As a scientist (a geologist, which has only tangential relevance here, but still), I can honestly say that as long as there was alcohol in South Africa (and I'm told there is), you'll have plenty of scientists hanging out to "study" this thing.
Assuming they can grants. That might be the hard part. But that's half of being a modern scientist - writing up a grant proposal that does nothing to describe what you're actually going to be doing and manages to get you funding.
How is the no direct communications a dumb thing? It's impossible to have direct communications from the dark side of the moon, as there's a giant moon in the way. You need a relay satellite, and the status of that satellite was a major plot point.
In order to do that, they would have had to leave it out in the open and allowed people to use it, so as not to make the criminal suspicious when he returns to retrieve it. You then have people making transactions of questionable legality (I didn't read to see if it actually dispensed money or just showed an error after getting the PIN), and increase the possible damage if it is transmitting in a way they didn't uncover or if the criminal manages to extricate the information while they're watching it.
They're better served by taking it away and studying it for clues as to the criminal.
Do you have any idea how much journal subscriptions cost? And any institution with more than a handful of fields is subscribing to dozens and dozens of them.
2.2 What is the definition of "paranormal" in regards to the Challenge?
Webster's Online Dictionary defines "paranormal" as "not scientifically explainable; supernatural."
Within the Challenge, this means that at the time your application is submitted and approved, your claim will be considered paranormal for the duration. If, after testing, it is decided that your ability is either scientifically explainable or will be someday, you needn't worry. If the JREF has agreed to test you, then your claim is paranormal.
Many people have already undergone preliminary testing by the Foundation. Their claims have been deemed "paranormal." None of them succeeded in proving the abilities they claimed. I don't have the source handy, but I'm pretty sure that Randi himself has stated in the past that this sort of EM sensitivity would qualify.
A properly scientific proof of this would most likely qualify him for the JREF challenge. If he can physically detect relatively minor electromagnetic radiation on these frequencies, he could win himself a million dollars. http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html
They don't. That was one of the (many) problems with Project Stormfury, the government attempt to disrupt hurricanes with cloud seeding back in the 1960's. You don't get enough data to run any kind of reliable control. So not only do you not know for sure whether you're making a difference or not, you don't even know whether you're making things worse or not.
Unless they can somehow manage to drive their fleet into every forming hurricane and make every single one suddenly fall apart, any success they claim is going to be very open to interpretation.
The missing option in your scenario is what makes this all ridiculous.
I'm on AT&T, I do not have an iPhone, and I do not want one. I have a Blackberry Bold, which I'm extremely happy with. I'm also satisfied with AT&T's service.
The reason this all makes me laugh is that Blackberries do tethering with no extra services or fees. I can connect to my phone through USB or bluetooth and get my laptop online wherever I like, and I don't pay a dime beyond the same unlimited data package iPhone users get.
... because mono-cultures are SO much better than diversity...
To the farmer they are, yes, because automating the tending of a crop that is all identical is much easier. If they could economically clone cattle and ensure they grow uniformly, they would because it would mean the slaughter floor could be completely automated.
Until a disease slips through and wipes out the entire crop/herd in a single blow. Heck, non-GMO monoculture crops are a bad enough idea already. They do a horrible job of utilizing and restoring soil nutrients, requiring more and more fertilizers and support.
Certainly. And their customers have a right to know exactly what sort of practices they're engaging in, so that those consumers can make an educated decision about where to spend their money.
I, personally, would probably not be looking for many of the books that are erroneously being delisted as "adult," so I may not have noticed this myself. But now that I've been made aware of it, I can disapprove and take my money elsewhere.
They're talking about the group Anonymous, mostly from 4chan. They were responsible for some reasonably large and well-organized protests against Scientology not too long ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)
Nonsense. He made the prediction using methods which have been proven to be unreliable. All the current research is against him, and there was no substantive reason to believe his claims had any merit.
Besides, he predicted an earthquake a full week ahead of the one that actually struck. What if he had been listened to and people evacuated? They'd have watched his day pass and started to wonder. They'd be sitting in hotel rooms, or with family members or friends, and thinking about the food rotting in their fridges and the money they're losing by not being at work. A huge number of them would certainly have returned to town by the time the actual quake struck, and the death toll would have been similar.
The problem here is not that someone here using poor science happened to be sort of right, the problem is that Italy is a country with high risks of earthquakes and exceedingly poor construction and preparation.
Nobody is saying we need paper news over digital news. What people are saying is that we need distributed, localized investigative journalism businesses. Your local paper may now have a nice website, but they're still probably going to go under real soon, and when that happens nobody will be reporting real news in your area.
Nonsense. The Spaghetti Monster implies that a certain class of Gods are ridiculous. Many agnostics will leave the possibility open that there is a God of a sort, but that He does not take a direct hand in the workings of the universe like most major religions propose.
They weren't talking about security, they were talking about general safety. Wouldn't you like to know where the safest place to be sitting on a plane in event of a crash purely mechanical in origin?
Except that there is none of this ingredient physically present in the medicine. At some point (supposedly), some small quantity of this ingredient was mixed with greater and greater and greater quantities of inactive dilutants until you'd be lucky to find a single molecule of it in a swimming pool full of the stuff.
That's how homeopathy is supposed to work. By the memory of the water or whatever was in contact with the "active" ingredient.
I mean, if you accept the initial premise of an all powerful God, standing outside spacetime, then it's not so far a step to imagining a God who created the whole shebang in all its four dimensional glory, and then instantiated it at a point in time about six and a half thousand years ago.
The problem is that this is a completely meaningless supposition. From our point of view, there is absolutely no difference between a universe that really is fifteen billion years old and a universe that's 6.5 thousand years old with nearly fifteen billion years of perfectly falsified history.
Science claims to attempt to explain the universe. If God stands completely outside spacetime and never affects the universe in a way that violates the physical laws we believe it operates by, then God may as well not exist. He has no influence on us in any way we can ever quantify.
Creationists claim there is a God and that He affects the universe in ways that specifically violate our current understanding of physical laws. If you suppose a God that simply is those physical laws, then your argument has nothing to do with creationism as the term is commonly used in these discussions.
The last comment clearly has it right. The iPhone is not a platform, it's Apple's toy that you're allowed to use. Is anybody really surprised?
You're never going to be allowed to use alternative hardware, obviously, and with the subscription status and deals with phone companies, you're going to be seriously restricted when it comes to software. How long did it take them to allow any third party programs on their phone?
Made a point to go after Ted Stevens - and the bridge to nowhere that Obama also voted for.
On October 22, 2006, Palin told the Anchorage Daily News in response to a question specifically about the bridge:
Yes. I would like to see Alaska's infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now--while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.
Yeah. Using your congressional delegation's power to appropriate more money for your state. That's real libertarian right there. Her later statements to the same paper made it clear that she only killed the bridge after it was clear the federal government wasn't coming up with the bulk of the funding.
You'd have to present different perspectives of the world to each player, where when player A does something it is done for him, but player B still sees it as unfinished.
Interestingly, this is something Blizzard is introducing to WoW in their next expansion. For example, when you first come to a certain town, it looks deserted to you. As you complete quests, it fills up with NPCs and changes slightly. It's not instanced, but someone who has completed a certain quest and someone who hasn't will see different things even though they're standing side by side.
It's not a perfect solution, because it breaks the feeling of everybody being part of the same world a little bit, but it does help to give you more of a sense of personal accomplishment.
This is much closer to what I believe: That humans do not have free will, but that we live in a non-deterministic universe (according to our current understanding of physics).
It seems perfectly reasonable to me that one characteristic of the brain is the magnification of quantum randomness to the level of observable physical action. Someday we may discover that so-called quantum randomness is predictable after all, but that is not a given.
Of course, the problem with this is it's all kind of bullshit. Sure, I believe that I don't have free will, but that doesn't mean I go around not taking responsibility for my actions or trying hard to make proper choices. Whether I think I have free will or not, I sure as hell try to act like I do.
Slashdot Mirror
As a scientist (a geologist, which has only tangential relevance here, but still), I can honestly say that as long as there was alcohol in South Africa (and I'm told there is), you'll have plenty of scientists hanging out to "study" this thing.
Assuming they can grants. That might be the hard part. But that's half of being a modern scientist - writing up a grant proposal that does nothing to describe what you're actually going to be doing and manages to get you funding.
How is the no direct communications a dumb thing? It's impossible to have direct communications from the dark side of the moon, as there's a giant moon in the way. You need a relay satellite, and the status of that satellite was a major plot point.
In order to do that, they would have had to leave it out in the open and allowed people to use it, so as not to make the criminal suspicious when he returns to retrieve it. You then have people making transactions of questionable legality (I didn't read to see if it actually dispensed money or just showed an error after getting the PIN), and increase the possible damage if it is transmitting in a way they didn't uncover or if the criminal manages to extricate the information while they're watching it.
They're better served by taking it away and studying it for clues as to the criminal.
Do you have any idea how much journal subscriptions cost? And any institution with more than a handful of fields is subscribing to dozens and dozens of them.
From the Foundation's FAQ on the challenge ( http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/component/content/article/37-static/254-jref-challenge-faq.html ):
Many people have already undergone preliminary testing by the Foundation. Their claims have been deemed "paranormal." None of them succeeded in proving the abilities they claimed. I don't have the source handy, but I'm pretty sure that Randi himself has stated in the past that this sort of EM sensitivity would qualify.
A properly scientific proof of this would most likely qualify him for the JREF challenge. If he can physically detect relatively minor electromagnetic radiation on these frequencies, he could win himself a million dollars. http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html
They don't. That was one of the (many) problems with Project Stormfury, the government attempt to disrupt hurricanes with cloud seeding back in the 1960's. You don't get enough data to run any kind of reliable control. So not only do you not know for sure whether you're making a difference or not, you don't even know whether you're making things worse or not.
Unless they can somehow manage to drive their fleet into every forming hurricane and make every single one suddenly fall apart, any success they claim is going to be very open to interpretation.
The missing option in your scenario is what makes this all ridiculous.
I'm on AT&T, I do not have an iPhone, and I do not want one. I have a Blackberry Bold, which I'm extremely happy with. I'm also satisfied with AT&T's service.
The reason this all makes me laugh is that Blackberries do tethering with no extra services or fees. I can connect to my phone through USB or bluetooth and get my laptop online wherever I like, and I don't pay a dime beyond the same unlimited data package iPhone users get.
Seriously! If I decide I want to have a child, I should be able to do it right now!
Or maybe a waiting period will be a good thing. People can actually think about it and not rush into the decision.
... because mono-cultures are SO much better than diversity ...
To the farmer they are, yes, because automating the tending of a crop that is all identical is much easier. If they could economically clone cattle and ensure they grow uniformly, they would because it would mean the slaughter floor could be completely automated.
Until a disease slips through and wipes out the entire crop/herd in a single blow. Heck, non-GMO monoculture crops are a bad enough idea already. They do a horrible job of utilizing and restoring soil nutrients, requiring more and more fertilizers and support.
It's expensive and unsustainable.
Certainly. And their customers have a right to know exactly what sort of practices they're engaging in, so that those consumers can make an educated decision about where to spend their money.
I, personally, would probably not be looking for many of the books that are erroneously being delisted as "adult," so I may not have noticed this myself. But now that I've been made aware of it, I can disapprove and take my money elsewhere.
They're talking about the group Anonymous, mostly from 4chan. They were responsible for some reasonably large and well-organized protests against Scientology not too long ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)
Nonsense. He made the prediction using methods which have been proven to be unreliable. All the current research is against him, and there was no substantive reason to believe his claims had any merit.
Besides, he predicted an earthquake a full week ahead of the one that actually struck. What if he had been listened to and people evacuated? They'd have watched his day pass and started to wonder. They'd be sitting in hotel rooms, or with family members or friends, and thinking about the food rotting in their fridges and the money they're losing by not being at work. A huge number of them would certainly have returned to town by the time the actual quake struck, and the death toll would have been similar.
The problem here is not that someone here using poor science happened to be sort of right, the problem is that Italy is a country with high risks of earthquakes and exceedingly poor construction and preparation.
Nobody is saying we need paper news over digital news. What people are saying is that we need distributed, localized investigative journalism businesses. Your local paper may now have a nice website, but they're still probably going to go under real soon, and when that happens nobody will be reporting real news in your area.
Nonsense. The Spaghetti Monster implies that a certain class of Gods are ridiculous. Many agnostics will leave the possibility open that there is a God of a sort, but that He does not take a direct hand in the workings of the universe like most major religions propose.
He was disbarred, which is sort of like dying for a lawyer. But he's still out there, sort of an undead lawyer now.
They weren't talking about security, they were talking about general safety. Wouldn't you like to know where the safest place to be sitting on a plane in event of a crash purely mechanical in origin?
High-fructose corn syrup. You've often gotta pay more for Coke if you want it with sugar.
Except that there is none of this ingredient physically present in the medicine. At some point (supposedly), some small quantity of this ingredient was mixed with greater and greater and greater quantities of inactive dilutants until you'd be lucky to find a single molecule of it in a swimming pool full of the stuff.
That's how homeopathy is supposed to work. By the memory of the water or whatever was in contact with the "active" ingredient.
I mean, if you accept the initial premise of an all powerful God, standing outside spacetime, then it's not so far a step to imagining a God who created the whole shebang in all its four dimensional glory, and then instantiated it at a point in time about six and a half thousand years ago.
The problem is that this is a completely meaningless supposition. From our point of view, there is absolutely no difference between a universe that really is fifteen billion years old and a universe that's 6.5 thousand years old with nearly fifteen billion years of perfectly falsified history.
Science claims to attempt to explain the universe. If God stands completely outside spacetime and never affects the universe in a way that violates the physical laws we believe it operates by, then God may as well not exist. He has no influence on us in any way we can ever quantify.
Creationists claim there is a God and that He affects the universe in ways that specifically violate our current understanding of physical laws. If you suppose a God that simply is those physical laws, then your argument has nothing to do with creationism as the term is commonly used in these discussions.
The last comment clearly has it right. The iPhone is not a platform, it's Apple's toy that you're allowed to use. Is anybody really surprised?
You're never going to be allowed to use alternative hardware, obviously, and with the subscription status and deals with phone companies, you're going to be seriously restricted when it comes to software. How long did it take them to allow any third party programs on their phone?
Made a point to go after Ted Stevens - and the bridge to nowhere that Obama also voted for.
On October 22, 2006, Palin told the Anchorage Daily News in response to a question specifically about the bridge:
Yes. I would like to see Alaska's infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now--while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.
Yeah. Using your congressional delegation's power to appropriate more money for your state. That's real libertarian right there. Her later statements to the same paper made it clear that she only killed the bridge after it was clear the federal government wasn't coming up with the bulk of the funding.
You'd have to present different perspectives of the world to each player, where when player A does something it is done for him, but player B still sees it as unfinished.
Interestingly, this is something Blizzard is introducing to WoW in their next expansion. For example, when you first come to a certain town, it looks deserted to you. As you complete quests, it fills up with NPCs and changes slightly. It's not instanced, but someone who has completed a certain quest and someone who hasn't will see different things even though they're standing side by side.
It's not a perfect solution, because it breaks the feeling of everybody being part of the same world a little bit, but it does help to give you more of a sense of personal accomplishment.
This is much closer to what I believe: That humans do not have free will, but that we live in a non-deterministic universe (according to our current understanding of physics).
It seems perfectly reasonable to me that one characteristic of the brain is the magnification of quantum randomness to the level of observable physical action. Someday we may discover that so-called quantum randomness is predictable after all, but that is not a given.
Of course, the problem with this is it's all kind of bullshit. Sure, I believe that I don't have free will, but that doesn't mean I go around not taking responsibility for my actions or trying hard to make proper choices. Whether I think I have free will or not, I sure as hell try to act like I do.
Because it's stupid?
I was all set to write up a reply about how just because we're automatons doesn't mean we're perfect automatons and evolutionary baggage and so on...
And then I saw your reply sum that all up much more succinctly. Bravo.