As you say, the big exception is Fox... the only media outlet that is growing. People are voting with their eyes:
Fox News averaged 2.25 million total viewers in prime time for the third quarter, up 2% over the previous year. That's more than CNN (946,000, down 30%) and MSNBC (788,000, down 10%) combined.
Countdown with Keith Olbermann" averaged 1.087 million total viewers, down 12% from the previous year...
At CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" averaged 1.005 million viewers, down 17% from the previous year and "Lou Dobbs" averaged 658,000 total viewers, down 24%.
What is so interesting is that IBM has already encountered this problem with Deep Blue and Kasparov.
They codified Chess and threw processor power at it to "solve the problem". "Wrong answers" were calculated by the millions and discarded.
All to beat one man and what he learned in one lifetime. What Kasparov learned was: Don't see the bad solutions.
So they can virtually train as many people as they want with expert knowledge, they are still going to face the problem of Big Blue:
To replace a worker who can "see" the right solution because of experience you use significant replacement resources to evaluate "wrong answers" and discard them. (Maybe... they sometimes pick the wrong answer and run with it)
What IBM is doing is getting plenty of cheap labor and placing a few "Kasparovs" in charge of them. Presumably, the "Kasparov" will make sure the labor does not run with the "wrong answers".
Pretty much how my Virtual team works. The US side of the team is command and control, we evaluate problems as they come in and then point the Global Resource guys at the right procedure/process to follow.
Procedures and documents come from vendors and both sides of the team. I know what you are thinking: once everything is documented, we are out of jobs.
Sorta, but not really. The reality of getting people to make the same quality of decision as a "Kasparov" from the options presented in documentation is very difficult.
However brilliant the GR team members have been, they all seem to be very risk adverse. They do not like making decisions and they do not want to be at fault lest the lose their job. Just too many hungry sharks at the door waiting for a job.
All this is possible because right now the computer field is relatively stagnate. We are in that lull that existed just before the PC and then the Internet. (there are more than two of those lulls, but those are the ones I saw)
When those happen, you better be able to acquire the knowledge to deal with the change.
Hate to say this, but the company I work for (pick any 3 letters), and any other IT company ends up doing the same thing as this company.
Either they get competent staff on the front lines, or your back end Sys Engineering staff ends up supporting issues they should have been handled at the front lines.
No, you have the Law of Gravitation, which states that two masses attract each other. There is a tremendous amount of data proving it over a long period of time with no unexplainable exceptions.
Thus, it is a Law. There are precious few Laws in Science. The fact we don't understand the exact mechanism, quantum, space warping, or "It just sucks" does not matter. The effect is what matters.
Less provable ideas become Theories. They have good evidence that is not fully proven under a wide range of circumstances. There are competing ideas and they have some experimental backing as well. Theory of Relativity has this status because we have observed light bending and time dilation in controlled experiments.
Global Warming falls under a hypothesis, it has some data, not enough to qualify as a Theory.
It also has a control, Mars, that shows polar melting and surface warming in the ABSENCE of human industrial activity.
So the change may very well be outside the biosphere, in a Sun cycle or other phenomenon we don't understand.
In other words, we might be able to prove global warning, but the exact mechanism is under depute.
So if we go mucking about by reducing human em missions we might have no effect.
Or we might get more desperate and try crude terraforming, (increase planetary albedo for example) only to discover the external effect swings BACK, plunging us into an ice age.
The whole Green movement is a strange form of Conservative thinking. You are trying to force stability onto a dynamic system... good luck with that.
Exploratorium. This is the original hands on museum. The Golden Gate Park: Strybing Arboretum, Beautiful, stunning diversity, reminder of what that giant ball in the sky is for... oh and, ummm.... Biological Studies. California Academy of Science is nice too, as is the DeYoung.
Over the bridge in Berkley is the Lawrence Hall of Science. I remember spending a little time with Liza there on a Pdp-11! Chabot Space and Science Observatory is a great little place to study the stars. Shockly's Semiconductor Labratory is also nearby: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shockley_Semiconductor_Laboratory. Not much to see, but Palo Alto is a mecca of technology.
Slashdot Mirror
As you say, the big exception is Fox... the only media outlet that is growing. People are voting with their eyes:
Fox News averaged 2.25 million total viewers in prime time for the third quarter, up 2% over the previous year. That's more than CNN (946,000, down 30%) and MSNBC (788,000, down 10%) combined.
Countdown with Keith Olbermann" averaged 1.087 million total viewers, down 12% from the previous year...
At CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" averaged 1.005 million viewers, down 17% from the previous year and "Lou Dobbs" averaged 658,000 total viewers, down 24%.
Reference at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/30/fox-news-dominates-3q-200_n_304260.html
An English penny you insensitive clod!
=)
(Kenndy $.50 is 30.61mm vrs 31mm diameter for the english Brittania penny)
1. Make a speech and some promises.
2. ???
3. Nobel Peace prize!
If you do LeGuin, don't do Earthsea.
Do
Left Hand of Darkness
or
The Lathe of Heaven
Hienlein:
Moon is a Harsh Mistress. (Tie into a Robotics or AI discussion with Dick and Azimoz, or even Nueromancer)
Ian M. Banks: Consider Phlebas or Use of Weapons
Charles Stross: Singularity Sky or Iron Sunrise.
Stan Nicholas: Orcs
Stanislaw Lem: The Cyberiad
I would love to include Alastair Reynolds, but he is too confusing for most people.
Yeah, this was the first rigged election that the Daly machine ever lost.
I am patenting Nano-bullshit.
He was field testing the next Viagra.
Only criminal states will have them!
Oh wait...
With giant straws...
What is so interesting is that IBM has already encountered this problem with Deep Blue and Kasparov.
They codified Chess and threw processor power at it to "solve the problem". "Wrong answers" were calculated by the millions and discarded.
All to beat one man and what he learned in one lifetime. What Kasparov learned was: Don't see the bad solutions.
So they can virtually train as many people as they want with expert knowledge, they are still going to face the problem of Big Blue:
To replace a worker who can "see" the right solution because of experience you use significant replacement resources to evaluate "wrong answers" and discard them. (Maybe... they sometimes pick the wrong answer and run with it)
What IBM is doing is getting plenty of cheap labor and placing a few "Kasparovs" in charge of them. Presumably, the "Kasparov" will make sure the labor does not run with the "wrong answers".
Pretty much how my Virtual team works. The US side of the team is command and control, we evaluate problems as they come in and then point the Global Resource guys at the right procedure/process to follow.
Procedures and documents come from vendors and both sides of the team. I know what you are thinking: once everything is documented, we are out of jobs.
Sorta, but not really. The reality of getting people to make the same quality of decision as a "Kasparov" from the options presented in documentation is very difficult.
However brilliant the GR team members have been, they all seem to be very risk adverse. They do not like making decisions and they do not want to be at fault lest the lose their job. Just too many hungry sharks at the door waiting for a job.
All this is possible because right now the computer field is relatively stagnate. We are in that lull that existed just before the PC and then the Internet. (there are more than two of those lulls, but those are the ones I saw)
When those happen, you better be able to acquire the knowledge to deal with the change.
IBM is betting the farm that they can.
And motorcycle/scooters are untracked and free.
Which is cool, because on Project Managers Day, they scheduled you for 42!
Great, now I have an incurable woody.
Alcohol, Tobacco, or Firearms?
Pick any two, son.
Bully 1 to Bully 2: "And, then, like, I poured his chocolate milk down his pants."
Bully2: "HA ha! That's pretty cool. Your Mom have any more Hot Pockets?"
Bully1: "Hey Mom! More hot pockets! What's that whistling sound..."
Ares is supposed to help get us to Mars eventually. Get it now?
No... and you are very close...
Hate to say this, but the company I work for (pick any 3 letters), and any other IT company ends up doing the same thing as this company.
Either they get competent staff on the front lines, or your back end Sys Engineering staff ends up supporting issues they should have been handled at the front lines.
No, you have the Law of Gravitation, which states that two masses attract each other. There is a tremendous amount of data proving it over a long period of time with no unexplainable exceptions.
Thus, it is a Law. There are precious few Laws in Science.
The fact we don't understand the exact mechanism, quantum, space warping, or "It just sucks" does not matter. The effect is what matters.
Less provable ideas become Theories. They have good evidence that is not fully proven under a wide range of circumstances. There are competing ideas and they have some experimental backing as well. Theory of Relativity has this status because we have observed light bending and time dilation in controlled experiments.
Global Warming falls under a hypothesis, it has some data, not enough to qualify as a Theory.
It also has some disturbing issues with data, and people like Green Peace overstating the issue to emotionalize it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC7bE9jopXE
It also has a control, Mars, that shows polar melting and surface warming in the ABSENCE of human industrial activity.
So the change may very well be outside the biosphere, in a Sun cycle or other phenomenon we don't understand.
In other words, we might be able to prove global warning, but the exact mechanism is under depute.
So if we go mucking about by reducing human em missions we might have no effect.
Or we might get more desperate and try crude terraforming, (increase planetary albedo for example) only to discover the external effect swings BACK, plunging us into an ice age.
The whole Green movement is a strange form of Conservative thinking. You are trying to force stability onto a dynamic system... good luck with that.
First question:
Do you have a Slashdot account?
wear flowers in your hair, and visit:
Exploratorium. This is the original hands on museum.
The Golden Gate Park: Strybing Arboretum, Beautiful, stunning diversity, reminder of what that giant ball in the sky is for... oh and, ummm.... Biological Studies.
California Academy of Science is nice too, as is the DeYoung.
Over the bridge in Berkley is the Lawrence Hall of Science. I remember spending a little time with Liza there on a Pdp-11!
Chabot Space and Science Observatory is a great little place to study the stars.
Shockly's Semiconductor Labratory is also nearby: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shockley_Semiconductor_Laboratory. Not much to see, but Palo Alto is a mecca of technology.
and of course, the Computer History Museum.
http://www.computerhistory.org/about/
"Apply the Confetti Rule."
Clue!
Well, at least it had Tim Curry, Madeline Khan and Christopher Llyod in it... how bad could it be?
So bad it's good!
The bill.
I can see it now,
"Hey, you guys nerfed the Carbon Credit drops in the last patch!"
It is a totally arbitrary system, and can be gamed.
And it will be gamed when there is a financial reward to do so.