Brings to mind something else - there have been stories of click-through scams in India and China, where people are hired to, well, click the ads and make money.
I remember reading somewhere that most of them were people like housewives and retired folks, looking to make a quick buck. In which case, it's far more likely that those folks will use IE than Firefox.
Perhaps you could have a ratio of sorts - 50 clicks of IE is worth 1 click of Firefox;-)
I subscribe to Slashdot not because I want to block out the ads but because I want to give back to the community.
Despite its faults and follies, it's a great site and one of my primary sources of news. In fact, I like to see the ads and there have been several times when I've clicked through and purchased stuff, too.
And coming back to answer your question - simple non-intrusive methods like Google will make money out of ads, and eventually websites will find a way of getting through the ad-block.
The software may be free, but quality service comes at a price.
You must realize that a lot of this price is probably because of _people_ who really charge for their expertise rather than the software in and of itself.
Good programmers and system administrators are hard to come by, no matter what the outsourcing crowd would have you believe.
I'll blame sites like Download.com that started this trend.
Download software foo from us, but it would come with Gator and a whole shitload of spyware. And then, everyone else started following suit.
I still remember times when spywares and trojans were hacker-only. Greedy corps brought it to the masses, and now it's become an accepted part of the "Internet experience."
It wasn't scientific superiority - I was just defining science as it should be. And to answer your question - yes, I've worked quite closely with people of other fields. In fact, one of my Masters is in Human Computer Interaction which involves a lot of qualitative data that needs to be dealt with, particularly psychological.
I was talking from the standards of validation of each particular science - and even from that perspective, Global Warming is a big maybe even qualitatively. Please have a look at some of the papers in that area and you would notice the number of unknowns.
Global Warming akin to Drake "predicting" the probability of aliens - you do not even know half the variables to begin with. How can you even claim to understand something on which you have such limited data on, where half the variables are assumed and the other half inadequately gathered? In fact, if the supporters of Global Warming were to accept their data as such, I'd have absolutely no objection whatsoever. But they claim the data to be conclusive, when it clearly is not.
And your example of physics is quite flawed primarily because theories in physics are not well accepted until they are proven. String theory is not taught and nor is it touted as the ultimate solution - it is an uncertain theory and it is treated as such. Even the examples you bring up (Copenhagen/Local Hidden Variable/Many Worlds) are treated as being inconclusive, and are merely possible solutions and are always acknowledged as such.
And I'm quite certain that some of the systems that I deal with as a physicist are quite complex as those other areas that you mentioned. Physics is seldom about getting one thing right, it is about getting a lot of factors right at the same time. I'd not be complaining about the "real experts" if their science were not such make-believe - Global Warming reminds me quite strongly of yet another doomsday theory that quietly faded away into oblivion - Nuclear Winter.
That said, I would like to know what part of my comment you felt was not constructive. I was merely offering an opinion, and even validated my position. Being constructive does not mean I need to agree with the topic at hand.
And I noticed that this is your first post ever - surprising, that.
I think it's just a human thing for others to take notice of what you are upto. Just that Blogs provide people with the illusion that there are *actually* people who read your Blog and are interested in what you're upto.
And that feeling encourages people to write logs in situations where they otherwise wouldn't have.
I think it would be the other way around - blogs will only be used by serious people, and the teeny-bop generation will just lose interest and move on to another fad.
Just like the teeny-bop generation lost in webpages and moved on to Blogs. They've a very short attention span, and there was a time when every other teen had a website about herself, her dog, her boyfriend and Britney. Now that's changed and it's a Blog.
When teeny-bops started having websites, people felt that websites would go out of fashion and only Generation Y would have websites - rather, Gen Y got out as quickly as they got in and there are still plenty good websites and the number is growing.
Blogs are too powerful a medium for serious bloggers to lose interest.
The last time I checked, people didn't think in Windows API. And the last time I checked, people didn't write their grocery lists in Visual C++. Nor did kids play around in blocks Linux API when they were 3 years old - they were playing around with blocks of alphabets.
In fact, the last time I checked, people had no clue about either of those until they were well versed in a spoken and written language called English.
No matter what foreign languages you learn, you seldom change your basic language skills of your primary spoken & written language(s). They stay with you for life.
Programming language skills are higher order functions, they are learnt a lot more easily and can be forgotten just as easily. It's ridiculous to compare the two, and even pretend that they are the same.
That's one of the worst analogies I've ever heard.
Comparing a language to an operating system is quite ridiculous. You write, read and communicate in English practically every waking minute of your life, starting since childhood. People *think* in English.
An operating system is hardly as ubiquitous.
Language skills are learnt and neural pathways formed when you are quite young, it would take a lot to change that in people.
Ah, my bad. In hindsight, I was debating whether to say Scandinavian or East-European (although am not certain if Slavic is primarily East-European or not).
Let me get this straight - you want to stop people from doing what they want so that the "character" of the neighborhood is not lost?
What sort of elitist attitude is that?
If it's my land, I should have every right to have what I see fit with it, as long as it does not affect those around me.
Culture is not a single thing that stays forever, it evolves and it changes. I do not know where you get the idea that you somehow preserve culture by forcing people to follow some antiquarian architectural code.
But wait - I'm sure that if a black man moves into the neighborhood with his "black culture" and "black architecture" it would affect the likes of you because it's not culturally in keeping with what you have in mind, right? Who are you to define it, anyway? If I'm a Chinese immigrant, I'll design my house the way I see fit - it's none of your problem. Don't even begin to think that you or any of the elitist snobs who live around you can tell me what to do with my house.
You can do all that you want with your house, go ahead and build it out of papermache for all I care. But do not even pretend that you even can tell others what to do with their land, and justify it using some bullshit reason such as preserving living history.
And no, I cannot "comprehend" this, because your snobbish post is reeking with prejudice and elitism.
And just another request - please do not be condescending towards those who disagree with you. I just noticed that in the whole thread, you were generalizing everyone against GW as being in the same lump - that is not so. If we put down others who disagree with us, it portrays us in bad light. It's as ridiculous as the rest of the world pointing at us all as, "you Americans" - and just as distasteful.
I really appreciate your other posts, and I realize that our opinions differ greatly. But that does not mean that either of us right or wrong, we merely see things differently. That does not put either of us on a pedestal, and doing so would be detrimental to how others think of us.
That was an intelligent and insightful post. Thank you.
Thank you!
Then we are basically in agreement -- except that I feel that the evidence does tend to show that GW warming is largely caused by man-made greenhous gas emissions.
In different ways, yes. I believe that pollution should be stopped, but only because it is quite logical to assume that you cannot go on upsetting the natural and ecological balances forever. I do not yet believe into Global Warming yet because, well, scientifically there is no absolute evidence - yet.
Far too often, those who dispute the existence of, or man's contribution to, global warming are doing so not for scientific reasons, but rather for political reasons.
You're right, but if you notice, it works both ways. There is not enough scientific evidence to prove that it is directly responsible, either.
That is why I do not like global warming - it is a theory put forward in the name of science to further political agendas (by both parties).
Unfortunately, climatology is a science in its infancy. The number of variables and the interactions between them is staggering. We may never see proof beyond a doubt that greenhouse gas emissions caused by man are the primary cause of global warming.
Exactly! Which is why, I do not like the claims being made because they're not scientific evidence. They're circumstantial at best and if they're touted as such, I'm quite cool with it. But they're not - the people making the claims are religious about defending it as being scientific evidence. I do not like it not because of what it means to the world but because of what it means to science - it encourages bad science. Science should be neutral and impassionate about its goals. The moment is starts demonstrating evidence of bias based on inconclusive evidence, you stop doing real science and start doing propaganda science.
But if we wait for climatology to get to the point where that can be proven, then we might be dooming countless species, and even mankind itself.
Yes, in which case adopt other measures. Show that ecological systems are not being sustained and how the ecologies are crashing the world over. You see, my only bone to pick with the whole thing is the fact that it is distasteful science.
We have to act now based on a valid concern and some supporting scientific evidence -- even if there is not proof beyond any reasonable doubt.
Act out of concern, but please do not use science as an unwitting tool in the process. Years from now, people may look back and use this as an example of how science should not be done - just as how we look back at the dark ages today.
Let us be fair in our judgements - harming the earth is bad, but let us not come up with half-baked theories without incontrovertible proofs and claim them to be true towards achieving our end. I love nature as much as you do, and I'm a very outdoors person - I do a lot of outdoor activities such as mountaineering and I'm even a vegetarian. However, I do not want to pollute the Earth because simple logic dictates that pollution will come back in the food-chain and ecological-chain to affect us, at some point of time or the other.
Let us not tarnish science in the process of protecting the environment. Both are equally important. IMHO, ofcourse!
Slashdot Mirror
Brings to mind something else - there have been stories of click-through scams in India and China, where people are hired to, well, click the ads and make money.
;-)
I remember reading somewhere that most of them were people like housewives and retired folks, looking to make a quick buck. In which case, it's far more likely that those folks will use IE than Firefox.
Perhaps you could have a ratio of sorts - 50 clicks of IE is worth 1 click of Firefox
I subscribe to Slashdot not because I want to block out the ads but because I want to give back to the community.
Despite its faults and follies, it's a great site and one of my primary sources of news. In fact, I like to see the ads and there have been several times when I've clicked through and purchased stuff, too.
And coming back to answer your question - simple non-intrusive methods like Google will make money out of ads, and eventually websites will find a way of getting through the ad-block.
The software may be free, but quality service comes at a price.
You must realize that a lot of this price is probably because of _people_ who really charge for their expertise rather than the software in and of itself.
Good programmers and system administrators are hard to come by, no matter what the outsourcing crowd would have you believe.
Yeah, which kinda makes me wonder about the legality of such a thing.
But I suppose if you you can have legal warnings on cigarettes and alchohol and yet sell them, this is no different.
You ought to be able to make the judgement yourself.
I'll blame sites like Download.com that started this trend.
Download software foo from us, but it would come with Gator and a whole shitload of spyware. And then, everyone else started following suit.
I still remember times when spywares and trojans were hacker-only. Greedy corps brought it to the masses, and now it's become an accepted part of the "Internet experience."
We could have an entire society where everyone speaks perfectly clear, grammatically precise day-to-day English
Damn, that would put the Slashdot editors out of job, for one.
Thanks for the great reply. I did notice that the Wikipedia entry also talked a lot of what you'd said, except for the cultural nuances ofcourse ;)
It wasn't scientific superiority - I was just defining science as it should be. And to answer your question - yes, I've worked quite closely with people of other fields. In fact, one of my Masters is in Human Computer Interaction which involves a lot of qualitative data that needs to be dealt with, particularly psychological.
I was talking from the standards of validation of each particular science - and even from that perspective, Global Warming is a big maybe even qualitatively. Please have a look at some of the papers in that area and you would notice the number of unknowns.
Global Warming akin to Drake "predicting" the probability of aliens - you do not even know half the variables to begin with. How can you even claim to understand something on which you have such limited data on, where half the variables are assumed and the other half inadequately gathered? In fact, if the supporters of Global Warming were to accept their data as such, I'd have absolutely no objection whatsoever. But they claim the data to be conclusive, when it clearly is not.
And your example of physics is quite flawed primarily because theories in physics are not well accepted until they are proven. String theory is not taught and nor is it touted as the ultimate solution - it is an uncertain theory and it is treated as such. Even the examples you bring up (Copenhagen/Local Hidden Variable/Many Worlds) are treated as being inconclusive, and are merely possible solutions and are always acknowledged as such.
And I'm quite certain that some of the systems that I deal with as a physicist are quite complex as those other areas that you mentioned. Physics is seldom about getting one thing right, it is about getting a lot of factors right at the same time. I'd not be complaining about the "real experts" if their science were not such make-believe - Global Warming reminds me quite strongly of yet another doomsday theory that quietly faded away into oblivion - Nuclear Winter.
That said, I would like to know what part of my comment you felt was not constructive. I was merely offering an opinion, and even validated my position. Being constructive does not mean I need to agree with the topic at hand.
And I noticed that this is your first post ever - surprising, that.
That's okay! You can come up with better excuses -
...and so on.
"I got more stupid"
"I'm getting older"
"I was distracted by a pr0n popup"
"My wife was making love to me"
"My dog was making out on the carpet"
"The voices in the head made me do it!"
"This is what I do when I'm horny"
I think it's just a human thing for others to take notice of what you are upto. Just that Blogs provide people with the illusion that there are *actually* people who read your Blog and are interested in what you're upto.
And that feeling encourages people to write logs in situations where they otherwise wouldn't have.
I think it would be the other way around - blogs will only be used by serious people, and the teeny-bop generation will just lose interest and move on to another fad.
Just like the teeny-bop generation lost in webpages and moved on to Blogs. They've a very short attention span, and there was a time when every other teen had a website about herself, her dog, her boyfriend and Britney. Now that's changed and it's a Blog.
When teeny-bops started having websites, people felt that websites would go out of fashion and only Generation Y would have websites - rather, Gen Y got out as quickly as they got in and there are still plenty good websites and the number is growing.
Blogs are too powerful a medium for serious bloggers to lose interest.
While I agree with you that this is definitely not Slashdot material, I can see why someone might want to keep a blog of their expedition.
:)
Back in the days, the captain kept the log of the journeys and the happenings - today anyone can keep a blog of what's going on.
If not anything, it'll provide the future generations with lots of (albeit mostly boring) historical material
The last time I checked, people didn't think in Windows API. And the last time I checked, people didn't write their grocery lists in Visual C++. Nor did kids play around in blocks Linux API when they were 3 years old - they were playing around with blocks of alphabets.
In fact, the last time I checked, people had no clue about either of those until they were well versed in a spoken and written language called English.
No matter what foreign languages you learn, you seldom change your basic language skills of your primary spoken & written language(s). They stay with you for life.
Programming language skills are higher order functions, they are learnt a lot more easily and can be forgotten just as easily. It's ridiculous to compare the two, and even pretend that they are the same.
That's one of the worst analogies I've ever heard.
Comparing a language to an operating system is quite ridiculous. You write, read and communicate in English practically every waking minute of your life, starting since childhood. People *think* in English.
An operating system is hardly as ubiquitous.
Language skills are learnt and neural pathways formed when you are quite young, it would take a lot to change that in people.
Ah, my bad. In hindsight, I was debating whether to say Scandinavian or East-European (although am not certain if Slavic is primarily East-European or not).
:)
Thanks!
Just out of curiosity - what language is your website in, btw?
I'm guessing it's some Scandinavian language?
Annalen Der Physik would still have been numero Uno in Physics.
Let me get this straight - you want to stop people from doing what they want so that the "character" of the neighborhood is not lost?
What sort of elitist attitude is that?
If it's my land, I should have every right to have what I see fit with it, as long as it does not affect those around me.
Culture is not a single thing that stays forever, it evolves and it changes. I do not know where you get the idea that you somehow preserve culture by forcing people to follow some antiquarian architectural code.
But wait - I'm sure that if a black man moves into the neighborhood with his "black culture" and "black architecture" it would affect the likes of you because it's not culturally in keeping with what you have in mind, right? Who are you to define it, anyway? If I'm a Chinese immigrant, I'll design my house the way I see fit - it's none of your problem. Don't even begin to think that you or any of the elitist snobs who live around you can tell me what to do with my house.
You can do all that you want with your house, go ahead and build it out of papermache for all I care. But do not even pretend that you even can tell others what to do with their land, and justify it using some bullshit reason such as preserving living history.
And no, I cannot "comprehend" this, because your snobbish post is reeking with prejudice and elitism.
And...
:)
the Slashdot fortune cookie goes,
"Remember -- only 10% of anything can be in the top 10%."
Go figure
You mean, something like this?
</Shameless plug>
And just another request - please do not be condescending towards those who disagree with you. I just noticed that in the whole thread, you were generalizing everyone against GW as being in the same lump - that is not so. If we put down others who disagree with us, it portrays us in bad light. It's as ridiculous as the rest of the world pointing at us all as, "you Americans" - and just as distasteful.
I really appreciate your other posts, and I realize that our opinions differ greatly. But that does not mean that either of us right or wrong, we merely see things differently. That does not put either of us on a pedestal, and doing so would be detrimental to how others think of us.
Thanks & Cheers!
Agreed. However, most archaelogical digs seldom last over 30 years =)
The thing is, if you're retired and are hitch-hiking across the world, you probably wouldn't have to pay much in terms of land, either.
Would be a cool thing to do!
That was an intelligent and insightful post. Thank you.
Thank you!
Then we are basically in agreement -- except that I feel that the evidence does tend to show that GW warming is largely caused by man-made greenhous gas emissions.
In different ways, yes. I believe that pollution should be stopped, but only because it is quite logical to assume that you cannot go on upsetting the natural and ecological balances forever. I do not yet believe into Global Warming yet because, well, scientifically there is no absolute evidence - yet.
Far too often, those who dispute the existence of, or man's contribution to, global warming are doing so not for scientific reasons, but rather for political reasons.
You're right, but if you notice, it works both ways. There is not enough scientific evidence to prove that it is directly responsible, either.
That is why I do not like global warming - it is a theory put forward in the name of science to further political agendas (by both parties).
Unfortunately, climatology is a science in its infancy. The number of variables and the interactions between them is staggering. We may never see proof beyond a doubt that greenhouse gas emissions caused by man are the primary cause of global warming.
Exactly! Which is why, I do not like the claims being made because they're not scientific evidence. They're circumstantial at best and if they're touted as such, I'm quite cool with it. But they're not - the people making the claims are religious about defending it as being scientific evidence. I do not like it not because of what it means to the world but because of what it means to science - it encourages bad science. Science should be neutral and impassionate about its goals. The moment is starts demonstrating evidence of bias based on inconclusive evidence, you stop doing real science and start doing propaganda science.
But if we wait for climatology to get to the point where that can be proven, then we might be dooming countless species, and even mankind itself.
Yes, in which case adopt other measures. Show that ecological systems are not being sustained and how the ecologies are crashing the world over. You see, my only bone to pick with the whole thing is the fact that it is distasteful science.
We have to act now based on a valid concern and some supporting scientific evidence -- even if there is not proof beyond any reasonable doubt.
Act out of concern, but please do not use science as an unwitting tool in the process. Years from now, people may look back and use this as an example of how science should not be done - just as how we look back at the dark ages today.
Let us be fair in our judgements - harming the earth is bad, but let us not come up with half-baked theories without incontrovertible proofs and claim them to be true towards achieving our end. I love nature as much as you do, and I'm a very outdoors person - I do a lot of outdoor activities such as mountaineering and I'm even a vegetarian. However, I do not want to pollute the Earth because simple logic dictates that pollution will come back in the food-chain and ecological-chain to affect us, at some point of time or the other.
Let us not tarnish science in the process of protecting the environment. Both are equally important. IMHO, ofcourse!
Reminds me of Wonko the Sane :)
> You make it sound like getting stoned is a bad thing!
:-)
No, but getting burnt is