Jeez. What the hell is a science article doing crowing about "putting another nail in the coffin of ID"? Do articles about space crow about putting another coffin in the nail of the flat earth theory? Is it too much to ask that we please just show up school boards when necessary, but otherwise just ignore the ID loonies?
In any case, the ID folks don't typically use the "science can't explain everything" as their strongest argument. In fact, the bee thing gives them MORE ammunition. "The bees flight dynamics are so complex that only a creator could have designed it."
I understand the defensive impulse since ID has been coming out of the woodwork a lot lately, but sheesh. Stuff like this does NOT fight against them, it plays into their hands by legitimizing them as an "outlaw" theory. The best way to fight them is to not give them any more press than necessary.
If Wikipedia is a major resource to a student writing a thesis, their intellectual community has WAY bigger problems than mere freedom of speech on the Internet issues.
This is so ludicrous that methinks a Wikipedia advocate is trying to create a bit of artificial drama.
Certainly not every Christian looks to superstition to "prove" their faith. But I don't even have to go to creationism to prove my point (which is too easy a target anyway), I only have to go to the current news... Pat Robertson's comments about Ariel Sharon's stroke being divine retribution.
I think for fun, I'll keep a lookout for someone making this point.
Modern science? This is, once again, proof that the Bible is truly the word of the Lord, the Intelligent Designer, and all you heretics are condemned to burn in the fires of hell. You think He did not Design to have the Balthazr, Melchior, and Gaspar (the Three Wise Men) follow three stars?
You laugh, but you just know some are going to take this as proof of God using the "holy trinity".
Also, they may have wanted to measure the distance in a standard publicity unit, such as roundtrip NY-LA distances ("A little over 350,000 round-trips from New York to Los Angeles").
I think to appreciate it, I need it in terms of "The Books of the Library of Congress laid end-to-end."
(to put it in terms Slashdot will understand) That's like saying all you have to do is not try Linux, and you'll think Windows is perfectly adequate as a server.:)
How does regular TV look on a 50" plasma? Good ol' SD broadcasts? There are only a handful of HD shows I'd ever watch, so I'd mostly be watching regular programming.
If you look close up, it's almost too good. I can see compression artifacts a lot easier, and what looked like a flat field of color on a standard TV (say, on cartoons) now looks "noisy" because of the far better color (I only got it last month, so my impressions are pretty fresh). After the novelty wore off (and I didn't get up right next to it), I found that I didn't really notice. And when I compare to my old 32" standard TV in another room, it looks a lot better overall. Convergence is perfect, color is better, and it squeezes out everything it can get out of the SD signal.
So overall it took a little getting used to it, but it's awesome, and I definitely wouldn't go back. I'm really looking forward to HD movies.
It's not just the size, it's the resolution. The color is also noticeably better. To use your camera analogy, sure, 640x480 might be "fine for you" if that's all you know, but that doesn't mean it doesn't comparatively suck.
To be honest with you, I used to say exactly the same thing you said. I used to actually say I couldn't even tell the difference, but that was mostly because early generation source material didn't take advantage of it. I know it sounds stupid, but I actually find myself enjoying documentaries in HD more that I used to. It's like watching a documentary enacted on a stage rather than an obvious video. The color is so much more vibrant.
Wait until you see it, even on a small monitor before passing judgment. It's so much better than I expected.
I used to think DVD was acceptable, until I bought my 50" Plasma and saw "real" HD source material (and no, not everything that they claim is HD is really HD). You don't realize how much DVDs suck until you see them on a good monitor.
It has handled inaccuracies not defensively but with the humble understanding that of course Wikipedia articles will have mistakes, so let's get on with the unending task of improving them. Wikipedia's ambitions are immodest, but Wikipedia is not.
Transparency is not modesty.
If you read the Appeal for Donations, Wales specifically believes that Wikipedia has the potential to change the world by providing education to people who may need education. Implicity in that belief is that Wikipedia will be accurate enough to be a resource useful for that.
I always hate to knock Wikipedia, because I really do think it's an interesting experiment, but it has very serious flaws. It's biggest flaw is a "Tyranny of Those With The Most Time." There have been a couple of cases where I've tried to make some changes to a particular article that I knew were accurate, but I got some a-hole, who believed they owned the page, reversing my changes because they disagreed with them. Who has time to fight that battle? Apparently the a-hole does, but I certainly don't.
Wikimedia's yearly expenses are mere pocket change for any of the players I mentioned.
Lots of things are "pocket change" to these players. They donate to a lot of causes. What makes Wikipedia so special that they deserve a cut of the pie versus, say, donating to a battered women's shelter, cancer research, or children's home.
Don't get me wrong, I like Wikipedia. I think it's an interesting experiment. But I think of a hell of a lot of things come first when we're talking about general donation funds.
Or to put it another way, Wikipedia begging for money is going to put it against a lot of priorities, and Wikipedia is probably going to lose, especially in a big year for natural disasters. They need to find a more self-sustaining model, even perhaps finding some hidden angels who believe in their cause.
Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, so there is no way heat radiation could have travelled between the two horizons to even out the hot and cold spots created in the big bang and leave the thermal equilibrium we see now.
I don't get this. Maybe a Physics geek can clue me in. Why would we expect to see different temperatures? If the big bang exploded in a completely uniform way, I would expect the "shrapnel" to behave in a completely uniform way in every direction. What exactly would cause one direction to be hotter than another direction?
I was just thinking about this. Is it me, or is an SLR mechanism in a digital camera totally and completely stupid? The point of the SLR was to be able to look through the lens and see exactly what the lens was seeing. With a digital viewfinder, who needs all that extra mechanical crap? The only conclusion I can come to is that the camera makers are adding the SLR to appeal to "traditional" photographers.
Are there cameras with the extra good sensors along with interchangeable lenses, but without the SLR that I actually think is a negative?
As correct or truthfull as you have attempted to be, you've only made the siuation worse. [...] Thanks, Asshat, for increasing the divide between the youth and adults.
On the contrary, I think I make the situation better when I tell my kids the truth, and that I understand. I've specifically tried really hard to remember what it was like as I've gotten older, because I knew it's all too easy to forget what it was like to be young and think one has all the answers.
Not that they'll listen to me; if they're anything like me, they'll be sure I'm full of crap. But I'll be able to understand why they think I'm full of crap, and I'll be able to pick my spots and steer them as necessary.
I'm guessing you're either a teenager, or not much into your twenties.
I was young once, and when I was a teenager I probably would have made the same post you made. I distinctly remember being irritated and annoyed that adults treated me with such contempt. Didn't they know I was a person? Didn't they know I had opinions? I knew a helluva a lot more than they thought!
Now that I'm 41, oooooooh geez, I now realize what a typical arrogant, idiotic, irritating, annoying, ignorant young punk I was. I completely sympathize with this guy creating the anti-teenager device. And I was much smarter and more mature than most people my age, but I was still an idiotic twit. There is nothing more annoying than a bunch of noisy teenagers hanging around a store saying stupid things at twice the necessary volume.
If someone who is relatively young (i.e., under, say, 25-30) is reading this and thinks I'm full of crap, then you're not qualified to have an opinion. Your brain hasn't finished developing yet. Sorry.
And if someone disagrees with me who is older than that, then you must've not grown up yet.:)
I always find it interesting how Apple gets a pass for selling music only usable in their own player. If Microsoft sold a MS-created player that only played "Microsoft music", people would be screaming.
I'm sorry, but it's yet another reason why I hate Apple, and it's part of a long pattern of their history. Apple and Microsoft do exactly the same things (except that Apple is worse -- they use the lawsuit as a weapon, whereas Microsoft almost never does it). It's just that Apple is less competent at being a monopoly.
I know, I know. Mod me down. Any criticism of Apple is flamebait. I'm used to it. But I will continue to hate Apple (and recommend that no one EVER buy Apple products) until they change their ways.
I can't find this quote online (even paraphrased), but I can hear him saying that.
I'm (almost) positive I read the quote in a book of short stories in the mid 80s, which was when I first read the story. He said it in an introductory paragraph.
Have you not read the Arthur C. Clarke short story "rescue party"? It was his first story he sold, if I'm not mistaken. He had an amusing line once about (paraphrase), "People who say this is their favorite story of mine get a cooler and cooler reception as the years go on.":D
All sci-fi geeks should read it. Considering it's around 60 years old, you have to forgive a bit of old technology, but the story holds up really well.
It's a very interesting "what if" story about first contact.
Sure, people flew in balloons... but that's not controllable flight. What made airplanes exciting was the fact that you could hop in and go wherever you wanted. I think you also overestimate how much the general public expected flight. Remember, this is the turn of the century where news didn't travel all that fast. Probably people heard about people working on it, but the Wright's success popularized the notion that it was really going to happen.
Sure, it seems obvious now that controlled, powered flight was inevitable, but it was hardly obvious to the man on the street in 1900.
Some of you might remember from the movie Titanic them humming the song "Come Josephine in my Flying Machine"... Here it is (I'm not sure that link will work; here's the direct MP3 link. That song was incredibly popular in 1911. If you want to see how far pop music, production and singing have come, that's a good one to check out.:D
Seriously, though, I've always thought that was an interesting song. Remember that the Wright Brothers flew only in 1903, so the whole concept of "flying machines" was incredibly new and exciting. There's a certain innocent romance to the song that's so... impossible to recapture today.
It seems like a found a solution for it (this was a long time ago), but I think I later on figured out it was wrong. I haven't thought about it in a long time, but I suspect it's not integrateable. Any opinions from math geeks? I'm actually kind of curious.
Slashdot Mirror
LOL. Oops...
In any case, the ID folks don't typically use the "science can't explain everything" as their strongest argument. In fact, the bee thing gives them MORE ammunition. "The bees flight dynamics are so complex that only a creator could have designed it."
I understand the defensive impulse since ID has been coming out of the woodwork a lot lately, but sheesh. Stuff like this does NOT fight against them, it plays into their hands by legitimizing them as an "outlaw" theory. The best way to fight them is to not give them any more press than necessary.
This is so ludicrous that methinks a Wikipedia advocate is trying to create a bit of artificial drama.
I think for fun, I'll keep a lookout for someone making this point.
You laugh, but you just know some are going to take this as proof of God using the "holy trinity".
I think to appreciate it, I need it in terms of "The Books of the Library of Congress laid end-to-end."
(to put it in terms Slashdot will understand) That's like saying all you have to do is not try Linux, and you'll think Windows is perfectly adequate as a server. :)
If you look close up, it's almost too good. I can see compression artifacts a lot easier, and what looked like a flat field of color on a standard TV (say, on cartoons) now looks "noisy" because of the far better color (I only got it last month, so my impressions are pretty fresh). After the novelty wore off (and I didn't get up right next to it), I found that I didn't really notice. And when I compare to my old 32" standard TV in another room, it looks a lot better overall. Convergence is perfect, color is better, and it squeezes out everything it can get out of the SD signal.
So overall it took a little getting used to it, but it's awesome, and I definitely wouldn't go back. I'm really looking forward to HD movies.
To be honest with you, I used to say exactly the same thing you said. I used to actually say I couldn't even tell the difference, but that was mostly because early generation source material didn't take advantage of it. I know it sounds stupid, but I actually find myself enjoying documentaries in HD more that I used to. It's like watching a documentary enacted on a stage rather than an obvious video. The color is so much more vibrant.
Wait until you see it, even on a small monitor before passing judgment. It's so much better than I expected.
I used to think DVD was acceptable, until I bought my 50" Plasma and saw "real" HD source material (and no, not everything that they claim is HD is really HD). You don't realize how much DVDs suck until you see them on a good monitor.
Er, if you're happy with sucky download resolution, why would you be interested in a HD player anyway?
Transparency is not modesty.
If you read the Appeal for Donations, Wales specifically believes that Wikipedia has the potential to change the world by providing education to people who may need education. Implicity in that belief is that Wikipedia will be accurate enough to be a resource useful for that.
I always hate to knock Wikipedia, because I really do think it's an interesting experiment, but it has very serious flaws. It's biggest flaw is a "Tyranny of Those With The Most Time." There have been a couple of cases where I've tried to make some changes to a particular article that I knew were accurate, but I got some a-hole, who believed they owned the page, reversing my changes because they disagreed with them. Who has time to fight that battle? Apparently the a-hole does, but I certainly don't.
Lots of things are "pocket change" to these players. They donate to a lot of causes. What makes Wikipedia so special that they deserve a cut of the pie versus, say, donating to a battered women's shelter, cancer research, or children's home.
Don't get me wrong, I like Wikipedia. I think it's an interesting experiment. But I think of a hell of a lot of things come first when we're talking about general donation funds.
Or to put it another way, Wikipedia begging for money is going to put it against a lot of priorities, and Wikipedia is probably going to lose, especially in a big year for natural disasters. They need to find a more self-sustaining model, even perhaps finding some hidden angels who believe in their cause.
I don't get this. Maybe a Physics geek can clue me in. Why would we expect to see different temperatures? If the big bang exploded in a completely uniform way, I would expect the "shrapnel" to behave in a completely uniform way in every direction. What exactly would cause one direction to be hotter than another direction?
Are there cameras with the extra good sensors along with interchangeable lenses, but without the SLR that I actually think is a negative?
NASA.com - NASA Scientists Say Martian Water "Could" Mean Life, Asks for More Funding
On the contrary, I think I make the situation better when I tell my kids the truth, and that I understand. I've specifically tried really hard to remember what it was like as I've gotten older, because I knew it's all too easy to forget what it was like to be young and think one has all the answers.
Not that they'll listen to me; if they're anything like me, they'll be sure I'm full of crap. But I'll be able to understand why they think I'm full of crap, and I'll be able to pick my spots and steer them as necessary.
LOL. Ha, you should've seen me as a teenager. I've mellowed a lot over the years. :D
I was young once, and when I was a teenager I probably would have made the same post you made. I distinctly remember being irritated and annoyed that adults treated me with such contempt. Didn't they know I was a person? Didn't they know I had opinions? I knew a helluva a lot more than they thought!
Now that I'm 41, oooooooh geez, I now realize what a typical arrogant, idiotic, irritating, annoying, ignorant young punk I was. I completely sympathize with this guy creating the anti-teenager device. And I was much smarter and more mature than most people my age, but I was still an idiotic twit. There is nothing more annoying than a bunch of noisy teenagers hanging around a store saying stupid things at twice the necessary volume.
If someone who is relatively young (i.e., under, say, 25-30) is reading this and thinks I'm full of crap, then you're not qualified to have an opinion. Your brain hasn't finished developing yet. Sorry.
And if someone disagrees with me who is older than that, then you must've not grown up yet. :)
I'm sorry, but it's yet another reason why I hate Apple, and it's part of a long pattern of their history. Apple and Microsoft do exactly the same things (except that Apple is worse -- they use the lawsuit as a weapon, whereas Microsoft almost never does it). It's just that Apple is less competent at being a monopoly.
I know, I know. Mod me down. Any criticism of Apple is flamebait. I'm used to it. But I will continue to hate Apple (and recommend that no one EVER buy Apple products) until they change their ways.
I'm (almost) positive I read the quote in a book of short stories in the mid 80s, which was when I first read the story. He said it in an introductory paragraph.
All sci-fi geeks should read it. Considering it's around 60 years old, you have to forgive a bit of old technology, but the story holds up really well.
It's a very interesting "what if" story about first contact.
Sure, it seems obvious now that controlled, powered flight was inevitable, but it was hardly obvious to the man on the street in 1900.
Seriously, though, I've always thought that was an interesting song. Remember that the Wright Brothers flew only in 1903, so the whole concept of "flying machines" was incredibly new and exciting. There's a certain innocent romance to the song that's so... impossible to recapture today.
Integral x^x dx
It seems like a found a solution for it (this was a long time ago), but I think I later on figured out it was wrong. I haven't thought about it in a long time, but I suspect it's not integrateable. Any opinions from math geeks? I'm actually kind of curious.