A computer program is programmed to run efficient...
If you mean to say that all computer programs are programmed to be efficient, you are clearly wrong. All I need is one example of an inefficient program to function as a contrapositive. I think we can all think of one or two, but even if we could not, I could write one up for you right now if you would like.
if it is to be efficient in diagnosing an illness and suggesting what treatments should be done to alleviate the ailment, one of those treatment options will always be death.
if(optimalTreatment != 'DEATH')
AdministerTreatment()
The thing about computers is that you tell them what to do. It is difficult to imagine that SurgeryBot 2000 would not be explicitly programmed not to kill people.
It is the most efficient way in "curing" the patient...
Let's just hope that the actual treatment is left up to a "smart" human who knows that death isn't a always an option...
If you were writing the spec for this program would you tell the programmers to allow killing a patient as a treatment option? No, I hope not. I have written some accounting systems. At no point have I thought, "Jeesh, I really hope my program doesn't decide to go rogue, clear out Accounts Receivable, and put all the funds into a Swiss bank account to protect them!" Why? Because I did not program it to fucking do that!
Can't we just skip that stuff: "Watson, bring up the schematics for a Warp Drive!" Why wait for Cochran to make first contact and usher in a new age of peace when we have Watson?
Assuming near omnipotence I can travel around the world in.000034 seconds, lift 12,232,235,656 pounds, and come up with the most pointless slashdot article all at once. Thoughts?
In my experience, Creationists tend to present arguments/claims that anyone who has graduated from college (all teachers) should be able to answer with ease.
I really do not want to put words in anyone's mouth, but I have heard the following:
Humans hunted dinosaurs to extinction.
The world is only 6000 years old and carbon dating proves this (assuming you have no fucking clue how carbon dating works; a common theme in many of these claims)
We have never found the missing link between humans and apes (despite the fact that we have, since we are all transitional species. Technically, my father is the "missing link" between me and the apes)
4000 years ago Noah put all of the animals (two of each) on a boat. Every other creature died. So the present populations all started growing 4000 years ago (including humans). For this to occur, Noah would need to be cranking out thousands of babies...out of his 5 or 6 remaining family members...only one of which is his wife.
Dinosaur bones were put into the ground to test/trick us by G-d/Satan. (this might be a tough one to argue, since it is unfalsifiable, but I think pointing and laughing should be sufficient.)
Only G-d could design a creation this perfect...what with Giraffes that have super-inefficient nerves that loop 8 feet around their neck, dodos that are too stupid to even exist, goldfish that eat until they bust a gut and die, and humans who's strongest instinct is to do nothing but smoke cigarettes and directly inject cream cheese into their stomachs out of a turkey baster.
Really I know our teachers are not going to be genius scientists or philosophers, but this is nothing more than basic critical thinking and common sense. If you cannot grasp one of the most basic concepts of your field and defend it against children with terrible arguments, then sorry, but you are 100% unqualified as a science teacher. We do not let people teach English who do not know the difference between a noun and a verb, we do not let people teach math who do not know how to calculate the slope of a line, we should not let people teach biology that have no understanding of evolution.
Sure I did not go out and test every claim in my science textbooks, but you are missing the point. Textbooks are peer reviewed, the bible is not. Is peer review perfect? No, but science does not ask you to have faith. You do not believe a textbook on "faith", you suppose it to be generally correct through inductive logic and evidence. Peer review has a tendency to weed out false claims. Faith, OTH, does not. Guess which one has fewer false claims?
The 77 cents on the dollar argument is based on adding up the incomes of all the working women in the country, dividing it by the number of women in the country, and doing the same for the men. The actual calculation ignores experience, ability, time on the job, nature of the work, etc.
True, however, there is still around a 5-7% gap that is unexplained, and is probably due to gender discrimination. Also, there is hard evidence of this discrimination taking place. from Wikipedia:
Other studies have found direct evidence of discrimination. For example, fewer replies to identical resumes with female names and more jobs for women when orchestras moved to blind auditions.
The Matrix should definitely be taught in schools. It is exactly as verifiable as intelligent design, but way more badass. Have faith, children...in Neo!
This argument was put to rest in 1993 when DS9 came out and took the undisputed throne. All other arguments revolve around whether Voyager or TGN get the number 2 spot. There really is not too much controversy surrounding Star Trek:
Best Series: DS9
Best Captain: Picard
Best Doctor: The Doctor
Best "Wise" Archetype: Whoopie (Chacotye gets a close 2nd)
Best Ship: The Delta Flyer
Best Security Officer: perfect tie between Odo and Tuvak
Hottest Unitard: Ta'Pal
Best Backstory: Dax
Best Facial Hair: Sisko (fuck you, Riker)
Scariest Alien Race: Species 8472
Best Q: Q, of course
Most Fun: Tom Paris
Least Fun: Harry Kim
Best Cook/Barkeep: Quark
Best Holodeck Simulation: Barklay on the Holo-Voyager
Agreed. These pseudo-sciency explanations are not cutting it. They all sound plausible until you realize what madness really is, and recognize that you probably do not start licking the sidewalk or killing neighborhood cats because of a lack of intellectual stimulation. Even if it could, geniuses are not that much more isolated or bored than the rest of us. The strongest man in the world is only a few times stronger than me, and I am quite weak. The smartest man in the world is probably within a few standard deviations as well, not smart enough to be unable to communicate with the stupid ants around him (us) or to understand everything in the universe, get bored, and give up. Everyone seems to picture a genius like fucking Neo, where he is on some other plane of existence and sees things that nobody else sees. Nope, more likely he can solve Soduku puzzles 3 times as fast as your average Soduku player and can do math in his head really fast. Humans do not break away from the mold as much as movies would like us to believe. When they do, they typically become a slushy fetus that gets discarded.
Not accomplished enough. Too bad he quit his day job in his late years. If he had stuck to physics we might have this string theory thing wrapped up by now.
I have no idea why, but every shrink I have ever known has been 100% unstable and on the brink of foaming-at-the-mouth madness. I will not be visiting one until I am at least as debilitatingly insane as one of them. Until then, I'll keep my "feelings" happily bottled the way they were meant to be.
if you have enormous creativity, but not enough intelligence, you become schizophrenic because your intelligence is overwhelmed. If your intelligence is sufficiently strong, you become a genius.
I am just gonna go on a limb here and say that this is most certainly not how mental illness works.
Intelligence - even extemely high intelligence - in itself is no guarantee that a person is a genius...
Actually, it is, since genius has nothing to do with anything but having extremely high intelligence. Creativity, is great, but not necessary for genius.
with executions being closer to 10-20% in some regions
Unfortunately, even culling at these low rates, the witch population has plummeted to near-extinction, calling into question the legitimacy of the sport.
Project Managers do that sort of thing. My last few jobs have had project managers (I am a software architect (hardy har har, bs title, I know)) and I really do not think I could ever go back. Freedom from endless emails, meetings, phone calls from stupid accountants, marketers, executives, and the rest. One person just tells me what I need to do. If the spec has logical flaws, I can just ask them to clarify it for me and they go do it. No more pulling teeth to figure out the exact shade of teal the CMO wants the "Submit" button to be on the CRM form. If they keep changing their mind, the project manager goes and busts some balls on my behalf and gets the due dates pushed back. I do not have to get out my Accountant to Human Dictionary every two minutes. Seriously, I cannot do my job if I have to interpret every spec from an Excel document with a bunch of numbers on it. A project manager can go in, tie down the marketing coordinator, and beat'm silly until they stop speaking in Haikus. Sorry for the rant; I am still recovering from my exposure to customers without the shield of project manager.
To me the sad part is instead of the free market working as intended, which would be to raise salaries and lower worker abuse instead they'll just drag some poor bastards in from India that they can work like dogs and treat like dogshit.
The free market has no intent, which is kind of the point. Those poor bastards from India are supplying the demand, which is exactly how a free market works.
That is precisely how I lived until I got my student loans paid off. Now 100% of my income is free to go to fun things and to be saved for bigger fun things in the future. Also, it is not like there is NO entertainment to be had on the cheap. Buy a 30 inch a rear projection TV at yard sale for about 10 dollars with a pair of bunny ears. Pick up a radio for a few dollars. Unlimited entertainment. I am only comfortable now because I lived for years in discomfort. With the exception of the "born rich", I think you will find this to be the case with most successful people. It is not any kind of rich vs poor morality or the poor people are lazy or any of that; it is really just math. If you have a negative cashflow and are already poor, then you will always be poor.
Yes, they have nearly 100% OEM lock in. Provide a fact-based reasoning for how this could change anytime soon and I might change my mind. The cloud has nothing to do with this. Win8 will be compatible with the cloud, just like all of its competitors (the entire point of the cloud). Is this supposed to suggest that mobile devices are going to replace the desktop/laptop? I will believe that when I see a youngster (the ones who are the most mobile) writing a term paper on a mobile device and not getting an F. Sure mobile is great. I probably browse the web more on my phone than my computer these days... but I will be damned if I have to do more than a couple minutes of actual work on it. Most people need a PC, even if for a smaller subset of their computing these days, and as long as Windows has hardware lock in and no mainstream competitors in sight, things are not going to change.
they don't have to worry about supporting earlier versions of IE.
I think this is pretty debatable. Most sites for general public use should probably work in some form for ie7 and ie8. For most, there is probably still enough market share there to justify the effort.
Slashdot Mirror
A computer program is programmed to run efficient...
If you mean to say that all computer programs are programmed to be efficient, you are clearly wrong. All I need is one example of an inefficient program to function as a contrapositive. I think we can all think of one or two, but even if we could not, I could write one up for you right now if you would like.
if it is to be efficient in diagnosing an illness and suggesting what treatments should be done to alleviate the ailment, one of those treatment options will always be death.
if(optimalTreatment != 'DEATH')
AdministerTreatment()
The thing about computers is that you tell them what to do. It is difficult to imagine that SurgeryBot 2000 would not be explicitly programmed not to kill people.
It is the most efficient way in "curing" the patient...
Let's just hope that the actual treatment is left up to a "smart" human who knows that death isn't a always an option...
If you were writing the spec for this program would you tell the programmers to allow killing a patient as a treatment option? No, I hope not. I have written some accounting systems. At no point have I thought, "Jeesh, I really hope my program doesn't decide to go rogue, clear out Accounts Receivable, and put all the funds into a Swiss bank account to protect them!" Why? Because I did not program it to fucking do that!
Can't we just skip that stuff: "Watson, bring up the schematics for a Warp Drive!" Why wait for Cochran to make first contact and usher in a new age of peace when we have Watson?
Assuming near omnipotence I can travel around the world in .000034 seconds, lift 12,232,235,656 pounds, and come up with the most pointless slashdot article all at once. Thoughts?
I really do not want to put words in anyone's mouth, but I have heard the following:
Humans hunted dinosaurs to extinction.
The world is only 6000 years old and carbon dating proves this (assuming you have no fucking clue how carbon dating works; a common theme in many of these claims)
We have never found the missing link between humans and apes (despite the fact that we have, since we are all transitional species. Technically, my father is the "missing link" between me and the apes)
4000 years ago Noah put all of the animals (two of each) on a boat. Every other creature died. So the present populations all started growing 4000 years ago (including humans). For this to occur, Noah would need to be cranking out thousands of babies...out of his 5 or 6 remaining family members...only one of which is his wife.
Dinosaur bones were put into the ground to test/trick us by G-d/Satan. (this might be a tough one to argue, since it is unfalsifiable, but I think pointing and laughing should be sufficient.)
Only G-d could design a creation this perfect...what with Giraffes that have super-inefficient nerves that loop 8 feet around their neck, dodos that are too stupid to even exist, goldfish that eat until they bust a gut and die, and humans who's strongest instinct is to do nothing but smoke cigarettes and directly inject cream cheese into their stomachs out of a turkey baster.
Really I know our teachers are not going to be genius scientists or philosophers, but this is nothing more than basic critical thinking and common sense. If you cannot grasp one of the most basic concepts of your field and defend it against children with terrible arguments, then sorry, but you are 100% unqualified as a science teacher. We do not let people teach English who do not know the difference between a noun and a verb, we do not let people teach math who do not know how to calculate the slope of a line, we should not let people teach biology that have no understanding of evolution.
Sure I did not go out and test every claim in my science textbooks, but you are missing the point. Textbooks are peer reviewed, the bible is not. Is peer review perfect? No, but science does not ask you to have faith. You do not believe a textbook on "faith", you suppose it to be generally correct through inductive logic and evidence. Peer review has a tendency to weed out false claims. Faith, OTH, does not. Guess which one has fewer false claims?
The 77 cents on the dollar argument is based on adding up the incomes of all the working women in the country, dividing it by the number of women in the country, and doing the same for the men. The actual calculation ignores experience, ability, time on the job, nature of the work, etc.
True, however, there is still around a 5-7% gap that is unexplained, and is probably due to gender discrimination. Also, there is hard evidence of this discrimination taking place. from Wikipedia:
Other studies have found direct evidence of discrimination. For example, fewer replies to identical resumes with female names and more jobs for women when orchestras moved to blind auditions.
The Matrix should definitely be taught in schools. It is exactly as verifiable as intelligent design, but way more badass. Have faith, children...in Neo!
Neither was my apartment. I am not seeing the correlation here...
I guess I'm not following you there, as a truly gifted artist could "do" art or music anywhere in the world.
There are bums who could tear Eric Clapton to shreds. Giftedness is a tiny factor in the equation.
Best Series: DS9
Best Captain: Picard
Best Doctor: The Doctor
Best "Wise" Archetype: Whoopie (Chacotye gets a close 2nd)
Best Ship: The Delta Flyer
Best Security Officer: perfect tie between Odo and Tuvak
Hottest Unitard: Ta'Pal
Best Backstory: Dax
Best Facial Hair: Sisko (fuck you, Riker)
Scariest Alien Race: Species 8472
Best Q: Q, of course
Most Fun: Tom Paris
Least Fun: Harry Kim
Best Cook/Barkeep: Quark
Best Holodeck Simulation: Barklay on the Holo-Voyager
Cmon Trekies, don't all agree with me at once.
Agreed. These pseudo-sciency explanations are not cutting it. They all sound plausible until you realize what madness really is, and recognize that you probably do not start licking the sidewalk or killing neighborhood cats because of a lack of intellectual stimulation. Even if it could, geniuses are not that much more isolated or bored than the rest of us. The strongest man in the world is only a few times stronger than me, and I am quite weak. The smartest man in the world is probably within a few standard deviations as well, not smart enough to be unable to communicate with the stupid ants around him (us) or to understand everything in the universe, get bored, and give up. Everyone seems to picture a genius like fucking Neo, where he is on some other plane of existence and sees things that nobody else sees. Nope, more likely he can solve Soduku puzzles 3 times as fast as your average Soduku player and can do math in his head really fast. Humans do not break away from the mold as much as movies would like us to believe. When they do, they typically become a slushy fetus that gets discarded.
Not accomplished enough. Too bad he quit his day job in his late years. If he had stuck to physics we might have this string theory thing wrapped up by now.
I have no idea why, but every shrink I have ever known has been 100% unstable and on the brink of foaming-at-the-mouth madness. I will not be visiting one until I am at least as debilitatingly insane as one of them. Until then, I'll keep my "feelings" happily bottled the way they were meant to be.
if you have enormous creativity, but not enough intelligence, you become schizophrenic because your intelligence is overwhelmed. If your intelligence is sufficiently strong, you become a genius.
I am just gonna go on a limb here and say that this is most certainly not how mental illness works.
Intelligence - even extemely high intelligence - in itself is no guarantee that a person is a genius...
Actually, it is, since genius has nothing to do with anything but having extremely high intelligence. Creativity, is great, but not necessary for genius.
I treat mine with horrible abject failure. Works like a charm.
with executions being closer to 10-20% in some regions
Unfortunately, even culling at these low rates, the witch population has plummeted to near-extinction, calling into question the legitimacy of the sport.
Does the manufacturer even care if their item gets shoplifted? The store carrying it is the one taking the loss in most cases (no pun intended).
Project Managers do that sort of thing. My last few jobs have had project managers (I am a software architect (hardy har har, bs title, I know)) and I really do not think I could ever go back. Freedom from endless emails, meetings, phone calls from stupid accountants, marketers, executives, and the rest. One person just tells me what I need to do. If the spec has logical flaws, I can just ask them to clarify it for me and they go do it. No more pulling teeth to figure out the exact shade of teal the CMO wants the "Submit" button to be on the CRM form. If they keep changing their mind, the project manager goes and busts some balls on my behalf and gets the due dates pushed back. I do not have to get out my Accountant to Human Dictionary every two minutes. Seriously, I cannot do my job if I have to interpret every spec from an Excel document with a bunch of numbers on it. A project manager can go in, tie down the marketing coordinator, and beat'm silly until they stop speaking in Haikus. Sorry for the rant; I am still recovering from my exposure to customers without the shield of project manager.
To me the sad part is instead of the free market working as intended, which would be to raise salaries and lower worker abuse instead they'll just drag some poor bastards in from India that they can work like dogs and treat like dogshit.
The free market has no intent, which is kind of the point. Those poor bastards from India are supplying the demand, which is exactly how a free market works.
Just pick a different Kenny G album each week. Everybody loves the G-man.
That is precisely how I lived until I got my student loans paid off. Now 100% of my income is free to go to fun things and to be saved for bigger fun things in the future. Also, it is not like there is NO entertainment to be had on the cheap. Buy a 30 inch a rear projection TV at yard sale for about 10 dollars with a pair of bunny ears. Pick up a radio for a few dollars. Unlimited entertainment. I am only comfortable now because I lived for years in discomfort. With the exception of the "born rich", I think you will find this to be the case with most successful people. It is not any kind of rich vs poor morality or the poor people are lazy or any of that; it is really just math. If you have a negative cashflow and are already poor, then you will always be poor.
Vista was a "failure" yet made the company millions in profit.
I always thought the "fail fast and often" spiel had a different point to it, but this works too.
Yes, they have nearly 100% OEM lock in. Provide a fact-based reasoning for how this could change anytime soon and I might change my mind. The cloud has nothing to do with this. Win8 will be compatible with the cloud, just like all of its competitors (the entire point of the cloud). Is this supposed to suggest that mobile devices are going to replace the desktop/laptop? I will believe that when I see a youngster (the ones who are the most mobile) writing a term paper on a mobile device and not getting an F. Sure mobile is great. I probably browse the web more on my phone than my computer these days... but I will be damned if I have to do more than a couple minutes of actual work on it. Most people need a PC, even if for a smaller subset of their computing these days, and as long as Windows has hardware lock in and no mainstream competitors in sight, things are not going to change.
they don't have to worry about supporting earlier versions of IE.
I think this is pretty debatable. Most sites for general public use should probably work in some form for ie7 and ie8. For most, there is probably still enough market share there to justify the effort.