It has been a long time since anyone existed who could only call himself (or herself) a "scientist." The term is now a generic way to refer to people whose actual work is in any of a staggering number of highly specialized fields. There is some acknowledgment of this in TFA, which states (correctly) that many of today's greatest scientific minds don't work directly in the fields related to the things that affect our security. To use the article's own example, Stephen Hawking is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist: he doesn't work on nuclear weapons.
But for a given question, what grounds are there to privilege the viewpoints of those whose expertise is not in a field of direct relevance to that question? On questions concerning nuclear weapons, for example, why should Stephen Hawking's viewpoint be held as equivalent to a nuclear physicist's viewpoint? For that matter, why should his viewpoint be held as superior to the viewpoint of anyone else who is not a nuclear physicist?
Were they so evil because they sought attention, or did they become famous because they were so evil? I'm more inclined to believe the latter.
One of the big reasons that so many of the 20th century's social experiments failed is that they failed to take human nature into account: they based themselves on ideas of how people ought to be, and which some people can even achieve, but not humanity en masse. Not being able to hide from ourselves does indeed have some potential for harm, but it also forces those who work on greater plans for humanity to do it with open eyes about who we are, and if this is allowed to happen, perhaps we will be able to avert repeating some of the 20th century's mistakes. The result will probably not be as kind or as gentle as the 20th century tried (and failed) to be, but it will be a human result. I have trouble seeing that as bad.
I thought that owing a gun was supposed to deter crime? Be proud, put up an "armed response" sign on your front door.
If gun ownership is to deter crime en masse, then it's important for it not to be known who has a gun and who does not. The risk is what truly matters: someone specifically looking for a gun to steal needs to not be able to be sure which houses have them, and someone not looking for a weapon needs to not know which houses will bring no chance of armed response.
Yes, a few irrational folks might be scared to not know who has the Big Scary Weapons. That is their problem, and no one else's.
We're not talking about criminal records or warcrimes here. We are talking about being tracked and datamined, for profit.
How do you legally distinguish between them?
Facebooks right to know everything about and and make money off it does not carry more weight than my right to be left alone and not be tracked and not be datamined.
Neither is a right. You agreed to be tracked when you signed up for Facebook. If you don't like it, then don't use Facebook.
I never expected to agree with TFA. I mean, come on; if Revenge of the Sith is truly the greatest work of art produced in the last thirty years, then the artistic state of humanity has fallen far indeed. But then I went and read the thing, only to find that the critic is pretty much saying exactly this: that it is the greatest work of art produced in the last thirty years, because the artistic state of humanity has fallen so far.
Thank you for the comparison. Why can't web developers compile the javascript and provide that? I do understand that each runtime (browser) is unique...
...and that's the problem. The only way to do this well would be to have some sort of standardized bytecode that browsers could compile to, and there is no such standard at the moment. As long as each browser goes through its own intermediate formats, you'd have to have different builds for different browsers, and nobody would bother to maintain them properly.
The SCOTUS didn't make any ruling; in fact, they refused to hear the case at all. That means the previous decision stands, but only within the jurisdiction of the court that made that decision. Thus, it doesn't apply to the whole country.
She got off on a technicality, as the jury was swayed by improper use of the CSI Effect. The evidence presented at trial is more than sufficient to dispel any reasonable doubt. She cannot be convicted or sentenced, but that doesn't mean there is any chance that she didn't do it.
On one hand, I believe that the benefits of diversity are, in most fields, primarily aesthetic: certainly a nice thing to have not something that should ever be put ahead of directly relevant concerns (except in fields where it is itself a directly relevant concern, but tech is not one of these).
On the other hand, I look at the early responses to this post and see a lot of reminders of why tech is not as diverse as it could be. I have a hard time blaming people who prioritize not wanting to put up with all the jerks over wanting to work in tech. I didn't set my priorities that way, but even I can't deny that they drag things down.
About 15%, though, if you count both Muslims (some 13%) and Christians (about 2%). That still means most don't, by far, but more do than one might think.
I didn't say 100% of the time, though we are talking about babies and toddlers here, and they do require considerably more supervision than older children. If the kid's in an environment with things he's not ready to handle -say, small shiny objects- then you watch, or else you don't bring him into that environment. This is what it means to have a kid.
The problem is that they are a harmless-looking toy, but the only safe way to use them is to make sure no small children are present, take them out and play with them, then count them to make sure none have been lost, and lock them up. If someone loses two of them, then children are in grave danger.
This is actually much easier than it sounds. Thanks to the design of the package, one need not even count them: just rebuild the standard 6x6x6 cube that the balls came packaged in. It's one of the simplest structures to make, takes no more than about thirty seconds, and will instantly tell you exactly how many are missing, if any are.
As for child neglect, if you were visiting someone with your small child and a teenager was playing with a bunch of magnets, would you immediately think "those are very dangerous, I must keep my child on my lap so that he doesn't pick one of those up"? Of course not.
No. However, whether or not there was a teenager with magnets, I would keep an eye on the kid, as is standard and reasonable parental responsibility.
Since you have not seen the package, you have no way of knowing that these particular magnets are much more dangerous than those which you played with as a child.
And, as stated above, this wouldn't actually make a difference. When the kid starts to go for something, I'd look closer and, seeing an easily-ingested small shiny object, I'd take it away, not caring -or perhaps even knowing- that it was magnetic. Again, standard and reasonable parental responsibility.
The problem here is how they sell this product. The market this product as a toy for children.
Actually, they don't.
If they wrote on the package "MAY CAUSE DEATH" or listed a number of lives and surgeries the product has caused, I don't think anyone would care. Of course they'd go out of business.
Actually, they do write this, and nobody cares. Unfortunately, rather than treating these injuries as the evidence of child neglect that they are, the feds have taken the approach of banning something that, when used appropriately, is perfectly safe.
Apple actually had to stretch some definitions on that project. The actual technique they used is more akin to what the original JVMs did: ahead-of-time compilation that happens to be just before the code is run, but ahead-of-time nonetheless. JIT implies something different, and it's not really in LLVM's problem space.
Slashdot Mirror
It has been a long time since anyone existed who could only call himself (or herself) a "scientist." The term is now a generic way to refer to people whose actual work is in any of a staggering number of highly specialized fields. There is some acknowledgment of this in TFA, which states (correctly) that many of today's greatest scientific minds don't work directly in the fields related to the things that affect our security. To use the article's own example, Stephen Hawking is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist: he doesn't work on nuclear weapons.
But for a given question, what grounds are there to privilege the viewpoints of those whose expertise is not in a field of direct relevance to that question? On questions concerning nuclear weapons, for example, why should Stephen Hawking's viewpoint be held as equivalent to a nuclear physicist's viewpoint? For that matter, why should his viewpoint be held as superior to the viewpoint of anyone else who is not a nuclear physicist?
Yeah, I was going to say; it's probably better for your teeth than "conventional" bulimia is, but other than that, what's the difference?
Were they so evil because they sought attention, or did they become famous because they were so evil? I'm more inclined to believe the latter.
One of the big reasons that so many of the 20th century's social experiments failed is that they failed to take human nature into account: they based themselves on ideas of how people ought to be, and which some people can even achieve, but not humanity en masse. Not being able to hide from ourselves does indeed have some potential for harm, but it also forces those who work on greater plans for humanity to do it with open eyes about who we are, and if this is allowed to happen, perhaps we will be able to avert repeating some of the 20th century's mistakes. The result will probably not be as kind or as gentle as the 20th century tried (and failed) to be, but it will be a human result. I have trouble seeing that as bad.
I thought that owing a gun was supposed to deter crime? Be proud, put up an "armed response" sign on your front door.
If gun ownership is to deter crime en masse, then it's important for it not to be known who has a gun and who does not. The risk is what truly matters: someone specifically looking for a gun to steal needs to not be able to be sure which houses have them, and someone not looking for a weapon needs to not know which houses will bring no chance of armed response.
Yes, a few irrational folks might be scared to not know who has the Big Scary Weapons. That is their problem, and no one else's.
Irrational fear of weapons should also be considered a mental illness, but sadly I think that's even less likely.
Because, as we all know, only bad people have guns, or even want them.
DWM has it. Not sure about Awesome, but I'd assume so.
Haiku, man. Gotta be Haiku.
We're not talking about criminal records or warcrimes here.
We are talking about being tracked and datamined, for profit.
How do you legally distinguish between them?
Facebooks right to know everything about and and make money off it does not carry more weight than my right to be left alone and not be tracked and not be datamined.
Neither is a right. You agreed to be tracked when you signed up for Facebook. If you don't like it, then don't use Facebook.
This. A "right to be forgotten" implies silencing those who do not want a person's actions forgotten, and this must not be allowed.
If the goal is not to curb internet freedom, then why are the foxes the ones at the forefront of the effort to build a henhouse?
I never expected to agree with TFA. I mean, come on; if Revenge of the Sith is truly the greatest work of art produced in the last thirty years, then the artistic state of humanity has fallen far indeed. But then I went and read the thing, only to find that the critic is pretty much saying exactly this: that it is the greatest work of art produced in the last thirty years, because the artistic state of humanity has fallen so far.
They should have called it the Wee Wii.
Thank you for the comparison. Why can't web developers compile the javascript and provide that? I do understand that each runtime (browser) is unique...
...and that's the problem. The only way to do this well would be to have some sort of standardized bytecode that browsers could compile to, and there is no such standard at the moment. As long as each browser goes through its own intermediate formats, you'd have to have different builds for different browsers, and nobody would bother to maintain them properly.
The SCOTUS didn't make any ruling; in fact, they refused to hear the case at all. That means the previous decision stands, but only within the jurisdiction of the court that made that decision. Thus, it doesn't apply to the whole country.
She got off on a technicality, as the jury was swayed by improper use of the CSI Effect. The evidence presented at trial is more than sufficient to dispel any reasonable doubt. She cannot be convicted or sentenced, but that doesn't mean there is any chance that she didn't do it.
Only if not hiring blind bus drivers is.
Vision is a bona fide prerequisite for driving a bus. Not being a psychopath isn't a bona fide prerequisite for pretty much anything.
As much as we might wish otherwise, medical disabilities DO render people unfit for some jobs.
You're confusing "unfit" with "personally undesirable." There's a very real difference.
This. Could it not be considered medical discrimination?
Actually, a surprising number of doctors are psychopaths, especially surgeons. Emotional detachment and all that.
On one hand, I believe that the benefits of diversity are, in most fields, primarily aesthetic: certainly a nice thing to have not something that should ever be put ahead of directly relevant concerns (except in fields where it is itself a directly relevant concern, but tech is not one of these).
On the other hand, I look at the early responses to this post and see a lot of reminders of why tech is not as diverse as it could be. I have a hard time blaming people who prioritize not wanting to put up with all the jerks over wanting to work in tech. I didn't set my priorities that way, but even I can't deny that they drag things down.
About 15%, though, if you count both Muslims (some 13%) and Christians (about 2%). That still means most don't, by far, but more do than one might think.
I didn't say 100% of the time, though we are talking about babies and toddlers here, and they do require considerably more supervision than older children. If the kid's in an environment with things he's not ready to handle -say, small shiny objects- then you watch, or else you don't bring him into that environment. This is what it means to have a kid.
The problem is that they are a harmless-looking toy, but the only safe way to use them is to make sure no small children are present, take them out and play with them, then count them to make sure none have been lost, and lock them up. If someone loses two of them, then children are in grave danger.
This is actually much easier than it sounds. Thanks to the design of the package, one need not even count them: just rebuild the standard 6x6x6 cube that the balls came packaged in. It's one of the simplest structures to make, takes no more than about thirty seconds, and will instantly tell you exactly how many are missing, if any are.
As for child neglect, if you were visiting someone with your small child and a teenager was playing with a bunch of magnets, would you immediately think "those are very dangerous, I must keep my child on my lap so that he doesn't pick one of those up"? Of course not.
No. However, whether or not there was a teenager with magnets, I would keep an eye on the kid, as is standard and reasonable parental responsibility.
Since you have not seen the package, you have no way of knowing that these particular magnets are much more dangerous than those which you played with as a child.
And, as stated above, this wouldn't actually make a difference. When the kid starts to go for something, I'd look closer and, seeing an easily-ingested small shiny object, I'd take it away, not caring -or perhaps even knowing- that it was magnetic. Again, standard and reasonable parental responsibility.
The problem here is how they sell this product. The market this product as a toy for children.
Actually, they don't.
If they wrote on the package "MAY CAUSE DEATH" or listed a number of lives and surgeries the product has caused, I don't think anyone would care. Of course they'd go out of business.
Actually, they do write this, and nobody cares. Unfortunately, rather than treating these injuries as the evidence of child neglect that they are, the feds have taken the approach of banning something that, when used appropriately, is perfectly safe.
Apple actually had to stretch some definitions on that project. The actual technique they used is more akin to what the original JVMs did: ahead-of-time compilation that happens to be just before the code is run, but ahead-of-time nonetheless. JIT implies something different, and it's not really in LLVM's problem space.