You believe that the material in landfills 'flows out into the ocean'?
Have you ever considered that the source of the oceanic plastic waste may not be 'any source of plastic waste we happen to be discussing right now'? Read this: http://water.epa.gov/type/oceb...
Contactless is actually superconvenient, given a limit on the maximum amount for which it works. Over here that maximum is EUR 25, which allows you to be really fast for all small purchases (which are generally the purchases where that really matters).
I would support a system where you could authorize it to work for higher amounts at certain vendors (supermarkets, for instance).
That is the most insightful comment here. Real life is going to throw all these situations at them and only training kids in the way in which they perform best is going to come back and bite them in the ass later.
Yes, working with other students can be extremely frustrating, especially if you are naturally introverted. But guess what: So can working with colleagues.
what about moving around people gumming up the works who are a in a win win win they keep there job or win they go to prison where the state pays for there room, broad and doctor.
Clearly they should be putting money into providing language education instead of female companions.
That is not the point. No, it's not supposed to be fun. But it can be. Science can be exhilarating, heart-pounding and absolutely amazing. High-definition images from Mars, cures for debilitating diseases, allowing disabled people to walk again, nigh-infinite distributed clean energy and even uncovering the very fabric of the universe!
We probably thoroughly agree that (good) science is often also hard and arduous. Guess what: so are tons of jobs. Yet science is regarded as the stuffy shit the weird kids do. Many scientists should be regarded as heroes, furthering our society with hard work and giving us all amazing things, but the image has been destroyed by a culture of praising amateurism and expertise in pushing our most primitive and uncontrollable buttons instead of our most advanced reasoning skills.
Coming back to education, even if you currently regard science highly you probably remember that there were maybe one or two teachers, zero textbooks and a handful of 'cool' experiments that were able to convey the awesomeness that science is and brings. Everything else was dry as shit. I'm not saying other subjects were different, but most of those subjects are either inherently less abstract or have other elements in society that give them traction. One of the most heard things about 'science subjects' is "when do you ever use this shit in real life?" which immediately gives away that all the textbooks are horrifically lacking in showing kids exactly that. It's hard to do that properly, but using terribly improbable examples of trains crashing head-on into each other is certainly not the way to do it. This guy has gone to what I regard as being an extreme, but the central message is the same and the effect apparently present: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I'm not sure whether making science 'fun' in schools is the way to increase appreciation for science, but it might help. Personally, I'd much rather see a lot of public funding put into putting proper science in a media-friendly form at various levels of complexity to get the entirety of our societies into science. People are so used to either a highly technical dry presentation of science or the extremely dumbed down sensationalized versions of it that they never have a chance (let alone be enticed) to take the next step up in their grasp of it.
I was recently reminded of the cartoon "Once upon a time.. Life" which is one of the best examples of media-friendly entertaining science presentation that is remarkably accurate and jargon-filled, for a show aimed at kids and written in the 80's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It's mediocre crap to you because you're closed-minded.
That's not how that works. Things can be objectively mediocre and that is what Gravity and Interstellar can be proven to be (outside of the special effects and amount of money involved).
Everything has to conform to your standards.
Strawman. I never said that. Movies don't have to conform to my standards, but I will judge them by my standards.
Just enjoy a film for what it is: fiction.
The stories my 10-year old nephew comes up with are also fiction. And they are also crap. Ironically they are ultimately more enjoyable than Gravity or Interstellar, because he isn't claiming that they are scientifically accurate, nor does he have shitloads of time and money to create them.
No one has been steered away from science because of fiction.
Strawman again. I never said that. I said that your reaction is that of a culture that drives people away from science. It's the culture of responding with "don't be a dick, you know what I mean" or "shut up, nerd" when somebody corrects them in a well-meaning manner. Of apologizing for scientifically inaccurate crap because they liked the crap and thought it was fun. Imagine that high school situation. Imagine people who could go either way (science or not science) being exposed to that culture. If the culture is strong enough, those people will not choose physics. Because physics is for nerds. Just like pointing out the utter scientific crappiness that is Gravity and Interstellar apparently is for nerds.
I just need to be entertained. I'm smart enough to know what's not real, and if I'm having a good enough time, then I just don't care.
Nobody gives a fuck. This is not about how you or I feel, but about whether it is a problem to deride Gravity and Interstellar. Remember, you are the one who made this personal by telling me to 'Chill'.
Who needs profound thought from Sandra Bullock or Matthew McConaughey
What the fuck do they have to do with it? Are you saying they are unable to act out a script where there is some profundity to be found? It was definitely not top-shelf stuff, but True Detective S01 definitely shows that it's not the actor where the problem lies. Profound thought in or provoked by movies is a real thing, a rare thing and a terribly undervalued thing.
And maybe discussion about what's not real in a fictional setting will inspire someone to find out how it would really work and become a scientist/mathematician/whatever.
That is one of the weakest defenses I've ever heard. You could create an Austin Powers movie, trump up its scientific accuracy and achieve the same goal (and it would be a million times more entertaining than Gravity and Interstellar combined).
If they're bored with something like, "Well the radiation would really kill him in about three days, so he has to have layers and layers of material that will stop it, so he couldn't do anything interesting at all in this movie because he's basically wrapped up like a mummy...", then they'll be bored with science.
So you think that science is boring. Got it. Writing a good story in a scientifically accurate setting with attention for science is nigh impossible, right? My dear friend, you could not be more wrong. You may know the cartoon "Once upon a time... Life". If not, please watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... This is a cartoon aimed at children, contains insane amounts of what most people would consider to be 'jargon', actually revolves on pretty hardcore science, was produced for pennies in the eighties, yet is actually superentertaining for hours on end, even now, even for adults. This is the stuff that piques people's interest in science.
Didn't they explain in the film that the waves come almost hourly due to the tidal forces on the planet?
Did that scene last an hour? The timing is fairly forgivable, though. The fact that these 'scientists' weren't prepared for this very predictable phenomenon and managed to handle it in the most retardedly Hollywood way possible, endangering the mission and everybody's lives for shit is what makes it a terrible plot device: it effectively becomes a diabolus ex machina.
but I thought the ship was fine except for the power problem
.. and the fact that it was hammered and tossed around by and into insane amounts of water, semi-flooded and then managed to just blast off from a planet with gravity similar to earth's. It may actually be the epitome of unrealistic space-related scenes in existence today. The only way it could have been worse would be if they had rowed their way to escape velocity.
It's just a movie. Chill. No one ever claimed either of those movies was 100% scientifically accurate, and plot rules all when it comes to fiction. If you need to (and it sounds like you really really need to)
I don't. Stop defending mediocre crap, because that is exactly the attitude that is 100% opposite of what science is all about and the culture that steers people away from it. Science is about critically looking at everything, and being thorough and rigorous.
Imagine all the different types of people on this planet and then decide which groups of people are least likely to utter the phrase "It's just a movie. Chill." It's a small step away from "Don't be such a geek/nerd/grammar nazi."
Anyway, the plots of both Gravity and Interstellar were just terrible and effectively extremely shallow. Honestly, what wisdom or profound thought have they imbued us with? Watch Moon (2009) instead, it is a million times better on almost every level.
Gravity introduced the average Joe to the concept and danger of space debris, and reintroduced the fact that there is no sound in space.
And it introduced them to it in a completely retarded Hollywood way, whilst simultaneously making all scientists look like cowboys and bumbling idiots, and introducing tons of misunderstandings of how space works ("Yeah, let me just use my fucking jetpack to scoot over to the space station next door. TWICE."). I'm willing to bet that if you present a control group and a group that was forced to watch both movies with questions concerning the science of space, the first group would make fewer mistakes because they hadn't been exposed to utter bullshit.
This along with simple things like how momentum works in space with things as simple as a spinning astronaut, while finding a way to make it entertaining.
Utterly cringeworthy, you mean. Pretty much all characters act like irrational fucktards almost non-stop, even though they're supposed to be highly trained, highly rational individuals. It's not a romcom; these aren't 'normal' people. Stop projecting your audience onto them or just make a romcom already.
BTW, they royally fucked up the momentum part in Gravity in the "don't let go" scene. I think I permanently damaged my cringe-muscle watching that scene. I dare you to watch the entire scene again and uphold the stance that it aids in understanding of the science of gravity.
If you have to do significant research to understand a concept before seeing a movie, the movie failed.
Although I agree, nobody says you have to. Most of the mistakes made are the result of lazy writing and it happens in all genres, which proves that your 'research' argument is a red herring. Lazy writing is: coming up with a scene that would further your story, but disregarding how that scene might conflict with the other elements of your story/universe. Keeping all scenes consistent is hard. Handwaving and saying: "oh whatever, it's just a movie" is easy.
These two movies provided clear communication of some science concepts without being a lecture, and are amazing examples of great communication in sci-fi.
No, they didn't and no, they're not. They are objectively crappy in that regard, due to the numerous misrepresentations of reality, as argued earlier. But feel free to test any average Gravity/Interstellar-veteran Joe for their knowledge on space. I promise you'll be miserably disappointed as they will predominantly remember the human and the weird elements of the movies accurately and the scientific bits terribly. Because the focus wasn't on the science. It was a meager backdrop for cliche-ridden stories.
So I guess 2001 is insulting too, because of the crazy alien wormhole shit at the end?
1. 2001 would have been much better without it. It is enigmatic, but ends up being mainly boring and confusing. 2. 2001 didn't bill itself as scientifically accurate. 3. The wormhole bit wasn't put in there in a way subservient to some ultra Hollywood cliche of 'hang on!' or to enable some shitty love story.
2 and 3 are why Gravity and Interstellar are so insulting. A scientifically accurate tidal wave that happens to arrive at the exact time at which our hero scientists need to get the fuck out (which our highly intelligent, highly trained, highly rational scientists do much too late in some minute piece of shit craft that defies all physics, by the way) is just a terrible plot device. An otherwise scientifically interesting concept becomes a cheap set piece.
You could compare it to the Star Wars movies. The originals have many flaws, but the prequels really rape all the elements of the franchise by rectally inserting poorly executed cheap Hollywood devices in them and then saying "This is Star Wars!".
Contact too then, amirite? Nothing belongs in sci-fi unless it's 100% realistic, got it.
That is a strawman. I never said that and you can shove it back where it came from. Try reading and reasoning properly.
And you should calm the fuck down. Seriously. I mean ranting about about how these movies make the "mentally average" feel superior? WTF dude.
I wasn't ranting. I was ascertaining. I've heard them say it. I've heard them trying to (shittily) defend it: "Dude, are you kidding? There's even a book that explains all the science in it! It's really sciency! [ok, this last part is heavily paraphrased]" After pointing out all the terrible, terrible inaccuracies and ridiculous OOC-moves and just plain improbable character actions, they quickly revert to "Well, I thought it was entertaining. A movie doesn't have to be good to be fun. [which is a strawman as well, because I was never arguing that the movies cannot be 'fun'"
Interstellar and Gravity are some of the most insulting things I've ever seen. The only thing they should make you think is "who the fuck has the balls to claim this is even remotely accurate?" Taking a few physics concepts and badly shoving them in a drama does not a 'scientifically accurate movie' make.
But I guess you're right, there is a big market for movies that pretend to be scientifically accurate, so the mentally average can pretend that they value scientific accuracy and feel superior to those who don't watch the drivel that is Interstellar and Gravity even if they don't have the faintest fucking clue what few bits actually do represent reality slightly better than worse movies before those.
Well, sortof. From TFA: "However, the system's continued poor performance in Ms Pacman exposes a weakness that DeepMind discussed earlier this year. The limitation stems from the DeepMind system only looking at the last four frames of gameplay, about one fifteenth of a second of the game, to learn what actions secure the best results." (my emphasis)
GP misunderstands the ML aspect of this, but it does come down to reflexes and precision in this specific project. It is nevertheless interesting to investigate which games the net performs badly on and which ones it doesn't.
In a way, this is also a manner of 'ranking' games: the harder it is for such a system to perform well at it, the more cerebral and less primitive/physical it probably is (although I don't want to imply that one type is better than the other)
Ask anyone and they'll tell you that you're doing it wrong, I'm doing it wrong, that guy over there is doing it wrong... The only one not doing it wrong is the person you asked. Ask someone else, and they'll tell you the first guy is doing it wrong!
This is a notable truth. The thing with (even mildly complex) OOP (and programming in general) is that there is not one perfect solution. The solutions only differ in the tradeoffs one has to deal with at that time and in the future. The (very hard) challenge is thus to choose a solution (a set of design patterns, a sensible entity model, etc.) that has the least troublesome tradeoffs for the project at hand.
Given that people tend to become fanboys of pretty much everything they have some extended experience with and investment in, they tend to choose and prefer solutions that they have come love, even if those solutions aren't the best choice for the project. These guys also tend to attack other solutions to prove that theirs is the One True Solution. They use all kinds of hyperbole, make tons of unfounded bashing statements and say stupid shit such as "That said, a healthy dose of functional influence just might save us from the OOP hell we've suffered from for the last 20+ years."
Bing as a verb is never going to work, as we already have the verb 'to binge', which would have the same written past tense as 'to Bing' and doesn't exactly have a great connotation.
There are different levels of ATC, handling progressively smaller and more detailed areas.
The tower is part of local control, which includes actually looking at runways to ensure they are clear. I take it you can find the wikipedia page of ATC yourself.
What about hiding in plain sight? What if you use semi-transparent Dyson spheres or some other mechanism that lets half the normal radiation flow outwards? It might be wasteful, but it also seems to me that it would make you undetectable.
This is the problem with trying to understand hypothetical advanced civilizations; if any really exist, most likely they're figured out things in physics which we still have no clue about.
Agreed. Considering that we actually know that there is something like dark matter (whatever it may be), it seems more than naive to think that an advanced civilization (Type III, no less) would still need to be messing around in the EM spectrum.
"My condolences"... really? That's NOT better than a button. It's WORSE.
I won't go that far, but I do agree that a Like-button cleans up the cruft.
I really fucking hate it when random fucking Google+ (I know, shut up) posts are riddled with only completely meaningless comments such as 'Gud post' and 'Wow!!!'. Imagine the increase in shit if the Like/+1 buttons weren't there.
They can also experience that 'they' are human, but not just like them. You overlook that familiarity also breeds contempt.
Nope, sorry. Neuroscience and psychology trump folksy sayings.
And of course you decline to acknowledge that Islam has a wretched and well-earned PR problem.
It was never the subject. Your 'well-earned' here is unfounded. You can shove it back into the place you seem to be talking from.
Ex-cathedra proclamations are not logic. Unless it's some new form of logic comprised entirely of adjectives. Try to discover the difference between the subjective and the objective.
The unrefuted point remains that reality does not warrant your conclusions and does not support your opinion in this matter.
I don't HAVE an image of Indonesian Muslims. Because I don't care.
You have an image of Muslims. That includes Indonesian Muslims. Am I going to have to use a primary school level analogy to help you understand?
Accept both, apart or together.
Suck my dick and maybe I will. Meanwhile, I'll explain to you how weak it is to hide behind vagueness. At least the lynch mobs had the balls to say they just 'fucking hate those guys'. But I guess at least your rationalizations are on the same level as theirs. What's the stat again? Every day 20 white women get raped by black guys?
I'm not the CIA.
No. No, you're not.
Quantify it yourself, if you wish, by making an estimate based on a daily count of all the people killed by Moslems around the world.
You're the one claiming 'many of them are criminal and murderous'. One of the core concepts of logic is the burden of proof. Read up on it.
It's always good when people realize that it is plain to see that they are short-sighted assholes (realizing you have a problem is the first step!).
Proof that being a pretentious git isn't confined to Westerners. Clear evidence that we're all the same, after all.
Weird. I assumed you to be a Westerner. You're not?
It doesn't matter, anyway. Your words tell me more about you than your ethnicity ever could.
I suggest that you look up the meaning of "Stockholm Syndrom"
That is not a reply to what I said. You're just trying to change the subject and ignore your logic being broken down. But nobody likes experiencing cognitive dissonance, do they? I'll repeat it for you: "Both those two statements are baseless and untrue. It is well known that the more people actually interact with people from the group they hate, the smaller that hate becomes as they are unable to fully dehumanize the entire group. They experience that 'they' are humans, just like them."
For those with an eye to being offended there is cause for offense.
The point you're trying to make is irrelevant. My point was that your logic was flawed, not that you insulted people. You can try to hide behind 'offense is taken, not given', but your logic is still flawed. You pretend that your cynicism and mistrust towards all Muslims is warranted, even though I've shown you a veritably huge group of people that do not fit your generalization of Muslims. Honestly, it would have been more rational to have changed your opinion and said: "OK, so maybe not all Muslims. Just Arabs. Arabs are dangerous murderous bastards whom I mistrust."
I give them leave to be offended.
Sorry, you're still ignorant. Dismissing 220 million people that don't fit your image of Muslims shows that the horse you pretend to be riding on is actually an abused donkey with some paint slapped onto it.
Why in the world would I deny implying exactly what I intended?
Because you downplayed your own text by rephrasing it as such: "I implied that Moslems have a capacity for disappointing those who assume good intentions on their behalf." Only if you're trying to hide in technicalities would you not admit that that is miles away from 'if they survive the initial experience'.
It happens to be perfectly true. Many Moslems are criminal and murderous.
It is only 'perfectly true' if you try to weasel your way out of this by claiming that 'many' isn't well-defined. Quantify it, if you dare.
Nobody is ever all one thing.
Good, you're starting to get it.
Since I've gone to some pains to be so, thanks for confirming it.
It's always good when people realize that it is plain to see that they are short-sighted assholes (realizing you have a problem is the first step!). I find it extra sad when someone who seems to have the mental capacity for it fails at logic and ends up in asshole central. At least the dumb ones have an excuse for being there.
'Us guys', huh? Which group of people which you clearly dislike would that be?
the sheer amount of excuses
Please, enlighten me and enumerate the excuses I 'peddled' in my post with explicit quotes. I have one quote for you to start off the fun: "I'm not saying they are right to hate the US or excusing them for it"
Any tiny amount of "christian hate" you find, is literally dwarfed by the thousands upon thousands of examples of muslim hate and fresh blood - if, that is, you cared enough to look.
I take it you can direct me to a comprehensive well-researched list of examples of religious 'hate and fresh blood'?
You need to start understanding that it's not 'us' versus 'them', but humans versus irrationality. The hard part about that is that irrationality is not a tangible recognizable group but an abstract concept.
You conflate "deeply hate" with cynicism and mistrust. The former generally implies some sort of personal history. The latter is merely a result of observation.
1. Respectively: no and no. Both those two statements are baseless and untrue. It is well known that the more people actually interact with people from the group they hate, the smaller that hate becomes as they are unable to fully dehumanize the entire group. They experience that 'they' are humans, just like them. If anything, look up the etymology of xenophobia. 2. Don't pretend you don't understand that feeling cynicism towards an entire group differs only slightly from deeply hating a group in this discussion. You're quite callously insulting millions of people and have clearly shown that you have no intention of wanting to differentiate between them. That is exactly the 'us' vs 'them'-approach I've been talking about.
Since I don't know (or much care) about Indonesian Moslems, it literally is neither here nor there.
That is a great way to show off your ignorance. Remember that you have insulted all ~220 million of them here.
I implied that Moslems have a capacity for disappointing those who assume good intentions on their behalf.
No, you implied that they kill people: "One quality of Moslems [...] is their capacity for making the naïve regret their naïvety... if they survive the initial experience." Please don't embarrass yourself by saying that that was not implying criminal and murderous behaviour.
Even in the heydays of Jim Crow, the "culture" didn't "celebrate" murders. They were celebrated by their perpetrators and sympathizers.
So when we're talking about millions of Muslims of which some do terrible things, they're all like that, but when were talking about millions of Americans of which some do terrible things, it's just the 'perpetrators and sympathizers'?
Forgive me the ad hominem, but you are completely transparent and predictable.
And why the fuck are we supposed to specifically differentiate Indonesian Muslims
You don't have to, but you are proving my point exactly: Humans don't need a lot to deeply hate an entire group of people. I showed you ~220 million members of a group who did not engage in celebrating the deaths of 9/11 (and are generally quite peaceful) and you respond by implying that they and all other members of their group will do terrible things to naive people. If that's not blind hatred of an out group, then I'm not sure what would qualify as such.
Likening unrelated and dissimilar historical circumstances is a red herring.
I was providing the exact thing that was requested: "I dare you to try to identify another culture in the history of humanity that actually openly celebrates the murder of innocent civilians" I identified (granted: implicitly) white supremacist culture as one that has quite undoubtedly openly celebrated the murder of innocent civilians. QED.
Slashdot Mirror
You believe that the material in landfills 'flows out into the ocean'?
Have you ever considered that the source of the oceanic plastic waste may not be 'any source of plastic waste we happen to be discussing right now'?
Read this: http://water.epa.gov/type/oceb...
Contactless is actually superconvenient, given a limit on the maximum amount for which it works. Over here that maximum is EUR 25, which allows you to be really fast for all small purchases (which are generally the purchases where that really matters).
I would support a system where you could authorize it to work for higher amounts at certain vendors (supermarkets, for instance).
That is the most insightful comment here. Real life is going to throw all these situations at them and only training kids in the way in which they perform best is going to come back and bite them in the ass later.
Yes, working with other students can be extremely frustrating, especially if you are naturally introverted. But guess what: So can working with colleagues.
what about moving around people gumming up the works who are a in a win win win they keep there job or win they go to prison where the state pays for there room, broad and doctor.
Clearly they should be putting money into providing language education instead of female companions.
Science isn't supposed to be fun
That is not the point. No, it's not supposed to be fun. But it can be. Science can be exhilarating, heart-pounding and absolutely amazing. High-definition images from Mars, cures for debilitating diseases, allowing disabled people to walk again, nigh-infinite distributed clean energy and even uncovering the very fabric of the universe!
We probably thoroughly agree that (good) science is often also hard and arduous. Guess what: so are tons of jobs. Yet science is regarded as the stuffy shit the weird kids do. Many scientists should be regarded as heroes, furthering our society with hard work and giving us all amazing things, but the image has been destroyed by a culture of praising amateurism and expertise in pushing our most primitive and uncontrollable buttons instead of our most advanced reasoning skills.
Coming back to education, even if you currently regard science highly you probably remember that there were maybe one or two teachers, zero textbooks and a handful of 'cool' experiments that were able to convey the awesomeness that science is and brings. Everything else was dry as shit. I'm not saying other subjects were different, but most of those subjects are either inherently less abstract or have other elements in society that give them traction. One of the most heard things about 'science subjects' is "when do you ever use this shit in real life?" which immediately gives away that all the textbooks are horrifically lacking in showing kids exactly that. It's hard to do that properly, but using terribly improbable examples of trains crashing head-on into each other is certainly not the way to do it.
This guy has gone to what I regard as being an extreme, but the central message is the same and the effect apparently present: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I'm not sure whether making science 'fun' in schools is the way to increase appreciation for science, but it might help. Personally, I'd much rather see a lot of public funding put into putting proper science in a media-friendly form at various levels of complexity to get the entirety of our societies into science. People are so used to either a highly technical dry presentation of science or the extremely dumbed down sensationalized versions of it that they never have a chance (let alone be enticed) to take the next step up in their grasp of it.
I was recently reminded of the cartoon "Once upon a time.. Life" which is one of the best examples of media-friendly entertaining science presentation that is remarkably accurate and jargon-filled, for a show aimed at kids and written in the 80's:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It's mediocre crap to you because you're closed-minded.
That's not how that works. Things can be objectively mediocre and that is what Gravity and Interstellar can be proven to be (outside of the special effects and amount of money involved).
Everything has to conform to your standards.
Strawman. I never said that. Movies don't have to conform to my standards, but I will judge them by my standards.
Just enjoy a film for what it is: fiction.
The stories my 10-year old nephew comes up with are also fiction. And they are also crap.
Ironically they are ultimately more enjoyable than Gravity or Interstellar, because he isn't claiming that they are scientifically accurate, nor does he have shitloads of time and money to create them.
No one has been steered away from science because of fiction.
Strawman again. I never said that. I said that your reaction is that of a culture that drives people away from science. It's the culture of responding with "don't be a dick, you know what I mean" or "shut up, nerd" when somebody corrects them in a well-meaning manner. Of apologizing for scientifically inaccurate crap because they liked the crap and thought it was fun. Imagine that high school situation. Imagine people who could go either way (science or not science) being exposed to that culture. If the culture is strong enough, those people will not choose physics. Because physics is for nerds. Just like pointing out the utter scientific crappiness that is Gravity and Interstellar apparently is for nerds.
I just need to be entertained. I'm smart enough to know what's not real, and if I'm having a good enough time, then I just don't care.
Nobody gives a fuck. This is not about how you or I feel, but about whether it is a problem to deride Gravity and Interstellar. Remember, you are the one who made this personal by telling me to 'Chill'.
Who needs profound thought from Sandra Bullock or Matthew McConaughey
What the fuck do they have to do with it? Are you saying they are unable to act out a script where there is some profundity to be found? It was definitely not top-shelf stuff, but True Detective S01 definitely shows that it's not the actor where the problem lies. Profound thought in or provoked by movies is a real thing, a rare thing and a terribly undervalued thing.
And maybe discussion about what's not real in a fictional setting will inspire someone to find out how it would really work and become a scientist/mathematician/whatever.
That is one of the weakest defenses I've ever heard. You could create an Austin Powers movie, trump up its scientific accuracy and achieve the same goal (and it would be a million times more entertaining than Gravity and Interstellar combined).
If they're bored with something like, "Well the radiation would really kill him in about three days, so he has to have layers and layers of material that will stop it, so he couldn't do anything interesting at all in this movie because he's basically wrapped up like a mummy...", then they'll be bored with science.
So you think that science is boring. Got it. ... Life". If not, please watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Writing a good story in a scientifically accurate setting with attention for science is nigh impossible, right? My dear friend, you could not be more wrong.
You may know the cartoon "Once upon a time
This is a cartoon aimed at children, contains insane amounts of what most people would consider to be 'jargon', actually revolves on pretty hardcore science, was produced for pennies in the eighties, yet is actually superentertaining for hours on end, even now, even for adults. This is the stuff that piques people's interest in science.
Didn't they explain in the film that the waves come almost hourly due to the tidal forces on the planet?
Did that scene last an hour?
The timing is fairly forgivable, though. The fact that these 'scientists' weren't prepared for this very predictable phenomenon and managed to handle it in the most retardedly Hollywood way possible, endangering the mission and everybody's lives for shit is what makes it a terrible plot device: it effectively becomes a diabolus ex machina.
but I thought the ship was fine except for the power problem
.. and the fact that it was hammered and tossed around by and into insane amounts of water, semi-flooded and then managed to just blast off from a planet with gravity similar to earth's. It may actually be the epitome of unrealistic space-related scenes in existence today. The only way it could have been worse would be if they had rowed their way to escape velocity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It's just a movie. Chill. No one ever claimed either of those movies was 100% scientifically accurate, and plot rules all when it comes to fiction. If you need to (and it sounds like you really really need to)
I don't. Stop defending mediocre crap, because that is exactly the attitude that is 100% opposite of what science is all about and the culture that steers people away from it. Science is about critically looking at everything, and being thorough and rigorous.
Imagine all the different types of people on this planet and then decide which groups of people are least likely to utter the phrase "It's just a movie. Chill."
It's a small step away from "Don't be such a geek/nerd/grammar nazi."
Anyway, the plots of both Gravity and Interstellar were just terrible and effectively extremely shallow. Honestly, what wisdom or profound thought have they imbued us with?
Watch Moon (2009) instead, it is a million times better on almost every level.
Gravity introduced the average Joe to the concept and danger of space debris, and reintroduced the fact that there is no sound in space.
And it introduced them to it in a completely retarded Hollywood way, whilst simultaneously making all scientists look like cowboys and bumbling idiots, and introducing tons of misunderstandings of how space works ("Yeah, let me just use my fucking jetpack to scoot over to the space station next door. TWICE.").
I'm willing to bet that if you present a control group and a group that was forced to watch both movies with questions concerning the science of space, the first group would make fewer mistakes because they hadn't been exposed to utter bullshit.
This along with simple things like how momentum works in space with things as simple as a spinning astronaut, while finding a way to make it entertaining.
Utterly cringeworthy, you mean. Pretty much all characters act like irrational fucktards almost non-stop, even though they're supposed to be highly trained, highly rational individuals. It's not a romcom; these aren't 'normal' people. Stop projecting your audience onto them or just make a romcom already.
BTW, they royally fucked up the momentum part in Gravity in the "don't let go" scene. I think I permanently damaged my cringe-muscle watching that scene. I dare you to watch the entire scene again and uphold the stance that it aids in understanding of the science of gravity.
If you have to do significant research to understand a concept before seeing a movie, the movie failed.
Although I agree, nobody says you have to. Most of the mistakes made are the result of lazy writing and it happens in all genres, which proves that your 'research' argument is a red herring. Lazy writing is: coming up with a scene that would further your story, but disregarding how that scene might conflict with the other elements of your story/universe. Keeping all scenes consistent is hard. Handwaving and saying: "oh whatever, it's just a movie" is easy.
These two movies provided clear communication of some science concepts without being a lecture, and are amazing examples of great communication in sci-fi.
No, they didn't and no, they're not. They are objectively crappy in that regard, due to the numerous misrepresentations of reality, as argued earlier. But feel free to test any average Gravity/Interstellar-veteran Joe for their knowledge on space. I promise you'll be miserably disappointed as they will predominantly remember the human and the weird elements of the movies accurately and the scientific bits terribly. Because the focus wasn't on the science. It was a meager backdrop for cliche-ridden stories.
So I guess 2001 is insulting too, because of the crazy alien wormhole shit at the end?
1. 2001 would have been much better without it. It is enigmatic, but ends up being mainly boring and confusing.
2. 2001 didn't bill itself as scientifically accurate.
3. The wormhole bit wasn't put in there in a way subservient to some ultra Hollywood cliche of 'hang on!' or to enable some shitty love story.
2 and 3 are why Gravity and Interstellar are so insulting. A scientifically accurate tidal wave that happens to arrive at the exact time at which our hero scientists need to get the fuck out (which our highly intelligent, highly trained, highly rational scientists do much too late in some minute piece of shit craft that defies all physics, by the way) is just a terrible plot device. An otherwise scientifically interesting concept becomes a cheap set piece.
You could compare it to the Star Wars movies. The originals have many flaws, but the prequels really rape all the elements of the franchise by rectally inserting poorly executed cheap Hollywood devices in them and then saying "This is Star Wars!".
Contact too then, amirite? Nothing belongs in sci-fi unless it's 100% realistic, got it.
That is a strawman. I never said that and you can shove it back where it came from. Try reading and reasoning properly.
And you should calm the fuck down. Seriously. I mean ranting about about how these movies make the "mentally average" feel superior? WTF dude.
I wasn't ranting. I was ascertaining. I've heard them say it. I've heard them trying to (shittily) defend it: "Dude, are you kidding? There's even a book that explains all the science in it! It's really sciency! [ok, this last part is heavily paraphrased]"
After pointing out all the terrible, terrible inaccuracies and ridiculous OOC-moves and just plain improbable character actions, they quickly revert to "Well, I thought it was entertaining. A movie doesn't have to be good to be fun. [which is a strawman as well, because I was never arguing that the movies cannot be 'fun'"
Are you fucking kidding me?
Interstellar and Gravity are some of the most insulting things I've ever seen. The only thing they should make you think is "who the fuck has the balls to claim this is even remotely accurate?" Taking a few physics concepts and badly shoving them in a drama does not a 'scientifically accurate movie' make.
But I guess you're right, there is a big market for movies that pretend to be scientifically accurate, so the mentally average can pretend that they value scientific accuracy and feel superior to those who don't watch the drivel that is Interstellar and Gravity even if they don't have the faintest fucking clue what few bits actually do represent reality slightly better than worse movies before those.
Well, sortof. From TFA:
"However, the system's continued poor performance in Ms Pacman exposes a weakness that DeepMind discussed earlier this year. The limitation stems from the DeepMind system only looking at the last four frames of gameplay, about one fifteenth of a second of the game, to learn what actions secure the best results." (my emphasis)
GP misunderstands the ML aspect of this, but it does come down to reflexes and precision in this specific project. It is nevertheless interesting to investigate which games the net performs badly on and which ones it doesn't.
In a way, this is also a manner of 'ranking' games: the harder it is for such a system to perform well at it, the more cerebral and less primitive/physical it probably is (although I don't want to imply that one type is better than the other)
English isn't exactly a consistent language, especially when it comes to conjugation and pronunciation.
Technically, the -ung conjugations are irregular cases (making their verbs strong):
http://english.stackexchange.c...
One could argue that 'bing' is closer to 'ping' than to 'sing' or 'ring'. When was the last time you pung a box?
Ask anyone and they'll tell you that you're doing it wrong, I'm doing it wrong, that guy over there is doing it wrong... The only one not doing it wrong is the person you asked. Ask someone else, and they'll tell you the first guy is doing it wrong!
This is a notable truth. The thing with (even mildly complex) OOP (and programming in general) is that there is not one perfect solution. The solutions only differ in the tradeoffs one has to deal with at that time and in the future. The (very hard) challenge is thus to choose a solution (a set of design patterns, a sensible entity model, etc.) that has the least troublesome tradeoffs for the project at hand.
Given that people tend to become fanboys of pretty much everything they have some extended experience with and investment in, they tend to choose and prefer solutions that they have come love, even if those solutions aren't the best choice for the project. These guys also tend to attack other solutions to prove that theirs is the One True Solution. They use all kinds of hyperbole, make tons of unfounded bashing statements and say stupid shit such as "That said, a healthy dose of functional influence just might save us from the OOP hell we've suffered from for the last 20+ years."
Bing as a verb is never going to work, as we already have the verb 'to binge', which would have the same written past tense as 'to Bing' and doesn't exactly have a great connotation.
There are different levels of ATC, handling progressively smaller and more detailed areas.
The tower is part of local control, which includes actually looking at runways to ensure they are clear. I take it you can find the wikipedia page of ATC yourself.
You can't escape waste heat
What about hiding in plain sight? What if you use semi-transparent Dyson spheres or some other mechanism that lets half the normal radiation flow outwards? It might be wasteful, but it also seems to me that it would make you undetectable.
This is the problem with trying to understand hypothetical advanced civilizations; if any really exist, most likely they're figured out things in physics which we still have no clue about.
Agreed. Considering that we actually know that there is something like dark matter (whatever it may be), it seems more than naive to think that an advanced civilization (Type III, no less) would still need to be messing around in the EM spectrum.
"My condolences" ... really? That's NOT better than a button. It's WORSE.
I won't go that far, but I do agree that a Like-button cleans up the cruft.
I really fucking hate it when random fucking Google+ (I know, shut up) posts are riddled with only completely meaningless comments such as 'Gud post' and 'Wow!!!'. Imagine the increase in shit if the Like/+1 buttons weren't there.
They can also experience that 'they' are human, but not just like them. You overlook that familiarity also breeds contempt.
Nope, sorry. Neuroscience and psychology trump folksy sayings.
And of course you decline to acknowledge that Islam has a wretched and well-earned PR problem.
It was never the subject. Your 'well-earned' here is unfounded. You can shove it back into the place you seem to be talking from.
Ex-cathedra proclamations are not logic. Unless it's some new form of logic comprised entirely of adjectives. Try to discover the difference between the subjective and the objective.
The unrefuted point remains that reality does not warrant your conclusions and does not support your opinion in this matter.
I don't HAVE an image of Indonesian Muslims. Because I don't care.
You have an image of Muslims. That includes Indonesian Muslims. Am I going to have to use a primary school level analogy to help you understand?
Accept both, apart or together.
Suck my dick and maybe I will. Meanwhile, I'll explain to you how weak it is to hide behind vagueness. At least the lynch mobs had the balls to say they just 'fucking hate those guys'. But I guess at least your rationalizations are on the same level as theirs. What's the stat again? Every day 20 white women get raped by black guys?
I'm not the CIA.
No. No, you're not.
Quantify it yourself, if you wish, by making an estimate based on a daily count of all the people killed by Moslems around the world.
You're the one claiming 'many of them are criminal and murderous'. One of the core concepts of logic is the burden of proof. Read up on it.
It's always good when people realize that it is plain to see that they are short-sighted assholes (realizing you have a problem is the first step!).
Proof that being a pretentious git isn't confined to Westerners. Clear evidence that we're all the same, after all.
Weird. I assumed you to be a Westerner. You're not?
It doesn't matter, anyway. Your words tell me more about you than your ethnicity ever could.
Don't ignore the rest of what I said. That is terribly weak.
Also, are you dodging poop on a daily basis? Trying to avoid monkeys from seeing you?
No. No, you're not.
I suggest that you look up the meaning of "Stockholm Syndrom"
That is not a reply to what I said. You're just trying to change the subject and ignore your logic being broken down. But nobody likes experiencing cognitive dissonance, do they?
I'll repeat it for you:
"Both those two statements are baseless and untrue. It is well known that the more people actually interact with people from the group they hate, the smaller that hate becomes as they are unable to fully dehumanize the entire group. They experience that 'they' are humans, just like them."
For those with an eye to being offended there is cause for offense.
The point you're trying to make is irrelevant. My point was that your logic was flawed, not that you insulted people. You can try to hide behind 'offense is taken, not given', but your logic is still flawed. You pretend that your cynicism and mistrust towards all Muslims is warranted, even though I've shown you a veritably huge group of people that do not fit your generalization of Muslims. Honestly, it would have been more rational to have changed your opinion and said: "OK, so maybe not all Muslims. Just Arabs. Arabs are dangerous murderous bastards whom I mistrust."
I give them leave to be offended.
Sorry, you're still ignorant. Dismissing 220 million people that don't fit your image of Muslims shows that the horse you pretend to be riding on is actually an abused donkey with some paint slapped onto it.
Why in the world would I deny implying exactly what I intended?
Because you downplayed your own text by rephrasing it as such: "I implied that Moslems have a capacity for disappointing those who assume good intentions on their behalf."
Only if you're trying to hide in technicalities would you not admit that that is miles away from 'if they survive the initial experience'.
It happens to be perfectly true. Many Moslems are criminal and murderous.
It is only 'perfectly true' if you try to weasel your way out of this by claiming that 'many' isn't well-defined. Quantify it, if you dare.
Nobody is ever all one thing.
Good, you're starting to get it.
Since I've gone to some pains to be so, thanks for confirming it.
It's always good when people realize that it is plain to see that they are short-sighted assholes (realizing you have a problem is the first step!). I find it extra sad when someone who seems to have the mental capacity for it fails at logic and ends up in asshole central. At least the dumb ones have an excuse for being there.
'Us guys', huh?
Which group of people which you clearly dislike would that be?
the sheer amount of excuses
Please, enlighten me and enumerate the excuses I 'peddled' in my post with explicit quotes.
I have one quote for you to start off the fun: "I'm not saying they are right to hate the US or excusing them for it"
Any tiny amount of "christian hate" you find, is literally dwarfed by the thousands upon thousands of examples of muslim hate and fresh blood - if, that is, you cared enough to look.
I take it you can direct me to a comprehensive well-researched list of examples of religious 'hate and fresh blood'?
You need to start understanding that it's not 'us' versus 'them', but humans versus irrationality. The hard part about that is that irrationality is not a tangible recognizable group but an abstract concept.
You conflate "deeply hate" with cynicism and mistrust. The former generally implies some sort of personal history. The latter is merely a result of observation.
1. Respectively: no and no. Both those two statements are baseless and untrue. It is well known that the more people actually interact with people from the group they hate, the smaller that hate becomes as they are unable to fully dehumanize the entire group. They experience that 'they' are humans, just like them. If anything, look up the etymology of xenophobia.
2. Don't pretend you don't understand that feeling cynicism towards an entire group differs only slightly from deeply hating a group in this discussion. You're quite callously insulting millions of people and have clearly shown that you have no intention of wanting to differentiate between them. That is exactly the 'us' vs 'them'-approach I've been talking about.
Since I don't know (or much care) about Indonesian Moslems, it literally is neither here nor there.
That is a great way to show off your ignorance. Remember that you have insulted all ~220 million of them here.
I implied that Moslems have a capacity for disappointing those who assume good intentions on their behalf.
No, you implied that they kill people: "One quality of Moslems [...] is their capacity for making the naïve regret their naïvety... if they survive the initial experience."
Please don't embarrass yourself by saying that that was not implying criminal and murderous behaviour.
Even in the heydays of Jim Crow, the "culture" didn't "celebrate" murders. They were celebrated by their perpetrators and sympathizers.
So when we're talking about millions of Muslims of which some do terrible things, they're all like that, but when were talking about millions of Americans of which some do terrible things, it's just the 'perpetrators and sympathizers'?
Forgive me the ad hominem, but you are completely transparent and predictable.
And why the fuck are we supposed to specifically differentiate Indonesian Muslims
You don't have to, but you are proving my point exactly: Humans don't need a lot to deeply hate an entire group of people. I showed you ~220 million members of a group who did not engage in celebrating the deaths of 9/11 (and are generally quite peaceful) and you respond by implying that they and all other members of their group will do terrible things to naive people. If that's not blind hatred of an out group, then I'm not sure what would qualify as such.
Likening unrelated and dissimilar historical circumstances is a red herring.
I was providing the exact thing that was requested: "I dare you to try to identify another culture in the history of humanity that actually openly celebrates the murder of innocent civilians"
I identified (granted: implicitly) white supremacist culture as one that has quite undoubtedly openly celebrated the murder of innocent civilians. QED.
We can't all be the clown.