Haven't heard anything from them yet... of course, the TV card is still in the sealed bag it came in, which would make it hard to show how I've been using it without paying the fee:)
When you see an app you don't like on a profile, click the arrow to hide everything but the title, it'll be like that on every profile from then onwards.
Heh, I've noticed a few small changes to the Myspace UI over the last couple of months that should've been there to begin with, but weren't until recently. I suspect Facebook is the main reason, it's just so much nicer to use and is serious competition.
Heh, you're doing pretty well with that app, tons of my mates are using it:) But anyway, the Facebook developers seem a world away from the ones working for Myspace;)
Maybe most phones in the US, I don't know, but in the UK I've not seen a phone that doesn't do MMS (outside of specially designed ultra-simple ones) for several years and three phone upgrades. It's been standard for at least four years, and while the volume of MMS messages isn't close to that of SMS messages, just in the UK alone one million MMS messages are sent each day.
Having just had to develop a small site using Plone (having never used it or Zope before) I know what you mean. The trouble as I see is that it's based on Zope, which is transitioning from version 2 to 3 (a major change), and so you've got bits of both underlying Plone, with additional integration code which confuses issues even more. Plus developing for Plone has changed a lot from version 2 to 2.1 to 2.5, and the documentation is pretty rubbish - lots of it is outdated, and even more of it is a nightmare to find.
So why do Ubuntu use Plone for Launchpad and Bazaar and are expanding those sites? Clearly if they used Drupal for the original site they've decided otherwise for newer sites!
Never heard of "Numb3ers" in my life. The basics of PD and iterated PD are in most decent books on evolutionary genetics, there's a lot more interesting discussion of recent modelling in this book, which also goes into a whole bunch of other topics. Well worth a read.
That's true of the simple PD, but it's not the case in the iterated PD where you have the same actors interact repeatedly - the most successful strategy is a simple "tit-for-tat" response to whatever the other actor did in the previous iteration. Therefore all it requires is for us to evolve a way of remembering what someone did to us before (face recognition and memory) and we can maximise our overall interactions no matter what strategy the other person takes. More complex simulations of this sort of situation on 2d grids show that different strategies come to dominate different areas ("countries") of the grid, but "nice" strategies (i.e. those that initially choose to cooperate) invariably dominate most of the board.
I was pointing out how people generally will act based on what authority figures have told them to do, not on any innate sense of morality. The two aren't mutually exclusive, people act in a whole bunch of different ways in different situations, as you yourself have said with regards to the Milgram experiment. And although it's a relatively recent field of study there is plenty of research out there supporting a biological basis for moral instincts.
We do not steal because our parents have educated us on why we shouldnt do it, not because we were born with any sense that stealing is bad. What about kids whose parents don't teach them that? Or whose parents are thieves themselves? Do you think that they all steal then?
Simple group dynamics leads to things we consider "morality". We dislike cheats because they take from us, and we're nice to people because in a group it pays to be friendly and one day receive help in return. All of this interaction requires a more developed memory, facial recognition skills, the ability to model other people and so on and so forth.
All of our moral laws tell us not do things. Do not steal. Do not kill. That is because our natural tendencies are to kill, steal, lie; whatever it takes to survive. Now that we live in a society where surviving is not that difficult, we rely on our society's "rules" to help us supress these "evil" desires. We no longer need to steal to eat because food is everywhere "Love thy neighbour"? But anyway, laws are about the breakdown of moral behaviour by a few, because the majority are decent people most of the time.
You're also implying that hungry people will turn into thieves. Some proof of this either historically or currently would be nice... you won't find it though.
These morals are put into place so that we do not fall back on our natural tendencies. You need to read up more on evolutionary genetics. Your position is pretty much a mirror of what the left and right used in the 70s to attack the boogeyman.
After all, if you were true, then we'd almost certainly have killed each other off thousands of years ago!
No, sadly I can tell you that sometimes it happens even when things are perfect... don't ever underestimate impulse actions, "grass is greener" and other such things. Biggest damn-fool mistake I ever made, and four years on I still feel like shit about it.
Yes, I know about the Milgram experiment, the Stamford Prison experiment and a whole bunch of similar studies on obedience and in- and out-group behaviours and so on. They certainly show that obedience to authority can get people to act in ways we would consider "evil", but in general they require either direct orders from an authority figure, dehumanising the victim, or both. Morality is strongest within a person's immediate "tribe" due to game theoretical considerations which arise when you repeatedly interact with someone who remembers what has happened before.
You seem to be saying that what can happen in certain specific circumstances is more important than what happens the other 99% of the time. By that logic, everyone who drives a car is a "road murderer" because it's possible that they might knock down and kill somebody. Things like the Milgram experiment and all are incredibly important to know about, but shouldn't be taken out of context like you've done.
No, many things like altruism, fairness, a disinclination for cheating and so on arise naturally through evolution in any social species. Sure for some members of a society it can be rewarding to break these rules for personal gain, but that only holds true for a small fraction of people. Most people will genuinely play nice.
So I guess the cooling trend they referred to that lasted up to 50 years, or any warming trends that were caused by this increased solar activity was less than 0.2 degrees C warmer or cooler? Are these guys so accurate that they are able to measure within 0.2 degrees C, up to 1150 years ago, and then consider that minuscule amount to be a warming or cooling trend? They say the older data is supportive, not that it makes the case on its own. The much stronger evidence is the direct measurements of solar radiation over the last 30 years linked to here which shows only the expected variation due to the 11-year sunspot cycle. There's no increase in solar output to match the increase in temperature over that period.
Yeah, I read the article, and like I do anytime I read something like that, I apply common sense. Any scientist now-a-days that says that man is not causing global warming is immediately rejected as either incompetent or accused of being on Exxon's payroll. They make similar claims about Intelligent Design supporters as well. There is a scientific consensus on evolution much like there is on anthropogenic climate change - what makes the two cases so different?
If you really want to know what is going on in this scientist's head, I present these two quotes:
"Global warming - at least the modern nightmare version - is a myth," and
"Instead, they have an unshakeable faith in what has, unfortunately, become one of the central credos of the environmental movement: humans burn fossil fuels, which release increased levels of carbon dioxide - the principal so-called greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to heat up. They say this is global warming: I say this is poppycock." Who said that? What do these quotes add to this discussion? Argument by assertion means nothing.
The water cycle is very short-scale though, and water lost via evaporation is returned to the oceans unless it ends up as ice somewhere. As the article says the centre of the Antarctic is currently gaining ice due to cooler temperatures because of the ozone hole there, although it doesn't balance out all of the melt at the edges.
Did you read the article at all? I guess not, as it certainly agrees with the fact that the Sun's output affects climate, but shows quite clearly that the current level of output cannot account for current temperature changes. There's a whole page devoted to the issue.
They even use Solanki's figures on sunspot activity! And provide a nice link near the bottom showing that there's no correlation between solar activity and warming over the last 40 years.
Once again if you read the article there's a whole point devoted to the issue which describes the difference between forcings (e.g. CO2) and feedbacks (e.g. water vapour) and has a handy graph showing relative forcings.
Slashdot Mirror
While at the same time ignoring human nature and the fact that people aren't rational actors motivated solely to maximise profit.
That was my point :)
Haven't heard anything from them yet... of course, the TV card is still in the sealed bag it came in, which would make it hard to show how I've been using it without paying the fee :)
And of course, they don't bloody overload the == operator for Strings now do they, just to add to the fun that is Java.
When you see an app you don't like on a profile, click the arrow to hide everything but the title, it'll be like that on every profile from then onwards.
Yup. Facebook's UI is absolutely lovely, smooth and almost everything you can do is nice and intuitive.
Heh, I've noticed a few small changes to the Myspace UI over the last couple of months that should've been there to begin with, but weren't until recently. I suspect Facebook is the main reason, it's just so much nicer to use and is serious competition.
Heh, you're doing pretty well with that app, tons of my mates are using it :) But anyway, the Facebook developers seem a world away from the ones working for Myspace ;)
But in Great Britain you can get your phone unlocked for a fiver on almost any high street corner ;)
Maybe most phones in the US, I don't know, but in the UK I've not seen a phone that doesn't do MMS (outside of specially designed ultra-simple ones) for several years and three phone upgrades. It's been standard for at least four years, and while the volume of MMS messages isn't close to that of SMS messages, just in the UK alone one million MMS messages are sent each day.
It's definitely an issue in Europe.
Great post, thanks.
Having just had to develop a small site using Plone (having never used it or Zope before) I know what you mean. The trouble as I see is that it's based on Zope, which is transitioning from version 2 to 3 (a major change), and so you've got bits of both underlying Plone, with additional integration code which confuses issues even more. Plus developing for Plone has changed a lot from version 2 to 2.1 to 2.5, and the documentation is pretty rubbish - lots of it is outdated, and even more of it is a nightmare to find.
So why do Ubuntu use Plone for Launchpad and Bazaar and are expanding those sites? Clearly if they used Drupal for the original site they've decided otherwise for newer sites!
I'll keep an eye out for the show as well :)
Never heard of "Numb3ers" in my life. The basics of PD and iterated PD are in most decent books on evolutionary genetics, there's a lot more interesting discussion of recent modelling in this book, which also goes into a whole bunch of other topics. Well worth a read.
That's true of the simple PD, but it's not the case in the iterated PD where you have the same actors interact repeatedly - the most successful strategy is a simple "tit-for-tat" response to whatever the other actor did in the previous iteration. Therefore all it requires is for us to evolve a way of remembering what someone did to us before (face recognition and memory) and we can maximise our overall interactions no matter what strategy the other person takes. More complex simulations of this sort of situation on 2d grids show that different strategies come to dominate different areas ("countries") of the grid, but "nice" strategies (i.e. those that initially choose to cooperate) invariably dominate most of the board.
Simple group dynamics leads to things we consider "morality". We dislike cheats because they take from us, and we're nice to people because in a group it pays to be friendly and one day receive help in return. All of this interaction requires a more developed memory, facial recognition skills, the ability to model other people and so on and so forth. All of our moral laws tell us not do things. Do not steal. Do not kill. That is because our natural tendencies are to kill, steal, lie; whatever it takes to survive. Now that we live in a society where surviving is not that difficult, we rely on our society's "rules" to help us supress these "evil" desires. We no longer need to steal to eat because food is everywhere "Love thy neighbour"? But anyway, laws are about the breakdown of moral behaviour by a few, because the majority are decent people most of the time.
You're also implying that hungry people will turn into thieves. Some proof of this either historically or currently would be nice... you won't find it though. These morals are put into place so that we do not fall back on our natural tendencies. You need to read up more on evolutionary genetics. Your position is pretty much a mirror of what the left and right used in the 70s to attack the boogeyman.
After all, if you were true, then we'd almost certainly have killed each other off thousands of years ago!
No, sadly I can tell you that sometimes it happens even when things are perfect... don't ever underestimate impulse actions, "grass is greener" and other such things. Biggest damn-fool mistake I ever made, and four years on I still feel like shit about it.
Yes, I know about the Milgram experiment, the Stamford Prison experiment and a whole bunch of similar studies on obedience and in- and out-group behaviours and so on. They certainly show that obedience to authority can get people to act in ways we would consider "evil", but in general they require either direct orders from an authority figure, dehumanising the victim, or both. Morality is strongest within a person's immediate "tribe" due to game theoretical considerations which arise when you repeatedly interact with someone who remembers what has happened before.
You seem to be saying that what can happen in certain specific circumstances is more important than what happens the other 99% of the time. By that logic, everyone who drives a car is a "road murderer" because it's possible that they might knock down and kill somebody. Things like the Milgram experiment and all are incredibly important to know about, but shouldn't be taken out of context like you've done.
No, many things like altruism, fairness, a disinclination for cheating and so on arise naturally through evolution in any social species. Sure for some members of a society it can be rewarding to break these rules for personal gain, but that only holds true for a small fraction of people. Most people will genuinely play nice.
Go even further up the scales and you get ionic and "superionic" phases which are even stranger!
The water cycle is very short-scale though, and water lost via evaporation is returned to the oceans unless it ends up as ice somewhere. As the article says the centre of the Antarctic is currently gaining ice due to cooler temperatures because of the ozone hole there, although it doesn't balance out all of the melt at the edges.
Did you read the article at all? I guess not, as it certainly agrees with the fact that the Sun's output affects climate, but shows quite clearly that the current level of output cannot account for current temperature changes. There's a whole page devoted to the issue.
They even use Solanki's figures on sunspot activity! And provide a nice link near the bottom showing that there's no correlation between solar activity and warming over the last 40 years.
Once again if you read the article there's a whole point devoted to the issue which describes the difference between forcings (e.g. CO2) and feedbacks (e.g. water vapour) and has a handy graph showing relative forcings.