As for scientific bias. Everyone is free to educate themselves, set up double blind experiments and start testing their favourite hypotheses, and write papers about it. It's a bit of a shame that you expect medical doctors to take every crackpot theory in the world as such and give it as much credence as any other pharmaceutical idea. The difference between the pharmaceutical approach and the crackpot approach is that in pharmacy some substance is posited that has some material effect on the human body. We don't have a clue what, therefore we need a double-blind experiment to get at least some statistical certainty that the substance does something. With the crackpot ideas, we usually have some extra-physical explanation as to why the method works, meaning that even if the double-blind works in its favour (which it invariably doesn't), we still have the question whether we should throw out 5 centuries of physics. This implication makes the common educated person a bit sceptical.
The most interesting phenomenon I find homeopathy. In my country (the Netherlands), homeopathic 'medicine' can be sold by everyone, simply because it has provably no effect. If it were to have an effect, it should be tested, and sold as medicine with the usual restrictions. I find this very ironic.
If 99% of crystal power knowledge is rubbish, but 1% is true, it really is up to the crystal power scientists to isolate this 1% and test it. Some other scientists have provided the courtesy of disabling 99% of it, probably because it became too much of a nuisance, but really, it's up to the believers of the hypothesis to do the work. You can't go around claiming something outrageous is true, and then expect others to believe you on face-value, or even worse, expect them to spend their precious time to debunk it.
Oh wait, this is about faith, never mind me saying anything. Carry on.
Reading comprehension skills also form an interesting statistic. Roughly 2/3 of the earth surface is covered in water (more like 71%, but I had to look that up). 47% of the Americans don't know this. You are apparently part of that 47%, or you wouldn't have come to this conclusion.
This is the sort of trivia question that shows a basic ignorance on the make-up of our planet. Location of continents, rough size of important countries all fall into this. It's all not very actionable knowledge, but does give some sort of basis on which to weigh important events and which can be used to judge outrageous statements in the media.
Well, I don't know the details here, but given the state of the Iceland economy, it's quite likely that even if the MCP's had insured for loss of income, they would not see any money due to the insurer being bankrupt. Remember, the Icelandic financial sector has collapsed totally.
Although an absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, the persistent absence of any evidence of existence over the many millennia that God and Santa Claus have existed does provide some uneasy in otherwise rational people.
Dawkinsâ(TM)s caricature of Christianity may well carry weight with his increasingly religiously illiterate or religiously alienated audiences, who find in his writings ample confirmation of their prejudices, but merely persuades those familiar with religious traditions to conclude that Dawkins has no interest in understanding what he critiques. . . The classic Christian tradition has always valued rationality and does not hold that faith involves the abandonment of reason or the absence of evidence. Indeed, the Christian tradition is so strong on this matter that it is often difficult to understand where Dawkins got these ideas
What I see in Christianity is a fully divided set of beliefs, ranging from deranged lunatic (young earth) to invitingly spiritual. There is however not a general consensus about anything. Due to its basis on the belief of a God, people are free to subscribe any belief to this God, and come to any conclusion whatsoever. The Christian tradition is also riddled with questionable assumptions, outright power struggles, and irrevocable dogma (that later got revoked). Where in the Christian tradition can we find this intellectual honesty that the author is talking about, and, more importantly, what are the Christian methods to distinguish between the frauds and the intellectual leaders?
It's all very easy. Given the legislature, we will have a mass production of textbooks that will need to produce the fact that "Pluto is not a planet, unless it is in the month of XXX in the year of 2YYY during W AM and Z PM. At those times, crossing Illinois infinite band of Universe space, Pluto suddenly becomes a planet". I'm sure Disney will also find they can do a Pluto day during those hours.
So, no, there's no money involved here. It's all about trying to honor the Illinois-American that discovered the clump of ice formerly known as a planet. If the future is bleak, it's a good time to memorize a heraldic past.
And that in contrast with the faulty, sensasionalist predictions of economists that have been used to support the formation of national policies? I would say let's go with extreme measures against global warming. As the economists predict doom if we do that, it will most likely produce actual wealth for all.
Awesome, now all you have to do is find where the money is. Which non-scientific groups are so established that their livelihood depends on massive investments in GW related research? Woops, they're only on the disproving side. Stupid scientists, why don't they follow the money?
It seems more like politicians have been dragged kicking and screaming to look at this issue at all after ignoring it completely for decades. But let's say your argument holds water: what is the likelihood of politicians globally (communists, capitalists, and everything inbetween) manufacturing a global emergency for the good for all? Historically, politicians have only been capable of making war with other politicians, and now we have a situation where there is international consensus between politicians? 'When hell freezes over' would be comparable in its likelihood.
Next, politicians have historically mainly catered for quick benefits of their constituents: free food, free games, free wars, free oil, free wealth. And now they're saying: there's no such thing as a free lunch? Completely opposed to their natural behaviour.
The earth has however changed radically over millions of years. It has turned into desert wasteland and back again (at least at continental scale). Although the historical record for politics is shorter, I have to conclude that the earth becoming difficult to live in is way more likely than politicians reaching international consensus over a non-existing issue.
Network effects. If I need to communicate with my customers, using MS Office is a safe bet. Even if it doesn't work, you can always complain about Microsoft screwing up. Try to communicate using OO.org, and every single communication needs to be absolutely perfect for it to be acceptable. If OO screws up, you're unprofessional. If MS Office screws up, it's MS Office, and everybody knows that there are glitches.
Now compare with Firefox. Although Microsoft has tried to make the internet an IE only thing, they have failed due to the security implications of their chosen vehicle, Active X. Now Active X is dead, and the internet is open for any browser to compete. If I choose to use Firefox to browse the web, there's no customer whose business I might loose. Although there was an attempt from Microsoft to extinguish the web, the offer was less compelling than for office, so they lost.
So, yes, there is a gigantic conspiracy of users who just can't think of anything better to do with their money. It's called a Network Effect. OO has a hard uphill battle against this. You could easily put billions into creating the best office suite that has ever materialized, and still you would fail against MS office, as no individual can move out of using it without losing something.
Climatologists are perfectly capable of predicting the temperature next week in exactly the same way they do it for 15 years in the future: average temperature with confidence intervals. For next week the intervals are narrower than for 15 years in the future. However, you will hardly notice such a prediction, as the intervals are much broader than what meteorological models can give you. On the other hand, meteorological models only hold for two weeks at best, and then climatological models rule.
In other words, it's not that the models can't predict next week, it's just that we're used to much more accurate models for the short term.
Not really, in general, in C and C++, for any function (and == is a function), the order of execution of the function arguments is undefined, and up to the implementation (if there are no precedence rules applicable). In this particular case, a compiler is free to compile this as (using registers r1, r2 and result):
r1 = c++; r2 = c; result = r1 == r2;
Or,
r1 = c; r2 = c++; result = r1 == r2;
Depending on which one is used, 'result' is in the first case false, in the second case true. I don't know of a compiler which does right-to-left argument execution, and I'm pretty sure that such a compiler would break quite a bit of existing code, but it is allowed.
What it definitively refutes is the 'freeloader' hypothesis of the media, in particular it refutes the notion that every download is a lost sale. This is now measured, so the hypothesis is wrong. There can still be a negative effect that can be attributed to downloading, but the case is harder to make now.
So, for all the people that like to share their deep insights into the nature of the relationship between correlation and causation, the following: a strong causal link for an inverse relationship between downloading and sales was proposed. The opposite correlation is measured. And now you criticize the latter study for committing a fallacy?
The big disadvantage of a mono-culture is that when the hordes of uberleet security experts manage to miss something (which they will), an exploit might actually bring the entire infrastructure down, leaving you with no internet, and no recourse other than sending patches through fax and snail mail. With diversity, if a particular kernel is brought to its knees, the remaining 90% of the infrastructure is still there to help fix the damage done.
There is a reason that the immune (security) system of every animal is unique. If not, an entire species could be wiped out when one virus (exploit) breaks through the system. Mono-cultures are easy to wipe out, no matter how hardened they are.
The flaw in your reasoning is that you're assuming that perfect security is attainable. Evolution had billions of years to get it right, and didn't really figure out how to do this.
Once you give up on the idea of perfect security, you might be able to ponder how you can recover quickly from security breaches.
Somalia is doing quite well in the pirate business these days. No government to speak off, pure unfettered capitalism there. I'm sure you're dying to move.
Put yourself in the shoes of a financial institution and ask yourself why on earth you would lend money out when there's any chance in hell that you won't be able to get it back.
To get your $100 million bonus? This one is too easy, you should try better.
Well, strictly speaking, the initial pilgrims didn't leave voluntarily, but were effectively kicked out of the UK after they got briefly in power and started large scale religious persecution. Then they got the short end of the stick.
The Chancellor's position uses practically the same process as the German Presidential election. (Just different actors.) How in the world does that make the individual voters vote "count" more than an American voter's vote? You still can't directly vote for a Chancellor!
I'm not arguing that individual voters "count" more than an American vote. That's silly and I missed the GP that said that. However, the German Chancellor is simply a member of parliament, but happens to be leader of the biggest party that forms the government. In American terms, much like Pelosi, but with the difference that German chancellor is voted using either a district vote or a proportional vote (the German system is mixed). She is indeed not elected as a Chancellor, just like Pelosi is not elected as the head of Congress. It works this way in most European democracies. Blair was never elected as prime minister, neither was Brown, nor Merkel, nor Berlusconi, nor countless others. France being the exception. Prime ministers simply head the largest party, and are primus inter pares, first amongst their equals. This is a different system, not really comparable to a presidential system. It is democratic through and through though.
The President of the Commission is who I was referring to. He's the closest analog to the United States President. At least, the closest elected official.
The point I'm trying to make is that the EU doesn't have such a thing as a close analog to the US President. In power, the closest analog to the US President is either the French president or the German chancellor. As you point out, Barroso is not even elected, so how can he be the closest elected official? Barroso is more like the highest civil servant. Who would that be in the US?
And yet, (to the best of my understanding) the Council is not actually elected by the people. So their vote doesn't "count" there either, because they don't get a vote.
The council is formed by the actual governments of the nations in the EU. These are all democratically elected by their nations in all of their own peculiar ways. The council of prime ministers could be compared with a hypothetical council of all 51 governers of all the US states, dictating policy. No again, they are not elected for that particular job, it's part of their real job, being an elected representative of their country. Is the American president elected as commander-in-chief? Yes and no, it's part of his job, but there was no separate election for the US commander-in-chief.
I'm now seeing what you reply to, and again, I do not agree with the statement that a German vote counts more than an American vote. I personally think that it's a bit outdated in a globalised world that almost every state in the US casts all their votes for only one candidate, but that doesn't change the fact that the vote counts. Even if you vote D in an R state, or vice-versa. However, I disagree with your statement that the EU commissioner is the closest analog to the EU president. It's an analog, but not close, let alone the closest.
Given his influence of last year, the closest analog of the US president in Europe has been the French president Sarkozy, with Barroso as his yelping lapdog. Next year it might be Merkel. The EU does not have a president, nothing even close.
I'm all for getting rid of all of our welfare programs, getting rid of SS and the rest of it. I should say that I'm young enough that I will never see SS pay me a dime. I make enough money that I do not qualify for any assistance programs. So really getting rid of all of that would be doing me a favor, I'd have more money by the end of every year. I'd be able to afford my own health care then and provide for my own retirement too. It's kinda hard to do so for myself and my family as well as doling out a chunk to everyone else out there too.
Well, do consider that if you get rid of all welfare programs, you will have to start paying for your gated community, for the guards, and for the police that will need to expand to keep the starving masses from simply taking what they don't have. In the end, you might be paying more.
I don't like Obama's healthcare plan, so I do agree with you there.
Because you don't agree with Obama's healthcare plan, it is wealth redistribution, thus Marxist, thus wrong? Boy, when do you Americans grow up and stop arguing practical matters along ideological lines. Dogmatic free market thinking is about as practical as communism.
Your country is currently facing a big problem with health care in that a large proportion of the population is uninsured because of the cost, people being held hostage by their employers because they are afraid to lose that insurance, people dying because insurance companies refusing to pony up, and emergency rooms clogging up with preventable emergencies, and you are whining about the finer points of plans to tackle this of being ideologically correct? It must be very gratifying to have a successful life while your society starts to resemble a third world nation. Congrats, you are not socialist, you are just destructive.
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The most interesting phenomenon I find homeopathy. In my country (the Netherlands), homeopathic 'medicine' can be sold by everyone, simply because it has provably no effect. If it were to have an effect, it should be tested, and sold as medicine with the usual restrictions. I find this very ironic.
Oh wait, this is about faith, never mind me saying anything. Carry on.
This is the sort of trivia question that shows a basic ignorance on the make-up of our planet. Location of continents, rough size of important countries all fall into this. It's all not very actionable knowledge, but does give some sort of basis on which to weigh important events and which can be used to judge outrageous statements in the media.
Well, I don't know the details here, but given the state of the Iceland economy, it's quite likely that even if the MCP's had insured for loss of income, they would not see any money due to the insurer being bankrupt. Remember, the Icelandic financial sector has collapsed totally.
Well, that's an old one in my field: it's called General Purpose Genetic Programming on Graphics Processing Units
Although an absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, the persistent absence of any evidence of existence over the many millennia that God and Santa Claus have existed does provide some uneasy in otherwise rational people.
What I see in Christianity is a fully divided set of beliefs, ranging from deranged lunatic (young earth) to invitingly spiritual. There is however not a general consensus about anything. Due to its basis on the belief of a God, people are free to subscribe any belief to this God, and come to any conclusion whatsoever. The Christian tradition is also riddled with questionable assumptions, outright power struggles, and irrevocable dogma (that later got revoked). Where in the Christian tradition can we find this intellectual honesty that the author is talking about, and, more importantly, what are the Christian methods to distinguish between the frauds and the intellectual leaders?
So, no, there's no money involved here. It's all about trying to honor the Illinois-American that discovered the clump of ice formerly known as a planet. If the future is bleak, it's a good time to memorize a heraldic past.
Interesting post, and remember: a double is 55 integer bits.
And that in contrast with the faulty, sensasionalist predictions of economists that have been used to support the formation of national policies? I would say let's go with extreme measures against global warming. As the economists predict doom if we do that, it will most likely produce actual wealth for all.
Awesome, now all you have to do is find where the money is. Which non-scientific groups are so established that their livelihood depends on massive investments in GW related research? Woops, they're only on the disproving side. Stupid scientists, why don't they follow the money?
Next, politicians have historically mainly catered for quick benefits of their constituents: free food, free games, free wars, free oil, free wealth. And now they're saying: there's no such thing as a free lunch? Completely opposed to their natural behaviour.
The earth has however changed radically over millions of years. It has turned into desert wasteland and back again (at least at continental scale). Although the historical record for politics is shorter, I have to conclude that the earth becoming difficult to live in is way more likely than politicians reaching international consensus over a non-existing issue.
Now compare with Firefox. Although Microsoft has tried to make the internet an IE only thing, they have failed due to the security implications of their chosen vehicle, Active X. Now Active X is dead, and the internet is open for any browser to compete. If I choose to use Firefox to browse the web, there's no customer whose business I might loose. Although there was an attempt from Microsoft to extinguish the web, the offer was less compelling than for office, so they lost.
So, yes, there is a gigantic conspiracy of users who just can't think of anything better to do with their money. It's called a Network Effect. OO has a hard uphill battle against this. You could easily put billions into creating the best office suite that has ever materialized, and still you would fail against MS office, as no individual can move out of using it without losing something.
In other words, it's not that the models can't predict next week, it's just that we're used to much more accurate models for the short term.
Or,
Depending on which one is used, 'result' is in the first case false, in the second case true. I don't know of a compiler which does right-to-left argument execution, and I'm pretty sure that such a compiler would break quite a bit of existing code, but it is allowed.
- John Maynard Keynes
So, for all the people that like to share their deep insights into the nature of the relationship between correlation and causation, the following: a strong causal link for an inverse relationship between downloading and sales was proposed. The opposite correlation is measured. And now you criticize the latter study for committing a fallacy?
The big disadvantage of a mono-culture is that when the hordes of uberleet security experts manage to miss something (which they will), an exploit might actually bring the entire infrastructure down, leaving you with no internet, and no recourse other than sending patches through fax and snail mail. With diversity, if a particular kernel is brought to its knees, the remaining 90% of the infrastructure is still there to help fix the damage done.
There is a reason that the immune (security) system of every animal is unique. If not, an entire species could be wiped out when one virus (exploit) breaks through the system. Mono-cultures are easy to wipe out, no matter how hardened they are. The flaw in your reasoning is that you're assuming that perfect security is attainable. Evolution had billions of years to get it right, and didn't really figure out how to do this. Once you give up on the idea of perfect security, you might be able to ponder how you can recover quickly from security breaches.
Well, if you take the unofficial motto of the US: "The best democracy money can buy", it starts to make sense.
Somalia is doing quite well in the pirate business these days. No government to speak off, pure unfettered capitalism there. I'm sure you're dying to move.
To get your $100 million bonus? This one is too easy, you should try better.
Well, strictly speaking, the initial pilgrims didn't leave voluntarily, but were effectively kicked out of the UK after they got briefly in power and started large scale religious persecution. Then they got the short end of the stick.
I'm not arguing that individual voters "count" more than an American vote. That's silly and I missed the GP that said that. However, the German Chancellor is simply a member of parliament, but happens to be leader of the biggest party that forms the government. In American terms, much like Pelosi, but with the difference that German chancellor is voted using either a district vote or a proportional vote (the German system is mixed). She is indeed not elected as a Chancellor, just like Pelosi is not elected as the head of Congress. It works this way in most European democracies. Blair was never elected as prime minister, neither was Brown, nor Merkel, nor Berlusconi, nor countless others. France being the exception. Prime ministers simply head the largest party, and are primus inter pares, first amongst their equals. This is a different system, not really comparable to a presidential system. It is democratic through and through though.
The point I'm trying to make is that the EU doesn't have such a thing as a close analog to the US President. In power, the closest analog to the US President is either the French president or the German chancellor. As you point out, Barroso is not even elected, so how can he be the closest elected official? Barroso is more like the highest civil servant. Who would that be in the US?
The council is formed by the actual governments of the nations in the EU. These are all democratically elected by their nations in all of their own peculiar ways. The council of prime ministers could be compared with a hypothetical council of all 51 governers of all the US states, dictating policy. No again, they are not elected for that particular job, it's part of their real job, being an elected representative of their country. Is the American president elected as commander-in-chief? Yes and no, it's part of his job, but there was no separate election for the US commander-in-chief.
I'm now seeing what you reply to, and again, I do not agree with the statement that a German vote counts more than an American vote. I personally think that it's a bit outdated in a globalised world that almost every state in the US casts all their votes for only one candidate, but that doesn't change the fact that the vote counts. Even if you vote D in an R state, or vice-versa. However, I disagree with your statement that the EU commissioner is the closest analog to the EU president. It's an analog, but not close, let alone the closest. Given his influence of last year, the closest analog of the US president in Europe has been the French president Sarkozy, with Barroso as his yelping lapdog. Next year it might be Merkel. The EU does not have a president, nothing even close.
Well, do consider that if you get rid of all welfare programs, you will have to start paying for your gated community, for the guards, and for the police that will need to expand to keep the starving masses from simply taking what they don't have. In the end, you might be paying more.
Because you don't agree with Obama's healthcare plan, it is wealth redistribution, thus Marxist, thus wrong? Boy, when do you Americans grow up and stop arguing practical matters along ideological lines. Dogmatic free market thinking is about as practical as communism.
Your country is currently facing a big problem with health care in that a large proportion of the population is uninsured because of the cost, people being held hostage by their employers because they are afraid to lose that insurance, people dying because insurance companies refusing to pony up, and emergency rooms clogging up with preventable emergencies, and you are whining about the finer points of plans to tackle this of being ideologically correct? It must be very gratifying to have a successful life while your society starts to resemble a third world nation. Congrats, you are not socialist, you are just destructive.