Their science isn't always perfect, no. But their overall methodology is pretty decent.
Step 1) Define the question. Step 2) Make a guess as to what will happen. Step 3) Design a test to confirm or deny your guess. Step 4) Try the test and see what happens. Step 5) If the producers have given you enough money, and your first test didn't work, repeat until you get an actual result.
Sure, it's not perfect, but they do push the idea of forming a hypothesis and testing it, rather than just assuming that common wisdom is true. Which is, when you get right down to it, the essence of science.
(That said, they have been slipping the last few seasons... they've fallen a little to much into "We have lots of money, we can just add dynamite!" territory, and a little too little into "Hey, let's show the math to explain this weird thing we just found.")
The problem is that he only has that power theoretically. If he really wanted to he could order the military to march into every major city in the country and start shooting, but they wouldn't do it. He can order that the troops be pulled out of the mideast, but the rest of the government can tie the orders up with bureaucratic nonsense until he gives up. And really, none of that has a significant effect on the economy, or the majority of the social issues we're looking at.
Also... we may have the worlds largest and most expensive military (though China may have us beat on numbers), but if powerful means "able to reliably win wars", I'm not convinced that's us anymore.
So you counter my list of must-have extensions with a bunch of completely unrelated functionality?
No. I counter your list of must-have extensions with the list I've been given by the people I've been talking to. I never told you that Opera would fill all of your needs... I told people it would fulfill their needs when it actually would. For you, clearly you need something that Opera can't offer, and that's valid. But your problem with Opera isn't a lack of extensions, it's a lack of features. If they implemented all the features you wanted (better ad-blocking, something equivalent to noscript, and whatever else), you'd have no reason not to use it.
The same goes for the people I've had this conversation with. They wanted a few features FF didn't have, and were getting fed up with things breaking on updates. I proposed Opera as an alternative which had those things built in, and they said they didn't like Opera because it didn't have extensions.
Mouse gestures, tabbed browsing, an excellent tool for organizing bookmarks, high speed, the ability to turn off JS entirely, and a good ability for organizing tabs. The vast majority of the people I deal with don't need the complexity of NoScript or AdBlock+, and I've never even heard of Vimperator, so I certainly can't tell people that Opera has those features, whatever they are.
The thing is, I've had that exact conversation with several people. They list what they want, I demonstrate that Opera has all that built in, and they say, as if it's a bad thing, "Yes, but those are built in, not extensions!" I've got no objection to extensions, I just don't see why they're required.
Well... Ok. I do have an objection to extensions. I have to fight with them every time FF updates, and I need half a dozen of them to bring FF up to the level of functionality I have in Opera. And even then, mouse gestures just don't work right. But that's not an inherent problem with extensions, it's just a problem with FF evolving in a different direction from Opera.
I've never understood that. "Why not use this browser that does everything you say you want?" "Because it doesn't have EXTENSIONS!"
I don't get it. I suppose this is nice if it gets people to use Opera, but honestly... if that's your excuse, there's probably a better reason you're using something else.
As far as I can tell, this doesn't create a legal precedent, which means judges aren't required to follow this guy's example. However, there is now a record of a judge making this decision, and other judges may choose to follow along, now that someone else had been the first one to have their name attached to the idea that citizens have the right to protect themselves.
Good to know... especially since at the book store I worked at, the periodic price increases were blamed on the increasing cost of paper and shipping! (Something like a dollar a book, on average, over six months... and we paid the same for shipping as we always did, so we assumed it was the cost of paper.)
Sounds good to me. I've got no objection to paying authors -- or their editors! -- for their work, and I think it's reasonable that libraries should have to pay for books just as they always have. I would hope that the price would drop if printing wasn't involved, but the author still has to make a living somehow. And the DRM makes sense to me in this case... it leaves you with a system exactly like the old one, which works fine.
On any personally owned ebook or music, of course, I'll avoid DRM, but on a library book it's no more restrictive than their current policies.
Based on a quick search, Jedi Mind sells software that allows you to control your computer with your mind, through some sort of head-band-interface that translates a brain-scan into movement of the mouse on-screen.
Basically, they're selling a software/hardware combination that lets you move things with your mind.
Sounds to me like Lucas might actually have a valid case here.
Installation costs. The system itself is pretty cheap, yes. And operating it costs very little. But installation requires either tearing up a large area, or digging a really deep well. Neither one is easy anywhere, and both are impossible in a lot of places (just try installing one in the middle of Boston, for instance...).
They're best in places where the weather never quite drops below freezing, and never gets TOO hot, though they help just about everywhere.
OK, I can agree with the first part: if you're not interested in paying for rescue services, or you're not able to, you should find another way to take care of yourself. I used to hike a lot (I screwed up my knees, and it's just not fun anymore... too much pain), and I never assumed there would be rescue services available. I always hiked with a buddy, made sure we had trail maps and compasses, and that other people knew where were going and when we expected to be back. You know... common sense kind of stuff. Government funded rescue services are good for actual emergencies, but at that point it's going to be a medical emergency, and your medical insurance ought to be covering part of it. Stupidity insurance is something totally different.
However... your second paragraph is where I have problems. There's a difference between an adult setting off into the wilderness with the attitude that someone ought to come help him if he decides he's bored or doesn't know what he's doing, and a toddler who wanders away. The toddler isn't capable of doing research and making an informed decision. The adult is.
The catch is that they've probably seen the "() means a variable" notation every day in math class. Yes, for those of us who grew up with letters for variables, the parens are confusing. But this is something they've probably seen before, so they shouldn't have to read minds to know what it means.
You're right about a lot of that... the civics in CTP were pretty poor, and the lawyers were a pain.
I didn't really have a problem with the wonders, though; losing some of them sucked, but I don't think I ever ran into a situation where losing one caused that much trouble. Generally I knew I was going to lose Stonehenge, for example, in time to shift things around and compensate.
The probe teams in AC were great... I haven't played in quite a long time, and I'd forgotten about those.
I don't think 4 is the best one. As much as I'm ashamed to admit it (well, not really... but I feel like I should be) I liked Call to Power better.
I liked the culture-wars aspect of Civ 4, but combat in CTP was the best of any of the games. Building up armies of units that went into battle together, with long-range attacks and close-range attacks reinforcing each other, was great, and being able to drop asteroids on your enemies' cities was a lot of fun.
If I could have the culture/religion wars of Civ 4, the combat and future-tech of CTP, and the ability to design my own units from Alpha Centauri, all in one game, I'd never need to buy another.
I will say the faculty here love the clickers -- they mostly figure the students will fail the exams if they don't show up for class, so having them fake attendance isn't really a big problem. My view on it is purely the view of a former student and current IT support worker.
Well... let me rephrase that. In this case, the view of the scientists who are writing the book is supported by both my own experience and another third-party study I've seen. The view of the random guy on the internet isn't supported by anything numbers I've ever seen.
So I'd be inclined to trust the researchers who agree with other research I've seen rather than some guy on the internet.
These days they're RF, with all sorts of built in functions, and run about $65... but yeah. The theory is good: here's a way to find out immediately, in class, with no pressure on the students, whether people get the concept. You can put a question in your powerpoint presentation, and the class can send in their answers, and you can find out whether you need to clarify, or can just move on.
The problem, of course, is that reality isn't the same as theory.
These ones weren't designed to be anonymous -- they've got a unique ID that gets tied to he student's name. They're mostly used in 250+ student lectures so that the faculty can see who's paying attention and what people aren't getting... and, incidentally, for keeping track of attendance.
It's a neat concept, but whoever designed it didn't consider the fact that students don't always tend towards honesty and a desire to learn.
My university started using them 7 or 8 years ago. They're the biggest boon ever to students who want to skip class.
You just bribe a classmate to bring it with and answer quiz questions for you, and you get all the credit and the teacher thinks you were there. I saw people running four or five clickers in a single class period.
I disagree. A lot of teachers don't use the board for writing notes, they use it as a scratchpad: writing down equations, drawing diagrams, etc. And frequently they use it that way to answer questions, which is hard to do in powerpoint.
And given how tempting it is to put too much information in powerpoint slides (to the point of unusability), I'd really prefer they stick to the blackboard.
Yes, but when a roomful of engineers can't multiply 19 by 3 without calculators? This was an off-the-cuff question during a lecture. Sure, when doing something real, pull out the calculator. But something like that you ought to be able to work out on paper in half the time it takes to get the calculator out of your bag.
Well... except that according to the article, you're wrong. Straight from the article:
"And then you look at the so-called big-revenue teams--football and basketball. Those are the powerhouses where there's a lot of recruiting, a lot of it underhanded. Yet if you look at all those powerhouse programs across the country, only seven or eight actually rake in money. All the rest of them lose money."
I don't know who's right here, but I'd be inclined to trust the researchers writing a book. Also, I can certainly say that of the two or three Universities I've been involved with one way or another, the sports teams lost money for the university. Granted, the teams of those places sucked, so it may be different in places where the teams are actually good, but still...
I was terrified by the number of people in my engineering classes who pulled out calculators when asked to multiply a two-digit number by a one-digit number. College classrooms are scary places....
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Their science isn't always perfect, no. But their overall methodology is pretty decent.
Step 1) Define the question.
Step 2) Make a guess as to what will happen.
Step 3) Design a test to confirm or deny your guess.
Step 4) Try the test and see what happens.
Step 5) If the producers have given you enough money, and your first test didn't work, repeat until you get an actual result.
Sure, it's not perfect, but they do push the idea of forming a hypothesis and testing it, rather than just assuming that common wisdom is true. Which is, when you get right down to it, the essence of science.
(That said, they have been slipping the last few seasons... they've fallen a little to much into "We have lots of money, we can just add dynamite!" territory, and a little too little into "Hey, let's show the math to explain this weird thing we just found.")
The problem is that he only has that power theoretically. If he really wanted to he could order the military to march into every major city in the country and start shooting, but they wouldn't do it. He can order that the troops be pulled out of the mideast, but the rest of the government can tie the orders up with bureaucratic nonsense until he gives up. And really, none of that has a significant effect on the economy, or the majority of the social issues we're looking at.
Also... we may have the worlds largest and most expensive military (though China may have us beat on numbers), but if powerful means "able to reliably win wars", I'm not convinced that's us anymore.
So you counter my list of must-have extensions with a bunch of completely unrelated functionality?
No. I counter your list of must-have extensions with the list I've been given by the people I've been talking to. I never told you that Opera would fill all of your needs... I told people it would fulfill their needs when it actually would. For you, clearly you need something that Opera can't offer, and that's valid. But your problem with Opera isn't a lack of extensions, it's a lack of features. If they implemented all the features you wanted (better ad-blocking, something equivalent to noscript, and whatever else), you'd have no reason not to use it.
The same goes for the people I've had this conversation with. They wanted a few features FF didn't have, and were getting fed up with things breaking on updates. I proposed Opera as an alternative which had those things built in, and they said they didn't like Opera because it didn't have extensions.
Mouse gestures, tabbed browsing, an excellent tool for organizing bookmarks, high speed, the ability to turn off JS entirely, and a good ability for organizing tabs. The vast majority of the people I deal with don't need the complexity of NoScript or AdBlock+, and I've never even heard of Vimperator, so I certainly can't tell people that Opera has those features, whatever they are.
The thing is, I've had that exact conversation with several people. They list what they want, I demonstrate that Opera has all that built in, and they say, as if it's a bad thing, "Yes, but those are built in, not extensions!" I've got no objection to extensions, I just don't see why they're required.
Well... Ok. I do have an objection to extensions. I have to fight with them every time FF updates, and I need half a dozen of them to bring FF up to the level of functionality I have in Opera. And even then, mouse gestures just don't work right. But that's not an inherent problem with extensions, it's just a problem with FF evolving in a different direction from Opera.
I've never understood that. "Why not use this browser that does everything you say you want?" "Because it doesn't have EXTENSIONS!"
I don't get it. I suppose this is nice if it gets people to use Opera, but honestly... if that's your excuse, there's probably a better reason you're using something else.
As far as I can tell, this doesn't create a legal precedent, which means judges aren't required to follow this guy's example. However, there is now a record of a judge making this decision, and other judges may choose to follow along, now that someone else had been the first one to have their name attached to the idea that citizens have the right to protect themselves.
Good to know... especially since at the book store I worked at, the periodic price increases were blamed on the increasing cost of paper and shipping! (Something like a dollar a book, on average, over six months... and we paid the same for shipping as we always did, so we assumed it was the cost of paper.)
Sounds good to me. I've got no objection to paying authors -- or their editors! -- for their work, and I think it's reasonable that libraries should have to pay for books just as they always have. I would hope that the price would drop if printing wasn't involved, but the author still has to make a living somehow. And the DRM makes sense to me in this case... it leaves you with a system exactly like the old one, which works fine.
On any personally owned ebook or music, of course, I'll avoid DRM, but on a library book it's no more restrictive than their current policies.
Based on a quick search, Jedi Mind sells software that allows you to control your computer with your mind, through some sort of head-band-interface that translates a brain-scan into movement of the mouse on-screen.
Basically, they're selling a software/hardware combination that lets you move things with your mind.
Sounds to me like Lucas might actually have a valid case here.
Installation costs. The system itself is pretty cheap, yes. And operating it costs very little. But installation requires either tearing up a large area, or digging a really deep well. Neither one is easy anywhere, and both are impossible in a lot of places (just try installing one in the middle of Boston, for instance...).
They're best in places where the weather never quite drops below freezing, and never gets TOO hot, though they help just about everywhere.
OK, I can agree with the first part: if you're not interested in paying for rescue services, or you're not able to, you should find another way to take care of yourself. I used to hike a lot (I screwed up my knees, and it's just not fun anymore... too much pain), and I never assumed there would be rescue services available. I always hiked with a buddy, made sure we had trail maps and compasses, and that other people knew where were going and when we expected to be back. You know... common sense kind of stuff. Government funded rescue services are good for actual emergencies, but at that point it's going to be a medical emergency, and your medical insurance ought to be covering part of it. Stupidity insurance is something totally different.
However... your second paragraph is where I have problems. There's a difference between an adult setting off into the wilderness with the attitude that someone ought to come help him if he decides he's bored or doesn't know what he's doing, and a toddler who wanders away. The toddler isn't capable of doing research and making an informed decision. The adult is.
The catch is that they've probably seen the "() means a variable" notation every day in math class. Yes, for those of us who grew up with letters for variables, the parens are confusing. But this is something they've probably seen before, so they shouldn't have to read minds to know what it means.
You're right about a lot of that... the civics in CTP were pretty poor, and the lawyers were a pain.
I didn't really have a problem with the wonders, though; losing some of them sucked, but I don't think I ever ran into a situation where losing one caused that much trouble. Generally I knew I was going to lose Stonehenge, for example, in time to shift things around and compensate.
The probe teams in AC were great... I haven't played in quite a long time, and I'd forgotten about those.
Great game. It's not exactly Civ in space, but it's well done, and well worth it for anyone who enjoys turn-based strategy.
I don't think 4 is the best one. As much as I'm ashamed to admit it (well, not really... but I feel like I should be) I liked Call to Power better.
I liked the culture-wars aspect of Civ 4, but combat in CTP was the best of any of the games. Building up armies of units that went into battle together, with long-range attacks and close-range attacks reinforcing each other, was great, and being able to drop asteroids on your enemies' cities was a lot of fun.
If I could have the culture/religion wars of Civ 4, the combat and future-tech of CTP, and the ability to design my own units from Alpha Centauri, all in one game, I'd never need to buy another.
I will say the faculty here love the clickers -- they mostly figure the students will fail the exams if they don't show up for class, so having them fake attendance isn't really a big problem. My view on it is purely the view of a former student and current IT support worker.
Well... let me rephrase that. In this case, the view of the scientists who are writing the book is supported by both my own experience and another third-party study I've seen. The view of the random guy on the internet isn't supported by anything numbers I've ever seen.
So I'd be inclined to trust the researchers who agree with other research I've seen rather than some guy on the internet.
These days they're RF, with all sorts of built in functions, and run about $65... but yeah. The theory is good: here's a way to find out immediately, in class, with no pressure on the students, whether people get the concept. You can put a question in your powerpoint presentation, and the class can send in their answers, and you can find out whether you need to clarify, or can just move on.
The problem, of course, is that reality isn't the same as theory.
These ones weren't designed to be anonymous -- they've got a unique ID that gets tied to he student's name. They're mostly used in 250+ student lectures so that the faculty can see who's paying attention and what people aren't getting... and, incidentally, for keeping track of attendance.
It's a neat concept, but whoever designed it didn't consider the fact that students don't always tend towards honesty and a desire to learn.
My university started using them 7 or 8 years ago. They're the biggest boon ever to students who want to skip class.
You just bribe a classmate to bring it with and answer quiz questions for you, and you get all the credit and the teacher thinks you were there. I saw people running four or five clickers in a single class period.
I disagree. A lot of teachers don't use the board for writing notes, they use it as a scratchpad: writing down equations, drawing diagrams, etc. And frequently they use it that way to answer questions, which is hard to do in powerpoint.
And given how tempting it is to put too much information in powerpoint slides (to the point of unusability), I'd really prefer they stick to the blackboard.
Yes, but when a roomful of engineers can't multiply 19 by 3 without calculators? This was an off-the-cuff question during a lecture. Sure, when doing something real, pull out the calculator. But something like that you ought to be able to work out on paper in half the time it takes to get the calculator out of your bag.
Well... except that according to the article, you're wrong. Straight from the article:
"And then you look at the so-called big-revenue teams--football and basketball. Those are the powerhouses where there's a lot of recruiting, a lot of it underhanded. Yet if you look at all those powerhouse programs across the country, only seven or eight actually rake in money. All the rest of them lose money."
I don't know who's right here, but I'd be inclined to trust the researchers writing a book. Also, I can certainly say that of the two or three Universities I've been involved with one way or another, the sports teams lost money for the university. Granted, the teams of those places sucked, so it may be different in places where the teams are actually good, but still...
I was terrified by the number of people in my engineering classes who pulled out calculators when asked to multiply a two-digit number by a one-digit number. College classrooms are scary places....