But, media professionals are a pretty small group of professionals. Though, I agree that in that market segment, the Mac Pros some need are overpriced. Folks in that segment often use cross-platform renderer farms (and will build a bunch of cheap CPU power for the farm) and still might use Macs for their actual workstations.
I'd actually say it is the other way around. Consumer products have become more professional. This is especially true with the hardware (software is a bit more arguable). There was once a time when most professionals needed to buy the 'Pro' line of Apple equipment. These days, very few people need the Pro models anymore, as expandability (given the abilities for external expansion) is mostly a thing of the past. For example, an iMac will suffice for most professionals today.
re: Engineering software - 1) There are some incredibly good CAD and Rendering and Animation apps for the Mac. (I'd argue, even better in some cases) 2) One can always dual-boot (or possibly use VMWare Fusion or Parallels) to run any needed Windows apps, if one has to be compatible with some 'industry app.'
Oh... and just on the off-chance that you were thinking about responding.... so you can prep a bit so we can have a meaningful discussion...
You might want to google a few names like: David Hume, Karl Popper, Michael Polanyi, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos (especially Lakatos).
Should you want to go beyond philosophy of science to actually expand on your poking fun with the 'teach the controversy' phrase:
You might want to start thinking about how to defend the idea of information derived from a naturalistic process.
You might want to start researching the implications of the move from asexual to sexual reproduction.
You might want to actually interact a bit with Michael Behe's ideas (rather than just make the Ad Hominem move, as I won't let you get away with that).
You might want to look a bit into some of the issues surrounding the origins of life (since macro-evolution certainly doesn't work if you don't have life to start with).
While I'm no expert, I'm educated enough, and follow the debate enough to realize that people who use 'teach the controversy' in a joking manner are full of it.
That's the type of response I expected AC... and that's probably about all you got too.;)
Wanna talk about philosophy of science? (I won't be holding my breath.)
It isn't the Christians who have placed the gag-order on what constitutes scientific inquiry. It is the materialists who seem to not feel their arguments are up to the challenge of being questioned!
Exactly... this question shows a lack of maturity and understanding that taking those extra classes *might* have some chance of filling in (if the person takes them seriously and doesn't just retain the attitude towards them). However, I also have to recognize that I once was there. Hopefully the person who asked the question will read some of these responses!
As someone who started out my career with a totally 'practical' view of education, rather than a 'person-shaping' view, I have since discovered the benefits of the latter. Sure, you learn some of the necessary skills (tools) to do the job, but you don't round out all the attributes of becoming a good person or good employee. As anyone knows who has ever hired anyone to do a job, the person's character, critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, ability to work in a team, ability to learn, etc. are FAR more important than their ability to use a particular tool or that they possess some particular set of knowledge to the highest degree.
It isn't really anti-intellectualism, but pseudo-intellectual elitism. What has gone out the window is critical thinking and really caring about getting to the truth. What remains is the belief that one is intellectual when one is really just following a pseudo-intellectual herd.
Also, independent schools don't have to take all the kids who have parents who don't know how to parent. The public schools do... which is the real core of the problem. Teachers spend much of their time baby-sitting and parenting, because the parents don't. Any solution to our problem with school is going to have to include fixing parenting in our society.... or we'll never be able to afford it or compete educationally.
than just stabilize the tilt. While I'll have to wait till some real astrophysicists to analyze the implications of this, I know that much off the top of my head.
Ummm... is it just me, or what the heck does the linked story have to do with the origins of life, other than the imagination of the author of this (slashdot) report of on it? Just sayin'...
Here is a little clue: water != life... it is just one of the MANY thing necessary (like hundreds of criteria).
It is more a problem with things like Twitter, though I agree, same rule applies... just harder to implement there. My advice, use a good browser, properly setup, on a good OS... then even clicking a bad link isn't a problem for the most part so long as you have a bit of common sense.
But, shortened URLs get expanded in the end. So, even if they send you to a fake site, the URL of that fake site will then be apparent. If you're reading an article with a shortened link to some article you think should be at yahoo.com and you end up at yarha.com, then you'll realize you've been improperly redirected. It is a problem if you aren't paying attention, but otherwise, not too big a deal IMO. (Just make sure you have all the 'auto-' anything turned off for your browser so the redirect can't link to something which will download and expand, install, run, etc.). But, that is like security 101 anyway. Someone could put a link on any website that sends you somewhere you don't think it will if you aren't paying attention as well... that has been going on for years! Nothing new, just a slightly different form of it.
I don't think that's good news at all. Apart from the data cap, $105/mo is a LOT of money. And, that is bundled with other services which means even more money. Where is our 45 Mbps bi-directional for $40/mo that we ALREADY PAID for?
http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm
I'd much rather have that than 105/10.
I'm going to be replacing my laptop with an iPad 2 as soon as I can get the purchase 'cleared' by the SO (or find enough things to sell). The technology has reached a point where most anything can be done, it is simply another form or computing. For example, PhotoShop appears to be coming to iOS. There is enough computing power there to do just about anything other than the really heavy stuff like CGI rendering or re-encoding video, etc. Not that it couldn't do this, but just wouldn't be very fast at it.
The big difference is the UI. There are going to be some kind of tasks which are better suited for a tablet, and some which are better suited to the typical mouse-driven GUI we're familiar with. But, the kinds of apps and things which can be done on either, with the exception of power use, is going to quickly disappear.
You can't reproduce 'George Washington was the 1st President of the USA' but you'd be kind of silly not to have faith in that.
You're making a basic epistemological mistake in your faith in science.
Well, of course, blind faith is just as stupid as blind trust. Yet, you can't put your father in a test-tube and test him so see if he empirically warrants your faith in him. So, some things require more faith than others. If you want to test the boiling point of water, you can run some experiments, and so long as you're sure nature is orderly, you're then down to your own personal senses. So, you can have a high level of trust or faith in your results. If you're concerned with the existence of George Washington, now you have to begin to rely on less testable things, hence, it requires more faith to believe George existed. When you believe your wife loves you, that is yet another kind of faith, based on all kinds of other criteria... some more testable than others. The mistake people make is to equate faith with religion, and then put it into a different category. It really is no different.
Epistemologically, everything is faith to some extent, so the word 'just' is kind of deceptive. Kudos on actually getting the word 'faith' properly defined though, so many today don't seem to be able to do that (ie: faith is trust, not wishful thinking). And, yes, science is largely faith in that you're trusting someone else, and there is only a certain amount you can know for sure. I also appreciated the admission of how it takes many years of specialized study to understand many of these things. I think people also need to respect that when they so quickly dismiss disciplines other than science, such as history, theology, etc. As a Christian apologist, my faith is also grounded in many years of specialized study and trust in the results of that study. Though, I doubt many will give me the respect they might give a scientist about the results of their area of study. This is a big problem with today's society in unwarranted bias towards only one discipline. Positivism and naive empiricism, long since discredited, are still alive and well today when it comes to attitudes towards science.
If they want the academics, then I think anonymity needs to be dropped. While there is a lot of great stuff on Wikipedia, there is also garbage. When the sources can't be confirmed, or people can attack and hide, it just doesn't bode well for scholarship. Any person who has participated in 'web forums' knows this. IMO, Wikipedia contributors should be using real identities which are verified somehow... that way at least someone has to stand behind their position... formally educated scholar or not. There may be tons of scholars who don't have degree credentials, but no scholar should be unwilling to stand behind their work. If there is need for anonymity for some article for some reason, there should at least be a verified figure-head for that article that applies scholarship criteria as best as possible before letting the anonymous entry be published (that way, anonymity and scholarship can still be maintained).
Bottom line... for Wikipedia to succeed in their goal, they must get the academics on-board.
Slashdot Mirror
But, media professionals are a pretty small group of professionals. Though, I agree that in that market segment, the Mac Pros some need are overpriced. Folks in that segment often use cross-platform renderer farms (and will build a bunch of cheap CPU power for the farm) and still might use Macs for their actual workstations.
I'd actually say it is the other way around. Consumer products have become more professional. This is especially true with the hardware (software is a bit more arguable). There was once a time when most professionals needed to buy the 'Pro' line of Apple equipment. These days, very few people need the Pro models anymore, as expandability (given the abilities for external expansion) is mostly a thing of the past. For example, an iMac will suffice for most professionals today.
re: Engineering software - 1) There are some incredibly good CAD and Rendering and Animation apps for the Mac. (I'd argue, even better in some cases) 2) One can always dual-boot (or possibly use VMWare Fusion or Parallels) to run any needed Windows apps, if one has to be compatible with some 'industry app.'
Oh... and just on the off-chance that you were thinking about responding.... so you can prep a bit so we can have a meaningful discussion... You might want to google a few names like: David Hume, Karl Popper, Michael Polanyi, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos (especially Lakatos). Should you want to go beyond philosophy of science to actually expand on your poking fun with the 'teach the controversy' phrase: You might want to start thinking about how to defend the idea of information derived from a naturalistic process. You might want to start researching the implications of the move from asexual to sexual reproduction. You might want to actually interact a bit with Michael Behe's ideas (rather than just make the Ad Hominem move, as I won't let you get away with that). You might want to look a bit into some of the issues surrounding the origins of life (since macro-evolution certainly doesn't work if you don't have life to start with). While I'm no expert, I'm educated enough, and follow the debate enough to realize that people who use 'teach the controversy' in a joking manner are full of it.
That's the type of response I expected AC... and that's probably about all you got too. ;)
Wanna talk about philosophy of science? (I won't be holding my breath.)
It isn't the Christians who have placed the gag-order on what constitutes scientific inquiry. It is the materialists who seem to not feel their arguments are up to the challenge of being questioned!
Exactly... this question shows a lack of maturity and understanding that taking those extra classes *might* have some chance of filling in (if the person takes them seriously and doesn't just retain the attitude towards them). However, I also have to recognize that I once was there. Hopefully the person who asked the question will read some of these responses!
As someone who started out my career with a totally 'practical' view of education, rather than a 'person-shaping' view, I have since discovered the benefits of the latter. Sure, you learn some of the necessary skills (tools) to do the job, but you don't round out all the attributes of becoming a good person or good employee. As anyone knows who has ever hired anyone to do a job, the person's character, critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, ability to work in a team, ability to learn, etc. are FAR more important than their ability to use a particular tool or that they possess some particular set of knowledge to the highest degree.
It isn't really anti-intellectualism, but pseudo-intellectual elitism. What has gone out the window is critical thinking and really caring about getting to the truth. What remains is the belief that one is intellectual when one is really just following a pseudo-intellectual herd.
Also, independent schools don't have to take all the kids who have parents who don't know how to parent. The public schools do... which is the real core of the problem. Teachers spend much of their time baby-sitting and parenting, because the parents don't. Any solution to our problem with school is going to have to include fixing parenting in our society.... or we'll never be able to afford it or compete educationally.
than just stabilize the tilt. While I'll have to wait till some real astrophysicists to analyze the implications of this, I know that much off the top of my head.
Ummm... is it just me, or what the heck does the linked story have to do with the origins of life, other than the imagination of the author of this (slashdot) report of on it? Just sayin'... Here is a little clue: water != life... it is just one of the MANY thing necessary (like hundreds of criteria).
Arsenic adaptable
It is more a problem with things like Twitter, though I agree, same rule applies... just harder to implement there. My advice, use a good browser, properly setup, on a good OS... then even clicking a bad link isn't a problem for the most part so long as you have a bit of common sense.
But, shortened URLs get expanded in the end. So, even if they send you to a fake site, the URL of that fake site will then be apparent. If you're reading an article with a shortened link to some article you think should be at yahoo.com and you end up at yarha.com, then you'll realize you've been improperly redirected. It is a problem if you aren't paying attention, but otherwise, not too big a deal IMO. (Just make sure you have all the 'auto-' anything turned off for your browser so the redirect can't link to something which will download and expand, install, run, etc.). But, that is like security 101 anyway. Someone could put a link on any website that sends you somewhere you don't think it will if you aren't paying attention as well... that has been going on for years! Nothing new, just a slightly different form of it.
I don't think that's good news at all. Apart from the data cap, $105/mo is a LOT of money. And, that is bundled with other services which means even more money. Where is our 45 Mbps bi-directional for $40/mo that we ALREADY PAID for? http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm I'd much rather have that than 105/10.
Oh, also I'd say that while I play a game from time to time... for me that is the least used thing. I've got a PS3 for that!
I'm going to be replacing my laptop with an iPad 2 as soon as I can get the purchase 'cleared' by the SO (or find enough things to sell). The technology has reached a point where most anything can be done, it is simply another form or computing. For example, PhotoShop appears to be coming to iOS. There is enough computing power there to do just about anything other than the really heavy stuff like CGI rendering or re-encoding video, etc. Not that it couldn't do this, but just wouldn't be very fast at it. The big difference is the UI. There are going to be some kind of tasks which are better suited for a tablet, and some which are better suited to the typical mouse-driven GUI we're familiar with. But, the kinds of apps and things which can be done on either, with the exception of power use, is going to quickly disappear.
You can't reproduce 'George Washington was the 1st President of the USA' but you'd be kind of silly not to have faith in that. You're making a basic epistemological mistake in your faith in science.
Well, of course, blind faith is just as stupid as blind trust. Yet, you can't put your father in a test-tube and test him so see if he empirically warrants your faith in him. So, some things require more faith than others. If you want to test the boiling point of water, you can run some experiments, and so long as you're sure nature is orderly, you're then down to your own personal senses. So, you can have a high level of trust or faith in your results. If you're concerned with the existence of George Washington, now you have to begin to rely on less testable things, hence, it requires more faith to believe George existed. When you believe your wife loves you, that is yet another kind of faith, based on all kinds of other criteria... some more testable than others. The mistake people make is to equate faith with religion, and then put it into a different category. It really is no different.
Umm... the problem is you have mis-defined the term 'faith' there... read the article again.
Epistemologically, everything is faith to some extent, so the word 'just' is kind of deceptive. Kudos on actually getting the word 'faith' properly defined though, so many today don't seem to be able to do that (ie: faith is trust, not wishful thinking). And, yes, science is largely faith in that you're trusting someone else, and there is only a certain amount you can know for sure. I also appreciated the admission of how it takes many years of specialized study to understand many of these things. I think people also need to respect that when they so quickly dismiss disciplines other than science, such as history, theology, etc. As a Christian apologist, my faith is also grounded in many years of specialized study and trust in the results of that study. Though, I doubt many will give me the respect they might give a scientist about the results of their area of study. This is a big problem with today's society in unwarranted bias towards only one discipline. Positivism and naive empiricism, long since discredited, are still alive and well today when it comes to attitudes towards science.
If they want the academics, then I think anonymity needs to be dropped. While there is a lot of great stuff on Wikipedia, there is also garbage. When the sources can't be confirmed, or people can attack and hide, it just doesn't bode well for scholarship. Any person who has participated in 'web forums' knows this. IMO, Wikipedia contributors should be using real identities which are verified somehow... that way at least someone has to stand behind their position... formally educated scholar or not. There may be tons of scholars who don't have degree credentials, but no scholar should be unwilling to stand behind their work. If there is need for anonymity for some article for some reason, there should at least be a verified figure-head for that article that applies scholarship criteria as best as possible before letting the anonymous entry be published (that way, anonymity and scholarship can still be maintained). Bottom line... for Wikipedia to succeed in their goal, they must get the academics on-board.