I agree that dismissing evidence is a "bad thing". For instance, earlier in this thread I referenced the ancient Greeks who mistook mastadon fossils for the cyclops. Before someone investigated this, it was assumed that the Greeks had vivid imaginations. Until someone crossed disciplines (mythology, archeology, and paleontology) and showed that these stories were rooted in truth. They just interpreted the facts incorrectly.
All facts must be considered, even if they don't fit the popular theory. Because down the road someone may discover that an asian trader brought komodo dragons to Europe and sparked the "dragon". Or maybe he brought his knowledege of such beasts and the Europeans embellished it.
Which brings me to another point. Science, especially in areas where evidence is very thin, becomes an excercise in probability. Simply put, which is more likely, that dragons are based on a common creature and exaggerated in stories, or dragons really do exist and we have never found one live or dead specimen, no remains, no fossils, habitat, etc. Without any hard evidence, any hypothesis is on very thin ice and should be treated as such.
conveniently ignoring the large and widespread cultural evidence.
Cultural evidence may be based on incorrect interpretations of data. Maybe they saw a dinosaur fossil and made the incorrect assumptions. Remember, there is good evidence that the ancient Greeks misinterpreted mastodon fossils as large, one-eyed creatures and they named them Cyclops. This is based not only on their stories, but upon the real tangible fossils in their possesion in their temple ruins. These Cyclops (mastadons) have a lot of supporting physical evidence. But the greeks simply made an error in interpretation. As for the mastodons, we know their habitat, their ancestry, and many other things based on real physical evidence. This makes the mastodons a scientificly proven species.
If dragons are real, then you need to provide this same physical evidence. Where are the remains? Where are the fossils? What was their habitat like? What did they eat? When did they live? How big were they? What was their geographical distribution like? Every creature that we know of comes from some kind of physical evidence.
Until there is evidence against the existance of such a creature, you cannot say they do not (or did not) exist.
Go back several hundred years and tell them that there was ice on a moon of Jupiter. You would probably be laughed at, since everyone knew that anything in space was just a lump of rock.
Again, proving a negative is not possible without evidence. Scientists several hundred years ago would not laugh at ice on the distant moons. They would simply want to see what evidence you base your assumption on. If you had no evidence, then you very well might be laughed out of town ( or excommunicated from the church ). But if you offered some equations based on some experiments that you conducted, then others would likely take a good look at what you had and validate or disprove your hypothesis.
I get worried by people that ask me to prove something does not exist. That is not the scientific process. If you claim that something exists, then offer proof. Don't put an idea out there and say "Disprove this". This is often the basis for pseudoscience and is very dangerous because people not familiar with the scientific method (most people) will accept an unsupported hypothesis as fact because there is no "evidence" of the contrary.
As to your argument, I cannot prove it does not exist. But the burden is on you to prove, not for me to disprove. The reasons against fire breathing dragons are the lack of evidence. We have a very well preserved record of the middle ages, and surely something as spectacular as a fire breathing dragon would be preserved somewhere. Artifacts from trophy hunters, lairs, bones, remains, etc are all lacking. All we have are stories to go on. Stories often embellish the facts to make for a more interesting story. Eg. "Who cares about the guy who killed a 7 foot monitor lizard, _My Friend_ killed a 20 foot lizard who breathed fire and shot lightning from his eyes!". So while the story may be based on a real creature, one needs to be able to separate fact from fiction. The easiest, most consistent way to do this is to demand evidence for any claims.
Until there is evidence of such a creature, then you cannot say they exist. They are a possibility of the imagination until some physical evidence is found. Since it is impossible to prove a negative, pursuing ideas based on "how do you know xxx does not exist" is wasteful at best. One should spend their time researching the available evidence and applying the scientific method in order to learn more about these things.
As far as Atlantis goes, there have been many claims of underwater cities, probably caused my a multitude of events (volcanos, earthquakes, landslides, etc). I see the "Atlantis" story as a way of getting the attention of the press so the researcher can quickly get his idea out for review and possibly attract some funds. There is value in the research, even if it is just an old city and not the mythical Atlantis with its advanced-technology-such-as-the-world-has-never-se en-before (TM).
Well said. I still have many photos from early 97 (when I first got a digital camera) and they are still sitting on my backup hard drives. I have two. I buy a new one each christmas and backup all my data to it and rotate the older drives out. This is in addition to the data existing on my computer's hard drive. Through that time I have had drive crashes, but the other 2 copies have always been available for restoring. A little redundancy and a reasonable backup schedule will make sure that your memories are not lost.
Another important thing to consider is the format. I have saved some movies using an AVI codec which you now have to pay to get. So make sure your file formats can withstand the test of time.
Now the virtual machine and its tools etc still come from one provider, and oen that has a proven track record of screwing over everyone who develops a succesfull product based on its technology instead of from a company that at least has a track record of caring about its customers.
Don't forget about Mono (open source.Net tools). The.Net CLR is an open standard. That's what the Mono folks are working off of. The only downside is that Microsoft has a huge head start in the libraries, widgets, and tools. This makes their solution much more useful (for now).
Think razors. The battery, heater, etc are bought once. The nicotene "filters" are the bulk, cheap item. Combined, a "pack" will cost about the same.
My question is "Can teenagers buy this?" Remember, smoking bans are almost always based on the fact that smoking causes cancer and not the morality of chemical addictions.
That's not so much as an interface, as a layout. You still use your mouse or keyboard to navigate a "desktop" which represents the paradigm that most people are familiar with. Jef is implying that a new paradigm is needed (although I don't agree).
The issues you stated are simply organizational issues. For instance, You know how to set up a printer, and most GUI's do well to present all the relevant information to you. You just need to know where to click to get that widget to appear. Same thing with menus. They have different names and such, but they all behave the same (click on it and it expands).
In that respect, MacOS, Windows, and Linux (with the appropriate window manager) are all the same.
What is important is the key fact in its proof, which is that for any value 't', e^it = sin(t) + i*cos(t)
If you have taken calc 1, this should be readable. Think of it this way.
e^it, shows up a lot in engineering formulas, but can be a pain to work with. Being able to convert it to a sin/cosine formula makes it simpler because for certian values of t, sin() or cos() will be 1 or 0, and derivatives and integrals are fairly simple (eg. sin(x) d/dx = cos(x) ).
The expo store by definition is a money drain. It may expose the customer to the brand, but if sales are not directly generated, the stores will be seen as an expensive ad campaign.
My prediction is that more manufacturers will try this out, some will succeed (Like sony with a broad and diverse product offering), and the rest will let the retail outlets be the "expo", and let the retail outlets manage the profits (which are generally meager) and losses (which can kill a chain after one bad season). The unsuccessful manufacturers will probably set up "expo zones" in the big retailers, and the retailers will enhance their revenue streams with product placement agreements. When one retailler goes out, the manufacturer simply switches to the next one.
I remember taking those tests too. I also remember having to correct ab out 1/3 of them because the machine did not read my "vote" correctly.
The bottom line is that we need to accept the fact that voting systems will not be 100% functional. We cannot build machines that are 100% functional and those machines are operated by humans, which means there _will_ be errors.
Cheap, low tech machines will be plagued by apparantly simple problems. Attempts to solve these problems will result in more complex solutions. The complex solutions will introduce complex problems and the whole thing will snowball.
I feel the best choice is to use the old style systems with paper ballots and simply accept the fact that there will be errors. Introduce some simple procedures to minimize their effects (look for "hanging chads", have the voter review the machine read choices, etc). But still recognize that there _will be errors_.
Put together a retail version for Win/Mac that can be sold in the stores next to the popup/spyware tools. If you ever go into a BestCircuitDepotUSA, there is almost always someone in those aisles. A well designed informative box could do wonders. You would'nt believe some of the junkware that gets bought because people are desperate to free themselves of the popup/spyware scourge.
Points to hit on...
Popups can be controlled.
Plugins can be easily monitored and deactivated
Email viruses are much less likely to cause trouble.
People pay $100+ to try solve those problems, and they don't understand that most of those tools are themselves spyware.
Yeah, but you didn't design and build your car from scratch to get to your "exotic location". I'd be taking pictures of my car if it landed on another planet.
The emissions are there because of the fuel being used, not nessecarily the engine design.
Other fuels, like natural gas or liquid propane actually burn very clean in an internal combustion engine. There is not as much power in the fuel, but the reduced power (reduced forces and stresses) combined with the cleaner outputs results in an engine that lasts longer and requires less maintenance. That's why you see fleet vehicles with them. The only downfall is that there is not a filling station on every corner.
The [ gas + air = co2 + water ] is the perfect reaction (stoichiometric is the word iirc). But that is an ideal that can happen with pure components only. First of all, air is dirty, so there is one source of impurities. Second, Gasoline is refined from naturally occuring goo which means you are adding all kinds of inappropriate materials to the above reaction. This stuff has to be removed (refined), and no matter how much you remove, there is always something left over. Then you need additives to deal with these leftovers, their combustion products, etc. And you have to do all this at an economically sustainable price.
So don't blame the engine for the shortcomings of the fuel.
They are consistent in targetting the iPod (popular) and discarding the Mac (so so popular). Notice Linux is in that discard pile as well, unless we're willing to help them develop the stuff in the first place.
Logic flaw. Mac is not as popular as Windows (fact). Mac is 'so so popular' in the Mac community, but not necessarily in the population in general. Real is just focusing its resources where it will make the most difference.
Also, if Mac users keep up with their 'If it ain't Apple, I ain't buying it' rhetoric, what motive would Real have to develop software for those users?
The article did not mention that they were using the GPL. They will likely have their own open source license, so they can still exert their rights. Just because they are letting you see it does not mean that their license will let you copy it. They are doing this to expand their developer base and cash in on all those folks who like to tinker with things.
They're not setting Solaris free, they are just putting it on display (and no doubt still charging for it).
Plans 1) leave probe in orbit - Kinda hard to analyse up there.
2) Catch it with a shuttle - The same shuttle done in by a few pounds of foam? - half a billion dollars to catch a capsule?
3) have it cruise past the ISS - If it cruises past the ISS, where will it go? You'd have to decelerate it, and put it in the correct orbit (incline, velocity, altitude). Not impossible, but you would easily double the cost of the probe.
Returning capsules is an old, well understood process. Even catching things in midair is an old hat (how do you think the old spy satellites returned their payloads?). But nothing is foolproof. Parts are not 100% reliable.
Every cow I've ever seen sleeps on the ground - not standing up. A friend of mine grew up in Iowa on a dairy farm and he said that cow tipping is a way for rednecks to play a joke on city dwellers. Kinda like snipe hunting. Although he could have been pulling my leg, my extensive research (read as: "looking for a cow to tip") has led be to believe that cow tipping is indeed an urban legend.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that dismissing evidence is a "bad thing". For instance, earlier in this thread I referenced the ancient Greeks who mistook mastadon fossils for the cyclops. Before someone investigated this, it was assumed that the Greeks had vivid imaginations. Until someone crossed disciplines (mythology, archeology, and paleontology) and showed that these stories were rooted in truth. They just interpreted the facts incorrectly.
All facts must be considered, even if they don't fit the popular theory. Because down the road someone may discover that an asian trader brought komodo dragons to Europe and sparked the "dragon". Or maybe he brought his knowledege of such beasts and the Europeans embellished it.
Which brings me to another point. Science, especially in areas where evidence is very thin, becomes an excercise in probability. Simply put, which is more likely, that dragons are based on a common creature and exaggerated in stories, or dragons really do exist and we have never found one live or dead specimen, no remains, no fossils, habitat, etc. Without any hard evidence, any hypothesis is on very thin ice and should be treated as such.
conveniently ignoring the large and widespread cultural evidence.
Cultural evidence may be based on incorrect interpretations of data. Maybe they saw a dinosaur fossil and made the incorrect assumptions. Remember, there is good evidence that the ancient Greeks misinterpreted mastodon fossils as large, one-eyed creatures and they named them Cyclops. This is based not only on their stories, but upon the real tangible fossils in their possesion in their temple ruins. These Cyclops (mastadons) have a lot of supporting physical evidence. But the greeks simply made an error in interpretation. As for the mastodons, we know their habitat, their ancestry, and many other things based on real physical evidence. This makes the mastodons a scientificly proven species.
If dragons are real, then you need to provide this same physical evidence. Where are the remains? Where are the fossils? What was their habitat like? What did they eat? When did they live? How big were they? What was their geographical distribution like? Every creature that we know of comes from some kind of physical evidence.
Until there is evidence against the existance of such a creature, you cannot say they do not (or did not) exist.
Go back several hundred years and tell them that there was ice on a moon of Jupiter. You would probably be laughed at, since everyone knew that anything in space was just a lump of rock.
Again, proving a negative is not possible without evidence. Scientists several hundred years ago would not laugh at ice on the distant moons. They would simply want to see what evidence you base your assumption on. If you had no evidence, then you very well might be laughed out of town ( or excommunicated from the church ). But if you offered some equations based on some experiments that you conducted, then others would likely take a good look at what you had and validate or disprove your hypothesis.
I get worried by people that ask me to prove something does not exist. That is not the scientific process. If you claim that something exists, then offer proof. Don't put an idea out there and say "Disprove this". This is often the basis for pseudoscience and is very dangerous because people not familiar with the scientific method (most people) will accept an unsupported hypothesis as fact because there is no "evidence" of the contrary.
As to your argument, I cannot prove it does not exist. But the burden is on you to prove, not for me to disprove. The reasons against fire breathing dragons are the lack of evidence. We have a very well preserved record of the middle ages, and surely something as spectacular as a fire breathing dragon would be preserved somewhere. Artifacts from trophy hunters, lairs, bones, remains, etc are all lacking. All we have are stories to go on. Stories often embellish the facts to make for a more interesting story. Eg. "Who cares about the guy who killed a 7 foot monitor lizard, _My Friend_ killed a 20 foot lizard who breathed fire and shot lightning from his eyes!". So while the story may be based on a real creature, one needs to be able to separate fact from fiction. The easiest, most consistent way to do this is to demand evidence for any claims.
Until there is evidence of such a creature, then you cannot say they exist. They are a possibility of the imagination until some physical evidence is found. Since it is impossible to prove a negative, pursuing ideas based on "how do you know xxx does not exist" is wasteful at best. One should spend their time researching the available evidence and applying the scientific method in order to learn more about these things.
e en-before (TM).
As far as Atlantis goes, there have been many claims of underwater cities, probably caused my a multitude of events (volcanos, earthquakes, landslides, etc). I see the "Atlantis" story as a way of getting the attention of the press so the researcher can quickly get his idea out for review and possibly attract some funds. There is value in the research, even if it is just an old city and not the mythical Atlantis with its advanced-technology-such-as-the-world-has-never-s
Well said. I still have many photos from early 97 (when I first got a digital camera) and they are still sitting on my backup hard drives. I have two. I buy a new one each christmas and backup all my data to it and rotate the older drives out. This is in addition to the data existing on my computer's hard drive. Through that time I have had drive crashes, but the other 2 copies have always been available for restoring. A little redundancy and a reasonable backup schedule will make sure that your memories are not lost.
Another important thing to consider is the format. I have saved some movies using an AVI codec which you now have to pay to get. So make sure your file formats can withstand the test of time.
Now the virtual machine and its tools etc still come from one provider, and oen that has a proven track record of screwing over everyone who develops a succesfull product based on its technology instead of from a company that at least has a track record of caring about its customers.
.Net tools). The .Net CLR is an open standard. That's what the Mono folks are working off of. The only downside is that Microsoft has a huge head start in the libraries, widgets, and tools. This makes their solution much more useful (for now).
Don't forget about Mono (open source
Think razors. The battery, heater, etc are bought once. The nicotene "filters" are the bulk, cheap item. Combined, a "pack" will cost about the same.
My question is "Can teenagers buy this?" Remember, smoking bans are almost always based on the fact that smoking causes cancer and not the morality of chemical addictions.
If it wasn't for plagarism, where would we get our new ideas?
This will probably kill all my kharma points, but I fail to see any entertainment value in Mr. Stern other than pure shock value.
Don't forget retards singing Beatles' songs and getting into arguments with themselves.
That's why I listen.
That's not so much as an interface, as a layout. You still use your mouse or keyboard to navigate a "desktop" which represents the paradigm that most people are familiar with. Jef is implying that a new paradigm is needed (although I don't agree).
The issues you stated are simply organizational issues. For instance, You know how to set up a printer, and most GUI's do well to present all the relevant information to you. You just need to know where to click to get that widget to appear. Same thing with menus. They have different names and such, but they all behave the same (click on it and it expands).
In that respect, MacOS, Windows, and Linux (with the appropriate window manager) are all the same.
What is important is the key fact in its proof, which is that for any value 't', e^it = sin(t) + i*cos(t)
If you have taken calc 1, this should be readable. Think of it this way.
e^it, shows up a lot in engineering formulas, but can be a pain to work with. Being able to convert it to a sin/cosine formula makes it simpler because for certian values of t, sin() or cos() will be 1 or 0, and derivatives and integrals are fairly simple (eg. sin(x) d/dx = cos(x) ).
The expo store by definition is a money drain. It may expose the customer to the brand, but if sales are not directly generated, the stores will be seen as an expensive ad campaign.
My prediction is that more manufacturers will try this out, some will succeed (Like sony with a broad and diverse product offering), and the rest will let the retail outlets be the "expo", and let the retail outlets manage the profits (which are generally meager) and losses (which can kill a chain after one bad season). The unsuccessful manufacturers will probably set up "expo zones" in the big retailers, and the retailers will enhance their revenue streams with product placement agreements. When one retailler goes out, the manufacturer simply switches to the next one.
I remember taking those tests too. I also remember having to correct ab out 1/3 of them because the machine did not read my "vote" correctly.
The bottom line is that we need to accept the fact that voting systems will not be 100% functional. We cannot build machines that are 100% functional and those machines are operated by humans, which means there _will_ be errors.
Cheap, low tech machines will be plagued by apparantly simple problems. Attempts to solve these problems will result in more complex solutions. The complex solutions will introduce complex problems and the whole thing will snowball.
I feel the best choice is to use the old style systems with paper ballots and simply accept the fact that there will be errors. Introduce some simple procedures to minimize their effects (look for "hanging chads", have the voter review the machine read choices, etc). But still recognize that there _will be errors_.
But at idle it is producing around 4HP ~= 2.8kW. So now we're back down to a few notebooks. It is still dangerous to idle a car in an enclosed space.
/sarcasm
Perhaps we need gadget/non-gadget sections. Maybe some gov't regulation. Hi-flow catalytic converters for your computer.
Put together a retail version for Win/Mac that can be sold in the stores next to the popup/spyware tools. If you ever go into a BestCircuitDepotUSA, there is almost always someone in those aisles. A well designed informative box could do wonders. You would'nt believe some of the junkware that gets bought because people are desperate to free themselves of the popup/spyware scourge.
Points to hit on...
Popups can be controlled.
Plugins can be easily monitored and deactivated
Email viruses are much less likely to cause trouble.
People pay $100+ to try solve those problems, and they don't understand that most of those tools are themselves spyware.
My 0.02
Yeah, but you didn't design and build your car from scratch to get to your "exotic location". I'd be taking pictures of my car if it landed on another planet.
The emissions are there because of the fuel being used, not nessecarily the engine design.
Other fuels, like natural gas or liquid propane actually burn very clean in an internal combustion engine. There is not as much power in the fuel, but the reduced power (reduced forces and stresses) combined with the cleaner outputs results in an engine that lasts longer and requires less maintenance. That's why you see fleet vehicles with them. The only downfall is that there is not a filling station on every corner.
The [ gas + air = co2 + water ] is the perfect reaction (stoichiometric is the word iirc). But that is an ideal that can happen with pure components only. First of all, air is dirty, so there is one source of impurities. Second, Gasoline is refined from naturally occuring goo which means you are adding all kinds of inappropriate materials to the above reaction. This stuff has to be removed (refined), and no matter how much you remove, there is always something left over. Then you need additives to deal with these leftovers, their combustion products, etc. And you have to do all this at an economically sustainable price.
So don't blame the engine for the shortcomings of the fuel.
The problem is that people will go see a movie because it has a certian actor in it. This alone justifies the expense for the actor.
Real/Rob says: We support the popular platforms.
They are consistent in targetting the iPod (popular) and discarding the Mac (so so popular). Notice Linux is in that discard pile as well, unless we're willing to help them develop the stuff in the first place.
Logic flaw. Mac is not as popular as Windows (fact). Mac is 'so so popular' in the Mac community, but not necessarily in the population in general. Real is just focusing its resources where it will make the most difference.
Also, if Mac users keep up with their 'If it ain't Apple, I ain't buying it' rhetoric, what motive would Real have to develop software for those users?
The article did not mention that they were using the GPL. They will likely have their own open source license, so they can still exert their rights. Just because they are letting you see it does not mean that their license will let you copy it. They are doing this to expand their developer base and cash in on all those folks who like to tinker with things.
They're not setting Solaris free, they are just putting it on display (and no doubt still charging for it).
Plans
1) leave probe in orbit
- Kinda hard to analyse up there.
2) Catch it with a shuttle
- The same shuttle done in by a few pounds of foam?
- half a billion dollars to catch a capsule?
3) have it cruise past the ISS
- If it cruises past the ISS, where will it go? You'd have to decelerate it, and put it in the correct orbit (incline, velocity, altitude). Not impossible, but you would easily double the cost of the probe.
Returning capsules is an old, well understood process. Even catching things in midair is an old hat (how do you think the old spy satellites returned their payloads?). But nothing is foolproof. Parts are not 100% reliable.
Actual Transcript:
Stuntman: ok, I see it - there it is.
Manager: Go! Go! Go!
[wind whipping sound heard in mic]
Stuntman: Ok, got it - Yow! This thing is HOT!
Manager: If you don't save it you don't get paid.
Stuntman: Neither do you!
[manager jumps to save probe - but forgets parachute]
See, the hollywood types were in charge but because of their lack of understanding for science and physics, they dropped the ball (pun intended).
I have a Sony DV camera and it works fine with iMovie.
Every cow I've ever seen sleeps on the ground - not standing up. A friend of mine grew up in Iowa on a dairy farm and he said that cow tipping is a way for rednecks to play a joke on city dwellers. Kinda like snipe hunting. Although he could have been pulling my leg, my extensive research (read as: "looking for a cow to tip") has led be to believe that cow tipping is indeed an urban legend.
Now we can talk about Horse tipping!
Iowa: Tornados, Floods, and what is there to do besides growing corn?