> t used to be that one could tell the fake news, such as Weekly World News, National Enquirer, etc., but recently many reporters are either faking news or just regurgitating press releases. I know, because I was a reporter, then later an editor. With tightening margins, reporters get paid less and less (try $20 for a story), and staff is shrunk in the dead-tree press.
As the Iraqi editor said, "If I had known it was from the US Army, I would have charged a lot more to publish it."
> this article has been created today about 3 hours ago. I bet that some of/. are feeling the urge to further modify it. Perhaps to make it more fun, or sth (eg. to write that the hoaxer killed JFK himself).
How else would he have known that the original article was a hoax?
> Oh, I don't know. I think that Slashdot has always been much like it is today. You can see it as a good thing, or a bad thing, but at least they are consistent. Poor spelling, off base comments at the ends of postings, lame articles that make the front page, and the dubious practice of calling themselves editors when they don't have been here at least as long as I have, back in '96 or '97.
> As a North Carolinian I was a little shocked to see the EFF was suing the state elections board. Then I read why. Why does the elections board think they can just ignore the law?
What's sad is that you wouldn't have known anything was amiss if not for the EFF suit.
> folklorists, ethnologists, and anthropologists have been trying to track down the historical basis for myths and legends for as long as their professions have existed.
The problem is that thinking of "explanations" for the myths is easy, but verifying them is all but impossible.
> It should be a species of a particular genus, no? Mammals are an entire class of organisms, where if the species is new we should at least be able to identify the genus (and order, and family).
It's possible that it's a representative of some previously unknown branch higher than species. If indeed it's a member of Carnivora, but not a "cat-like" or "dog-like" carnivore, then it would represent a previously unknown sub-order.
> I have a question: Aren't class, order, genus, and family entirely arbitrary? Shouldn't we now classify living things entirely with genetics?
Not entirely arbitrary. What's somewhat arbitrary is how high in the tree of life the branches that get those labels are. Unfortunately it's a big messy tree that wasn't designed for the convenience of classification.
>> FYI, science isn't in the business of proving stuff. It's in the business of explaining stuff.
> Only on slashdot where many McScientists dwell, could a statement like this be rated +5 insightful. If you can not PROVE your explanation, then your explanation is just as good as the next guys.
No, in the empirical sciences you can't prove that an explanation is correct. You can only demonstrate that a suggested explanation is wrong.
> The reality is, evolution has more proof behind it than ID.
Rather, evolution explains a huge pile of observations, and has "supporting evidence" in the sense that we keep making new discoveries that bear out its predictions. ID, OTOH, is vacuous religious apologetics.
>> Yes, but invoking magic as an explanation is useless, because it's compatible with anything you can imagine.
> Ironically, evolution relies on "magic" to a lesser degree. It assumes that "something happened" for any given thing it can't explain. Granted, this isn't exactly the same as saying "someone/thing created it", but it is very similar, in that "something happened" really doesn't explain anything either.
No, there's a huge difference between "we don't know all the details" and "a magic sky-man did it".
> McScientists are the reason the ID crowd is gaining ground.
No, ID is "gaining ground" because it tells a certain group of people something they desperately want to hear.
> Come on, this doesn't prove anything at all. Until we can find fossils for every single stage between this and modern birds, you clearly can't prove anything, and there are still holes.
FYI, science isn't in the business of proving stuff. It's in the business of explaining stuff. And birds as descendants of dinosaurs is the best explanation on the table right now.
> Modern birds could have still popped up independently, intelligently designed and perfect.
Yes, but invoking magic as an explanation is useless, because it's compatible with anything you can imagine. Even stuff you can't imagine, for that matter! It has absolutely no value as an explanation for anything.
> Good comments are written first, before the code
When implementing a big program or non-trivial algorithm, I start the file with comments that end up serving as an outline for the code I insert afterward. It helps clarify my thoughts about how I'm going to go about it, and of course keeps me from forgetting anything.
CBS television show that started this fall, about some kind of alien invasion of the earth. Apparently a clone of the idea behind Surface and Invasion, which also started this season. Perhaps the worst done of the three, though IMO the other two aren't anything to brag about.
Slashdot Mirror
> t used to be that one could tell the fake news, such as Weekly World News, National Enquirer, etc., but recently many reporters are either faking news or just regurgitating press releases. I know, because I was a reporter, then later an editor. With tightening margins, reporters get paid less and less (try $20 for a story), and staff is shrunk in the dead-tree press.
As the Iraqi editor said, "If I had known it was from the US Army, I would have charged a lot more to publish it."
> this article has been created today about 3 hours ago. I bet that some of /. are feeling the urge to further modify it. Perhaps to make it more fun, or sth (eg. to write that the hoaxer killed JFK himself).
How else would he have known that the original article was a hoax?
> Oh, I don't know. I think that Slashdot has always been much like it is today. You can see it as a good thing, or a bad thing, but at least they are consistent. Poor spelling, off base comments at the ends of postings, lame articles that make the front page, and the dubious practice of calling themselves editors when they don't have been here at least as long as I have, back in '96 or '97.
See? Nothing changes.
"I'm a fanboy, and I think everyone else should like it too."
> Uh, you're comparing an economic system with a governmental system? Wha? What would a free-market government look like?
No restrictions on how much you can spend when buying a politician.
> As a North Carolinian I was a little shocked to see the EFF was suing the state elections board. Then I read why. Why does the elections board think they can just ignore the law?
What's sad is that you wouldn't have known anything was amiss if not for the EFF suit.
> Wildly unpopular, impossible to implement and very, very expensive to even attempt.
If it appeals to the voters in his district, the rest is irrelevant.
Except in Oztraya they'd call it the wutamandi state or something.
> folklorists, ethnologists, and anthropologists have been trying to track down the historical basis for myths and legends for as long as their professions have existed.
The problem is that thinking of "explanations" for the myths is easy, but verifying them is all but impossible.
I thought that claim had been refuted.
> It should be a species of a particular genus, no? Mammals are an entire class of organisms, where if the species is new we should at least be able to identify the genus (and order, and family).
It's possible that it's a representative of some previously unknown branch higher than species. If indeed it's a member of Carnivora, but not a "cat-like" or "dog-like" carnivore, then it would represent a previously unknown sub-order.
> I have a question: Aren't class, order, genus, and family entirely arbitrary? Shouldn't we now classify living things entirely with genetics?
Not entirely arbitrary. What's somewhat arbitrary is how high in the tree of life the branches that get those labels are. Unfortunately it's a big messy tree that wasn't designed for the convenience of classification.
>> FYI, science isn't in the business of proving stuff. It's in the business of explaining stuff.
> Only on slashdot where many McScientists dwell, could a statement like this be rated +5 insightful. If you can not PROVE your explanation, then your explanation is just as good as the next guys.
No, in the empirical sciences you can't prove that an explanation is correct. You can only demonstrate that a suggested explanation is wrong.
> The reality is, evolution has more proof behind it than ID.
Rather, evolution explains a huge pile of observations, and has "supporting evidence" in the sense that we keep making new discoveries that bear out its predictions. ID, OTOH, is vacuous religious apologetics.
>> Yes, but invoking magic as an explanation is useless, because it's compatible with anything you can imagine.
> Ironically, evolution relies on "magic" to a lesser degree. It assumes that "something happened" for any given thing it can't explain. Granted, this isn't exactly the same as saying "someone/thing created it", but it is very similar, in that "something happened" really doesn't explain anything either.
No, there's a huge difference between "we don't know all the details" and "a magic sky-man did it".
> McScientists are the reason the ID crowd is gaining ground.
No, ID is "gaining ground" because it tells a certain group of people something they desperately want to hear.
> What kinds of tests did they use that show that this is "true" AI? I see a lot of marketing bullshit and not much real data. I call shenanigans.
Yes, but what's new is that the marketing bullshit was made up by an AI rather than an MBA.
> Atleast with the combat robots you can deactivate them after the fighting is over.
You obviously don't watch enough science fiction movies.
> It's impossible to have a good mutation *specifically* where and when you need it.
That's why stuff goes extinct.
> Come on, this doesn't prove anything at all. Until we can find fossils for every single stage between this and modern birds, you clearly can't prove anything, and there are still holes.
FYI, science isn't in the business of proving stuff. It's in the business of explaining stuff. And birds as descendants of dinosaurs is the best explanation on the table right now.
> Modern birds could have still popped up independently, intelligently designed and perfect.
Yes, but invoking magic as an explanation is useless, because it's compatible with anything you can imagine. Even stuff you can't imagine, for that matter! It has absolutely no value as an explanation for anything.
> Yeah Taco, I remember the big green book too. Thanks for giving me flashbacks!
What is this 'ADA' you speak of? American Dental Association? Americans with Disabilities Act?
The programming language is called 'Ada', as in Ada, Lady Lovelace, Charles Babbage's sidekick.
> I once read that a good comment will appear on every conditional branch or loop
But be sure to put them outside the loop, so people won't have to read them over and over.
> Good comments are written first, before the code
When implementing a big program or non-trivial algorithm, I start the file with comments that end up serving as an outline for the code I insert afterward. It helps clarify my thoughts about how I'm going to go about it, and of course keeps me from forgetting anything.
> Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.
Maybe this is their excuse for never finding any of either.
> What was Threshold?
CBS television show that started this fall, about some kind of alien invasion of the earth. Apparently a clone of the idea behind Surface and Invasion, which also started this season. Perhaps the worst done of the three, though IMO the other two aren't anything to brag about.
> I never liked Superman because he was too perfect.
If it makes you feel better, the bulge in his tights is fake.
> Superman is, in the end, a big goofy boy-scout in blue tights.
He would have preferred pink, but the Boy Scouts frown on that kind of thing.