Technology brings rapid change to society and system, there is no shying away from that.
Let's see, all that burning coal has brought humans to regions in this world that could not sustain human civlization.
If all that burning coal is harmful, use nuclear fuel. If nuclear waste disposal becomes a problem, find a better source. The idea is to keep at it and not stop something because it also has potential for misuse.
Today, you may wipe out the dodos, but tomorrow you may have advanced enough technology to recreate dodos from their remains.
Also, I don't think humans were as weak in nature as you portray them.
You probably do not spend enough time outdoors else you'd not be making that statement.
How about -- not at the mercy of nature as we once were, comfortable living, increased life expectancy, understanding our universe and our world better than we ever did and so on?
I think Slashdotters are becoming a whiny bunch.
Sure, there are problems in this world. Nobody is denying that.
But guess what? Civilization would not have happened if someone hadn't been curious in the first place -- to see what that piece of meat tasted like. To use that stone as a tool and to build and create.
Instead, you'd be running on a very green, pristine Earth for your life from a predator.
I think I'd rather have this, thank you very much.
You bring up a great point. Spending money is not the solution to these problems.
Amartya Sen, who won the Nobel prize in economics showed that even such things as famine are man-made. The way to solve these problems is not by throwing large sums of money but rather by a grassroots movement. Which needs to be triggered by the people.
Unless the people themselves inherently want change, it is not going to happen. They would need to invest in education, infrastructure, etc. and do something about their problems (as opposed to, say, buy guns to fuck their neighbour over or invest it in showing how their god is powerful than their neighbour's god or whatever). Until that happens, the problems are not going to go away.
This is why all the problems -- the ones in Africa, the ones in middle east and just about every part of the world -- aren't going to magically disappear. The only way that this is going to happen is if people inherently want to change.
And waiting on them to change is ridiculous, because then you are lowering yourself to the lowest common denominator (i.e. you can wait on me for all I care, in the meanwhile I am going to pray to my tin god and kill my neighbours) or you could go ahead and raise the bar (i.e. you folks can do whatever you want, but we are going to do all these wonderful things, catch up or be left behind).
I do not know about the rest of you, but personally I'd rather do the latter.
In truth (and in reality), no piece of software is ever truly *free* -- you invest it in other forms. The things that you invest in with may not be very valuable to you, but they are investments neverthless (e.g. time).
Now, this is true for everything, and softwware, free or otherwise, is no exception.
TCO, maintenance, support and other things are not free, even if a piece of software is free. In some ways, *paying* for something would mean that the other party has made a contractual agreement towards providing you a product or a service, which is missing in free as in FREE kind of scenarios. Who is to be held responsible if something goes wrong? Who can I cast the blame upon?
Why do you think companies like RedHat and others make so much money?
How about, "I like preserving a particular state my machine is in?"
If I'm working on code, I've several editor windows, compiler and terminals open. And usually, if I have to shut down my computer, that would imply I would need to close all those windows and all those applications. Why should I do that when I could just have my computer hibernate or sleep?
I mean, if I am on Linux, I have four active desktops with several browser windows, code and other things.
Shutting down my system implies closing down everything and starting afresh. Why should I, when I can put my system to sleep and restart it with my windows and state preserved?
Edmund Landau was asked to testify if Emmy Noether was indeed a great woman mathematician, so which he supposedly replied thus: "I can testify that she is a great mathematician, but that she is a woman, I cannot swear."
So that might be the reason why the didn't add her to the list of geek girls.;-)
(I'm kidding, of course - I'm a big fan of Noether myself, and it is infuriating to see folks like Paris Hilton but not folks like Emmy Noether.)
Isn't it a little bit sad when one of the Top 10 geek "girls" throughout history has to be a cartoon character. Are there really that few women geeks to choose from?
Bah, if they are going to include fictional characters, why don't they include Samantha Carter?
If you notice my comment, both the statements were separate -- I had said that I have encountered discrimination, and that immaterial of the ethnicity, what the cop did was wrong.
I was merely replying to the parent poster who had talked as if racism did not exist. The two points were disjoint, I was not trying to say that they were connected. My apologies if it came across as otherwise.
The thing is, like you said, most Whites tend to be wonderful people. Hell, I am going to marry one. On the other hand, all it takes is a handful of bad apples to make the rest look rotten. I do not know about UK, but in the US, there is some open racial profiling in some parts of the country. While it is one thing for regular Joe to be doing this, it is completely another thing when cops, airport authorities and others do the same.
I lived in Georgia for three years, and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. It is ironic because everytime I flew out of Georgia - everytime without a fail - I was pulled aside.
And I understand and agree with what you say about people with biases. Unfortunately, it does not take long to go back to being prejudiced, while it takes a lot more effort to get back to being open minded about it.
The one comfort I find in this, whether we're talking about discrimination such as racism or sexism or we're just talking about public officials whose personal prejudices outweigh making balanced and unbiased decisions in the public interest, is that sooner or later reality always seems to assert itself and the fools get kicked out of office.
Indeed. However, that does not happen before causing undue harm to some innocents.
Note: creating a plasma at 17 years old in a garage would still be very cool. Maybe not slashdot-front-page cool, but still cool.
You must be new here.
When Slashdot initially started, it was all about these kinds of stories -- folks somewhere doing something geeky and cool.
As the age of that audience matured, so did the Slashdot content. Today, most of the folks from since then are in the corporate world, so articles now seem to reflect that.
However, make no mistake - the spirit of Slashdot was and remains about the garage geek doing something cool.
Heh, I built my first Tesla coil in my 8th grade, and I was 13 or 14. I've always experimented with high-voltage stuff - and have built such things as plasma globes Van de Graff generators. I never got around building a Cyclotron, but hey.
There is no better way to learn. In fact, it is sad the way people react ("Oooh, think of the children!").
Frightening? Not really. Science cannot be done without experimentation, and there are always risks.
You know, being "brown", I so very often get treated differently that it stopped being funny a long, long time ago. And the attitude of the so-called public servants to folks that look "ethnic" is sometimes disgusting. You'd have to be one to understand, I guess.
Immaterial of the ethnicity, what the cops did was wrong -- you are in a position of power. If the kid was being a jerk, use more people to restrain him. Tazing someone should be reserved when the victim presents a threat (i.e. having a weapon).
This was brutality, plain and simple. The folks who did this should be in prison for life.
Still I cannot fault the GP - such "speculation" is what drives the whole scientific process anyway. It's the first step. If only everyone would back up their pet hypothesis with experimentation we'd advance our knowledge even faster!
Exactly. Not to mention the number of IANAL posts that abound on Slashdot on any law-related topic.
I am an experimental physicist.:-) And I do agree with your engineering undergrad versus physics undergrad -- my undergrad was in EE and I definitely learnt a whole lot more doing that than I would have if I'd done physics.
No, my point is simply that both have different goals -- the goal of a physics undergrad is to get into physics, and is largely geared towards the academic/research environs and not get into a lot of other things, while the goal of an engineering major is aimed largely at getting into the real world.
Funny you should mention quantum computing, I used to work on that before I switched to astrophysics. Interestingly enough, it is not as theoretical as you would believe -- significant progress has been made in material sciences and other areas. That is the thing, though. The evolution of the computer of today from the difference engine took time, and folks ought to give new ideas time to evolve.
And yes, we do agree -- sorry about the creationist dig, couldn't resist it! Merely wanted to point out the fact that theoretical research is the basis of science today, as we know it. My rant was also directed at recognition (not to mention funding) for experimental (show me the result!) kinda research, as opposed to fundamental, grassroots research, which usually leads to more advancement than pledging $ENORMOUS amount of money to a $RESULE_THAT_I_WANT.
Umm, I am a physicist (though yet to be done with my PhD). Large parts of physics are theoretical. Recent breakthroughs are experimental because that's what you hear about. Experimental physics is always playing catch-up with theoretical physicist. Maybe you should look at the list of theoretical physicists out there. Here is a list of 20th century theoretical physicists -- Albert Einstein, Max Born, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrodinger, Louis de Broglie, Satyendra Bose, Wolfgang Pauli, Enrico Fermi, Ettore Majorana, Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, Robert Oppenheimer, Hans Bethe, Lev Landau, Richard Feynman, Abdus Salam. If that is not a heady group, I do not know what is. Theoretical physics has contributed a whole lot more to physics than experimental has. And I am not discounting the contributions of experimental physics, merely that the two go hand in hand. A lot of work out there was theoretical at first, and became applied a lot later. Even high-energy physics today (which is extremely experimental) deals with understanding and furthering the standard model and other theories. I mean, just look at the categories in arXiv for HEP: theory, phenomenology, experiments and lattice gauge theory.
So, to say that physics is not largely theoretical is largely uninformed (and inexperienced in the way real world physics works). While I can see your point about M-theory, the truth is that not all theories in physics are that extreme. Most can be verified, and validated non-experimentally (i.e. conformation to other theories, and how existing observations and data fit in, etc.) and are not as far off as you'd think.
You make a physics theory sound the way creationists consider the theory of evolution. It maybe just a theory, but that does not make it any less important nor valid.
Slashdot Mirror
Technology brings rapid change to society and system, there is no shying away from that.
Let's see, all that burning coal has brought humans to regions in this world that could not sustain human civlization.
If all that burning coal is harmful, use nuclear fuel. If nuclear waste disposal becomes a problem, find a better source. The idea is to keep at it and not stop something because it also has potential for misuse.
Today, you may wipe out the dodos, but tomorrow you may have advanced enough technology to recreate dodos from their remains.
Also, I don't think humans were as weak in nature as you portray them.
You probably do not spend enough time outdoors else you'd not be making that statement.
How about -- not at the mercy of nature as we once were, comfortable living, increased life expectancy, understanding our universe and our world better than we ever did and so on?
I think Slashdotters are becoming a whiny bunch.
Sure, there are problems in this world. Nobody is denying that.
But guess what? Civilization would not have happened if someone hadn't been curious in the first place -- to see what that piece of meat tasted like. To use that stone as a tool and to build and create.
Instead, you'd be running on a very green, pristine Earth for your life from a predator.
I think I'd rather have this, thank you very much.
Why not?
It is the inherent human curiosity to do something just because.
The insatiable curiosity, the urge to do something, to tamper, to tinker for no reason except that we can.
If we asked why for everything that has happened in the past several thousand years, we'd not be where we are today.
You bring up a great point. Spending money is not the solution to these problems.
Amartya Sen, who won the Nobel prize in economics showed that even such things as famine are man-made. The way to solve these problems is not by throwing large sums of money but rather by a grassroots movement. Which needs to be triggered by the people.
Unless the people themselves inherently want change, it is not going to happen. They would need to invest in education, infrastructure, etc. and do something about their problems (as opposed to, say, buy guns to fuck their neighbour over or invest it in showing how their god is powerful than their neighbour's god or whatever). Until that happens, the problems are not going to go away.
This is why all the problems -- the ones in Africa, the ones in middle east and just about every part of the world -- aren't going to magically disappear. The only way that this is going to happen is if people inherently want to change.
And waiting on them to change is ridiculous, because then you are lowering yourself to the lowest common denominator (i.e. you can wait on me for all I care, in the meanwhile I am going to pray to my tin god and kill my neighbours) or you could go ahead and raise the bar (i.e. you folks can do whatever you want, but we are going to do all these wonderful things, catch up or be left behind).
I do not know about the rest of you, but personally I'd rather do the latter.
> Isn't the point of OSS that its FREE?
Sure, if you are living in a cave.
In truth (and in reality), no piece of software is ever truly *free* -- you invest it in other forms. The things that you invest in with may not be very valuable to you, but they are investments neverthless (e.g. time).
Now, this is true for everything, and softwware, free or otherwise, is no exception.
TCO, maintenance, support and other things are not free, even if a piece of software is free. In some ways, *paying* for something would mean that the other party has made a contractual agreement towards providing you a product or a service, which is missing in free as in FREE kind of scenarios. Who is to be held responsible if something goes wrong? Who can I cast the blame upon?
Why do you think companies like RedHat and others make so much money?
Shouldn't that be:
Money - Science = Politics
???
How about, "I like preserving a particular state my machine is in?"
If I'm working on code, I've several editor windows, compiler and terminals open. And usually, if I have to shut down my computer, that would imply I would need to close all those windows and all those applications. Why should I do that when I could just have my computer hibernate or sleep?
I mean, if I am on Linux, I have four active desktops with several browser windows, code and other things.
Shutting down my system implies closing down everything and starting afresh. Why should I, when I can put my system to sleep and restart it with my windows and state preserved?
Reminds me of a joke.
;-)
Edmund Landau was asked to testify if Emmy Noether was indeed a great woman mathematician, so which he supposedly replied thus:
"I can testify that she is a great mathematician, but that she is a woman, I cannot swear."
So that might be the reason why the didn't add her to the list of geek girls.
(I'm kidding, of course - I'm a big fan of Noether myself, and it is infuriating to see folks like Paris Hilton but not folks like Emmy Noether.)
And what about Ursula K. Le Guin?
She's one of the most famous and prolific female SF authors out there.
Isn't it a little bit sad when one of the Top 10 geek "girls" throughout history has to be a cartoon character. Are there really that few women geeks to choose from?
Bah, if they are going to include fictional characters, why don't they include Samantha Carter?
If you notice my comment, both the statements were separate -- I had said that I have encountered discrimination, and that immaterial of the ethnicity, what the cop did was wrong.
I was merely replying to the parent poster who had talked as if racism did not exist. The two points were disjoint, I was not trying to say that they were connected. My apologies if it came across as otherwise.
Cheers.
Oh come on. They need something to whine about.
And obviously, if you do not do it their way, it is wrong.
Most of them don't really care about anything - they merely care about media publicity.
The ones that do care are busy making a difference, the ones that don't are busy raising a hue and cry over stupid issues.
Sad, that.
The thing is, like you said, most Whites tend to be wonderful people. Hell, I am going to marry one. On the other hand, all it takes is a handful of bad apples to make the rest look rotten. I do not know about UK, but in the US, there is some open racial profiling in some parts of the country. While it is one thing for regular Joe to be doing this, it is completely another thing when cops, airport authorities and others do the same.
I lived in Georgia for three years, and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. It is ironic because everytime I flew out of Georgia - everytime without a fail - I was pulled aside.
And I understand and agree with what you say about people with biases. Unfortunately, it does not take long to go back to being prejudiced, while it takes a lot more effort to get back to being open minded about it.
The one comfort I find in this, whether we're talking about discrimination such as racism or sexism or we're just talking about public officials whose personal prejudices outweigh making balanced and unbiased decisions in the public interest, is that sooner or later reality always seems to assert itself and the fools get kicked out of office.
Indeed. However, that does not happen before causing undue harm to some innocents.
Note: creating a plasma at 17 years old in a garage would still be very cool. Maybe not slashdot-front-page cool, but still cool.
You must be new here.
When Slashdot initially started, it was all about these kinds of stories -- folks somewhere doing something geeky and cool.
As the age of that audience matured, so did the Slashdot content. Today, most of the folks from since then are in the corporate world, so articles now seem to reflect that.
However, make no mistake - the spirit of Slashdot was and remains about the garage geek doing something cool.
Heh, I built my first Tesla coil in my 8th grade, and I was 13 or 14. I've always experimented with high-voltage stuff - and have built such things as plasma globes Van de Graff generators. I never got around building a Cyclotron, but hey.
There is no better way to learn. In fact, it is sad the way people react ("Oooh, think of the children!").
Frightening? Not really. Science cannot be done without experimentation, and there are always risks.
You know, being "brown", I so very often get treated differently that it stopped being funny a long, long time ago. And the attitude of the so-called public servants to folks that look "ethnic" is sometimes disgusting. You'd have to be one to understand, I guess.
Immaterial of the ethnicity, what the cops did was wrong -- you are in a position of power. If the kid was being a jerk, use more people to restrain him. Tazing someone should be reserved when the victim presents a threat (i.e. having a weapon).
This was brutality, plain and simple. The folks who did this should be in prison for life.
> This is much like Tylenol - lowers body temperature and temporarily removes pain, but doesn't cure the symptoms.
Didn't you mean to say, "...cures the symptoms, but doesn't cure the cause"?
Are you telling me that the whole world is going to be a dark, rainy, dreary, grey place like England?
Oh noeeeeees!
Is this your idea of "cold" fusion? =)
Still I cannot fault the GP - such "speculation" is what drives the whole scientific process anyway. It's the first step. If only everyone would back up their pet hypothesis with experimentation we'd advance our knowledge even faster!
Exactly. Not to mention the number of IANAL posts that abound on Slashdot on any law-related topic.
He should be sent a copy of End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov.
*shudder*
Safe and risk-free paths are the worst.
Come on, Jack, the blow-up Yoda doll does not count. And neither do those cute Ewok stuffed toys.
Care to post the complete URL? :)
(or at least link to it, that way folks could click on it, even if Slashdot muddles up the characters).
I am an experimental physicist. :-) And I do agree with your engineering undergrad versus physics undergrad -- my undergrad was in EE and I definitely learnt a whole lot more doing that than I would have if I'd done physics.
No, my point is simply that both have different goals -- the goal of a physics undergrad is to get into physics, and is largely geared towards the academic/research environs and not get into a lot of other things, while the goal of an engineering major is aimed largely at getting into the real world.
Funny you should mention quantum computing, I used to work on that before I switched to astrophysics. Interestingly enough, it is not as theoretical as you would believe -- significant progress has been made in material sciences and other areas. That is the thing, though. The evolution of the computer of today from the difference engine took time, and folks ought to give new ideas time to evolve.
And yes, we do agree -- sorry about the creationist dig, couldn't resist it! Merely wanted to point out the fact that theoretical research is the basis of science today, as we know it. My rant was also directed at recognition (not to mention funding) for experimental (show me the result!) kinda research, as opposed to fundamental, grassroots research, which usually leads to more advancement than pledging $ENORMOUS amount of money to a $RESULE_THAT_I_WANT.
Ah, well. Life's a bitch and all that.
Umm, I am a physicist (though yet to be done with my PhD). Large parts of physics are theoretical. Recent breakthroughs are experimental because that's what you hear about. Experimental physics is always playing catch-up with theoretical physicist. Maybe you should look at the list of theoretical physicists out there. Here is a list of 20th century theoretical physicists -- Albert Einstein, Max Born, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrodinger, Louis de Broglie, Satyendra Bose, Wolfgang Pauli, Enrico Fermi, Ettore Majorana, Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, Robert Oppenheimer, Hans Bethe, Lev Landau, Richard Feynman, Abdus Salam. If that is not a heady group, I do not know what is. Theoretical physics has contributed a whole lot more to physics than experimental has. And I am not discounting the contributions of experimental physics, merely that the two go hand in hand. A lot of work out there was theoretical at first, and became applied a lot later. Even high-energy physics today (which is extremely experimental) deals with understanding and furthering the standard model and other theories. I mean, just look at the categories in arXiv for HEP: theory, phenomenology, experiments and lattice gauge theory.
So, to say that physics is not largely theoretical is largely uninformed (and inexperienced in the way real world physics works). While I can see your point about M-theory, the truth is that not all theories in physics are that extreme. Most can be verified, and validated non-experimentally (i.e. conformation to other theories, and how existing observations and data fit in, etc.) and are not as far off as you'd think.
You make a physics theory sound the way creationists consider the theory of evolution. It maybe just a theory, but that does not make it any less important nor valid.
Cheers.