When you trim away all that is false, then only truth will remain. That is how the scientific method works.
This is exactly why the scientific method cannot prove the truth: there is always another alternative explanation, thus the truth will never stand alone.
The scientific method absolutely cannot determine what is true; it can only tell you what is false. That is, you cannot "prove" anything by applying the scientific method. The best you can do is falsify a hypothesis. Did you actually read the article you linked? It says it right in there.
I think curing all diseases is a much closer goal than unlocking the key to consciousness and replicating the mind as an eternal machine. Besides, disease is the reason many of us die at all. I remember reading a story about a 500 year old clam. Why do we even die at all?
Take a look at this ranking of causes of death. Turns out, by eradicating cardiovascular diseases, infectious and parasitic diseases, cancer, and respiratory diseases we eliminate 71.36% of the reasons people die. Next up on the list are unintentional injuries (getting hit by a car) and intentional injuries (jumping off a building). So as long as you avoid those two things you're going to live a long damn time.
How are wages not an issue when the wages they're earning are not commensurate to the amount of work they are doing and ultimately afford them a shitty life? According to these figures average urban apartment is $1063.82 for a 112.64 sq. m. apartment. Average Foxconn worker is earning $527 a month. Seems like a Foxconn worker could afford to live in a 50 sq. m. apartment if he spent over 50% of his income on rent, leaving less than $250 for food, utilities, and to support a family.
If they were making more, do you think they'd be living in tiny dormitories with 6 other people? If they were making more, perhaps they could actually save some money and move, maybe afford a better life? No, instead they're living in a form of indentured servitude, where they're never making just enough to live but not enough to live comfortably, and certainly not enough to ever afford to quit, and of course that's the way Foxconn wants it. And you seem to be okay with this?
Or did you not end up buying it because he showed you the other one first?
No, I ended up buying it, only after telling him all the things I didn't like with the Samsung. Maybe next time he'll show a Windows Phone when asked but who knows?
What you just did is precisely the definition of pedantic! Are you just trolling? The number 1000x was hyperbolic to express the extreme wage gaps. What ever the the number is, the bottom line is that what ever money they make, it buys them a shitty life and they work in shitty conditions. Wages absolutely are a problem if these people work only to live and live only to work.
You're being pedantic. The spirit of my comment was that Apple has the means and the clout to improve worker conditions. Raising the wages of workers would surely do that. Sure they may be paid fine by relative Chinese standards, but by absolute standards they're paid shit and their work conditions are also shit. Just because a Foxconn worker is making 1000x more than a Chinese farmer peasant doesn't somehow absolve the fact that the Foxconn worker making 1000x than a McDonald's burgar flipper in the states.
People who even walk in looking for Windows Phones are steered towards Android phones.
Had personal experience with this one. I went in to AT&T to see the new HTC Titan when it came out. Asked to see it by name and without skipping a beat he directs me to the Samsung Galaxy (II? I can't remember what it was). Now I can only assume what happens when someone goes in and asks "I'm interested in a smartphone, this is what I do, this is what I need, what do you have"... probably shows them right to an Android phone.
That's besides the point. The point is that fixing the problem is going to cost someone money. Apple has more money than God and chooses not to fix the problem because they'd rather have more money than God + n.
If they decide to give away money to improve the workers' conditions, they expose themselves to be sued by the shareholders...
Really? You really think Apple's shareholders want this kind of headline "Shareholders sue Apple for being advancing human rights and improving lives for impoverished workers" What happens if people do stop buying Apple products and the stock starts falling. Do they sue Apple for not investing in human rights?
Again, as you get more and more advanced in a subject, less and less of it is available by Googling. And the stuff you will find will be written by someone with his own notation and own conventions written in a context and language you may not be familiar with. My notes are written by me, for me, and therefore when I revisit them later down the line I can understand better what is going on.
But they're doing the most damage. The iPod is the best selling MP3 player. The iPhone is the best selling phone. The Macbook is the best selling laptop. They're raking in the most profits, they have the highest margins, their stock is soaring, their cash is piling up, and it's all made possible by the literal blood, sweat, and tears of Chinese laborers.
Ok, you are Apple. It's 2012 and you are sitting on more cash than the US government. You know you're going to be selling a shit ton of iDevices for the foreseeable future. What do you do?
A) Increase the wages of your workers and shrink your cash reserve and profit margin?
B) Treat your workers like shit and grow your cash reserve?
Sounds reasonable to me. Your engineering textbooks contain all the equations, formula, and methodologies you need to learn to get a degree, so why do you go to class?
This may be a surprise, but not all professors teach from a book. In fact, some professors teach information so new that isn't in very many books at all, even Wikipedia.
Further, taking notes shouldn't be just about learning material for an exam. Good notes will serve you well past the final of the course. I still reference some of my notes from my physics undergraduate because they are more clear an concise than any textbook I've found on the subject. And of course they should be, since they were written by me for my understanding.
Some people say all you get when you leave college is a piece of paper. They're doing it wrong. I left with volumes (at least 40 books) of detailed notes on topics from philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, psychology, chemistry, computer engineering, etc.
He's saying don't do that. Pay attention. Think about what is actually being said. At some point in the short term after the class, while all that stuff is still fresh in your mind, replay through the class and write as much of it as you can down. The forced recollection will leave a far better imprint. If there are things you missed, ask a classmate, review the text, go meet the teacher in their office. You've got more than one chance to acquire all this information.
Wast that exponent -b*k_j,i or -b*k_i,j? Can't tell you how many times I've had to remember something so minuscule with so great an impact. And if all of my friends follow this advise, no one will be taking notes and no one will have a definitive answer. And then 40+ people are visiting the professor to clarify stupid mistakes. After answering the same question 40 times eventually he'll just say "you should have been taking notes."
My problem is that I can buy a brand new Android phone and it's already out of date, with no guarantees that it will ever be updated. It's bad enough that I can buy an Android phone with 2.3 while 4.0 is out, but I can even buy a brand new phone with 2.2, that will probably never even be updated to 2.3. Contrast with iPhone, where even the 3GS released in 2009 is upgradable to iOS 5. How many Android phones from 2009 will support ICS? How many support Gingerbread for that matter? Also contrast with Windows Phone. Every single Windows Phone model was upgraded to the Mango release within a few months of its launch on brand new handsets.
So yes, you get more choice on the Android, but you also get lower satisfaction rates due to Googe's choice/inability to enforce standards and quality control the ecosystem. This is probably very related to Windows/OSX, where windows has a much lower satisfaction rate but much higher adoption due to Microsoft's ability to fill market segments Apple cannot.
Adding a walled app garden wouldn't even begin to fix the quality control issues with Android. First you have the wild variety in smartphone quality. Sure, you get Android in more people's hands with cheaper phones, but the experience suffers and those people end up unsatisfied. Then you have the situation where a brand new phone can be released with an old OS. Looking over AT&T's Android lineup, it seems like almost 50% of their smartphones are stuck on 2.2, and will never see another upgrade. It also looks like there are currently no phones with 4.0. ICS was announced in May and launched in October. What exactly is taking so long? Every iPhone you buy today is on 5.0. Every Windows Phone you buy is on Mango. Yeah, Android is selling like crazy, but some of the phones out there offer truly awful experiences, and this will ultimately drive users to other platforms.
I signed up for the ML course and got this e-mail last week:
We're very excited for the forthcoming launch of Machine Learning. We're sorry for not to have gotten in touch lately - we've been busy generating lots of content, and the system is working really well. Unfortunately, there are still a few administrative i's to dot and t's to cross. We're still hopeful that we'll go live very soon.
But since we don't have a firm timeline right now, we'd rather leave this open and get back to you with a definitive date soon (rather than just promise you a date that's far enough in the future that we can feel confident about it). We'll let you know a firm date as soon as we possibly can.
We realize that some of you will have made plans expecting the course to start in January, and we apologize for any difficulties that this delay may cause.
The good news is that the course is looking great, and we're thrilled that over 44,000 people have signed up - we can't wait for the course to start!
See you soon online! - The Machine Learning Course Staff
Seems like technical/administrative issues? Maybe they weren't counting on so many students?
OK, what are your options? You buy this and this and this. There is no choice other than trying to get your hands on something used. There is no shopping around.
Getting books second hand is exceedingly easy. Go on Amazon, search for the book, and look there's a whole list of people selling the used version for 50% off. Option two is, and I know this is crazy, go to the library and read the book there. Most professors put required texts on hold in the library that you can read at your leasure. Option three is to make a friend in class and study together, sharing the book. Maybe pitch in half for it. Option four is to plead to the professor and ask to borrow his copy. Professors usually have 3-4 copies of the course text just lying around for exactly this situation.
ok then, so you can rent an iBook for $30 for the semester, or you can BUY the book for $230
You can already do this on Nook, which doesn't lock you in to a particular platform. There are nook readers for PC, iPad, and Android, not to mention actual Nooks. However you won't be seeing an iBooks reader on Android any time soon.
It's a word insofar as people say it... but they're confused. They're mixing up irrespective and regardless. The prefix ir- serves to negate the following word. The word the GP was looking for was just regardless, but he ended up saying the opposite.
And IMHO, reading on the iPad is just fine. The same as reading on your coveted laptop you seem to want to cling so dearly to.
I enjoy reading on the iPad too, but I also enjoy reading outside in the summer. Even in the shade, on an 80 degree day my iPad 1 started complaining about overheating.
I'm not talking about rapid artworks. To get the kind of precision for these paintings takes time. There is a lot of zooming, switching brush types, switching brush sizes, etc. I'm talking about taking notes in a class, where I'm following someone in a lecture. I have no time for zooming and switching brushes and making sure everything is perfect. No time for revisions. Further, I have no artistic skill so whatever technique these people are using, I certainly don't have the aptitude for. For me and everyone else I've talked to in classes, taking notes on an iPad compared to a tablet PC is like writing with a marker compared to a pencil.
There's no technical problem with the iPad and using a stylus. Nothing that a tablet PC does better.
An active digitizer is technically superior. It has pressure sensitivity, supports multiple buttons so you can erase without having to select a different tool (saving tons of time), you can rest your hand on it without the screen picking it up (unlike the iPad), and it can sense the stylus above the actual screen without touching it.
That's real nice and all, but it also took him 15 hours to do that. Meaning he has time to make all those very fine lines precise. Art studio also has custom brushes for things like hair. I have 50 minutes to write 3+ pages of tiny equations. Where is my custom brush for the Schrödinger equation? No one saying this is possible has actually tried taking notes and is using it daily. I know many people with iPads, including myself. All of them have tried to take notes with it. All of them have given up and resorted to pen+paper for the exact reasons I outlined, and all of them have looked at my tablet PC and said "I wish my iPad could do that."
Slashdot Mirror
And what's the problem with that?
Nothing. I was pointing out the parent's mistake.
When you trim away all that is false, then only truth will remain. That is how the scientific method works.
This is exactly why the scientific method cannot prove the truth: there is always another alternative explanation, thus the truth will never stand alone.
It is _one_ way to acquire Truth.
The scientific method absolutely cannot determine what is true; it can only tell you what is false. That is, you cannot "prove" anything by applying the scientific method. The best you can do is falsify a hypothesis. Did you actually read the article you linked? It says it right in there.
I think curing all diseases is a much closer goal than unlocking the key to consciousness and replicating the mind as an eternal machine. Besides, disease is the reason many of us die at all. I remember reading a story about a 500 year old clam. Why do we even die at all?
Take a look at this ranking of causes of death. Turns out, by eradicating cardiovascular diseases, infectious and parasitic diseases, cancer, and respiratory diseases we eliminate 71.36% of the reasons people die. Next up on the list are unintentional injuries (getting hit by a car) and intentional injuries (jumping off a building). So as long as you avoid those two things you're going to live a long damn time.
How are wages not an issue when the wages they're earning are not commensurate to the amount of work they are doing and ultimately afford them a shitty life? According to these figures average urban apartment is $1063.82 for a 112.64 sq. m. apartment. Average Foxconn worker is earning $527 a month. Seems like a Foxconn worker could afford to live in a 50 sq. m. apartment if he spent over 50% of his income on rent, leaving less than $250 for food, utilities, and to support a family.
If they were making more, do you think they'd be living in tiny dormitories with 6 other people? If they were making more, perhaps they could actually save some money and move, maybe afford a better life? No, instead they're living in a form of indentured servitude, where they're never making just enough to live but not enough to live comfortably, and certainly not enough to ever afford to quit, and of course that's the way Foxconn wants it. And you seem to be okay with this?
Or did you not end up buying it because he showed you the other one first?
No, I ended up buying it, only after telling him all the things I didn't like with the Samsung. Maybe next time he'll show a Windows Phone when asked but who knows?
Why would he think he's more likely to get the sale by showing me a phone I didn't specifically ask for?
What you just did is precisely the definition of pedantic! Are you just trolling? The number 1000x was hyperbolic to express the extreme wage gaps. What ever the the number is, the bottom line is that what ever money they make, it buys them a shitty life and they work in shitty conditions. Wages absolutely are a problem if these people work only to live and live only to work.
The salesmen don't sell it because it's got a huge return rate (more than half come back)
Citation?
You're being pedantic. The spirit of my comment was that Apple has the means and the clout to improve worker conditions. Raising the wages of workers would surely do that. Sure they may be paid fine by relative Chinese standards, but by absolute standards they're paid shit and their work conditions are also shit. Just because a Foxconn worker is making 1000x more than a Chinese farmer peasant doesn't somehow absolve the fact that the Foxconn worker making 1000x than a McDonald's burgar flipper in the states.
People who even walk in looking for Windows Phones are steered towards Android phones.
Had personal experience with this one. I went in to AT&T to see the new HTC Titan when it came out. Asked to see it by name and without skipping a beat he directs me to the Samsung Galaxy (II? I can't remember what it was). Now I can only assume what happens when someone goes in and asks "I'm interested in a smartphone, this is what I do, this is what I need, what do you have"... probably shows them right to an Android phone.
That's besides the point. The point is that fixing the problem is going to cost someone money. Apple has more money than God and chooses not to fix the problem because they'd rather have more money than God + n.
If they decide to give away money to improve the workers' conditions, they expose themselves to be sued by the shareholders...
Really? You really think Apple's shareholders want this kind of headline "Shareholders sue Apple for being advancing human rights and improving lives for impoverished workers" What happens if people do stop buying Apple products and the stock starts falling. Do they sue Apple for not investing in human rights?
you can just Google it if your memory fails you.
Again, as you get more and more advanced in a subject, less and less of it is available by Googling. And the stuff you will find will be written by someone with his own notation and own conventions written in a context and language you may not be familiar with. My notes are written by me, for me, and therefore when I revisit them later down the line I can understand better what is going on.
Apple should not be singled out.
But they're doing the most damage. The iPod is the best selling MP3 player. The iPhone is the best selling phone. The Macbook is the best selling laptop. They're raking in the most profits, they have the highest margins, their stock is soaring, their cash is piling up, and it's all made possible by the literal blood, sweat, and tears of Chinese laborers.
Ok, you are Apple. It's 2012 and you are sitting on more cash than the US government. You know you're going to be selling a shit ton of iDevices for the foreseeable future. What do you do?
A) Increase the wages of your workers and shrink your cash reserve and profit margin?
B) Treat your workers like shit and grow your cash reserve?
What would you do if you were Tim Cook?
Sounds reasonable to me. Your engineering textbooks contain all the equations, formula, and methodologies you need to learn to get a degree, so why do you go to class?
This may be a surprise, but not all professors teach from a book. In fact, some professors teach information so new that isn't in very many books at all, even Wikipedia.
Further, taking notes shouldn't be just about learning material for an exam. Good notes will serve you well past the final of the course. I still reference some of my notes from my physics undergraduate because they are more clear an concise than any textbook I've found on the subject. And of course they should be, since they were written by me for my understanding.
Some people say all you get when you leave college is a piece of paper. They're doing it wrong. I left with volumes (at least 40 books) of detailed notes on topics from philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, psychology, chemistry, computer engineering, etc.
He's saying don't do that. Pay attention. Think about what is actually being said. At some point in the short term after the class, while all that stuff is still fresh in your mind, replay through the class and write as much of it as you can down. The forced recollection will leave a far better imprint. If there are things you missed, ask a classmate, review the text, go meet the teacher in their office. You've got more than one chance to acquire all this information.
Wast that exponent -b*k_j,i or -b*k_i,j? Can't tell you how many times I've had to remember something so minuscule with so great an impact. And if all of my friends follow this advise, no one will be taking notes and no one will have a definitive answer. And then 40+ people are visiting the professor to clarify stupid mistakes. After answering the same question 40 times eventually he'll just say "you should have been taking notes."
My problem is that I can buy a brand new Android phone and it's already out of date, with no guarantees that it will ever be updated. It's bad enough that I can buy an Android phone with 2.3 while 4.0 is out, but I can even buy a brand new phone with 2.2, that will probably never even be updated to 2.3. Contrast with iPhone, where even the 3GS released in 2009 is upgradable to iOS 5. How many Android phones from 2009 will support ICS? How many support Gingerbread for that matter? Also contrast with Windows Phone. Every single Windows Phone model was upgraded to the Mango release within a few months of its launch on brand new handsets.
So yes, you get more choice on the Android, but you also get lower satisfaction rates due to Googe's choice/inability to enforce standards and quality control the ecosystem. This is probably very related to Windows/OSX, where windows has a much lower satisfaction rate but much higher adoption due to Microsoft's ability to fill market segments Apple cannot.
Adding a walled app garden wouldn't even begin to fix the quality control issues with Android. First you have the wild variety in smartphone quality. Sure, you get Android in more people's hands with cheaper phones, but the experience suffers and those people end up unsatisfied. Then you have the situation where a brand new phone can be released with an old OS. Looking over AT&T's Android lineup, it seems like almost 50% of their smartphones are stuck on 2.2, and will never see another upgrade. It also looks like there are currently no phones with 4.0. ICS was announced in May and launched in October. What exactly is taking so long? Every iPhone you buy today is on 5.0. Every Windows Phone you buy is on Mango. Yeah, Android is selling like crazy, but some of the phones out there offer truly awful experiences, and this will ultimately drive users to other platforms.
I think AC really needs that CS101 class.
We're very excited for the forthcoming launch of Machine Learning. We're sorry for not to have gotten in touch lately - we've been busy generating lots of content, and the system is working really well. Unfortunately, there are still a few administrative i's to dot and t's to cross. We're still hopeful that we'll go live very soon. But since we don't have a firm timeline right now, we'd rather leave this open and get back to you with a definitive date soon (rather than just promise you a date that's far enough in the future that we can feel confident about it). We'll let you know a firm date as soon as we possibly can. We realize that some of you will have made plans expecting the course to start in January, and we apologize for any difficulties that this delay may cause. The good news is that the course is looking great, and we're thrilled that over 44,000 people have signed up - we can't wait for the course to start! See you soon online! - The Machine Learning Course Staff
Seems like technical/administrative issues? Maybe they weren't counting on so many students?
OK, what are your options? You buy this and this and this. There is no choice other than trying to get your hands on something used. There is no shopping around.
Getting books second hand is exceedingly easy. Go on Amazon, search for the book, and look there's a whole list of people selling the used version for 50% off. Option two is, and I know this is crazy, go to the library and read the book there. Most professors put required texts on hold in the library that you can read at your leasure. Option three is to make a friend in class and study together, sharing the book. Maybe pitch in half for it. Option four is to plead to the professor and ask to borrow his copy. Professors usually have 3-4 copies of the course text just lying around for exactly this situation.
ok then, so you can rent an iBook for $30 for the semester, or you can BUY the book for $230
You can already do this on Nook, which doesn't lock you in to a particular platform. There are nook readers for PC, iPad, and Android, not to mention actual Nooks. However you won't be seeing an iBooks reader on Android any time soon.
It's a word insofar as people say it... but they're confused. They're mixing up irrespective and regardless. The prefix ir- serves to negate the following word. The word the GP was looking for was just regardless, but he ended up saying the opposite.
And IMHO, reading on the iPad is just fine. The same as reading on your coveted laptop you seem to want to cling so dearly to.
I enjoy reading on the iPad too, but I also enjoy reading outside in the summer. Even in the shade, on an 80 degree day my iPad 1 started complaining about overheating.
I'm not talking about rapid artworks. To get the kind of precision for these paintings takes time. There is a lot of zooming, switching brush types, switching brush sizes, etc. I'm talking about taking notes in a class, where I'm following someone in a lecture. I have no time for zooming and switching brushes and making sure everything is perfect. No time for revisions. Further, I have no artistic skill so whatever technique these people are using, I certainly don't have the aptitude for. For me and everyone else I've talked to in classes, taking notes on an iPad compared to a tablet PC is like writing with a marker compared to a pencil.
There's no technical problem with the iPad and using a stylus. Nothing that a tablet PC does better.
An active digitizer is technically superior. It has pressure sensitivity, supports multiple buttons so you can erase without having to select a different tool (saving tons of time), you can rest your hand on it without the screen picking it up (unlike the iPad), and it can sense the stylus above the actual screen without touching it.
That's real nice and all, but it also took him 15 hours to do that. Meaning he has time to make all those very fine lines precise. Art studio also has custom brushes for things like hair. I have 50 minutes to write 3+ pages of tiny equations. Where is my custom brush for the Schrödinger equation? No one saying this is possible has actually tried taking notes and is using it daily. I know many people with iPads, including myself. All of them have tried to take notes with it. All of them have given up and resorted to pen+paper for the exact reasons I outlined, and all of them have looked at my tablet PC and said "I wish my iPad could do that."