Slashdot Mirror


User: Black+Parrot

Black+Parrot's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
13,037
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 13,037

  1. Re:The model doesn't describe the system. on Game Theory Calls Cooperation Into Question · · Score: 2

    I think the disconnect is in expecting evolution to produce optimal solutions. Biology is full of make-do solutions.

  2. Re:Origin of *Species* on Game Theory Calls Cooperation Into Question · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Fitness of a species is not relevant. It's all about fitness of individual genes. Read The Selfish Gene.

    On the contrary, for sexually reproducing species it doesn't matter how fit you and your genes are. Without a species, the genes are dead-enders.

  3. Re:I'm so blue... on New Map Shows USA's Quietest Places · · Score: 1

    Yeah, after thinking about it for a while I did exactly that. Came back to post about it, and found your post.

    One map showed the 100th meridian as the divide between who gets 20"/year and who doesn't.

  4. Re:I'm so blue... on New Map Shows USA's Quietest Places · · Score: 2

    nteresting to note the map also looks like the city lights maps.

    Interesting that they both show a sharp verticle divide right down the center of the country. When I first saw it on the light pollution maps it was so sharp that I wondered whether it was a time-of-photo artifact.

  5. Now here's the plan. on Wheel of Time TV Pilot Producers Sue Robert Jordan's Widow For Defamation · · Score: 1

    1) Buy movie rights.
    2) Make movie.
    3) Air in paid informercial time slot.
    4) (TBD)
    5) Profit!

    Makes you wonder it the whole thing was just a scam to get at her estate all along.

    In other news, the production companies are merging under the name "Streisand Corp, LLC".

  6. All general skills are undervalued. on Ask Slashdot: Are General Engineering Skills Undervalued In Web Development? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    HR wants 10 years experience in something that was invented 5 years ago.

    If you have bigger-picture skills, you might be tempted to think for yourself.

  7. Bah. on Alcohol's Evaporating Health Benefits · · Score: 1

    I know better. After a bit of strong drink I get +2 STR, +6 INT, +9 WIS, +2 DEX, +5 CON, and +8 CHA - and the effects last *exactly* until I sober up.

  8. What actually matters isn't the fidelity of the sound, but the self-satisfaction you feel when you listen to it.

  9. Re:Attractive proposition on Quantum Equation Suggests Universe Had No Beginning · · Score: 1

    I've always been inclined to dismiss the existence of infinities outside of mathematics, but it's starting to look like the universe might be infinite in extent, and probably is infinite in the forward direction of time, so I'm starting to entertain the possibilities.

    Though the idea of a universe infinite in extent arising from a point or a very small space is kind of hard to wrap your head around.

  10. Re:But... on Quantum Equation Suggests Universe Had No Beginning · · Score: 1

    OK, these guys are probably far smarter than I'll ever be, but... the universe clearly isn't staying at a finite size, and playing the universe's expansion in reverse would imply that it started at a single point. How do they account for this? I even went as far as to read the article, but it wasn't mentioned.

    Actually, if you assume that expansion plays backwards with no change in rate you pass through a point and then into negative size. Probably we should not assume that expansion can be extrapolated backwards past some point, which could as easily be a non-singularity as a singularity.

  11. Re:So they are back to steady state? on Quantum Equation Suggests Universe Had No Beginning · · Score: 1

    1) Some creationists claim that the big bang proves scripture is true.

    2) Some creationists claim that the bag bang cannot be true, because it contradicts scripture.

    3) You're the first person I've ever heard to claim that the big crunch matches scripture, and frankly I don't see where you pulled that from.

    Conclusion: Scripture means whatever you want it to mean.

    Also, do you know of any scientist other than Hoyle who tried to dismiss the big bang as religion? Hoyle, who was still pushing his steady state theory a generation after everyone else recognized that the evidence pointed to a big bang, and coined the term 'big bang' to denigrate the competition to his own precious theory?

    Finally, I'm not sure how this qualifies as "going back to the old model", since there's still a big bang. It just doesn't start with a singularity in this proposed model. Scientists have asked about "before the big bang" for decades. In fact, they now seem to associating 'the big bang' with the beginning of the inflationary era, if I understand what I read correctly.

  12. Just what we need! on Replacing the Turing Test · · Score: 1

    An AI to add a laugh track to the Simpsons so you'll know when there has been a joke.

  13. Re:Potheads on Mystery Ash Clouds Rain In Parts of Washington, Oregon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    hah. eastern oregon and wash are about as red and conservative as you'll find in the US.

    And red-state conservatives don't smoke pot?

  14. Re:Dark matter on The Search For Neutrons That Leak Into Our World From Other Universes · · Score: 1

    Actually, I think physicists have speculated that gravity is the weakest force because some of it leaks out of our brane. Stands to reason that some would leak in from other branes to. Mutual attraction means matter clumps up "in the same place" on nearby branes. Dark matter is dark because only its gravitation leaks in; other forces and interactions are constrained to its own universe.

    The amount of dark matter - or rather, the amount of gravitational energy leaking in - might tell us how many branes we are "adjacent to" in the bigger scheme of things.

  15. Re:Or you could try more Diplomacy? on The US Navy Wants More Railguns and Lasers, Less Gunpowder · · Score: 3, Funny

    They need to update gunboat diplomacy to railgunboat diplomacy.

  16. Re:Lasers are easy to stop on The US Navy Wants More Railguns and Lasers, Less Gunpowder · · Score: 1

    How is that fancy laser going to work when the enemy uses a smoke screen? Or a mirror?

    Sharks can easily swim around either.

  17. Dear Santa, on The US Navy Wants More Railguns and Lasers, Less Gunpowder · · Score: 1

    I want new toys, not more of the same old crap you used to give me.

    And a pony. With railguns on its head..

  18. Homo sapiens assholius on With Insider Help, ID Theft Ring Stole $700,000 In Apple Gift Cards · · Score: 2

    Why are so many people such jerks?

  19. Re:Who remembers Global Cooling? on Science's Biggest Failure: Everything About Diet and Fitness · · Score: 1

    Whereas in the real world, if you look at published papers rather than magazine articles, scientists predicted warming over cooling by a 6:1 ratio during 1965-1979.

    Also, for those who didn't understand greenhouse gasses, cooling would be a natural supposition since we had been in an interglacial for about as long as the previous time. Turns out that interglacials aren't as clockwork as people used to think, but some scientists still think there's an end-interglacial forcing that partly counteracts the anthropogenic forcing in the opposite direction.

    Please add these to your list of facts to ignore.

  20. Re:"Cartoonist Mistakes Dumbed-Down News for Scien on Science's Biggest Failure: Everything About Diet and Fitness · · Score: 1

    better headline, fixed that for you.

    I think he's a better troll than cartoonist.

  21. Re: Metric units on NASA Looking At Nuclear Thermal Rockets To Explore the Solar System · · Score: 1

    No more imperial shit.

    Oh, just wait until the NeoCons hear about this rocket.

    Look what happened to the British Empire.

  22. Re:New-age "spirituality" on There Is No "You" In a Parallel Universe · · Score: 1

    The whole concept of "duplicate you" just smacks of new age bullshit "spirituality" which suckers in the weak-minded and ill-educated with baffle gab and fancy words.

    Nine out of ten mes agree!

  23. Re:FDA APPROVAL MEANS ITS SAFE on FDA Wants To Release Millions of Genetically Modified Mosquitoes In Florida · · Score: 2

    FDA...? Do they consider mosquitos food or drugs?

  24. Huh? on Gamma-ray Bursts May Explain Fermi's Paradox · · Score: 1

    GRBs clearly haven't prevented life in *our* galaxy, so the Fermi Paradox still stands.

    The caluculations probably rule out life in the core of our galaxy, but systems further out would be exposed even less often than ours is. And even though GRBs can periodically sterilize a planet, their directionality means that one burst would not likely sterilize all the planets in an intercellar civilization simultaneously.

    So, to modify what someone said above, we can add another term to the Drake equation, but this doesn't do much to answer Fermi.

  25. I feel sorry for rich people, on Davos 2015: Less Innovation, More Regulation, More Unrest. Run Away! · · Score: 2

    what with the rabble's concerns boiling over and impinging on the fringes of their attention.