This is the second time I've asked this question: Are we reading the same FA? I'm reading this one where the author makes an argument based on probability theory. In most circles, probability theory is considered a branch of math, and thus a science.
Your argument seems to be "TFA has an argument I don't understand, therefore it has no argument."
No my argument is that "this has never hurt anybody" is not an argument. Nothing ever hurts anybody — until it does.
Which is not to say that we should never take risks. But we need to know the scale and probability of these risks. LHAC went ahead because of studies that supposedly claimed the risks were acceptable. Now we're hearing that these studies were flawed.
Which brings us back to the issue we were arguing about before you started your nitpicking campaign. Nobody's arguing that LHAC will destroy the planet. But if it's a possibility we need to know the likelihood before we can proceed.
Once again, you're picking nits with my wording instead of actually addressing my argument. Fine, I should have said "non-quantum black hole". Now are you actually going to address my argument? Because I'm not wasting any more time on your quibbles.
But that is my point, all predictions say the planet will be okay
Excuse me? Did we read the same FA? At best you can say "probably OK". When the future of the whole planet is at stake (and I mean literally, the planet might just disappear into a singularity) you need to do a lot better than "probably".
Colliding particles at very high energies is exactly like putting on clothes: both have been happening for ages and neither has ever destroyed the earth.
That's very dumb logic. You could just as easily say, "nuclear fission has been going on for ages and has never destroyed a city." Well, only twice.
with our limited understanding of the universe putting on clothes may very well trigger an unforseen event that destroys the solar system
Gawd, what an argument. By that logic, we should never take any safety precautions at all, because we can never account for every possible mishap. So you won't mind if I move in next door and start manufacturing toxic chemicals?
I guess you're thinking of some silly Twilight Zone episode, where a guy puts on a really ugly coat, and it frightens a pregnant woman so she miscarries, and her unborn child is the Brilliant Scientist who keeps the Sun from exploding. But it's just as likely that her unborn child is the Evil Genius who makes the Sun explode.
In the real world, neither outcome is at all likely. (God and Rod Serling being two distinct entities.) And even if it were possible that your sartorial choices could affect the future of the cosmos, you'd have no way of predicting how. So nobody's going to hold you responsible if the Sun blows up because of what you wore, because you couldn't have accounted for the (absurd) possibility.
On the other hand, if you create a planet-swallowing black hole, the results are predictable. People will hold you to account (won't do them any good, but they will anyway) if you put the planet at risk by your immediate, forseeable actions. That's the difference between a heavy particle experiment and wearing an ugly coat.
If you're sick of hearing about it, ignore the discussion. It may not be a big deal to you (I'm guessing you have cable and/or an ATSC receiver), but it's surely a big deal to all those folks whose TVs will cease to work next month.
I myself almost don't care. I'm down to one broadcast TV show, Lost. All my other video viewing is Internet or DVD. (Stopped getting cable when I was out of a job, and never went back.) Last year, losing over-the-air Lost would have been no big deal, I'd just watch it the day after on the Internet. But now ABC has "upgraded" its streaming client to a POS that requires more CPU than I own. So now I have to go out and buy some hardware if I ever want to find out who the guy with four toes is. That's just not fair.
I mean the TFA that in essence claims that because an expert may be wrong, any probability the expert assigns to a risk can be ignored and inflated by as much you feel like it.
No, it means that the expert's assurances that we won't accidentally destroy the planet are baseless.
That's not inflating anything. Nobody's saying that "nobody's proven the event unlikely, therefore it's likely." What they are saying is that they need stronger evidence that this activity is safe. You don't say, "Oh well, we don't know for sure that anything bad will happen, so we'll just assume that it won't." That is voodoo science.
Huh? You're saying GNU didn't have enough resources? Then how did Linux ever achieve critical mass? Which certainly doesn't have much more in the way of resources, given that their code bases overlap so much.
The difference between GNU and Linux is not resources. The difference is the people running the show. RMS is on a holy mission; Linus just wants to get the job done.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the GNU Operating System.
No, this year marks the 25th year of work on the GNU OS. There is still no GNU OS as such, and it's pretty obvious there never will be.
I'm not saying that there's nothing to show for all that work. The GNU libraries and many GNU utilities are key components in many projects, not the least of which is Linux. (<Sarcasm> Oh, excuse me, GNU/Linux.</Sarcasm> ) These are real achievements, and so is the introduction of a new collaborative model of joint software development.
But the original goal of GNU, to create a free alternative to Unix, has never been achieved. No big loss, there are other free Unix alternatives and even true Unixes for free. I just wish that GNU and its fanboys would stop and ask themselves why they never achieved their primary goal.
If it's anything like my college courses in the states, a lot of time might need to be devoted to keeping students on task, instead of checking social networking sites during class.
If it's anything like any school I've ever seen, getting the kids to pay attention is a problem, period. If a teacher can't keep students' attention, taking away their computers won't help. Nothing will, really. Which is why bad teachers have been complaining about inattentive students since Cuneiform days.
If you're that drunk on the Obama koolaid, you need to drink a little slower. I admire and support the guy (and I'm pretty bored with all the knee-jerk cynicism about him) but he's not Jesus come again. He's not even JFK (thank God for that!)
Still it's all a little weird. The strangest thing is that the guy seems to have an actual, human (as in flawed) personality. Isn't there a law against this? There must be, because every other pol out there seems to have had their personality surgically removed, replaced by a computer chip that spouts "on message" gibberish.
their sales have blown through the roof on Amazon.com. It is too bad there isn't any proper news article about this
Maybe because it never happened? The linked story is a blog, which cites another blog, which claims that sales jumped to 240 times their previous value, but doesn't say where they got their figures.
As far as I can see, this is just another stupid blog rumor.
It doesn't have the original tubes in it but it's normal to replace those.
Dude that's why it hasn't worn out. Or to be precise, it's worn out several times in small stages. The original tuner is long gone, expect for low-tech stuff like knobs and sockets.
Modern electronics is thousands of times as complicated as your tuner. And most of that complexity is in integrated circuitry that, unlike your vacuum tubes, does not support drop in replacement Fortunately, this circuitry lasts a lot longer than vacuum tubes. Not forever, though. Probably not 50 years.
Actually, I was just reading how the Obama staffers who just moved into the the White House are tearing their hear out because all the computers are Windows, and they all prefer Mac.
Slashdot Mirror
This is the second time I've asked this question: Are we reading the same FA? I'm reading this one where the author makes an argument based on probability theory. In most circles, probability theory is considered a branch of math, and thus a science.
Your argument seems to be "TFA has an argument I don't understand, therefore it has no argument."
No my argument is that "this has never hurt anybody" is not an argument. Nothing ever hurts anybody — until it does.
Which is not to say that we should never take risks. But we need to know the scale and probability of these risks. LHAC went ahead because of studies that supposedly claimed the risks were acceptable. Now we're hearing that these studies were flawed.
Which brings us back to the issue we were arguing about before you started your nitpicking campaign. Nobody's arguing that LHAC will destroy the planet. But if it's a possibility we need to know the likelihood before we can proceed.
Once again, you're picking nits with my wording instead of actually addressing my argument. Fine, I should have said "non-quantum black hole". Now are you actually going to address my argument? Because I'm not wasting any more time on your quibbles.
1920 then. My point being that at one point nobody knew that you could cause an explosion by bringing a critical mass together. Now we do.
If you think a black hole is less deadly than an atomic bomb, you need to review your physics.
Or maybe you just want to keep picking nits instead of actually addressing my argument. In that case, get a life.
If you were trying to understand my argument instead of just picking at it, you could assume that I said it in 1943.
Don't you mean HP Nonstops? Or have they not upgraded their hardware since Tandem went away?
Well, yeah, most people would be better off without TV. But consider the number of older folks for whom TV is the only entertainment they can afford.
But that is my point, all predictions say the planet will be okay
Excuse me? Did we read the same FA? At best you can say "probably OK". When the future of the whole planet is at stake (and I mean literally, the planet might just disappear into a singularity) you need to do a lot better than "probably".
Colliding particles at very high energies is exactly like putting on clothes: both have been happening for ages and neither has ever destroyed the earth.
That's very dumb logic. You could just as easily say, "nuclear fission has been going on for ages and has never destroyed a city." Well, only twice.
I confess! It's true! I invented black holes just to confuse people!
No wait, I didn't. Never mind.
with our limited understanding of the universe putting on clothes may very well trigger an unforseen event that destroys the solar system
Gawd, what an argument. By that logic, we should never take any safety precautions at all, because we can never account for every possible mishap. So you won't mind if I move in next door and start manufacturing toxic chemicals?
I guess you're thinking of some silly Twilight Zone episode, where a guy puts on a really ugly coat, and it frightens a pregnant woman so she miscarries, and her unborn child is the Brilliant Scientist who keeps the Sun from exploding. But it's just as likely that her unborn child is the Evil Genius who makes the Sun explode.
In the real world, neither outcome is at all likely. (God and Rod Serling being two distinct entities.) And even if it were possible that your sartorial choices could affect the future of the cosmos, you'd have no way of predicting how. So nobody's going to hold you responsible if the Sun blows up because of what you wore, because you couldn't have accounted for the (absurd) possibility.
On the other hand, if you create a planet-swallowing black hole, the results are predictable. People will hold you to account (won't do them any good, but they will anyway) if you put the planet at risk by your immediate, forseeable actions. That's the difference between a heavy particle experiment and wearing an ugly coat.
All the Hawaii people I ever met thought that 5-Oh was a really dumb show.
If you're sick of hearing about it, ignore the discussion. It may not be a big deal to you (I'm guessing you have cable and/or an ATSC receiver), but it's surely a big deal to all those folks whose TVs will cease to work next month.
I myself almost don't care. I'm down to one broadcast TV show, Lost. All my other video viewing is Internet or DVD. (Stopped getting cable when I was out of a job, and never went back.) Last year, losing over-the-air Lost would have been no big deal, I'd just watch it the day after on the Internet. But now ABC has "upgraded" its streaming client to a POS that requires more CPU than I own. So now I have to go out and buy some hardware if I ever want to find out who the guy with four toes is. That's just not fair.
I mean the TFA that in essence claims that because an expert may be wrong, any probability the expert assigns to a risk can be ignored and inflated by as much you feel like it.
No, it means that the expert's assurances that we won't accidentally destroy the planet are baseless.
That's not inflating anything. Nobody's saying that "nobody's proven the event unlikely, therefore it's likely." What they are saying is that they need stronger evidence that this activity is safe. You don't say, "Oh well, we don't know for sure that anything bad will happen, so we'll just assume that it won't." That is voodoo science.
What? You sued your own computer? This litigation epidemic is really out of hand!
Huh? You're saying GNU didn't have enough resources? Then how did Linux ever achieve critical mass? Which certainly doesn't have much more in the way of resources, given that their code bases overlap so much.
The difference between GNU and Linux is not resources. The difference is the people running the show. RMS is on a holy mission; Linus just wants to get the job done.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the GNU Operating System.
No, this year marks the 25th year of work on the GNU OS. There is still no GNU OS as such, and it's pretty obvious there never will be.
I'm not saying that there's nothing to show for all that work. The GNU libraries and many GNU utilities are key components in many projects, not the least of which is Linux. (<Sarcasm> Oh, excuse me, GNU/Linux.</Sarcasm> ) These are real achievements, and so is the introduction of a new collaborative model of joint software development.
But the original goal of GNU, to create a free alternative to Unix, has never been achieved. No big loss, there are other free Unix alternatives and even true Unixes for free. I just wish that GNU and its fanboys would stop and ask themselves why they never achieved their primary goal.
Don't you just hate it that software has no sense of irony?
If it's anything like my college courses in the states, a lot of time might need to be devoted to keeping students on task, instead of checking social networking sites during class.
If it's anything like any school I've ever seen, getting the kids to pay attention is a problem, period. If a teacher can't keep students' attention, taking away their computers won't help. Nothing will, really. Which is why bad teachers have been complaining about inattentive students since Cuneiform days.
If you're that drunk on the Obama koolaid, you need to drink a little slower. I admire and support the guy (and I'm pretty bored with all the knee-jerk cynicism about him) but he's not Jesus come again. He's not even JFK (thank God for that!)
Still it's all a little weird. The strangest thing is that the guy seems to have an actual, human (as in flawed) personality. Isn't there a law against this? There must be, because every other pol out there seems to have had their personality surgically removed, replaced by a computer chip that spouts "on message" gibberish.
their sales have blown through the roof on Amazon.com. It is too bad there isn't any proper news article about this
Maybe because it never happened? The linked story is a blog, which cites another blog, which claims that sales jumped to 240 times their previous value, but doesn't say where they got their figures.
As far as I can see, this is just another stupid blog rumor.
It doesn't have the original tubes in it but it's normal to replace those.
Dude that's why it hasn't worn out. Or to be precise, it's worn out several times in small stages. The original tuner is long gone, expect for low-tech stuff like knobs and sockets.
Modern electronics is thousands of times as complicated as your tuner. And most of that complexity is in integrated circuitry that, unlike your vacuum tubes, does not support drop in replacement Fortunately, this circuitry lasts a lot longer than vacuum tubes. Not forever, though. Probably not 50 years.
OK, it's 1998. What do you need a single discrete transistor for?
Did your amplifier use sampling? If so, yes I knew you could do that. Data is data.
On the other hand if you created an analog amplifier...
Actually, I was just reading how the Obama staffers who just moved into the the White House are tearing their hear out because all the computers are Windows, and they all prefer Mac.
That's simply not true. I'm sending the Thought Police over to your house to explain to you how mistaken you are.
But get real people, the Mac had nothing to do with it.