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User: Livius

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Comments · 2,750

  1. Re:Biased Idea From Onset on California Students, Parents Sue Over Teacher Firing, Tenure Rules · · Score: 1

    49% bad teachers is *not* acceptable.

    Unless there a 0% unemployment labour shortage, no-one - union or otherwise - should be allowed to stay in a job that they are incompetent at. Any bad teacher is one too many.

  2. Definition of 'Unconstitutional' on RNC Calls For Halt To Unconstitutional Surveillance · · Score: 1

    There's probably a footnote somewhere explaining that surveillance under a Republican President is automatically constitutional.

  3. Re:10 Year Anniversary on 'Opportunity' Celebrates 10 Year Anniversary Roving Mars · · Score: 1

    Ten years ago today means end of ten years and start of the year eleven.

    I.e tenth anniversary.

    And the original point is valid - using anniversary for things other than turnings of whole years diminishes the significance and meaning of 'anniversary'.

  4. Re:I knew it! on Stephen Hawking: 'There Are No Black Holes' · · Score: 1

    What 'singularity' means is that the mathematics is undefined at a certain point under certain conditions.

    We don't know what's there, so we can't be wrong about it.

  5. Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid on Stephen Hawking: 'There Are No Black Holes' · · Score: 2

    And what faith means is believing something, not because you think it's true, but because you know it isn't.

    After all, anyone can believe something that's true; believing what's not true is what takes - and demonstrates - faith.

  6. Re:Along with anyone who lives in Essex on Great Firewall of UK Blocks Game Patch Because of Substring Matches · · Score: 1

    And medical schools and all sorts of vital public health information...

  7. Re:Limited potential on Python Scripting and Analyzing Your Way To Love · · Score: 1

    I have heard comments that roughly translate to:

    " As long as a guy is in the top two percent most attractive, I don't care about the details of what he looks like. "

    and

    " I'm looking for a guy who will be vastly nicer to me than to anyone else in his life. " (Which is not at all the same thing as a guy being nice by nature.)

  8. Ambiguous question on Global-Warming Skepticism Hits 6-Year High · · Score: 1

    A lot of Americans don't believe in the 'global' part.

  9. Re:If you like it on Translating President Obama's NSA Reform Promises Into Plain English · · Score: 1

    If people have freedom of expression, they can disagree how freedom and security should be prioritized.

    But when you get neither out of the system, then it is unambiguously a failure. (Unambiguously unless one side is arguing in bad faith.)

  10. Economist thinking on Nobel Prize Winning Economist: Legalize Sale of Human Organs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Everyone knows money motivates people. There are other considerations in the prohibition against the sale of organs.

    This is why we don't let economists run the world.

  11. Re:With a grain of salt on Creationism In Texas Public Schools · · Score: 1

    Before the Enlightenment, every culture in history did, in fact, go down that path.

    Hyperbole does not help your credibility.

  12. Re:turn to the state as a surrogate husband on Creationism In Texas Public Schools · · Score: 1

    There are a few women who turned "to the state as a surrogate husband".

    Not many, of course, but if pretend there are none at all, you're as divorced from reality as the creationists.

  13. Re:always Democrats on Creationism In Texas Public Schools · · Score: 1

    Selective breeding is artificial selection and *demonstrates* current evolutionary theory.

    Genetic engineering is intelligent design. That can work, but it requires a lot more outside intervention.

  14. Student debt on Russia Backs Sending Top Students Abroad With a Catch · · Score: 1

    Pay for the education through student loans.

    Then Russia owns them forever, just like regular creditors.

  15. Re:So you want to retire a statistical term... on Why Standard Deviation Should Be Retired From Scientific Use · · Score: 1

    Don't economists use every mathematical or scientific concept incorrectly?

  16. Re:How long would that last... on Programmer Privilege · · Score: 1

    That works great for the exceptional people who can learn almost anything on the first try.

    The other 99% of us, not so much.

  17. Re:See what happens when leftists are in Charge? on Federal Court Kills Net Neutrality, Says FCC Lacks Authority. · · Score: 1

    An ideal free market favours the party with the most wealth. Ideal freedom and ideal equality are contradictory.

  18. Re:terminology on Why We Think There's a Multiverse, Not Just Our Universe · · Score: 1

    And as soon as we're sure what 'existing' means, there'll never be confusion again!

  19. Re:Hair as a standard for measurement on New Treatment Kills Metastatic Cancer Cells · · Score: 0

    It worked so well with the cubit and the foot.

  20. Re:Fucking trolley bullshit on People Become More Utilitarian When They Face Moral Dilemmas In Virtual Reality · · Score: 1

    It wasn't really an "experiment". The idealized zero-accountability environment has never existed in any real-life prison.

  21. Re:Utilitarianism is correct on People Become More Utilitarian When They Face Moral Dilemmas In Virtual Reality · · Score: 1

    Something harming the gods would certainly be vastly worse than something that only harms mere mortals. That's the utilitarian calculus we've had for most of human history.

  22. Re:Utilitarianism is correct on People Become More Utilitarian When They Face Moral Dilemmas In Virtual Reality · · Score: 1

    The flaw is that people make decisions of that nature immediately and emotionally based on heuristics rooted in instinct. For tens or hundreds of thousands of years of natural selection, no-one has ever been presented with a situation that featured the ideal certainty that the train dilemma is based on.

  23. Re:Thought experiments on Experiments Reveal That Deformed Rubber Sheet Is Not Like Spacetime · · Score: 1

    Try it - the "geodesic" curves *away* from the "mass", not towards it.

  24. Re:Thought experiments on Experiments Reveal That Deformed Rubber Sheet Is Not Like Spacetime · · Score: 1

    The point being made is that if the rubber sheet image only makes sense as a description of gravity when there is gravity causing the motion, then it's not even a useful representation. Turn the sheet up side down to see how well it works if you think you're ignoring the external gravity acting on the ball.

    At best it works as a 3-D graph of the Newtonian gravitational field strength, but it's not explaining anything *about* gravity and certainly not General Relativity.

  25. No surprise on FBI Edits Mission Statement: Removes Law Enforcement As 'Primary' Purpose · · Score: 1

    After re-writing laws, judicial precedent, and the US Constitution itself, amending a mission statement does not seem so radical any more.