Perhaps you're just considering a specific country. According to Wikipedia, the overall world sex ratio is 101 males to 100 females. At birth, the ratio is more like 106 males to 100 females, though males die earlier than females, especially in later years. (An aunt who used to be a delivery room nurse told me that female babies are generally stronger than males, so eg. a premature female has a higher chance of surviving.) Some cultures don't like girl babies, leading to infanticide or abortions, so the ratio can get artificially skewed; it also just seems to naturally vary a bit.
Here's the original ZDNet blog post. It's a longer article with more detail; it's also linked at the bottom of TFA, which seems to have plagiarized it. Compare the first paragraphs:
[TFA] Cloud-based service, Incapsula, has revealed research indicating that 51 per cent of website traffic is through automated software programs; with many programmed for the intent of malicious activity.
[ZDNet] Incapsula, a provider of cloud-based security for web sites, released a study today showing that 51% of web site traffic is automated software programs, and the majority is potentially damaging, — automated exploits from hackers, spies, scrapers, and spammers.
The sentence structure and order of ideas is identical, and many phrases are the same or nearly the same. A high schooler should do better. Minor rephrasing is not sufficient.
That said, both articles are pretty much advertisements. The study doesn't appear to have attempted to actually be comprehensive (so it only used data from this one company). The point was apparently to give this cloud service provider some selling points for businesses to use their service to "secure" their sites. This story is yet another that shouldn't even have appeared on/.; shame on the editors who let it through.
For the first bit (through "interrupted"), I largely agree; indeed I had already said, "I don't *need* to know about [a few random things I looked up on Wikipedia], but having that information can be nice." For the second bit about easily accessing the same, quite possibly more accurate information elsewhere, you haven't provided any evidence whatsoever, even though that's the most important and most debatable part of your point. I'm certainly not inclined to simply believe in your expertise, based on the poor discussion skills you've shown so far.
"one of which is devoted to suggesting that Wikipedia is running out of steam or somehow failing in its mission" comes from
However, while the encyclopaedia continued to expand at a rate of millions of words per month, the number of new articles created each year gradually decreased, from a peak of 665,000 in 2007 to 374,000 in 2010. In response to this slowdown, the Wikimedia Foundation began to focus its expansion efforts on the non-English versions of Wikipedia, which by 2011 numbered more than 250.
"including a suggestion that Wikipedia was a haven for child pornography" comes from
Additionally, in 2010 it was revealed that there was a cache of pornographic images, including illegal depictions of sexual acts involving children, on Wikimedia Commons, a site maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation that served as a repository of media files for use in all Wikimedia products. Although there were no such illegal images on Wikipedia itself, the ensuing scandal prompted Jimmy Wales, who personally deleted many of the Commons files, to encourage administrators to remove any prurient content from Wikimedia sites.
"Everything about the article says, 'parents, keep your children away from this new-fangled, dangerous, unreliable Wikipedia thing!'" probably comes from
[In opening.] Although some highly publicized problems have called attention to Wikipedia’s editorial process, they have done little to dampen public use of the resource, which is one of the most-visited sites on the Internet.
For many observers of these controversies, a troubling difference between Wikipedia and other encyclopaedias lies in the absence of editors and authors who will accept responsibility for the accuracy and quality of their articles. These observers point out that identifiable individuals are far easier to hold accountable for mistakes, bias, and bad writing than is a community of anonymous volunteers, but other observers respond that it is not entirely clear if there is a substantial difference.... Whether or not Wikipedia has managed to attain the authority level of traditional encyclopaedias, it has undoubtedly become a model of what the collaborative Internet community can and cannot do.
and the fact that the majority of the article discusses controversies and problems.
[I collected these to save others the trouble of hunting through the article for them as I did.]
The Wikipedia "random" button tries to mimic that, I think. Unfortunately it usually comes up with garbage--stubs, pages on obscure locations or even more obscure people. It would be nice if there was a Featured Article-only random button....
There, you now have an URL to an immutable version of the article as it is when you read it. Even if the base article is edited afterwards, your link will never change.
Is this strictly true? I was under the impression that deleted articles had their history deleted, that merged articles sometimes have their histories merged, and that renaming can also change the history URL. I have no expertise in these matters, though.
Your (funny) analogy isn't really apt, though. I would never have looked up the "Smothers Brothers" today if it weren't for Wikipedia, whereas I would not go through a minefield without making a serious attempt at avoiding mines. Most of the topics I look up I wouldn't bother finding out about if it weren't for Wikipedia's easily searchable, concentrated, reasonable-quality articles. I don't *need* to know about the Gulf of Tonkin incident, or The Well of Loneliness, or the total box office gross of Star Trek IV, but having that information can be nice.
To be fair, world population growth is expected to level off in the next hundred years or so. See the UN's take on it; according to their "medium variant" we'll only have about 10 billion people by 2100 (though of course these numbers have a very high error margin). Population growth in most of the developed world is near 0 (except for immigration) and a few European countries have negative population growth. But yeah, the real issue is getting 3rd world women to have fewer children.
"No human can escape it, not you, not me, no one" -- what is "it" here? Attempting to be intellectually superior by ignoring inconvenient truths (like the inhomogeneity of large groups) or misrepresenting the certainty of data?
Certainly brain dead humans can avoid those issues. A few hyper-rational people might also be able to; there are probably a few other edge cases. It's telling that you fell prey to the same thing you're complaining about so quickly. I imagine your statement is much more true than false--"most" people in my experience do those things, though I haven't read or conducted a scientific study on the topic.
I'm sorry; are you implying the data I quoted was falsified?
In my own opinion, the first movie wasn't great, but it's decent if you can fast forward through the endless external shots. I actually don't like II as much as most, though I probably like VI more than most.
How many programmers ever learned linear algebra in the first place, especially if they graduated decades ago (if they even went to college)? It's not like you need to understand linear algebra to call a library rotation routine though. Theoretically at least, I prefer quaternion rotations, which aren't even primarily based on linear algebra--just because quaternions are cuter than matrices (though I'm a pure math person).
Game development is a large field. There are many platforms, physics is hard for most people, especially without a good background in math, getting art/sound/music can be hard--there are plenty of reasons to want a mentor-like person when just starting out.
Jaded old programmers like me hear this kind of a thing and mentally translate it into "I want you to write a program for me so I can get rich from it without doing any of the actual work."
Why? There's no evidence I can find to support that interpretation, and there's a mound of evidence against it. Why would he list his coding background and invite suggestions for books to "flatten the learning curve"--to make the post more convincing? That's a remarkably elaborate deception. Under your interpretation I have to assume every sentence is filled with cunning lies aimed at finding someone smart enough to do all the work but stupid enough not to notice they're being duped, which would be impressive in itself. I find that ridiculously unlikely compared to the strong possibility that he's simply being honest.
No, you misunderstood. "he doesn't want to have to figure out how to program it" is very wrong:
"I'd like to write a program..." "...In an ideal world,... [I would be forced] to fully flesh it out, debug and complete the app" "...hiring somebody doesn't make sense, and I wouldn't learn anything that way either" "...I think I would be much better off to work with someone rather than try to roll my own unless good books exist to flatten the learning curve"
He wants a somewhat experienced partner who might be willing to answer questions and guide him through the process of making a game. Perhaps this person might develop side-by-side with him if the project is large enough. He clearly wants to learn how to do this, he's just not sure about the best way to start. He's suggested that an experienced partner is a good way to go, and if he can find one it probably is. Most likely he should just find a good forum (several have been suggested already), pick a platform (XNA feeds into his C# experience), and start coding solo.
I agree. I re-watched VI a few months ago and absolutely loved it. I did the same with VIII and didn't like it as much as the first time (though I still liked it). I think VIII has less replay value for whatever reason--maybe because it's so action-based and a lot of the tension leaves when you know the ending.
To paraphrase Feynman, "calling the earth a sphere is much less wrong than calling it flat". At least with Star Trek movies, the even-odd rule (modified as I mentioned in another post to invert things for 10 and above) is much less wrong than no rule at all.
Here's a summary of current IMDB ratings (first column) and Rotten Tomato ratings (second column; critics/users) for the films: I - The Motion Picture - 6.2 - 47%/47% II - The Wrath of Khan - 7.7 - 90%/86% III - The Search for Spock - 6.5 - 77%/60% IV - The Voyage Home - 7.2 - 84%/77% V - The Final Frontier - 5.1 - 21%/36% VI - The Undiscovered Country - 7.2 - 83%/77% VII - Generations - 6.5 - 48%/61% VIII - First Contact - 7.5 - 92%/83% IX - Insurrection - 6.3 - 56%/52% X - Nemesis - 6.3 - 38%/55% XI - Star Trek - 8.1 - 95%/91%
Certainly the odd ones aren't universally terrible--III is pretty well-reviewed, though not that well-liked, for instance. But the overall trend happens to follow the rule very well.
It's satisfying to me that V got the worst rating in each category. Uhura's sexy dance, Spock's brother, and God at the center of the galaxy--the thought makes me shudder. Hopefully I'll soon re-forget the name of that film.
Since 10 was bad and 11 was good, obviously the rule is
if digitalroot(n) % 2 == 0:
return Good else:
return Bad
where the digital root of a number is computed by iteratively summing the digits until you're left with just one digit. Example: 1235 -> 1+2+3+5 = 11 -> 1+1 = 2, so digitalroot(1235) = 2.
I'm pretty sure the whole whale plot was intentionally silly. I view Star Trek IV as an experiment in something different and funny/oddball ("Nuclear Wessles", "Cap'n, there be whales here!", "[Said into mouse] Hello computer", etc.). It contrasts well with Star Trek II and III which were both very serious/dramatic (especially II).
If you want a truly flimsy TOS-era plot, there's always Spock's Brain and its many ridiculous moments
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks, but I prefer "This." ;)
Perhaps you're just considering a specific country. According to Wikipedia, the overall world sex ratio is 101 males to 100 females. At birth, the ratio is more like 106 males to 100 females, though males die earlier than females, especially in later years. (An aunt who used to be a delivery room nurse told me that female babies are generally stronger than males, so eg. a premature female has a higher chance of surviving.) Some cultures don't like girl babies, leading to infanticide or abortions, so the ratio can get artificially skewed; it also just seems to naturally vary a bit.
Here's the original ZDNet blog post. It's a longer article with more detail; it's also linked at the bottom of TFA, which seems to have plagiarized it. Compare the first paragraphs:
[TFA] Cloud-based service, Incapsula, has revealed research indicating that 51 per cent of website traffic is through automated software programs; with many programmed for the intent of malicious activity.
[ZDNet] Incapsula, a provider of cloud-based security for web sites, released a study today showing that 51% of web site traffic is automated software programs, and the majority is potentially damaging, — automated exploits from hackers, spies, scrapers, and spammers.
The sentence structure and order of ideas is identical, and many phrases are the same or nearly the same. A high schooler should do better. Minor rephrasing is not sufficient.
That said, both articles are pretty much advertisements. The study doesn't appear to have attempted to actually be comprehensive (so it only used data from this one company). The point was apparently to give this cloud service provider some selling points for businesses to use their service to "secure" their sites. This story is yet another that shouldn't even have appeared on /.; shame on the editors who let it through.
Thanks for the info.
For the first bit (through "interrupted"), I largely agree; indeed I had already said, "I don't *need* to know about [a few random things I looked up on Wikipedia], but having that information can be nice." For the second bit about easily accessing the same, quite possibly more accurate information elsewhere, you haven't provided any evidence whatsoever, even though that's the most important and most debatable part of your point. I'm certainly not inclined to simply believe in your expertise, based on the poor discussion skills you've shown so far.
How about renaming? That seems like the most common possible source of broken links.
You'll have to be clearer. Your statement appears irrelevant.
"one of which is devoted to suggesting that Wikipedia is running out of steam or somehow failing in its mission" comes from
However, while the encyclopaedia continued to expand at a rate of millions of words per month, the number of new articles created each year gradually decreased, from a peak of 665,000 in 2007 to 374,000 in 2010. In response to this slowdown, the Wikimedia Foundation began to focus its expansion efforts on the non-English versions of Wikipedia, which by 2011 numbered more than 250.
"including a suggestion that Wikipedia was a haven for child pornography" comes from
Additionally, in 2010 it was revealed that there was a cache of pornographic images, including illegal depictions of sexual acts involving children, on Wikimedia Commons, a site maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation that served as a repository of media files for use in all Wikimedia products. Although there were no such illegal images on Wikipedia itself, the ensuing scandal prompted Jimmy Wales, who personally deleted many of the Commons files, to encourage administrators to remove any prurient content from Wikimedia sites.
"Everything about the article says, 'parents, keep your children away from this new-fangled, dangerous, unreliable Wikipedia thing!'" probably comes from
[In opening.] Although some highly publicized problems have called attention to Wikipedia’s editorial process, they have done little to dampen public use of the resource, which is one of the most-visited sites on the Internet.
For many observers of these controversies, a troubling difference between Wikipedia and other encyclopaedias lies in the absence of editors and authors who will accept responsibility for the accuracy and quality of their articles. These observers point out that identifiable individuals are far easier to hold accountable for mistakes, bias, and bad writing than is a community of anonymous volunteers, but other observers respond that it is not entirely clear if there is a substantial difference. ... Whether or not Wikipedia has managed to attain the authority level of traditional encyclopaedias, it has undoubtedly become a model of what the collaborative Internet community can and cannot do.
and the fact that the majority of the article discusses controversies and problems.
[I collected these to save others the trouble of hunting through the article for them as I did.]
What are you doing on /., get back in that kitchen!
Agreed! Audiophiles like this "soundguy" should be banned from the workplace!
The Wikipedia "random" button tries to mimic that, I think. Unfortunately it usually comes up with garbage--stubs, pages on obscure locations or even more obscure people. It would be nice if there was a Featured Article-only random button....
There, you now have an URL to an immutable version of the article as it is when you read it. Even if the base article is edited afterwards, your link will never change.
Is this strictly true? I was under the impression that deleted articles had their history deleted, that merged articles sometimes have their histories merged, and that renaming can also change the history URL. I have no expertise in these matters, though.
Your (funny) analogy isn't really apt, though. I would never have looked up the "Smothers Brothers" today if it weren't for Wikipedia, whereas I would not go through a minefield without making a serious attempt at avoiding mines. Most of the topics I look up I wouldn't bother finding out about if it weren't for Wikipedia's easily searchable, concentrated, reasonable-quality articles. I don't *need* to know about the Gulf of Tonkin incident, or The Well of Loneliness, or the total box office gross of Star Trek IV, but having that information can be nice.
To be fair, world population growth is expected to level off in the next hundred years or so. See the UN's take on it; according to their "medium variant" we'll only have about 10 billion people by 2100 (though of course these numbers have a very high error margin). Population growth in most of the developed world is near 0 (except for immigration) and a few European countries have negative population growth. But yeah, the real issue is getting 3rd world women to have fewer children.
Regardless, it is pretty clear that many culture and social icons are entering their later years.
Or maybe we're just getting older and the people we've come to know over the years are dying off. Damn mortality.
"No human can escape it, not you, not me, no one" -- what is "it" here? Attempting to be intellectually superior by ignoring inconvenient truths (like the inhomogeneity of large groups) or misrepresenting the certainty of data?
Certainly brain dead humans can avoid those issues. A few hyper-rational people might also be able to; there are probably a few other edge cases. It's telling that you fell prey to the same thing you're complaining about so quickly. I imagine your statement is much more true than false--"most" people in my experience do those things, though I haven't read or conducted a scientific study on the topic.
I'm sorry; are you implying the data I quoted was falsified?
In my own opinion, the first movie wasn't great, but it's decent if you can fast forward through the endless external shots. I actually don't like II as much as most, though I probably like VI more than most.
How many programmers ever learned linear algebra in the first place, especially if they graduated decades ago (if they even went to college)? It's not like you need to understand linear algebra to call a library rotation routine though. Theoretically at least, I prefer quaternion rotations, which aren't even primarily based on linear algebra--just because quaternions are cuter than matrices (though I'm a pure math person).
Game development is a large field. There are many platforms, physics is hard for most people, especially without a good background in math, getting art/sound/music can be hard--there are plenty of reasons to want a mentor-like person when just starting out.
Jaded old programmers like me hear this kind of a thing and mentally translate it into "I want you to write a program for me so I can get rich from it without doing any of the actual work."
Why? There's no evidence I can find to support that interpretation, and there's a mound of evidence against it. Why would he list his coding background and invite suggestions for books to "flatten the learning curve"--to make the post more convincing? That's a remarkably elaborate deception. Under your interpretation I have to assume every sentence is filled with cunning lies aimed at finding someone smart enough to do all the work but stupid enough not to notice they're being duped, which would be impressive in itself. I find that ridiculously unlikely compared to the strong possibility that he's simply being honest.
No, you misunderstood. "he doesn't want to have to figure out how to program it" is very wrong:
"I'd like to write a program..." ... [I would be forced] to fully flesh it out, debug and complete the app"
"...In an ideal world,
"...hiring somebody doesn't make sense, and I wouldn't learn anything that way either"
"...I think I would be much better off to work with someone rather than try to roll my own unless good books exist to flatten the learning curve"
He wants a somewhat experienced partner who might be willing to answer questions and guide him through the process of making a game. Perhaps this person might develop side-by-side with him if the project is large enough. He clearly wants to learn how to do this, he's just not sure about the best way to start. He's suggested that an experienced partner is a good way to go, and if he can find one it probably is. Most likely he should just find a good forum (several have been suggested already), pick a platform (XNA feeds into his C# experience), and start coding solo.
I agree. I re-watched VI a few months ago and absolutely loved it. I did the same with VIII and didn't like it as much as the first time (though I still liked it). I think VIII has less replay value for whatever reason--maybe because it's so action-based and a lot of the tension leaves when you know the ending.
To paraphrase Feynman, "calling the earth a sphere is much less wrong than calling it flat". At least with Star Trek movies, the even-odd rule (modified as I mentioned in another post to invert things for 10 and above) is much less wrong than no rule at all.
Here's a summary of current IMDB ratings (first column) and Rotten Tomato ratings (second column; critics/users) for the films:
I - The Motion Picture - 6.2 - 47%/47%
II - The Wrath of Khan - 7.7 - 90%/86%
III - The Search for Spock - 6.5 - 77%/60%
IV - The Voyage Home - 7.2 - 84%/77%
V - The Final Frontier - 5.1 - 21%/36%
VI - The Undiscovered Country - 7.2 - 83%/77%
VII - Generations - 6.5 - 48%/61%
VIII - First Contact - 7.5 - 92%/83%
IX - Insurrection - 6.3 - 56%/52%
X - Nemesis - 6.3 - 38%/55%
XI - Star Trek - 8.1 - 95%/91%
Certainly the odd ones aren't universally terrible--III is pretty well-reviewed, though not that well-liked, for instance. But the overall trend happens to follow the rule very well.
It's satisfying to me that V got the worst rating in each category. Uhura's sexy dance, Spock's brother, and God at the center of the galaxy--the thought makes me shudder. Hopefully I'll soon re-forget the name of that film.
BTW, Star Trek #1 was pretty cool...
Only with a fast forward button.
Since 10 was bad and 11 was good, obviously the rule is
if digitalroot(n) % 2 == 0:
return Good
else:
return Bad
where the digital root of a number is computed by iteratively summing the digits until you're left with just one digit. Example: 1235 -> 1+2+3+5 = 11 -> 1+1 = 2, so digitalroot(1235) = 2.
Captain Hikaru Sulu: *Fly her apart then!*
I swear there's a gay joke in there somewhere....
I'm pretty sure the whole whale plot was intentionally silly. I view Star Trek IV as an experiment in something different and funny/oddball ("Nuclear Wessles", "Cap'n, there be whales here!", "[Said into mouse] Hello computer", etc.). It contrasts well with Star Trek II and III which were both very serious/dramatic (especially II).
If you want a truly flimsy TOS-era plot, there's always Spock's Brain and its many ridiculous moments
.