that:)
Slashdot Mirror
Apologies, that should have been in my original post :)
Would you vote for a politican who admitted that he was delightfully baffled by questions of how to fix the economy? Would you hire a manager who eagerly told people that he had no idea how to rally sales or improve worker morale?
I can imagine sitting in court as the RIAA shows a jury undeniable evidence that I have downloaded and shared the newly released Bratz movie. I know I didn't do it, but turning to my lawyer to see his reaction, I am faced with his goofy grin and shrugging shoulders. Uh-oh.
Science is the only field (that I can think of) where being stumped could be considered anything other than a bad outcome. That's what sets it apart from other fields.
That's exactly what the simulator WANTS you to do!
Life existing in a form we hadn't previously considered previously would be a theme that is dealt with all through Star Trek, but the one that springs to my mind is Devil in the Dark. I'm sure there's others that deal with the topic from other angles too :)
(back from then Star Trek was actually good)
I had thought they found them - the dude who produced Dark Side of the Moon had them in his vault.
I used to work in the abuse department of an ISP which had been blacklisted by SORBS. SORBS require a "donation" to get your IP range off their list, and since we refused to hand over extortion money to these gangsters, there was no way for us to deal with them. Despite our best efforts, we also found that there was no way to get in contact with them, and as such no way to help our customers.
Doing a Google search for information about this lot brought up so many horror stories that I can't fathom how so many people ended up using their "service". It got to the stage where if we had a customer having trouble with SORBS blocking their mail, the only advice we could give was to contact their recipient via other means and ask them to stop using these thugs to filter mail.
First off, I'm just going to assume everybody who clicks into this thread has read the book, because otherwise half the thread is going to require spoiler warnings.
Rowling's style of writing is definitely not where her strenghts lie, and everybody I know who has refused to read Harry Potter has used this as a reason. However, I think people who say this are cutting off their nose to spite their face. What she lacks in writing skill, she more than makes up for in enjoyable, well crafted characters, and amazing plot. Deathly Hallows is by far my favourite of the series (7, 5, 4, 6, 2, 1 - fot those who are interested).
I was pretty sure that Snape was on the side of good before I started reading, but by the time he was made Headmaster, I had actually figured that I had been mistaken, and was wondering how she was going to have a decent ending with him as a bad guy. The last few chapters were magnificently brought together, with payoff after payoff after payoff.
The only disappointment in terms of plot, I felt, was that not a single Slytherin stayed behind after the evacuation of the school. I know, they are supposed to be cunning and self serving, but Harry was almost put into their house. Surely there must be a handful of Slytherins who, like him, are borderline and would have enough bravery to stand beside their schoolmates against the deatheaters.
However, that aside, I am very happy with the book, and am glad to see I didn't waste my time on a series just to have it thrown in my face at the end (*cough* Dark Tower *cough* Wheel of time).
I have no interest in funding a space program that does not have the colonisation of other planets as its end goal, and I believe that 99% of the people who are even vaguely interested in space would agree with me. Science is a means, not an end. I am probably throwing my Slashdot credentials out the window on this one, but I don't give a rats ass whether there was water on Mars thousands of years ago, or whether , unless that information is going to be used to get humanity out there.
Call it the "selfish gene" in action if you will, but what the hell is the point of robotic space exploration other than to pave the way for sending humans there and spreading our race across the solar system (and beyond!). Your comment is the equivalent of asking why we should want to visit the Grand Canyon when we can already see aerial photographs and measurements of it that give a much better understanding of what it is.
I'm sorry if you were just playing devil's advocate or trolling, but your comment reeks of the stereotypical basement-dweller attitude that has done so much damage to the sciences over the years. The people do not support what they do not like, and what is there to like in the idea that cold hard facts and figures are in any way superior to warm, passionate human experience?
...I just use my Tremor Totem. Easy :D
People do crazy things when they are afraid. Turning a large protesting crowd into a terrified mob could potentially cause more casualties than it would prevent.
I'd wager the majority; where else are they going to get their ideas?
Where I work, one of the systems has us completely locked in to using Netscape 4.0. I can't see any reason for it in terms of what the system does, but it refuses to even give you access with any other browser. Netscape is installed on every PC so they can access this system, and because management hope to "eventually" get rid of the system entirely, they refuse to update it to work on any other browser.
:)
So, when you are cracking up because of idiot webmasters locking you in to using IE7 to view their sites, just know you don't have the absolute worst of it
To coin a phrase, "consider the source"! By your logic, every piece of trash marketed on late night television is worth its weight in gold. I've never seen a Super-Deluxe Kitchen Knife fail to slice through anything those people have tried it on either. "Will It Blend" is a marketing gimmick, and from what I've read, its a very successful one too.
That said, I think the videos are totally awesome, and were I buying a blender based on something other than "I need a blender and am currently standing in a domestic appliance store", I'd seriously consider these guys based on that.
When people realize that Apple is no different than Microsoft, they will choose devices and software based upon need and usage requirements, rather than a religious belief to either company.
You seem to make the mistake of assuming that people use apple based on fanboy-ism. That might have been true in the past, but I do not believe that the preppy college guy on the train in the morning, or the bottle-blonde, pretty-in-pink girl beside him, each with the distinctive white headphones stuck in their ears, are buying iPods because they are Apple obsessives. They buy because it is trendy, and with the iPod, Apple's domination in the area of trendy technology reached its peak. As long as they can keep themselves in with the people who buy based on how "cool" it is to own one, then they can get to and stay at the top of any market.
If you can convince enough people that it is trendy to own an Apple iToaster, even if it only toasts one at a time, then you will dominate the toaster market. Sure, there will be companies still out there, toasting 2, 4, 16 slices at a time, more suited to the needs of almost everybody. There will be people who buy those products, and don't understand why the hell you would want a one-slice toaster, but it wont matter. Its cool, so the vast majority of people will just go along with it. Its sad, but it is true - most people (at least in the "developed" world) care more about appearance than functionality.
For anybody that is interested, I recently was reading about a product that is suspiciously similar to the iPhone, called the Meizu M8. The specs are better, the cost is cheaper and all the reviews I have read have been excellent. I am considering getting one, specifically because the battery is removable, unlike in the iPhone.
It will eventually get to the stage where any figures or empirical data will be suspect because nobody has any first-hand experience. Data will be lost forever not because the records are gone, but because they are not believed.
We are less than a century after the holocaust, and we already have people trying to rewrite history, and accusing academics and people who experienced it of being part of a conspiracy. Give that a thousand years and how certain will people be that it even happened? Now imagine that not only is all empirical data from the time suspect, but all new observation indicates the exact opposite happened.
Why on earth should I accept big bang theory when all my scientific measurements indicate a static universe, and the only indications I have to the contrary are ancient texts that have no doubt been altered and cropped to fit certain peoples' political agenda down through the millenia?
Maybe they are being internationally intranational :)
Have you spent much time in England? Over there, with the exception of in your own home, you are pretty much in front of a camera at all times.
I know I'm going to get modded offtopic at best here, but wasn't the point of the invasion to stop Iraq from deploying its extensive stockpiles of WMDs? Wasn't it supposed to be a pre-emptive strike to get him before he got America and its allies? Toppling Hussein was supposed to be a byproduct of that, but it was not the primary goal.
/because/ of the invasion? Then, erm... SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!
You're right, statistical prediction is unlikely to suceed if every couple of months the goal of your war changes, but its next to impossible if even the initial point of the war gets retconned. How far can this go?
We're going into Iraq to stop Saddam and his WMDs.
No WMDs found? Oh, then we came to Iraq to stop Saddam and free the Iraqi people.
Saddam gone and there's still fighting? Then we came to Iraq to fight the terrorists there so we dont have to fight them here.
Terrorism worldwide increasing despite, or possibly
How far can you push this? No statistical model, no battle plan can succeed if the people in charge can't even make up their mind what they are fighting for.
Queue anti-religious /. comments...... NOW.
;)
--
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
Your sig sounds like every conversation I've ever had with a creationist, alright
I don't think its fair to say Lost has been given an end-date because of ratings. If that was the case, they might have gotten another season just to wrap things up, but they got three seasons. That doesn't sound to me like its being terminated because its not making money, it sounds like it is being terminated because the producers want a definte end-date to work towards.
If you listen to the producers' podcasts, it is very clear that the guys did not want the show to go on forever. They have joked several times about a theoretical "season seven: the zombie season", where the show has run out of ideas and they are resorting to cliches and tricks to keep viewers. Again, that sounds to me like they were very aware of how shows can head downhill fast if it is not cancelled at its peak, or at least on a pre-determined timescale, and they want to end it properly.
The dominant rumour I had head during the first three seasons on Lost was that it was intended to be five seasons and then end. I have no idea how truthful that is, but it demonstrates that the fans were more concerned with the show going out on a high note than lasting forever - something which I am convinced was inspired by the attitudes of the creative team behind the show.
While the ratings have slipped somewhat, I don't agree with your statement that the show would not have been given an end-date if they had stayed at the top of the ratings charts. Nobody involved in Lost wants it to go on forever. They are far more concerned with making as good a show as they can, and setting an end-date that gives them plenty of time to work towards an amazing conclusion is the perfect way to do that.
Speaking as an individual who in almost two days will have a Ph.D. thesis finished, and then seven days later will have to defend it, I have but one comment:
Why didn't this happen before?
It infuriates me that these products are offered at all.
I accept that dishonesty is inevitable in every aspect of academia. This activity is not a breach of any legal code. However, it is pleasing to see that Google are not giving their approval to an activity which is legally sound but morally suspect.
...when reality and The Onion collide: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27696
One major reason is that out mail server (over which I have no control), can take a long time to deliver mail, even internally. If I need to show a manager a report with information they need, I print it out so that I can go to them with it in my hand, rather than sending it to them, then walking over to wait an indeterminate length of time until they get it. In other cases, I would be dealing with people who were not even at a computer, but would still need the information. I don't think its wise to call things retarded just because you can't immediately see how they work.
It really depends on the durability. I'd buy an incredibly expensive sheet of paper if it meant I wouldn't need to buy another sheet ever again.
There are very few stories on Slashdot (or, for that matter, anywhere), that actually make me say "wow", but this is definitely one. I work in an office where I have to use the printer a lot, but rarely for anything long term - printing a customer's emailed comments to show a manager who doesn't have our Kana email software in place etc. That's a tremendous waste of paper, as in most cases, the paper is crumpled up and in the (sometimes recycling, but usually not) bin within minutes of printing. If that paper was reusable to this extent, our paper usage would drop to a fraction of its current rate - saving us money and helping the environment in the process. You don't get much better than that :)