This very question was addressed by Plato and later St. Augustine. More recently it has been addressed in "the Matrix", albeit a little less rigorously. If your attitude is that you don't care about any certainty of knowledge or understanding of fundamental reality that's fine. But you aren't engaging in science .
I believe that this describes the world that we actually exist in. But that should not, in general, be a problem for science as long as there is some consistency to the relationship between our senses and the underlying reality.
Science can reasonably be considered a Faith because at its very core it relies on an untestable hypothesis. Hypothesis: My senses reflect some underlying reality. I happen to believe that this is true but I can't prove it. Rene DesCartes tried to address this question in his "Meditations on First Philosophy" but does not, in my opinion, settle it in a satisfactory manner. If my senses actually reflect some underlying reality then the scientific method will help me learn something about that reality. However if my senses do not reflect an underlying reality then the scientific method is useless.
Jesus and Satan are arguing about who is the better programmer so they decide to have a competition. For the sake of argument let's say they're supposed to write a log(log(n)) sorting program. They both type furiously for a few minutes and then Jesus leans back and smiles. Satan continues typing when suddenly the power goes out. Both computers shut down and Satan starts cursing like a sailor. When he notices that Jesus seems undisturbed he asks, "What the hell are you smiling about?" He replies, "Jesus saves."
Rope cargo systems are great for mountains. That's why they're used extensively in the Austrian Alps for both people and supplies. They're probably used elsewhere too. The problem with trains is that the mountainousness terrain is not good for them. Between the valley and the peak there are often several smaller peaks. A rope cargo system can basically go from one mini-peak to the next. A train would have to weave up and down and it would be much more expensive to install. Trains also don't do well on slopes you can install cog railways but they're even more expensive and they don't go nearly as fast.
I think the disagreement may stem from the difference between de juris and de facto. The de facto language of India is English because there are too many regional languages and people have trouble on agreeing on any of them. However the de juris language of India is Hindi. It says so in the constitution of India. I have not found any references to an amendment which changes this but I would be interested to read it if you can point me towards it.
I realize that a large percentage of the population of India does not speak Hindi. Hoever Article 343 of the Indian constitution statest that "The Official language of the Union shall be Hindi in the Devangari script."
It strikes me that this is possibly linked to the high barriers to immigration into the United States.
A lot of skilled foreign workers have tried to enter the US. There has been great resistance to this, mostly on the part of US workers who fear that a great influx of labor would drive down wages.
But if these workers stay in their own countries it probably ends up driving down wages even more.
If the US allowed skilled laborers to enter the US they would be constrained on how little they are willing to work for. The cost of living in the US is much higher than it is in India and this would create a lower boundary for wages demanded.
If these workers where allowed into the country as permanet residents or even as citizens rather than on H1-B visas they would also have more bargaining power with their employers and demand even higher wages. This would also rais the lower limit of wages.
Furthermore, these workers would pay taxes in the US and this money could be used to further aid US workers.
Please excuse the somewhat simplified economic model.
blanket policies like "if you've done time in an asian or russian prison, you're not allowed in." are probaby more effective
But to stay consistent you should also ban everyone who's done time in a US prison. Infection rates are so bad that if you've spent more than 72 hours in a federal prison the Red Cross won't take your blood.
And no more van Goghs... oh, wait. He didn't make any money.
Not necessarily a valid comparison. There's very few prohibitive costs associated with painting. Maybe a few hundred (if that) on brushes, paints and canvases. A TV show requires a bit more capital... =)
Painting isn't really that cheep. You also need models, space, and the painter needs to get fed. Not to mention that all of this was much more expensive during Van Gogh's time.
That's depressing, man. When I was a boy scout we were only allowed to use 3 matches and whatever we could find in the woods to start any given fire. Needless to say, we got very good at burning stuff.
If the only thing involved in voting where counting you'd be right but there are several implicit issues as well.
1) Everyone who is allowed to vote should have their vote counted. 2) Noone who is not allowed to vote should have their vote counted. 3) Noone should have their vote counted more than once. 4) Everyone should be able to verify that their vote was recorded correctly. 5) Noone should be able to identify who anyone else voted for. 6) It must be possible to determine agregate voting information.
It is possible to guarantee any one of these requirements but it turns out that you have a sort of Heisenberg problem where making some requirements more certain makes others less certain.
The above is all from my somewhat shady memory of "Applied Cryptography" by Bruce Schneier. I may have left out some of the voting requirements and he certainly goes into more detail than I did.
I find it interesting that people are so paranoid about this. It's probably just because it's a Microsoft product. Don't get me wrong, I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy, but that doesn't make the basic concept of this device intrinsicly bad.
This thing is basically a really gimped up version of the camera aspect of wearable computers. The wearable computer guys have long been touting the benefits of assited memory and they've also gone to some lengths to address the associated privacy concernes. You could, for instance, upload all of the images immediately to your home computer via and encrypted wireless connection. Then you only release them when you want to.
This guy can't really be serious. My bet is that this is either a joke or it's intended to make the patent office look silly. Kind of like that "method for swininging sideways" patent.
I just read this article. While they seem to go to great lenghts to accuse FAIR of wrongdoing the article does not seem to support this claim. As near as I can tell from the article, since they didn't provide a link to the original FAIR article which they where talking about, FAIR once published an article which sited other people who promoted the Super Bowl Battering Hoax, including the New York Times. The article then shows that the hoax is indeed a hoax.
In this case FAIR isn't displaying a lack of truthfullness. They are displaying some amount of bias but everyone already seems to agree that they're biased.
Interesting site but that's not quite what I was thinking of.
FAIR seems to be more of a meta news site. The spend alot of time pointing out errors in other articles or doing surveys of what was mentioned in which percentage of articles. AIM seems to mostly have articles of their own.
AIM also seems a bit more biased than FAIR is (or perhaps they're just more honest about it). The first article I clicked on, more or less, defended McCarthy as a misunderstood patriot who had been dragged through the mud by the liberal media. I think that's even hard for most self professed "conservatives" to swallow.
I was looking for a site with a "conservative" bias which simply points out factual errors and verifiable trends in "liberal" media.
I think I agree with you in principle but I don't think that any bias as it relates to power is specificly tied to which party has a candidate in the white house.
The tone of the media hasn't changed much as long as I can remember, and that includes Clinton, Bush I, Reagan and (vaguely) Carter.
But in looking back at historical archives of newspapaers there are certainly periods when the media was either much more liberal or much more conservative.
FAIR is truthful and seems to follow the general rules of journalistic integrity. But their articles and research do generally focus on flaws in "conservative"* media.
This could either mean that FAIR is biased or that there is a "conservative"* trend in media.
I would actually like to see a "conservative"* version of FAIR. Does something like that exist? A collection of research which objectivly illustrates "liberal"* bias in media.
*I hate the words "liberal" and "conservative" since there is nothing particularly liberal about liberals nor conservative about conservatives but most people understand the secondary meaning of the words so I risk the confusion.
Germany still mostly likes the US. They currently have the largest non US military contingent in Afghanistan. And they're still letting the US keep their bases in Germany.
Slashdot Mirror
This very question was addressed by Plato and later St. Augustine. More recently it has been addressed in "the Matrix", albeit a little less rigorously. If your attitude is that you don't care about any certainty of knowledge or understanding of fundamental reality that's fine. But you aren't engaging in science .
But you've just described an underlying reality. If there is any pattern to our observations then that pattern is the underlying reality.
I believe that this describes the world that we actually exist in.
But that should not, in general, be a problem for science as long as there is some consistency to the relationship between our senses and the underlying reality.
If you create a collection of models and make no assertions as to it's reflection of some underlying reality I wouldn't really call it science.
Science can reasonably be considered a Faith because at its very core it relies on an untestable hypothesis.
Hypothesis: My senses reflect some underlying reality.
I happen to believe that this is true but I can't prove it. Rene DesCartes tried to address this question in his "Meditations on First Philosophy" but does not, in my opinion, settle it in a satisfactory manner.
If my senses actually reflect some underlying reality then the scientific method will help me learn something about that reality.
However if my senses do not reflect an underlying reality then the scientific method is useless.
Jesus and Satan are arguing about who is the better programmer so they decide to have a competition. For the sake of argument let's say they're supposed to write a log(log(n)) sorting program.
They both type furiously for a few minutes and then Jesus leans back and smiles. Satan continues typing when suddenly the power goes out.
Both computers shut down and Satan starts cursing like a sailor.
When he notices that Jesus seems undisturbed he asks, "What the hell are you smiling about?"
He replies, "Jesus saves."
Rope cargo systems are great for mountains. That's why they're used extensively in the Austrian Alps for both people and supplies. They're probably used elsewhere too.
The problem with trains is that the mountainousness terrain is not good for them. Between the valley and the peak there are often several smaller peaks. A rope cargo system can basically go from one mini-peak to the next. A train would have to weave up and down and it would be much more expensive to install. Trains also don't do well on slopes you can install cog railways but they're even more expensive and they don't go nearly as fast.
That's interesting. I'd never heard of the term "associate additional language".
I wonder from where wikipedia got that quote.
I think the disagreement may stem from the difference between de juris and de facto.
The de facto language of India is English because there are too many regional languages and people have trouble on agreeing on any of them.
However the de juris language of India is Hindi.
It says so in the constitution of India.
I have not found any references to an amendment which changes this but I would be interested to read it if you can point me towards it.
I realize that a large percentage of the population of India does not speak Hindi.
Hoever Article 343 of the Indian constitution statest that "The Official language of the Union shall be Hindi in the Devangari script."
It strikes me that this is possibly linked to the high barriers to immigration into the United States.
A lot of skilled foreign workers have tried to enter the US. There has been great resistance to this, mostly on the part of US workers who fear that a great influx of labor would drive down wages.
But if these workers stay in their own countries it probably ends up driving down wages even more.
If the US allowed skilled laborers to enter the US they would be constrained on how little they are willing to work for. The cost of living in the US is much higher than it is in India and this would create a lower boundary for wages demanded.
If these workers where allowed into the country as permanet residents or even as citizens rather than on H1-B visas they would also have more bargaining power with their employers and demand even higher wages. This would also rais the lower limit of wages.
Furthermore, these workers would pay taxes in the US and this money could be used to further aid US workers.
Please excuse the somewhat simplified economic model.
The official language of India is Hindi. But English is the language of business, politics, and technology.
But to stay consistent you should also ban everyone who's done time in a US prison. Infection rates are so bad that if you've spent more than 72 hours in a federal prison the Red Cross won't take your blood.
And no more van Goghs... oh, wait. He didn't make any money.
Not necessarily a valid comparison. There's very few prohibitive costs associated with painting. Maybe a few hundred (if that) on brushes, paints and canvases. A TV show requires a bit more capital... =)
Painting isn't really that cheep. You also need models, space, and the painter needs to get fed.
Not to mention that all of this was much more expensive during Van Gogh's time.
That's depressing, man.
When I was a boy scout we were only allowed to use 3 matches and whatever we could find in the woods to start any given fire.
Needless to say, we got very good at burning stuff.
It's actually very difficult.
If the only thing involved in voting where counting you'd be right but there are several implicit issues as well.
1) Everyone who is allowed to vote should have their vote counted.
2) Noone who is not allowed to vote should have their vote counted.
3) Noone should have their vote counted more than once.
4) Everyone should be able to verify that their vote was recorded correctly.
5) Noone should be able to identify who anyone else voted for.
6) It must be possible to determine agregate voting information.
It is possible to guarantee any one of these requirements but it turns out that you have a sort of Heisenberg problem where making some requirements more certain makes others less certain.
The above is all from my somewhat shady memory of "Applied Cryptography" by Bruce Schneier. I may have left out some of the voting requirements and he certainly goes into more detail than I did.
I once formated an ingredient list in pseudo XML as a joke. That got me thinking. Is there an XML cooking spec? Or some cooking programming language?
It should be fairly easy to design, and it would probably be nice to have cooking instructions standardized.
I find it interesting that people are so paranoid about this.
It's probably just because it's a Microsoft product.
Don't get me wrong, I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy, but that doesn't make the basic concept of this device intrinsicly bad.
This thing is basically a really gimped up version of the camera aspect of wearable computers. The wearable computer guys have long been touting the benefits of assited memory and they've also gone to some lengths to address the associated privacy concernes.
You could, for instance, upload all of the images immediately to your home computer via and encrypted wireless connection. Then you only release them when you want to.
This guy can't really be serious. My bet is that this is either a joke or it's intended to make the patent office look silly.
Kind of like that "method for swininging sideways" patent.
I just read this article.
While they seem to go to great lenghts to accuse FAIR of wrongdoing the article does not seem to support this claim.
As near as I can tell from the article, since they didn't provide a link to the original FAIR article which they where talking about, FAIR once published an article which sited other people who promoted the Super Bowl Battering Hoax, including the New York Times.
The article then shows that the hoax is indeed a hoax.
In this case FAIR isn't displaying a lack of truthfullness. They are displaying some amount of bias but everyone already seems to agree that they're biased.
Interesting site but that's not quite what I was thinking of.
FAIR seems to be more of a meta news site. The spend alot of time pointing out errors in other articles or doing surveys of what was mentioned in which percentage of articles. AIM seems to mostly have articles of their own.
AIM also seems a bit more biased than FAIR is (or perhaps they're just more honest about it). The first article I clicked on, more or less, defended McCarthy as a misunderstood patriot who had been dragged through the mud by the liberal media. I think that's even hard for most self professed "conservatives" to swallow.
I was looking for a site with a "conservative" bias which simply points out factual errors and verifiable trends in "liberal" media.
I think I agree with you in principle but I don't think that any bias as it relates to power is specificly tied to which party has a candidate in the white house.
The tone of the media hasn't changed much as long as I can remember, and that includes Clinton, Bush I, Reagan and (vaguely) Carter.
But in looking back at historical archives of newspapaers there are certainly periods when the media was either much more liberal or much more conservative.
That's at least somewhat true.
FAIR is truthful and seems to follow the general rules of journalistic integrity.
But their articles and research do generally focus on flaws in "conservative"* media.
This could either mean that FAIR is biased or that there is a "conservative"* trend in media.
I would actually like to see a "conservative"* version of FAIR. Does something like that exist? A collection of research which objectivly illustrates "liberal"* bias in media.
*I hate the words "liberal" and "conservative" since there is nothing particularly liberal about liberals nor conservative about conservatives but most people understand the secondary meaning of the words so I risk the confusion.
Germany still mostly likes the US. They currently have the largest non US military contingent in Afghanistan.
And they're still letting the US keep their bases in Germany.
Feel free.
As far as I know, parody is still a legitimate exception to copyright law.