It's fine to hypothesize one's guilt, but as I said, "Until a claim is proven, it is irrational to make a decision about that claim." Emphasis in this case on the "make a decision".
Bullshit. Presumption of innocence is a specialized case of rational, scientific thought. Until a claim is proven, it is irrational to make a decision about that claim.
Re:2012 is going to be year of the linux desktop!
on
GNOME 3.4 Released
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· Score: 1
Meh. Been there, done that. For me, 2008 was the year of the Linux desktop.
Julia Pongratz is the only citation in your listed sources for Gengis Khan's impact on climate. She arrived at this conclusion not through examination of empirical data, but through computer modeling of Khan's actions. It's an interesting hypothesis, but hardly one that can be stated as a certainty.
And back in the great earthquake of '06, folks set fire to their quake-smashed homes because their insurance covered fire but not quakes. As a result, out-of-control fires caused more damage to San Francisco than the earthquake itself.
I'm actually pretty excited about this. While I love meat in my diet, I can't quite forget that I'm eating something that once walked around happily minding its own business until someone snuck up, hit it over the head, and slit its throat. The whole process that leads up to the fine sirloin sitting on my plate is... mildly disquieting.
I look forward to the availability of guilt-free, vat-grown meat. In a variety of flavors. Pork, chicken, turkey, salmon, tuna, beef, lamb, human--
C'mon, haven't you ever wondered what human flesh tastes like? This will let you enjoy it completely without any guilt! Better yet, it'll probably be the equivalent of veal... tender and young!
Oh quit looking at me like that, there's nothing creepy at all about this! Well... not much.
Canonical sees the tablet and smartphone as the leading way people deal with computers in the future. So they're concentrating their efforts not on the desktop, but on an opportunity that Microsoft doesn't currently dominate. It's an interesting strategy, and if it pays off, Canonical might even be able to use a market edge in tablets and smartphones to erode Window's dominance on desktops. Unfortunately, that means we have to put up with crappy experiments in interfaces while Gnome, Unity, and even Microsoft work this out.
Personally, I've switched from Unity to Gnome 3. It seems a little more stable right now and lets me work a little faster. These are modest improvements at best, and even with a bunch of Shell Extensions, I'm not satisfied.
Well said. I wish I had mod points. I'm left with applauding your post and leaving my own little tag so I'll stumble across yours again and have the pleasure of re-reading it every few years.
As for the Apollo flight computer, a very limited orbit-tracking version might have been possible but integrating error would have made it deeply suspect over such a long time period I think. In terms of all the other things the Apollo computer did in terms of attitude control and timing the firing of thrusters correctly, I doubt you could make a one cubic foot mechanical or electromechanical computer do that.
I'm not suggesting that a mechanical computer could have replaced the Apollo flight computer. But if improvements in pre-calculated tables allowed ballistics and even rocketry to develop a little faster, mechanical computers might have come in handy for pre-Apollo rocket launches. What's the minimum computer functionality required to put a man into space? On the moon? And maybe some of the computing work could have been shifted away from the vehicle to a dedicated Flight Computations building on the ground.
But the Industrial Revolution was in full swing by the 1830s. In many ways, Babbage's ideas were a product of that era. I don't think the world would be too terribly different a place than it is today. Perhaps, with proper error-free reference tables, science and engineering would have made a few more advances, but the complexity of all those moving parts in Babbage's Analytical Engine would have prevented something like Victorian PCs. I think the big change would have happened around the second World War, where ENIAC and similar computers would have been hybrid machines combining established mechanical computational constructs with vacuum-tube electronics to speed up calculations. Might the Germans have used aluminum calculating machines for more accurate V1 and V2 missiles? Could that have made a difference in the Space Race, or would that still have to wait for the weight-saving economy of the transistor and integrated circuits?
The thing to remember about technological progress is that invention is an interdependent process that involves more than just science and engineering, but politics, religion, and other social customs. Maybe the Analytical Engine would have gone nowhere until the invention of modern electronics. Or maybe minds like Tesla and industrialists like JP Morgan would have seized on the potential and changed everything. The most optimistic estimate would be that it would trigger a Victorian or at least Edwardian Internet era, with speech, information, and ideas flying around the planet at the speed of an automated telegraph. But computing with gears and the odd solenoid is a clumsy, tricky thing, and I can't help but think such ideas would have only tiny influences on our modern world.
This looks suspiciously like an effort to make the use of Predator drones in conjunction with police investigations seem acceptable to the general public. The fact is the Department of Homeland Security was behind the use of drones in this affair, and this is yet another camel's nose under the tent. A few more stories like this and then stories about the use of drones in police surveillance will no longer be "newsworthy". That's when their use will become truly ubiquitous... when no one's paying attention any longer.
Well, to be fair, those aren't more aircraft carriers, they're being built to replace the Enterprise and Nimitz class carriers which are due for retirement.
But... I agree with your point. Just one aircraft carrier less and you can afford to more than double your space program's funding. Our short-sighted leaders are selling out our future national security and scientific eminence in favor of having some shiny new sabers to rattle.
Actually, it isn't the name "tricorder" that's at issue here. According to the original text, Roddenberry himself said anyone who could produce a functional equivalent was allowed to use the name "Tricorder"... the problem is the use of an interface that mimics the LCARS user interface from later Star Trek shows. Tweak the look and I bet he'd still be able to get away with calling it a tricorder.
Slashdot Mirror
What timing! And here they're gonna be retiring the Enterprise soon.
It's fine to hypothesize one's guilt, but as I said, "Until a claim is proven, it is irrational to make a decision about that claim." Emphasis in this case on the "make a decision".
Crap. You've successfully deconstructed my entire argument.
And you have a cool username.
Bullshit. Presumption of innocence is a specialized case of rational, scientific thought. Until a claim is proven, it is irrational to make a decision about that claim.
Meh. Been there, done that. For me, 2008 was the year of the Linux desktop.
Julia Pongratz is the only citation in your listed sources for Gengis Khan's impact on climate. She arrived at this conclusion not through examination of empirical data, but through computer modeling of Khan's actions. It's an interesting hypothesis, but hardly one that can be stated as a certainty.
And back in the great earthquake of '06, folks set fire to their quake-smashed homes because their insurance covered fire but not quakes. As a result, out-of-control fires caused more damage to San Francisco than the earthquake itself.
I do ... but the post is already modded to the max. What a cruel day to be a moderator.
In that 30 seconds, the rocket traveled 22 miles.
Check out Google's Summer of Code sometime.
I'm actually pretty excited about this. While I love meat in my diet, I can't quite forget that I'm eating something that once walked around happily minding its own business until someone snuck up, hit it over the head, and slit its throat. The whole process that leads up to the fine sirloin sitting on my plate is ... mildly disquieting.
... tender and young!
... not much.
I look forward to the availability of guilt-free, vat-grown meat. In a variety of flavors. Pork, chicken, turkey, salmon, tuna, beef, lamb, human--
C'mon, haven't you ever wondered what human flesh tastes like? This will let you enjoy it completely without any guilt! Better yet, it'll probably be the equivalent of veal
Oh quit looking at me like that, there's nothing creepy at all about this! Well
Let me get this straight: after basically ignoring the Fifth Amendment, you now expect the courts to play fair?
Canonical sees the tablet and smartphone as the leading way people deal with computers in the future. So they're concentrating their efforts not on the desktop, but on an opportunity that Microsoft doesn't currently dominate. It's an interesting strategy, and if it pays off, Canonical might even be able to use a market edge in tablets and smartphones to erode Window's dominance on desktops. Unfortunately, that means we have to put up with crappy experiments in interfaces while Gnome, Unity, and even Microsoft work this out.
Personally, I've switched from Unity to Gnome 3. It seems a little more stable right now and lets me work a little faster. These are modest improvements at best, and even with a bunch of Shell Extensions, I'm not satisfied.
Well said. I wish I had mod points. I'm left with applauding your post and leaving my own little tag so I'll stumble across yours again and have the pleasure of re-reading it every few years.
I'm not suggesting that a mechanical computer could have replaced the Apollo flight computer. But if improvements in pre-calculated tables allowed ballistics and even rocketry to develop a little faster, mechanical computers might have come in handy for pre-Apollo rocket launches. What's the minimum computer functionality required to put a man into space? On the moon? And maybe some of the computing work could have been shifted away from the vehicle to a dedicated Flight Computations building on the ground.
But the Industrial Revolution was in full swing by the 1830s. In many ways, Babbage's ideas were a product of that era. I don't think the world would be too terribly different a place than it is today. Perhaps, with proper error-free reference tables, science and engineering would have made a few more advances, but the complexity of all those moving parts in Babbage's Analytical Engine would have prevented something like Victorian PCs. I think the big change would have happened around the second World War, where ENIAC and similar computers would have been hybrid machines combining established mechanical computational constructs with vacuum-tube electronics to speed up calculations. Might the Germans have used aluminum calculating machines for more accurate V1 and V2 missiles? Could that have made a difference in the Space Race, or would that still have to wait for the weight-saving economy of the transistor and integrated circuits?
The thing to remember about technological progress is that invention is an interdependent process that involves more than just science and engineering, but politics, religion, and other social customs. Maybe the Analytical Engine would have gone nowhere until the invention of modern electronics. Or maybe minds like Tesla and industrialists like JP Morgan would have seized on the potential and changed everything. The most optimistic estimate would be that it would trigger a Victorian or at least Edwardian Internet era, with speech, information, and ideas flying around the planet at the speed of an automated telegraph. But computing with gears and the odd solenoid is a clumsy, tricky thing, and I can't help but think such ideas would have only tiny influences on our modern world.
This looks suspiciously like an effort to make the use of Predator drones in conjunction with police investigations seem acceptable to the general public. The fact is the Department of Homeland Security was behind the use of drones in this affair, and this is yet another camel's nose under the tent. A few more stories like this and then stories about the use of drones in police surveillance will no longer be "newsworthy". That's when their use will become truly ubiquitous ... when no one's paying attention any longer.
Hmmm ... it had the opposite effect on me. I started to look as regular kittens as a kind of veal. PETA should be wary of unintended consequences.
Well, to be fair, those aren't more aircraft carriers, they're being built to replace the Enterprise and Nimitz class carriers which are due for retirement.
... I agree with your point. Just one aircraft carrier less and you can afford to more than double your space program's funding. Our short-sighted leaders are selling out our future national security and scientific eminence in favor of having some shiny new sabers to rattle.
But
Leonard doesn't feel like doing anything. http://youtu.be/dULOjT9GYdQ
Unfortunately, the plugin only supportes Mac and Windows. C'mon, Google!
I'd listen to this guy, McGibby. If anyone knows stupidity, it's him.
Looks like a mummer.
Actually, it isn't the name "tricorder" that's at issue here. According to the original text, Roddenberry himself said anyone who could produce a functional equivalent was allowed to use the name "Tricorder" ... the problem is the use of an interface that mimics the LCARS user interface from later Star Trek shows. Tweak the look and I bet he'd still be able to get away with calling it a tricorder.
No, no, no! Given the intended purpose, the question is: Will it run me?