Well people... believe a whole lot of things just because that's the way we were brought up
As much as some of us would like to assume some kind of liberal/conservative symmetry here, this is one point on which they diverge. Conservative attitudes tend to be grounded in tradition and reverence for authority, and are relatively refractory to new, contrary information or reasoning. This is not necessarily bad if you want stability, continuity, and predictability in a society and its power relationships, but it comes at the cost of poor adaptabilty when conditions are changing.
Liberals, on the other hand, are more willing to modify or even scrap traditional ways of thinking as reason dictates, and are generally more receptive to new information, especially when it subverts traditional authority in some way. They also think of social justice in terms that are less deferential to the existing hierarchies.
That's one reason that far more scientists identify as liberal than as conservative. It also sheds light on the "war on science" that conservatives - and Republicans in particular - are often accused of waging. The war on science is really a war on reason; that is, the elevation of empirical observation and logical thought to the point where it challenges traditional authority. The King hates the scientists because they often tell him what he has to do, thus compromising his own power. Power is real power only to the extent that it can be wielded arbitrarily. The Republicans understand this very well.
Brake lights are controlled by a simple switch in the brake assembly
I'm not sure how Toyotas are set up, but it would seem that if the brakes don't receive a signal from the CPU to close, then the brake lights aren't going to activate, either. Is there a mechanical linkage from the brake pedal to the brakes? If not, it is possible that either (a) the CPU did not receive a proper signal from the brake pedal, (b) the signal was received but not interpreted and/or processed properly due to a software glitch, or (c) the command to activate was not processed properly by the brake controller.
In any of these scenarios, the brake light would not activate either, so that observation is irrelevant.
I would think that verifying the validity of the data would be one of the first things they would do
True, but what does it mean for the data to be valid? The data may say that the throttle was open (of course it was!) and the brakes not activated, but does this indicate why this was so? In a properly functioning system you assume that the corresponding pedal was depressed by the driver. The linkages from the pedals here are digital/electronic, not mechanical. The throttle received a command from a CPU to open, and no cammand was received by the brakes. Do we know any more than that?
Another troubling aspect of this study is the inclusion of only recent accidents; i.e., after the problem was already widely reported. One might expect that earlier incidents would be less tainted by shenanigans (lawsuit setups, evasions of responsibility, etc.).
Doesn't always work, though... The GF gets around that scam by sticking with 90s vintage software no matter what. Suggested switching to Linux, but there must be something wrong with it because it's not advertised much and she thinks I and my friends are the only ones in the world who know about it. She might be more comfortable with Windows 7, but between that and the updated software she'd need (Office, Photoshop, etc.) she's looking at four-figure dollarage. And, of course, that wouldn't feel any more "familiar" than Linux/Gnome/OpenOffice/GIMP at this point...
Came here to say precisely this. No one here wants to say anything discouraging, even though it's the elephant in the room. My advice would be to survey the literature before you go to the trouble of writing an academic paper, which is 100% certain to be rejected by everybody if you don't show a good grasp of existing work in the field. Also, remember that peer review is an essential step in getting a paper accepted, so do a little of that yourself before submitting it (if you trust anyone not to steal your idea, that is).
Realistically, it's about 99.9% certain that your algorithm isn't the big advance that you think it is. But one in a thousand is worth the effort, for sure.
As an employer I'd like the idea a lot. As a programmer, though, this would quickly lead to intolerable working conditions. Are the other "candidates" willing to work 16-hour days in order to win the job permanently? Then, unless I'm a lot more efficient than the best of them, so will I. Then, once the initial milestone has been reached, I will have created expectations that would be impossible to satisfy in the long run. I'd have to be fairly desperate to put myself in a situation like that.
Was looking for an expansion of "ETL", actually, but went away just glad that I don't work with you...
Re:Student loan debt not worth it
on
The Real Science Gap
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The PhD really ought to be thought of as training for an academic career; no more, and no less. Many pursue it either as a path to social prestige or as a way to postpone uncomfortable post-academic life choices, and those motivations are the most likely to end in despair.
At least in the sciences, if you have the curiosity, inclination, and ability to push on the frontiers of knowledge, then the world out there - and the U.S. in particular - is a candy store. Society will provide you a reasonably comfortable living for doing what you love (and would do for nothing, if you could). But if you're doing it as a path to riches, or to impress your parents and/or prospective mates as Dr. So-and-So, then you may find yourself somewhere other than where you want to be.
So... the "hippies" are part of some monolithic organization that meets in a cave every year to decide what they're all required to believe? Just because Catholics and Republicans work that way doesn't mean everybody does...
Just an aside... One of the few reasons I still get a kick out of talking to conservatives is that they never tire of ranting about "hippies". It takes me right back to 1969...
And this, children, is why we don't share our reading lists and other personal information on sites like Facebook. It's also why we should be wary of other people keeping track of everything we read, whether it's over the web or on devices like Kindle.
1. The file system has the power to brick your machine because of a clock setting
So claims one person. I've never experienced anything like this myself, nor have I heard of it from anyone else until now.
3. You wonder why casual users stay far away from Linux?
Hate to be snarky, but... "casual users" with all of their viruses, malware, crapware, crippleware, etc. are welcome to stay as far away from Linux as they like (and can afford)...
One of the hardest aspects of starting a new project is just deciding which languages and tools - with their respective ecosystems - to employ. There is always pressure to jump to the new language du jour that all of the cool kids seem to be using, and as a result everyone spends half their time climbing one learning curve after another. How many developers out there have used 4 or 5 languages in the past two years? More than a few, I'll bet. Each new environment is the panacea for all of the frustrations encountered in the last project.
OTOH, sometimes making a switch does pay dividends, despite the learning curve. The trick is to recognize those opportunities without simply succumbing to fad and fashion.
My Facebook profile contains nothing that I wouldn't want my mom, boss, pastor, or future employer to see.
It may more likely be your (public) list of friends, rather than any other particular piece of info that you choose to share, that creates problems in the future. There was a time back in the 50s when just being seen talking to the wrong person could land you on a blacklist.
I still find the idea that people willingly post lists of all their friends and acquaintances for anyone to see to be a bit mind-boggling. Shit does happen. Then again, maybe I draw suspicion on myself for not doing just that...
Are you going to protest the way Facebook handles your data by boycotting it, and boycotting half the social events that may pop up over time?
The beauty (tragedy?) of FB and sites like it is that they've convinced us to turn over the management of our social lives and public identities to a private business, in exchange for... well, we're not quite sure what, yet. In the beginning it's a convenience, but then you find you can't have friends at all without them.
And these people who won't invite you to their "events" if they have to shoot you an email... You call them "friends"?
Teens need liberated from Facebook. No one needs their goddamned parents breathing down their neck just because last night their boyfriend was breathing down their neck.
I'd wager that the current crop of kids is the most supervised and tightly controlled of any generation, ever. The 50s were as oppressive as hell (and hence the rebellion of the 60s), but even then you could evade the scrutiny of parents, teachers, and "friends" at least a good part of the time. Will we wake up one morning only to realize that what felt like liberation was something else entirely?
Every time you install Linux on a machine, then you've stolen the potential sale a Windows license that could have been sold instead.
...and an MS Office license, and a Visual Studio license, and a Photoshop license, and who knows what else - maybe a fishing license. Pretty soon you're talking real money!
The iPods, Xboxes and PlayStations were never meant to be a "tool of empowerment" but a rather "a form of entertainment", To confuse that fact shows how out of touch he really is.
Ummmm... isn't that exactly what he said? The idea is that we're so focused on entertaining ourselves - through gadgetry or otherwise - that we're losing our grip on reality. It's not the fault of the devices themselves, but rather the way we choose to spend our time with them (as you rightly point out).
It's really nothing more than a plea for people (and young people especially) to become more involved in the civic affairs of their nation. But these days everything is controversial, I guess...
I think that a lot of people here are missing the point. It's not that people have access to too much information (i.e., that he doesn't agree with), but that the gadgetry itself and the triviality it promotes is absorbing so much time and attention that we're ignoring other things that might be more important to our civic lives. It's gotten to the point where kids (in particular) aren't even coming up for air sometimes.
That said, who knows where it will all lead, or whether it will be for better or worse or something in between. I'd like to think that we're strengthening democracy and public participation, but my fear is that control and manipulation may win the day...
The price of oil will be set by the supply and demand of the other producers if BP raises it's price.
...as we all learned in Econ 101. For those who went on to Econ 102, things are not so simple. There, they tought us about oligopoly, where markets are dominated by a small number of large players who can collude with each other to achieve results different than a perfectly competitive commodity market would achieve.
Most likely, prices will rise whether or not supplies are pinched. Why? Because every oil company knows that this crisis is a "cue" to restrict supplies in concert, and the public will accept the crisis as the obvious cause of increased prices.
I would never hire anyone for a technical role who would give a password to an unauthorised person, including their boss
That's some job security for your new hire, isn't it? Unless you can become an "authorised person" merely by telling him/her that you are, which clearly defeats the purpose of authorization in the first place...
If we're going to overcome gravity to get to the vicinity of those objects, we certainly should be willing to overcome the limits of the visible spectrum to experience them to the fullest...
But guess what - I don't put anything on Facebook which is (a) embarrassing (b) particularly personal (c) not already available with an internet search.
It's not necessarily what personal info you put on Facebook that's going to come back to bite you in the ass; it's your social network itself. Back in the 1950s, during the McCarthy witchhunt, you got into trouble not so much for what you did, but for who you associated with (or even were just seen talking to). At that point you had the choice of either denouncing that person or being blacklisted yourself. As an aspiring dictator, I drool profusely thinking about how easily I'll be able to cleanse the social landscape of it's undesirable elements. They're falling all over themselves trying to give me lists of all their friends, no housecalls or torture needed.
Of course, it can't happen here, falling on deaf ears, etc...
Slashdot Mirror
Well people ... believe a whole lot of things just because that's the way we were brought up
As much as some of us would like to assume some kind of liberal/conservative symmetry here, this is one point on which they diverge. Conservative attitudes tend to be grounded in tradition and reverence for authority, and are relatively refractory to new, contrary information or reasoning. This is not necessarily bad if you want stability, continuity, and predictability in a society and its power relationships, but it comes at the cost of poor adaptabilty when conditions are changing.
Liberals, on the other hand, are more willing to modify or even scrap traditional ways of thinking as reason dictates, and are generally more receptive to new information, especially when it subverts traditional authority in some way. They also think of social justice in terms that are less deferential to the existing hierarchies.
That's one reason that far more scientists identify as liberal than as conservative. It also sheds light on the "war on science" that conservatives - and Republicans in particular - are often accused of waging. The war on science is really a war on reason; that is, the elevation of empirical observation and logical thought to the point where it challenges traditional authority. The King hates the scientists because they often tell him what he has to do, thus compromising his own power. Power is real power only to the extent that it can be wielded arbitrarily. The Republicans understand this very well.
Brake lights are controlled by a simple switch in the brake assembly
I'm not sure how Toyotas are set up, but it would seem that if the brakes don't receive a signal from the CPU to close, then the brake lights aren't going to activate, either. Is there a mechanical linkage from the brake pedal to the brakes? If not, it is possible that either (a) the CPU did not receive a proper signal from the brake pedal, (b) the signal was received but not interpreted and/or processed properly due to a software glitch, or (c) the command to activate was not processed properly by the brake controller.
In any of these scenarios, the brake light would not activate either, so that observation is irrelevant.
I would think that verifying the validity of the data would be one of the first things they would do
True, but what does it mean for the data to be valid? The data may say that the throttle was open (of course it was!) and the brakes not activated, but does this indicate why this was so? In a properly functioning system you assume that the corresponding pedal was depressed by the driver. The linkages from the pedals here are digital/electronic, not mechanical. The throttle received a command from a CPU to open, and no cammand was received by the brakes. Do we know any more than that?
Another troubling aspect of this study is the inclusion of only recent accidents; i.e., after the problem was already widely reported. One might expect that earlier incidents would be less tainted by shenanigans (lawsuit setups, evasions of responsibility, etc.).
Doesn't always work, though... The GF gets around that scam by sticking with 90s vintage software no matter what. Suggested switching to Linux, but there must be something wrong with it because it's not advertised much and she thinks I and my friends are the only ones in the world who know about it. She might be more comfortable with Windows 7, but between that and the updated software she'd need (Office, Photoshop, etc.) she's looking at four-figure dollarage. And, of course, that wouldn't feel any more "familiar" than Linux/Gnome/OpenOffice/GIMP at this point...
Came here to say precisely this. No one here wants to say anything discouraging, even though it's the elephant in the room. My advice would be to survey the literature before you go to the trouble of writing an academic paper, which is 100% certain to be rejected by everybody if you don't show a good grasp of existing work in the field. Also, remember that peer review is an essential step in getting a paper accepted, so do a little of that yourself before submitting it (if you trust anyone not to steal your idea, that is).
Realistically, it's about 99.9% certain that your algorithm isn't the big advance that you think it is. But one in a thousand is worth the effort, for sure.
As an employer I'd like the idea a lot. As a programmer, though, this would quickly lead to intolerable working conditions. Are the other "candidates" willing to work 16-hour days in order to win the job permanently? Then, unless I'm a lot more efficient than the best of them, so will I. Then, once the initial milestone has been reached, I will have created expectations that would be impossible to satisfy in the long run. I'd have to be fairly desperate to put myself in a situation like that.
Was looking for an expansion of "ETL", actually, but went away just glad that I don't work with you...
The PhD really ought to be thought of as training for an academic career; no more, and no less. Many pursue it either as a path to social prestige or as a way to postpone uncomfortable post-academic life choices, and those motivations are the most likely to end in despair.
At least in the sciences, if you have the curiosity, inclination, and ability to push on the frontiers of knowledge, then the world out there - and the U.S. in particular - is a candy store. Society will provide you a reasonably comfortable living for doing what you love (and would do for nothing, if you could). But if you're doing it as a path to riches, or to impress your parents and/or prospective mates as Dr. So-and-So, then you may find yourself somewhere other than where you want to be.
So... the "hippies" are part of some monolithic organization that meets in a cave every year to decide what they're all required to believe? Just because Catholics and Republicans work that way doesn't mean everybody does...
It's all fantasy dreamed up by hippies.
Just an aside... One of the few reasons I still get a kick out of talking to conservatives is that they never tire of ranting about "hippies". It takes me right back to 1969...
a drink which protects against death by starvation and torture
Since torture is OK now in the US as long as it doesn't directly cause death or "organ failure", such a drink could find a big market here as well...
And this, children, is why we don't share our reading lists and other personal information on sites like Facebook. It's also why we should be wary of other people keeping track of everything we read, whether it's over the web or on devices like Kindle.
1. The file system has the power to brick your machine because of a clock setting
So claims one person. I've never experienced anything like this myself, nor have I heard of it from anyone else until now.
3. You wonder why casual users stay far away from Linux?
Hate to be snarky, but... "casual users" with all of their viruses, malware, crapware, crippleware, etc. are welcome to stay as far away from Linux as they like (and can afford)...
One of the hardest aspects of starting a new project is just deciding which languages and tools - with their respective ecosystems - to employ. There is always pressure to jump to the new language du jour that all of the cool kids seem to be using, and as a result everyone spends half their time climbing one learning curve after another. How many developers out there have used 4 or 5 languages in the past two years? More than a few, I'll bet. Each new environment is the panacea for all of the frustrations encountered in the last project.
OTOH, sometimes making a switch does pay dividends, despite the learning curve. The trick is to recognize those opportunities without simply succumbing to fad and fashion.
My Facebook profile contains nothing that I wouldn't want my mom, boss, pastor, or future employer to see.
It may more likely be your (public) list of friends, rather than any other particular piece of info that you choose to share, that creates problems in the future. There was a time back in the 50s when just being seen talking to the wrong person could land you on a blacklist.
I still find the idea that people willingly post lists of all their friends and acquaintances for anyone to see to be a bit mind-boggling. Shit does happen. Then again, maybe I draw suspicion on myself for not doing just that...
Are you going to protest the way Facebook handles your data by boycotting it, and boycotting half the social events that may pop up over time?
The beauty (tragedy?) of FB and sites like it is that they've convinced us to turn over the management of our social lives and public identities to a private business, in exchange for... well, we're not quite sure what, yet. In the beginning it's a convenience, but then you find you can't have friends at all without them.
And these people who won't invite you to their "events" if they have to shoot you an email... You call them "friends"?
Teens need liberated from Facebook. No one needs their goddamned parents breathing down their neck just because last night their boyfriend was breathing down their neck.
I'd wager that the current crop of kids is the most supervised and tightly controlled of any generation, ever. The 50s were as oppressive as hell (and hence the rebellion of the 60s), but even then you could evade the scrutiny of parents, teachers, and "friends" at least a good part of the time. Will we wake up one morning only to realize that what felt like liberation was something else entirely?
Every time you install Linux on a machine, then you've stolen the potential sale a Windows license that could have been sold instead.
...and an MS Office license, and a Visual Studio license, and a Photoshop license, and who knows what else - maybe a fishing license. Pretty soon you're talking real money!
The iPods, Xboxes and PlayStations were never meant to be a "tool of empowerment" but a rather "a form of entertainment", To confuse that fact shows how out of touch he really is.
Ummmm... isn't that exactly what he said? The idea is that we're so focused on entertaining ourselves - through gadgetry or otherwise - that we're losing our grip on reality. It's not the fault of the devices themselves, but rather the way we choose to spend our time with them (as you rightly point out).
It's really nothing more than a plea for people (and young people especially) to become more involved in the civic affairs of their nation. But these days everything is controversial, I guess...
I think that a lot of people here are missing the point. It's not that people have access to too much information (i.e., that he doesn't agree with), but that the gadgetry itself and the triviality it promotes is absorbing so much time and attention that we're ignoring other things that might be more important to our civic lives. It's gotten to the point where kids (in particular) aren't even coming up for air sometimes.
That said, who knows where it will all lead, or whether it will be for better or worse or something in between. I'd like to think that we're strengthening democracy and public participation, but my fear is that control and manipulation may win the day...
The price of oil will be set by the supply and demand of the other producers if BP raises it's price.
...as we all learned in Econ 101. For those who went on to Econ 102, things are not so simple. There, they tought us about oligopoly, where markets are dominated by a small number of large players who can collude with each other to achieve results different than a perfectly competitive commodity market would achieve.
Most likely, prices will rise whether or not supplies are pinched. Why? Because every oil company knows that this crisis is a "cue" to restrict supplies in concert, and the public will accept the crisis as the obvious cause of increased prices.
I would never hire anyone for a technical role who would give a password to an unauthorised person, including their boss
That's some job security for your new hire, isn't it? Unless you can become an "authorised person" merely by telling him/her that you are, which clearly defeats the purpose of authorization in the first place...
And still no badge for masturbation. We'd all have made Eagle around here...
If we're going to overcome gravity to get to the vicinity of those objects, we certainly should be willing to overcome the limits of the visible spectrum to experience them to the fullest...
But guess what - I don't put anything on Facebook which is (a) embarrassing (b) particularly personal (c) not already available with an internet search.
It's not necessarily what personal info you put on Facebook that's going to come back to bite you in the ass; it's your social network itself. Back in the 1950s, during the McCarthy witchhunt, you got into trouble not so much for what you did, but for who you associated with (or even were just seen talking to). At that point you had the choice of either denouncing that person or being blacklisted yourself. As an aspiring dictator, I drool profusely thinking about how easily I'll be able to cleanse the social landscape of it's undesirable elements. They're falling all over themselves trying to give me lists of all their friends, no housecalls or torture needed.
Of course, it can't happen here, falling on deaf ears, etc...