It is not obvious how things will be sorted out, speculating about it will not help. I agree, and have had a funny feeling about it from the beginning. This bank enjoys a reputation as a top-notch risk manager, and of course the losses they suffered here strike directly at that. By pinning it all on a low-level "rogue" trader, they effectively avoid much (but not all) of the institutional responsibility for it, thus minimizing the damage to their stature over the long haul. When you're in asset risk management, reputation is everything.
I wouldn't be surprised - and I'm just speculating, of course - if their "rogue trader" fesses up, maybe spends a month or two in jail, and then lives very, very comfortably somewhere for the rest of his life...
Once the concept of innate human dignity is gone, you end up with societies where human beings are nothing more than raw material for the State machine. Or merely sheep, whose only purpose in life is to worship and exalt some divine power, as well as the human authorities that claim to embody or represent it.
If NYC is worried about bad geiger counters Unless their concern is really the opposite of this. What if - hypothetically speaking, of course - there was a government that wanted to use fear to keep the population cowed and receptive to the forfeiture of its civil liberties in return for greater security. As long as citizens don't have access to detection technology, it could stage all of the fake terrorist attacks it wants and nobody would be the wiser. All that would be necessary is to make an announcement to the local media that something terrible has happened, and that the authorities are out there setting things right.
The problem then isn't that the detectors might be faulty; it's that they might work all too well. Far-fetched? I would have thought so a few years ago...
Are you using either AfterEffects or Quicktime while getting a kick out of these replies? No, I'm not, but when I do need to use closed-source software - which isn't very often - I would like some credible assurance that it isn't doing anything nefarious behind my back. I'm at a loss to understand why so many users of proprietary software don't feel the same way. Maybe they feel that crapware and malware are as inevitable as death and taxes, and there's nothing to be done about it?
Using arcane commands to install programs when a perfectly good GUI exists will ensure we never see Linux on the desktop As a desktop Linux user, I got a kick out of your sig, too!
They come here precisely because they are smart. As bad as the US government is in terms of taxation and economic policy it is still easier for a smart individual to get ahead in the United States than it is in many other parts of the world. Taxation and economic policy is only a small part of it. A bigger part is that the U.S. still has the best research infrastructure in the world, and if you want to do state-of-the-art science, it is still where it's at. If you're in a scientific career, that's far more important to you than how much you'll pay in taxes.
Flip through any professional scientific or engineering journal, and look at the names of the authors of the papers. You may see U.S. institutional affiliations, but the names will be from all over: Europe, China, India, etc. The U.S. benefits greatly from this influx of talent and brainpower, so let's not keep screwing it up by needlessly harrassing foreign scientists at the border just because we can. The de facto War on Science and Reason being waged by certain political elements in this country doesn't help much, either.
It is thought that the palm has gone through a remarkable evolution since Madagascar split with India some 80m years ago. Oh, please don't get them started again...
Scientists tend to make bold fact-like statements about science that should never be stated that way, because they just fucking don't know! It's no wonder people think scientists are arrogant. They make bold statements and think they're right. Then they change their minds and think they're right. Scientists are never wrong! Isn't that convenient. And that's exactly the strength of Science as opposed to Faith. Scientists will adjust their beliefs when confronted by new observations or a demonstrably better theory. That's the only way that knowledge - and our ability to use it - can improve over time.
As far as scientists being arrogant... Well, you haven't read any scientific papers, or listened to any real scientists being interviewed about their work, have you? For the most part, they qualify just about everything they say and are quick to acknowledge uncertainties and alternate interpretations. They are also quick to shoot down ideas that haven't been rigorously thought out, aren't supported by evidence, or don't have explanatory power, as they well should. Maybe that's what you call arrogance?
It may not seem fair to you, but not all ideas are equal, even if we have the right to express them just the same. Science has a very rigorous system of quality control that determines which theories succeed and which die, and if you take a look around you have to admit that it works very well. No amount of prayer could have produced the computer you're using to read this, but James Clerk Maxwell with his theory ("just a theory!") of electromagnetism gave us the tools to achieve a revolution in electronics. Even with that, it wouldn't have happened had scientists clung to Maxwell's writings literally, refusing to "change their minds" by modifying it, adding to it, building upon it, and interpreting it in new ways that Maxwell couldn't have foreseen.
Evolution, by the way, has been every bit as successful. All of modern biology is based upon it. It's right up there with electromagnetism, relativity, the atomic theory of matter, etc. If you don't see how well it works, then you haven't been keeping up with stunning advances in the life sciences recently. A lot of them get posted here on Slashdot.
Oh, and the scientists who try to use evolution to disprove God are just as screwed up as the creationists who try to use God to prove evolution. God and evolution are not mutually exclusive. Very few scientists would disagree with you on this, even if they don't believe in gods or demons themselves. You could say that God (defined as whatever entity does things tlike this) defined our physics and simply set it all in motion, and that evolution is just part of a designed process that culminated in us and the universe we observe. There's no experiment that anybody can think of that would disprove you, and so Science has very little to say about it. But if existence demands a creator, then who or what created the creator?
Indeed. If you ever have the perverse pleasure of debating with a creationist, the first thing you need to discover is what it is exactly that he/she understands by the term "evolution". If you're scientifically literate at all, I can guarantee you that 99% of the time you'll be amazed and discouraged by what you're dealing with. These are people who are not necessarily stupid, but rather something worse than that: willfully and intransigently ignorant. It can be like arguing with a toddler.
Typically, they think that "evolution" means that a monkey got pregnant one day and out popped a human baby. They think that a theory in science (as in "just a theory") is an idle speculation that just shot out of some scientist's ass and beat out competing theories in a popularity contest. Their faith requires them to believe without question what they are taught by their parents and religious authorities, and so the notions of reason and sceptical inquiry carry zero weight with them.
There's a multitude of them, they're refractory to reason, and they vote. They are also easily manipulated by unscrupulous politicians who don't give squat about their beliefs but are willing to pander to them to enhance their own power.
This circus is going to go on for a long, long time.
But if you've noticed, the pace of research and breakthroughs has been increasing over the last 30-40 years. Different technologies build on each other. Faster microprocessors allow us to build hybrid cards and space vehicles. Genetic engineering opens a whole new world in biology. Maybe the "problem" is that we've become so accustomed to rapid progress in science and engineering that we've started to take it for granted. Now, when advances occur as they do every day, they're more or less anticipated and thus capitalized into our expectations. The "wow" factor gets harder and harder to achieve, at least outside the immediate field where a breakthrough is made...
Ironically, while the free marketeers on this forum will defend the right of suppliers to set any terms they want on the use of their hardware, this is something that could never happen in a truly free, competitive market. Since the marginal cost of allowing users to access additional cores (i.e., by not disabling them) is zero, no firm would be able to avoid doing so.
Whenever you see shit like this going down, it's a sign of an imperfect (e.g., monopolistic or oligopolistic) market.
Even in the UK where we don't have fair use provisions, no copyright holder would risk taking a case like this to court. Anyone contemplating the purchase of audio CDs - or any product of RIAA members - these days should consider the legal liability they are assuming by doing so. For me, it's not worth it, and I'm amazed that anyone buys those things anymore...
No offense intended of course, but... Your advice supposes that I'm willing - or somehow obliged - to make such a crusade the focus of my existence over an extended period of time; that will be true for very few people whose livelihoods don't already place them close to the matter.
The other problem is that I expressed very nearly the opposite viewpoint elsewhere in the thread, and my vacillation would confuse supporters and make it very difficult to get anything meaningful done!
Not only that, but it seems clear that congestion at one time - whatever the cause - can set up a standing traffic density wave that might last for a long time after the original cause is gone. Beyond some minimum traffic level (easily achieved on the highways around DC, for example), at least.
Do whatever it takes to get yourself on the board of regents of a university with a voting stake in the NCAA, and change the status quo. Ordinarily I would do just that, but the last time I complained about the war in Iraq someone told me I should run for President or STFU, and it's been taking all the time I have just to get that whole process started. Running for President, I mean.
And don't even get me started about the time I complained about the weather...
Why? Because it makes money -- lots of money to fund all those things that geeks like such as research and scholarships. Well, I'm not sure how much revenue generated by athletics goes into "research and scholarships" (other than athletic scholarships, that is). But...
I can go to the other pole as well: Why pretend that college athletics is some kind of overgrown extracurricular activity? If it has to be such a big deal on campus, let's acknowledge it for what it is (and I am not being facetious):
(1) If students can major in things like music, dance, and art, why not let athletes major in football, basketball, or whatever? Success in all of these things requires a great deal of talent, understanding, and practice. Why treat athletics as if it is some subordinate endeavor, when society clearly values it so highly? If an Literature major can earn a degree without playing a sport, then let a talented athlete earn one without the Lit classes.
(2) Why shouldn't universities pay their athletes, at least for the time they spend at practice and in games? Back when I was a student, I worked for the university writing software (among other things), and they paid me for this. Why should playing football be any different, particularly when the U is making so much money (as others here have pointed out) from their efforts?
Maybe we just need to acknowledge the importance that athletics unquestionably has in our society, rather than pretending that it exists on some lower plane of human talent and ability. Either that, or get schools out of the sports business. At least then we wouldn't have to be hypocrites about it.
...why educational institutions ought to be in the business of quasi-professional sports in the first place. The tail has been wagging the dog for a long time now, and it's getting worse every year.
I have bookshelves filled with paper books, but recently most of my books have been of the 'e' variety, from various sources. Looking to the future, I think I'll miss the bookshelves more than the paper books themselves. At least two functions of bookshelves will likely be lost to us: (1) they look good, and (2) they give us a way of showing others how smart we are and what we're interested in.
Of course, we can all post our ebook lists on the Web, but that won't help with our empty wallspace or impress people who physically visit our homes. So, I propose we use big wall-mounted LCD screens - getting cheaper all the time - to display a visual bookshelf-like representation of the books on our hard drives. After all, if you read an e-book and nobody ever sees it, have you really read it?
do anything from mapping a 12-dimensional object to calculating rainfall patterns under global warming So those two things are at the extrema of a continuum of what it can do, and I have to figure out whether my particular application also lies on that continuum? Or am I taking this statement too literally?
However, he provides and discusses a solid body of relevant and eminently respectable (Lancet, JAMA, NEJM, etc..) citations to support his claim. Keep in mind, though, that he cherry-picks his evidence to an extent that would never pass peer-review itself. He's also misrepresented quite a few of his sources to the point where they're too angry to talk to him anymore.
I wouldn't dismiss everything he says out of hand, but it's important to note what the weight of the available evidence says, and not just the 5% of it that he cites (sometimes wrongly) in support of his thesis. Unfortunately, those seeking a simple classification of all foods into unequivocal "good" and "bad" categories are probably never going to be satisfied with the state of the science.
On a final note, I'd caution against anyone who has all of the answers but says that the "research establishment" is involved in some sort of massive, sinister conspiracy to suppress them. Things just don't work that way.
So true about the way that kids are raised these days, and it's one of my pet peeves. The sensationalist media (among other things) has made most parents very fearful of all kinds of horrible things that might happen if their kids are allowed out of their padded rooms and tightly-supervised activities. Television news is the worst; if anything nasty happens anywhere, they'll make it seem like it's happening right next door and all around you, every day. People want to think of themselves as good parents and especially want to appear to others like they are, but in order to achieve that label you have to submit to the general hysteria. So, kids are trotted from one adult-organized activity to the next, and seldom get the opportunity for spontaneous, inventive play with their peers.
Reminds me of a report on a local TV news programs a few years ago on Halloween. A reporter was interviewing a cop at a police station where candy was being x-rayed for the usual pins, needles, razor blades, etc. The gist of the report was that you're taking a big chance if you don't bring your kid's candy in for this scanning. So the reporter finally asks how much of this junk they find on a typical Halloween, and the cop had to reply that, in fact, they'd never found a single foreign object in any piece of candy in the 15 or 20 years that they'd performed this service. But, of course there's always a first time and you can't be too careful.
I'm glad I grew up when I did, when kids could be kids.
He's a rich man who is getting sick and old, and he's mad because it has turned out to be hard to find out how to stop people from getting sick and old. There may be a great deal of truth in that, and it's no knock on Andy Grove. Wealth can provide you with just about anything you could ever want, but freedom from the inevitable march of senescence and decrepitude still isn't one of them. Since that's what all of us of a certain age want more than anything, it can be frustrating in the extreme when it remains out of reach. Only now it's tantalizingly out of reach, because (his complaint not withstanding) we really have witnessed a revolution in our understanding of biological systems in the past few decades. How cruel if The Answer is within our reach, but just a decade or five too late.
I'm roughly the same age as Bill Gates, and while he is somewhat more successful than me, he still doesn't look any better, and probably doesn't feel any better on a day-to-day basis, either. And, there's practically nothing that the World's Richest Man can do about it (other than hiring someone to make me look and feel dramatically less good).
In research there are some smart people (Aubrey deGray, e.g.) who argue that we should be hitting for the "home run", at least in addition to the incremental "one step at a time" approach that our funding mechanisms rightly favor. That is, take what we know (which is plenty) and attack senescence as a systems engineering problem. That course is being advanced philanthropically, and some heavy hitters are starting to chip in (or so I've heard). The astounding progress of systems biology in the past 30 years or so is really all about loading the bases.
Slashdot Mirror
I wouldn't be surprised - and I'm just speculating, of course - if their "rogue trader" fesses up, maybe spends a month or two in jail, and then lives very, very comfortably somewhere for the rest of his life...
The problem then isn't that the detectors might be faulty; it's that they might work all too well. Far-fetched? I would have thought so a few years ago...
As a Linux user, I'm getting a kick out of these responses...
Who said this is to be used on "our" enemies?
It'll be used on ourselves, to make us more eager to accept the enemies that are provided for us, and more desperate for protection from them.
Flip through any professional scientific or engineering journal, and look at the names of the authors of the papers. You may see U.S. institutional affiliations, but the names will be from all over: Europe, China, India, etc. The U.S. benefits greatly from this influx of talent and brainpower, so let's not keep screwing it up by needlessly harrassing foreign scientists at the border just because we can. The de facto War on Science and Reason being waged by certain political elements in this country doesn't help much, either.
As far as scientists being arrogant... Well, you haven't read any scientific papers, or listened to any real scientists being interviewed about their work, have you? For the most part, they qualify just about everything they say and are quick to acknowledge uncertainties and alternate interpretations. They are also quick to shoot down ideas that haven't been rigorously thought out, aren't supported by evidence, or don't have explanatory power, as they well should. Maybe that's what you call arrogance?
It may not seem fair to you, but not all ideas are equal, even if we have the right to express them just the same. Science has a very rigorous system of quality control that determines which theories succeed and which die, and if you take a look around you have to admit that it works very well. No amount of prayer could have produced the computer you're using to read this, but James Clerk Maxwell with his theory ("just a theory!") of electromagnetism gave us the tools to achieve a revolution in electronics. Even with that, it wouldn't have happened had scientists clung to Maxwell's writings literally, refusing to "change their minds" by modifying it, adding to it, building upon it, and interpreting it in new ways that Maxwell couldn't have foreseen.
Evolution, by the way, has been every bit as successful. All of modern biology is based upon it. It's right up there with electromagnetism, relativity, the atomic theory of matter, etc. If you don't see how well it works, then you haven't been keeping up with stunning advances in the life sciences recently. A lot of them get posted here on Slashdot. Oh, and the scientists who try to use evolution to disprove God are just as screwed up as the creationists who try to use God to prove evolution. God and evolution are not mutually exclusive. Very few scientists would disagree with you on this, even if they don't believe in gods or demons themselves. You could say that God (defined as whatever entity does things tlike this) defined our physics and simply set it all in motion, and that evolution is just part of a designed process that culminated in us and the universe we observe. There's no experiment that anybody can think of that would disprove you, and so Science has very little to say about it. But if existence demands a creator, then who or what created the creator?
Indeed. If you ever have the perverse pleasure of debating with a creationist, the first thing you need to discover is what it is exactly that he/she understands by the term "evolution". If you're scientifically literate at all, I can guarantee you that 99% of the time you'll be amazed and discouraged by what you're dealing with. These are people who are not necessarily stupid, but rather something worse than that: willfully and intransigently ignorant. It can be like arguing with a toddler.
Typically, they think that "evolution" means that a monkey got pregnant one day and out popped a human baby. They think that a theory in science (as in "just a theory") is an idle speculation that just shot out of some scientist's ass and beat out competing theories in a popularity contest. Their faith requires them to believe without question what they are taught by their parents and religious authorities, and so the notions of reason and sceptical inquiry carry zero weight with them.
There's a multitude of them, they're refractory to reason, and they vote. They are also easily manipulated by unscrupulous politicians who don't give squat about their beliefs but are willing to pander to them to enhance their own power.
This circus is going to go on for a long, long time.
Ironically, while the free marketeers on this forum will defend the right of suppliers to set any terms they want on the use of their hardware, this is something that could never happen in a truly free, competitive market. Since the marginal cost of allowing users to access additional cores (i.e., by not disabling them) is zero, no firm would be able to avoid doing so.
Whenever you see shit like this going down, it's a sign of an imperfect (e.g., monopolistic or oligopolistic) market.
And since you know you're already thinking it: If we're not doing anything wrong, than we've nothing to fear?
No offense intended of course, but... Your advice supposes that I'm willing - or somehow obliged - to make such a crusade the focus of my existence over an extended period of time; that will be true for very few people whose livelihoods don't already place them close to the matter.
The other problem is that I expressed very nearly the opposite viewpoint elsewhere in the thread, and my vacillation would confuse supporters and make it very difficult to get anything meaningful done!
Not only that, but it seems clear that congestion at one time - whatever the cause - can set up a standing traffic density wave that might last for a long time after the original cause is gone. Beyond some minimum traffic level (easily achieved on the highways around DC, for example), at least.
And don't even get me started about the time I complained about the weather...
I can go to the other pole as well: Why pretend that college athletics is some kind of overgrown extracurricular activity? If it has to be such a big deal on campus, let's acknowledge it for what it is (and I am not being facetious):
(1) If students can major in things like music, dance, and art, why not let athletes major in football, basketball, or whatever? Success in all of these things requires a great deal of talent, understanding, and practice. Why treat athletics as if it is some subordinate endeavor, when society clearly values it so highly? If an Literature major can earn a degree without playing a sport, then let a talented athlete earn one without the Lit classes.
(2) Why shouldn't universities pay their athletes, at least for the time they spend at practice and in games? Back when I was a student, I worked for the university writing software (among other things), and they paid me for this. Why should playing football be any different, particularly when the U is making so much money (as others here have pointed out) from their efforts?
Maybe we just need to acknowledge the importance that athletics unquestionably has in our society, rather than pretending that it exists on some lower plane of human talent and ability. Either that, or get schools out of the sports business. At least then we wouldn't have to be hypocrites about it.
...why educational institutions ought to be in the business of quasi-professional sports in the first place. The tail has been wagging the dog for a long time now, and it's getting worse every year.
I have bookshelves filled with paper books, but recently most of my books have been of the 'e' variety, from various sources. Looking to the future, I think I'll miss the bookshelves more than the paper books themselves. At least two functions of bookshelves will likely be lost to us: (1) they look good, and (2) they give us a way of showing others how smart we are and what we're interested in.
Of course, we can all post our ebook lists on the Web, but that won't help with our empty wallspace or impress people who physically visit our homes. So, I propose we use big wall-mounted LCD screens - getting cheaper all the time - to display a visual bookshelf-like representation of the books on our hard drives. After all, if you read an e-book and nobody ever sees it, have you really read it?
I wouldn't dismiss everything he says out of hand, but it's important to note what the weight of the available evidence says, and not just the 5% of it that he cites (sometimes wrongly) in support of his thesis. Unfortunately, those seeking a simple classification of all foods into unequivocal "good" and "bad" categories are probably never going to be satisfied with the state of the science.
On a final note, I'd caution against anyone who has all of the answers but says that the "research establishment" is involved in some sort of massive, sinister conspiracy to suppress them. Things just don't work that way.
So true about the way that kids are raised these days, and it's one of my pet peeves. The sensationalist media (among other things) has made most parents very fearful of all kinds of horrible things that might happen if their kids are allowed out of their padded rooms and tightly-supervised activities. Television news is the worst; if anything nasty happens anywhere, they'll make it seem like it's happening right next door and all around you, every day. People want to think of themselves as good parents and especially want to appear to others like they are, but in order to achieve that label you have to submit to the general hysteria. So, kids are trotted from one adult-organized activity to the next, and seldom get the opportunity for spontaneous, inventive play with their peers.
Reminds me of a report on a local TV news programs a few years ago on Halloween. A reporter was interviewing a cop at a police station where candy was being x-rayed for the usual pins, needles, razor blades, etc. The gist of the report was that you're taking a big chance if you don't bring your kid's candy in for this scanning. So the reporter finally asks how much of this junk they find on a typical Halloween, and the cop had to reply that, in fact, they'd never found a single foreign object in any piece of candy in the 15 or 20 years that they'd performed this service. But, of course there's always a first time and you can't be too careful.
I'm glad I grew up when I did, when kids could be kids.
I'm roughly the same age as Bill Gates, and while he is somewhat more successful than me, he still doesn't look any better, and probably doesn't feel any better on a day-to-day basis, either. And, there's practically nothing that the World's Richest Man can do about it (other than hiring someone to make me look and feel dramatically less good).
In research there are some smart people (Aubrey deGray, e.g.) who argue that we should be hitting for the "home run", at least in addition to the incremental "one step at a time" approach that our funding mechanisms rightly favor. That is, take what we know (which is plenty) and attack senescence as a systems engineering problem. That course is being advanced philanthropically, and some heavy hitters are starting to chip in (or so I've heard). The astounding progress of systems biology in the past 30 years or so is really all about loading the bases.