One of the problems between the "deniers" and the "alarmists" is the assymetry between them being being right or wrong.
If we follow deniers, and they are right, we will get poor only when we run out of fossil fuels. Before we've burned all coal, we'll be in 22nd century
If we follow deniers, and they are wrong, billions will die, cities will get swallowed up by oceans, and more fun stuff
If we follow alarmists, and they are right, we will be a bit poorer, but still alive
If we follow alarmists, and they are wrong, we will be a bit poorer
And the problem lies in point 2. If global warming is true, and we don't do a thing, we're fucked. If it is however not true, and we do try to prevent it, we probably would end up using renewable energy a bit earlier than strictly necessary.
It is however completely inconsistent to be alarmist and against nuclear energy.
Why are you posting shortened links on a website? You are not on twitter, you do not have to care about a limit. Anonymous links: I guess all of them go to goatse or two girls, one cup. I'll pass, your point is lost.
Using base 2 measurements for anything these days is as useful as insisting that all groceries needs to be done in multiples of the appropriate Planck constant. Really: arguing against a proper base 10 system with as argument that the previous system was in some real sense better is laughably wrong.
The system plainly sucked.
You know: I can understand byte, I can understand that grouping a word in 8 bits is useful. I can understand that 2^8 is an important number, same for 2^16, 2^32, 2^64, etc.. But heavens: 2^10? What's the significance of 2^10 for a computer? Do we use computers where word length is a multiple of 10? Yes, it is the nearest 'whole' number to 10^3, but why call that kilo? It is not a kilo, it is a bit more than a kilo. It is not even a convenient number for computers, it is only used by virtue of being somewhat close to the SI system.
2^10 is not significant technically! In the technical field we use convenient numbers, such as 2^32.
Now, with Tera, Peta, and Exa around the corner these numbers are (first) increasingly inaccurately approximations to the real thing (decimal numbers), so the confusion increases, and (second) with such big numbers, using 'whole' numbers (all bits of an imaginary 10 bit word that we don't use internally anyway) is becoming increasingly irrelevant. It becomes as pedantic as claiming that a gram of a substance cannot exist because it is not a whole multiple of the Planck mass.
And if we talk about misappropriating stuff. Kilo means a thousand, everywhere. Mega means a million, Giga means a billion. It has done so for centuries. Why does the computer field think they can give it a different meaning without confusing the hell out of everybody? Don't computer people understand numbers?
So in short, the old system was a very poorly thought out mix of binary and decimal, and was thereby pretty 'ibi'. Good riddens.
I seems that the university libraries should recognize that the best and cheapest way to make sure that they can do their job -- make the fruits of research done elsewhere available locally -- is to take on the burden of publishing themselves. In the academic world, they are the ones most hurt by the stranglehold of publishers,
and they are the ones whose staff is not comprised solely of researchers -- adding a few copy-editors would not compromise their operations.
It does not seem illogical for each university library to organize the review process for a number of journals, and to do the final copy-editing. Hosting them, and making sure they are retained for prosperity is their core business already. Even the dissemination network is in place in the form of the inter-library lending system.
To top it off, it will be in every universities best interest to try to create the best and most influential journals, as this will reflect on the quality of the university itself.
Well that is pretty clever, and would make it double blind. I honestly was curious how to do a double blind on acupuncture, and this could conceivably work. Thanks.
No it isn't. It just happens to be a normal distribution. All it is is a set of tests that give out points. The average of the points is calibrated to be 100, the standard deviation to be 15. These are the definitions, they do not imply a normal distribution. Because of the law of large numbers (more specifically the central limit theorem), it is likely that this test leads to a normal distribution, and in practice it invariably looks very close. This distribution is however a consequence, and is not (can not) be enforced.
For example: the normality assumption breaks down at the extremes. There are reports of people that score > 200 on IQ tests. Under assumptions of normality, we would expect that to happen for one person in 10^21... quite a few more than the 10^10 people that have ever lived.
If your data is worth something out of this single application, you need relational and ACID. Syslog records might not qualify as being worth something. I heard flat file works fine for those.
I thought as much, but this makes the study single blind, not double, as the practitioners involved did know whether they were handling needles or toothpicks. A true double blind test can effectively only be done with some substance, a medicine for example, where also the people administrating the drugs don't know whether they are given a placebo or the real thing. This to remove any bias where the patients pick up the facts from their behavior.
How would you go about testing acupuncture in a double-blind way? Give the one set of doctors needles, the other toothpicks? Teach one set of doctors the wrong techniques so that they stick needles in random places? Must have been an interesting study.
On the contrary: I think that every American whose family has been in this country for more than three generations should be considered native Americans and should get a nice place in a cozy reservation somewhere. I suggest Florida. Immigrants are the true life, blood and spirit of the US, native Americans should get out of the way.
The mockery is a response on a war against science that is raging in the US. If the US fundies stop their war against rationality, the mockery will stop. Honestly, young earth geology? Creationism? WTF?
You really think pastafarianism, or the church of subgenius for that matter, has caused pro-life bombings, gay-bashing and anti-scientific education? Aren't you switching cause and effect here?
I've always wondered why God's creation was so faulty that a bit of it needs to be chopped off for it to function properly. Incompetent Design, that's what it is.
I think many people think your cost/benefit analytic thinking is faulty here. At least from a medical perspective. Male circumcision is so remotely beneficial medically, that it is laughable. Medically: circumcisions are closer to preventive mastectomies then they are to, say, vaccinations. Look at Europe where circumcisions is by no mean the norm, and males don't die in droves. Medically, you are grasping at straws here.
Circumcision is a cultural thing, aka aesthetics. Your kid is likely to get more chicks, because chicks in your neighborhood are taught that bold dicks are great. That it removes some of the fun for your kid in the act, is compensated by the fact that he's likely to get more. That is, as long as he stays in this culture. It's all a bit barbaric, lobbing of parts of an infant for sexual reasons, but hey, stranger things are happening.
Does anyone know what happened in 1990 in the US to change the patent application rate?
That's a rhetorical question, right? Beginning 1990's the US courts, in a couple of landmark cases, decided that software patents were legal. What you're seeing is the ensuing land-grab.
I think that argument died about 10 years ago, when we figured out that it's quite achievable to write a computer program that shift gears significantly better than the average driver. Of course, you, as well as anyone else, drives much better than average, but still, automatic gears are pretty efficient these days. Case in point: Formula 1 bans fully automatic transmission, as it outcompetes the best drivers in the world.
The manual gearbox should go the way of the horse-whip: only used for old-timers.
And what if they will not subsist and don't want to be a democracy? Spend another trillion dollars?
Of course you don't pay another 25 billion if they ask for it: you threaten to take away the 25 you gave them in the first place! First you make them dependent, then you've got them. It is really not that difficult. Get them addicted to cheap money. Has worked wonders for making the entire western world fat, happy and obedient.
Why would you think that everybody that pays a few bucks for an app will ask for a refund? That's a lot of trouble to recoup 1 or 2 bucks. I will probably only do this when the app really, offensively, sucks. And as for your other arguments, there is a reason that the 7 day limit only holds for unseen products. If you are not allowed to try the thing first, you get a 7 day refund period. There is no research that beats actually trying out the thing, and it is offensive if that is not allowed. This is a mandatory trial period in order to protect the consumer from scams. Apps in the market place can be scams.
Yes, this is totally true. European here (Dutch), and am reading this story because when I read the summary, I was curious how Americans are going to try to spin that consumer protection laws are evil, and that corporations are better than governments. Safe to say, I am not dissapointed. "Our rights to be fucked over by corporations should not be infringed upon" should make it as a separate amandment to the US constitution. I'm sure there will be a solid majority for it.
Slashdot Mirror
If we follow deniers, and they are right, we will get poor only when we run out of fossil fuels. Before we've burned all coal, we'll be in 22nd century
If we follow deniers, and they are wrong, billions will die, cities will get swallowed up by oceans, and more fun stuff
If we follow alarmists, and they are right, we will be a bit poorer, but still alive
If we follow alarmists, and they are wrong, we will be a bit poorer
And the problem lies in point 2. If global warming is true, and we don't do a thing, we're fucked. If it is however not true, and we do try to prevent it, we probably would end up using renewable energy a bit earlier than strictly necessary.
It is however completely inconsistent to be alarmist and against nuclear energy.
This is news because it gives a great Nelson Muntz moment: HA HA!
The link goes to http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/. Parent doesn't realize he's not on Twitter.
Why are you posting shortened links on a website? You are not on twitter, you do not have to care about a limit. Anonymous links: I guess all of them go to goatse or two girls, one cup. I'll pass, your point is lost.
Thanks. Well played.
Eyeballs are not worth the paper they're printed on. That's what 2001 should have taught you.
Yes, and 33 gigabyte is of course 54760833024 bytes. Because, why would we computer people write this symbol '33' in decimal, right?
You know: I can understand byte, I can understand that grouping a word in 8 bits is useful. I can understand that 2^8 is an important number, same for 2^16, 2^32, 2^64, etc.. But heavens: 2^10? What's the significance of 2^10 for a computer? Do we use computers where word length is a multiple of 10? Yes, it is the nearest 'whole' number to 10^3, but why call that kilo? It is not a kilo, it is a bit more than a kilo. It is not even a convenient number for computers, it is only used by virtue of being somewhat close to the SI system. 2^10 is not significant technically! In the technical field we use convenient numbers, such as 2^32. Now, with Tera, Peta, and Exa around the corner these numbers are (first) increasingly inaccurately approximations to the real thing (decimal numbers), so the confusion increases, and (second) with such big numbers, using 'whole' numbers (all bits of an imaginary 10 bit word that we don't use internally anyway) is becoming increasingly irrelevant. It becomes as pedantic as claiming that a gram of a substance cannot exist because it is not a whole multiple of the Planck mass.
And if we talk about misappropriating stuff. Kilo means a thousand, everywhere. Mega means a million, Giga means a billion. It has done so for centuries. Why does the computer field think they can give it a different meaning without confusing the hell out of everybody? Don't computer people understand numbers?
So in short, the old system was a very poorly thought out mix of binary and decimal, and was thereby pretty 'ibi'. Good riddens.
I seems that the university libraries should recognize that the best and cheapest way to make sure that they can do their job -- make the fruits of research done elsewhere available locally -- is to take on the burden of publishing themselves. In the academic world, they are the ones most hurt by the stranglehold of publishers, and they are the ones whose staff is not comprised solely of researchers -- adding a few copy-editors would not compromise their operations.
It does not seem illogical for each university library to organize the review process for a number of journals, and to do the final copy-editing. Hosting them, and making sure they are retained for prosperity is their core business already. Even the dissemination network is in place in the form of the inter-library lending system.
To top it off, it will be in every universities best interest to try to create the best and most influential journals, as this will reflect on the quality of the university itself.
Well that is pretty clever, and would make it double blind. I honestly was curious how to do a double blind on acupuncture, and this could conceivably work. Thanks.
For example: the normality assumption breaks down at the extremes. There are reports of people that score > 200 on IQ tests. Under assumptions of normality, we would expect that to happen for one person in 10^21 ... quite a few more than the 10^10 people that have ever lived.
If your data is worth something out of this single application, you need relational and ACID. Syslog records might not qualify as being worth something. I heard flat file works fine for those.
I thought as much, but this makes the study single blind, not double, as the practitioners involved did know whether they were handling needles or toothpicks. A true double blind test can effectively only be done with some substance, a medicine for example, where also the people administrating the drugs don't know whether they are given a placebo or the real thing. This to remove any bias where the patients pick up the facts from their behavior.
How would you go about testing acupuncture in a double-blind way? Give the one set of doctors needles, the other toothpicks? Teach one set of doctors the wrong techniques so that they stick needles in random places? Must have been an interesting study.
On the contrary: I think that every American whose family has been in this country for more than three generations should be considered native Americans and should get a nice place in a cozy reservation somewhere. I suggest Florida. Immigrants are the true life, blood and spirit of the US, native Americans should get out of the way.
The mockery is a response on a war against science that is raging in the US. If the US fundies stop their war against rationality, the mockery will stop. Honestly, young earth geology? Creationism? WTF?
You really think pastafarianism, or the church of subgenius for that matter, has caused pro-life bombings, gay-bashing and anti-scientific education? Aren't you switching cause and effect here?
There's been a decline in masturbation in Australia? That's big news!
I've always wondered why God's creation was so faulty that a bit of it needs to be chopped off for it to function properly. Incompetent Design, that's what it is.
Circumcision is a cultural thing, aka aesthetics. Your kid is likely to get more chicks, because chicks in your neighborhood are taught that bold dicks are great. That it removes some of the fun for your kid in the act, is compensated by the fact that he's likely to get more. That is, as long as he stays in this culture. It's all a bit barbaric, lobbing of parts of an infant for sexual reasons, but hey, stranger things are happening.
Does anyone know what happened in 1990 in the US to change the patent application rate?
That's a rhetorical question, right? Beginning 1990's the US courts, in a couple of landmark cases, decided that software patents were legal. What you're seeing is the ensuing land-grab.
The manual gearbox should go the way of the horse-whip: only used for old-timers.
Of course you don't pay another 25 billion if they ask for it: you threaten to take away the 25 you gave them in the first place! First you make them dependent, then you've got them. It is really not that difficult. Get them addicted to cheap money. Has worked wonders for making the entire western world fat, happy and obedient.
Why would you think that everybody that pays a few bucks for an app will ask for a refund? That's a lot of trouble to recoup 1 or 2 bucks. I will probably only do this when the app really, offensively, sucks. And as for your other arguments, there is a reason that the 7 day limit only holds for unseen products. If you are not allowed to try the thing first, you get a 7 day refund period. There is no research that beats actually trying out the thing, and it is offensive if that is not allowed. This is a mandatory trial period in order to protect the consumer from scams. Apps in the market place can be scams.
Yes, this is totally true. European here (Dutch), and am reading this story because when I read the summary, I was curious how Americans are going to try to spin that consumer protection laws are evil, and that corporations are better than governments. Safe to say, I am not dissapointed. "Our rights to be fucked over by corporations should not be infringed upon" should make it as a separate amandment to the US constitution. I'm sure there will be a solid majority for it.