Thanks for the link to the article -- it's a nifty read. The conclusion really resonated with me -- the part about scientists usually not being philosophically inclined, and are pragmatic. (The article said "will make use of whatever is a help in their work," which I interpret as pragmatism. Since you do seem philosophically inclined, you might interpret what I'm saying a little differently, since there's a school of philosophy called Pragmatism, but in this case I'm not being quite so careful with my language, and am instead using the general, commonly understood meaning of the English word "pragmatic.")
So here's the thing. I read what you wrote, and I understood a fair bit of it, but I'm one of those scientist types (well, trained as a physicist, then later as a computer scientist, though I now work as a software engineer) who never really grokked philosophy. I got stopped cold by this:
As said before; if something is not false, it must therefore be true
That's not what you said before. What you said before was "if it can be shown that something is not false, it must therefore be true" (my emphasis), which is a completely different statement.
OK, I recognize that "can be shown to be false" is not the same statement as "is false," although I would stop short of calling them "completely different" statements. What I can't figure out is why they're different, or why they should be interpreted differently. For instance, would you ever say that something can be shown to be false, but is not false? Wouldn't that imply that the disproof (the showing to be false) is itself in error? Would you ever say that something is false, but can not be shown to be false? Wouldn't that just be an axiomatic assumption?
Saying that the two are completely different statements is one thing. Explaining that is another. Explaining that in a way that doesn't rely on specialized philosophy jargon (where words do not necessarily mean what the dictionary says they do, not unlike legalese) is yet another.
Which is not to say that your post is so filled with jargon as to be unreadable -- far from it! Although I was puzzled when you wrote, "A perfect illustration of what the RA was saying," and I remember thinking, "Who the hell is RA?" (Yeah, then I noticed the definite article in front of RA. But I still am not sure what RA means in this context. Referenced Article?)
This is probably excessive nit-picking, since you already indicated you typoed in your previous post, but:
digitig wrote:
As said before; if something is not false, it must therefore be true
That's not what you said before. What you said before was "if it can be shown that something is not false, it must therefore be true" (my emphasis), which is a completely different statement.
What you just did is compare "can't be shown to be false" to "IS false," when what I think you meant was "can be shown to be false" compared to "IS false."
Here's my problem: You say digitig points out the difference between "can be shown to be X" vs. "IS X," but in reality, he only points out that there is a difference -- not necessarily what that difference is. And this is probably a distinction that philosophers care about more than anyone else, because in the real world, people commonly use the phrase "can be shown to be..." interchangeably with "is," probably to sound more sophisticated.
In point of fact, even though I took an introductory philosophy course many years ago, and even though I have an excellent command of English, I have a hard time determining precisely what the distinction is between "can be shown to be false" and "is false." I mean, is there ever a time when you could say something can be shown to be false but not actually that it is false? What about the reverse -- are there things we know are false but which we can't prove to be false? (Am I guilty of something here? Is "show" the same as "prove," or did I just commit a further linguistic sin?)
Thanks for the link. I saw one comment left by someone named "John" today, which I just had to respond to, because it makes some erroneous assumptions. The meat of the linked article is pretty good, though I wonder about the futility of the exercise.
Actually, if you read TFA instead of the Slashdot summary, the PC Pro author does go to pains to mention that the statistic you quote includes all user segments, including business and enterprise users, many of whom have usage patterns that are vastly different from the typical home user.
Also note that the statistic quoted talks about the number of concurrent windows that are open, not the number of concurrent applications (which is different).
So the "rebuttal" you're railing against was quoted out of context from TFA, and the full article does in fact qualify this rebuttal. Hypersensitive much?
You're also making the assumption that the quoted statistic is entirely or mostly explained by usage of IE6, when Microsoft has already been pushing out IE7 updates to most XP users -- IE7 has tabbed browsing, and only certain organizations have blocked updates from IE6 (my employer among them -- so we're stuck using IE6). Further, most business and enterprise users don't typically have that many browser windows open, even if they're stuck using IE6. For example, based on my current usage, I have 15 windows open right now, only 6 of which (less than half) are IE6 browser windows. In the absence of additional information, I don't think it's valid to jump to the conclusion that it must be IE6 users skewing the stats.
Why doesn't Apple just do that instead of trying to abuse copyright law?
You're presuming with your question that Apple is, in fact, abusing copyright law. (There's no "trying to" here, really -- either they are, or they aren't. Nobody I know tries to break a law only to fail.)
So far, only Psystar is alleging that Apple has abused copyright law -- and that wasn't even one of Psystar's original claims! The original claim was that Apple is violating antitrust laws, a claim that was thrown out. Seems to me they're flailing about trying to make a charge that sticks. Regardless, only a trial can determine whether Apple is truly guilty of any misconduct. Making an allegation isn't sufficient.
As for the court of public opinion, I don't think there's been enough discussion or evidence presented to support the argument for copyright abuse. Some partisans are going to assume one way or the other without facts; the rest of us would appreciate something a little more concrete.
An unwarranted, baseless assertion with no argument to back it up? Check!
Code thieves are code thieves.
So this is what passes for justification of the preceding assertion. I'm trying to figure out which particular meme this is derived from. WebKit being a fork of KHTML? Apple using OpenBSD / FreeBSD as the basis for OS X? These have all been debated ad nauseum, and have all been debunked. Really, how is Apple a "code thief"?
This strikes me as not even a very good attempt at trolling...
I checked out the article at Ars because the name PearC bore a resemblance to PearPC (which itself reminds us of the CherryOS controversy, see the linked Wikipedia article).
It's important to note that PearC's business model is built upon a particular reading of German law, which will require the German authorities to weigh in on its correctness. That reading wouldn't apply outside of Germany.
In a nutshell it states that Jews and Christians, because they are sons of Abraham, like Muslims, are not as pure as Muslims, but that conversion ISNT necessary.
How very magnanimous! Not.
So you're willing to give a "pass" to some people of certain specific religions, even though they're not "pure" like you. And any non-Abrahamic religions get substantially shabbier treatment, right?
Although as I'm about to point out, even the "people of the book" don't get such a great deal...
You put a link to Muslim conquests but you made the mistake of assuming that meant conversion. If you read the wiki link you posted, you might have noticed this
No, you made the mistake of assuming that someone was too stupid to make such a distinction. But there are some fates far worse than forced conversion, including living as a second-class citizen -- which in the real world is how most Muslim nations treat "people of the book" within their borders.
Islam did not become at all violent against Christians or Jews until after the crusades.
Our history books say otherwise. There are documented military campaigns during the lifetime of Mohammed, well before the Crusades, which resulted in the deaths of many non-Muslims. You must have a pretty twisted view of history to ignore everything that happened prior to the Crusades. Not every tale of conversion in the time of Mohammed is a happy one, and those who refused to convert... well, many died. It's not as rosy a picture as you would like to paint for us.
Oh, you think our history books are a pack of lies? Right back atcha. But if you're a truly courageous individual, maybe you'll be interested in the historical accounts written by non-Westerners which clearly back me up.
I have the VDSL "triple play" service offered by Qwest in Phoenix, branded here as "Qwest Choice." Lately, Qwest has been aggressively trying to move all their cable TV customers to DirecTV -- they're encouraging this by not fixing or upgrading the existing copper serving homes with VDSL, and by setting a firm cut-off date some time in 2010 for the Choice TV and online service. The DirecTV rates they can get for their customers (since Qwest is now a DirecTV reseller) are cheaper than what they are currently charging for their Choice TV package.
Qwest clearly doesn't want to remain in the TV delivery business, so they're happy to outsource that part to a satellite provider (DirecTV) and focus on broadband internet.
Like you, Qwest will be offering me a free upgrade for my broadband, though at this point it isn't clear if I'll be getting 7 Mbps, 12 Mbps, or 20 Mbps. Currently I'm paying for 3 Mbps down / 1 Mbps up (and getting about 2.5 Mbps up / 800 Kbps down). I'm told I'll get at least a minimum of 7 Mbps, and that level of service will be had at no additional cost to me; presumably, if the higher tiers are even available, I'll be paying more. The new "fiber optic" service they've told me of (which I assume is identical to the ADSL2 you speak of) also comes in a 1.5 Mbps flavor which is as fast as the VDSL data rate I used to be at. Hopefully I won't get shafted with the switch to the new service and forced to limp along at 1.5 Mbps.
I find it interesting that the Qwest techs I've spoken to are deliberately vague on the details of the transition. They talk about the new system being "fiber optic," but my understanding was that the VDSL system I currently have is fiber-to-the-neighborhood, with the final segment over copper to the premises; the new system, I am told, is fiber-to-the-premises. Did they wind up running fiber to your house?
At any rate, you're absolutely right -- the telcos in the U.S. are simply greedy. Qwest wouldn't even offer me 3 Mbps downstream initially. I discovered this service level was available when I called them for a routine billing or service question, and upgraded. The "upgrade" consisted of them setting a bit somewhere in their system -- no line upgrade required. One can only assume that they throttled back the bandwidth available for Internet communications because they didn't want any competition for their fledgling cable TV business (which they are now abandoning).
The other thing is, after the last two service calls I made to Qwest, their technician quietly downgraded my service level from 3 Mbps to 1.5 Mbps, presumably on the assumption that I wouldn't notice the difference. They even tried to tell me that I requested the downgrade. So after talking to some Qwest employees both on and off the record, I get the impression that it's too expensive for them (read: not profitable enough) to maintain the copper leading to the customer's home, and the equipment ahead of that copper. The new fiber solution is apparently much cheaper and lasts longer. But somehow, I'm still not expecting any great leap in speeds. If the new solution results in fewer outages and no downgrades performed behind my back, I guess I'll consider that an improvement.
Except that it's called "spooky action at a distance," and the other word you're looking for is tenet.
Also, the phenomenon has been known for way more than a decade -- Einstein is the person who coined the term "spooky action at a distance." He died in 1955, which is over 5 decades ago.
No, he's complaining that the Drudge Report, a conservative blog that gets noticed by a lot of higher-profile conservatives, is reporting the story wrong. Four years from now (or eight, depending), this issue will probably be raised again. When that happens, which version of history are people going to listen to and believe?
In fairness to the Drudge Report and the Time live blog, it seems that a correction (of sorts) has been issued:
James Poniewozik - 1:00 p.m.: Drudge now backpedaling: "Obama AND CHIEF JUSTICE flub oath..."
Unless you use a 3rd party mouse (like most users used to do), or one of Apple's Mighty Mouse incarnations (wired or wireless), both of which have a 2D scrolling device (scroll ball instead of scroll wheel, which is clickable in the same way that most scroll wheels can be clicked like a 3rd button); support right and left clicking with the appropriate setting in System Preferences; and even allow you to squeeze the sides of the mouse, behaving like a 4th mouse button. And the Mighty Mouse is now standard equipment on all new Macs sold.
I know you're trying to be funny, but cripes, this joke keeps getting repeated well beyond its expiration date.
Great link, and rather surprising considering it's directly in contradiction to the published Resolution on Violence in Video Games and Interactive Media published by the American Psychological Association, which was referenced from TFA (albeit from the comments section). The APA resolution is interesting reading, since it cites a lot of studies and only grudgingly provides qualifications of any of their claims; when it does provide qualifications of the claims, they're rather amusing to read:
"WHEREAS there appears to be evidence that exposure to violent media increases feelings of hostility, thoughts about aggression, suspicions about the motives of others, and demonstrates violence as a method to deal with potential conflict situations[...]"
(emphasis added)
"WHEREAS perpetrators go unpunished in 73% of all violent scenes, and therefore teach that violence is an effective means of resolving conflict. Only 16% of all programs portrayed negative psychological or financial effects, yet such visual depictions of pain and suffering can actually inhibit aggressive behavior in viewers[...]"
Because, you know, works of fantasy are required to have social value equal to their entertainment value. We also don't know from the above snippet if they're really talking about video games or violent programming -- note the use of the phrase "violent scenes," which implies passive consumption or watching rather than active participation. The use of the term "viewers" later on indicates the authors of this resolution are in fact conflating passive media with video games, perhaps deliberately so.
(There's a reason why works of fiction in general are called "escapism." Negative consequences don't make for very good escapist entertainment.)
The APA goes on to essentially blame video games for promoting negative stereotypes of women and minorities, various "rape myths," and so on. In point of fact, I can't think of a single video game that specifically glorifies rape, nor can I think of one that endorses misogyny or encourages the rape, assault, or murder of women.
What I find most bizarre about Baca's proposal is that he wants this blanket warning label for every video game with a T rating or higher. Yet many non-violent games get a T rating, and it's theoretically possible for even an M-rated game to have no violent content. (The Leisure Suit Larry series of games springs to mind, although most of them predate the ratings system we have now. I have no doubt Larry would have had an M rating when he first debuted. Even Infocom had Leather Goddesses of Phobos, for crying out loud!)
In order to be fair and not adversely harm the sales of non-violent games, shouldn't compulsory warning labels only apply to games whose content is actually deemed violent?
Furthermore, the existing ESRB rating system is a voluntary one agreed upon by the games industry; such a law would imply government endorsement of a privately developed rating system... when said rating system was developed to stave off government interference and regulation, similar to the Comics Code of yesteryear and the MPAA rating system we still use for movies.
Well, his explanation wasn't entirely clear, but he's right. He's not reading what he wants to, you are.
There are actually two obligations described in that sentence. Let me break them out into bullet points, since you seem to need that degree of clarification. Parties to the treaty must:
Conduct exploration of celestial bodies so as to avoid contaminating them harmfully (i.e., with things we bring there from Earth).
Conduct exploration of celestial bodies so as to avoid adversely altering Earth's environment through the introduction of extraterrestrial matter (i.e., things we bring to Earth from there).
The "appropriate measures" part of the text simply requires signatories to exercise due dilligence in discharging their obligations under this section of the treaty.
Really, the original sentence was a bit confusingly constructed, but it wasn't so bad that anyone skilled in the legal arts couldn't parse it. It's a legal document, after all.
And it will again about 2 minutes after someone adds any embarrassing information to the article, whether it's supported by citations or not. You can bet any high-profile attorney or politician who has a Wikipedia article about them probably has at least one staffer whose job it is to police information about their boss on Wikipedia, and sanitize it if necessary. It's just another PR function these days.
The 4th Amendment is not a law. It is a (amended) part of the constitution. As such it is the corner stone by which laws are made. I realize that I am basically agreeing with your post. But calling the constitution (any part) a 'law' is not doing it justice (pun slightly intended).
Um, wrong. The United States Constitution is the fundamental law of the land, from which all other law derives. That's why we have a Supreme Court of the United States to determine whether other laws/statutes are in fact Constitutional (in accordance with the Constitution) or not. That's why there is a whole branch of jurisprudence called "Constitutional law." Many sections of the U.S. Constitution spell out many humdrum aspects of running a government, and need little or no supporting legislation to have the force of law.
Some procedures are only provided by the written word of the Constitution and its interpretation, making this document the sole governing law in such cases. Impeachment is one such procedure. The governing law is laid out in article I, section 2, clause 5; article I, section 3, clauses 6 and 7; and in article 2, section 4. Try telling Bill Clinton he was being tried for crimes under a non-existent law.
Really, this is something you should have learned in an American Civics class. This isn't semantic hair-splitting; just about every article about the U.S. Constitution starts off with some statement to this effect, and the Wikipedia article is no different: "The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. It provides the framework for the organization of the United States Government." Emphasis added by me.
Off topic but I thought I would mention that in "Seeds of Change " Henry Hobhouse mentions the use of Spinach was a thinly veiled nod to Cocaine and also generations of kids had to eat the stuff because it was a high source of iron - where as it is nothing special for a leafy green.
You need to do your research better. A quick check of Amazon shows that the book you mention talks about 5 plants, none of which is spinach; the 5 plants are quinine, sugar, tea, cotton, and the potato.
As for Spinach, it is widely believed that Spinach was a metaphor for hemp / marijuana, not cocaine. The term "spinach" has been slang for marijuana since the early 20th century. A simple Google search for the terms "Popeye marijuana" brings up this article, as well as this follow-up article which includes a scan of an October 1939 Popeye comic book cover.
...and exempting that disgusting waste water that fat people drink so that the feel like they're "dieting" while they eat two big macs for lunch...
I used to share your opinion of diet sodas.
Then I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes in December 2007. Since then, I've had to cut out all "regular" sodas. It was quite a shock to my sensibilities -- I remember once declaring that nothing artificially sweetened would ever pass my lips. After I was forced to change my diet, using hardly any real sugar anymore and mostly relying on sugar alcohols (e.g., xylitol) and artificial sweeteners for my sweetening needs, I found that my tastes changed substantially. I was even able to handle sucralose after a few weeks -- this despite my initial bad experience, where I felt one of my kidneys aching after trying a Coke Zero or a Pepsi One.
I noticed you also responded to one of your commenters elsewhere in this thread that you try to avoid HFCS. Good for you. In the year before I was diagnosed with diabetes, I too tried to eliminate HFCS from my diet, or substantially reduce it. It wasn't easy, but Safeway made it easier with their line of organic sodas; Jones Soda Co. also switched from HFCS to cane sugar, which earned them a lot of my business. It still didn't undo the years of drinking Mountain Dew and Doctor Pepper. By the time I switched, my bad genetics had caught up with me.
Amazingly, I was in denial for a few months before I finally saw a doctor. I had somehow convinced myself that the chemical/varnish/paint thinner smell coming from my urine was the result of a bladder infection that wouldn't go away, and didn't realize it was a symptom of diabetic ketosis.
And no, I don't fit the "fat" stereotype, not even before I got my diabetes under control. I lost some weight after I got diagnosed (some due to dietary changes, and the rest due to an unfortunate medication mishap which has since been rectified), so I'm even skinnier now than I was (and I've always been tall and skinny). It just goes to prove that, just because you don't have a particular risk factor, doesn't mean you won't get a certain disease. It also shows that "diet" soft drinks aren't just for overweight people.
Having said all that... I agree that it seems idiotic to tax HFCS sweetened sodas and not tax (or tax much less) sodas sweetened with various unnatural chemicals. Sounds to me as though some chemical companies lobbied very hard to make sure it worked out that way.
You hit the nail right on the head. $100 an ounce tax is pretty ridiculous, since that's more than what most people I know would pay for an ounce of commercial-grade pot. (Yes, I know this varies by state, and we're talking about New York, not Arizona.) $20 an ounce is a substantial hit, but likely tolerable. I can't believe it, but I'm going to cite the Laffer Curve here -- there's a magic tax rate which will maximize tax revenue, and I think the concept applies to goods just as well as income.
Using law enforcement resources to catch and prosecute tax evaders costs money too, so the idea is to find the taxation sweet spot to maximize compliance and reduce the number of scofflaws you need to mobilize resources against.
I'm saddened and shocked by this news. I took 6.001 as an elective (I was a physics major, and decided to stick with physics to finish out my undergrad career). In fact, I had Hal Abelson and Gerry Sussman as my professors for the class, which was totally awesome.
It seems 6.001 is being replaced by 6.00, 6.01, and 6.02; Scheme is, as you say, being replaced with Python... which IMHO is a poor choice to replace Scheme, if for no other reason than it forces you to care about consistent indentation. (Then again, Scheme is pretty ruthless about balanced parentheses, so I guess you can't completely get away from syntax stupidity. That said, parentheses and prefix notation are about the only bits of Scheme syntax you need to even learn, which is why it only took us 10-15 minutes of the first class to cover the basics of the language.)
I found this article which details this transition in some depth. It looks as though even Gerry Sussman knew that 6.001 was not long for this world, and needed to be replaced... but at least he taught the last class. The article says some people really dislike the new curriculum, and I can see why. I'm not throwing out my SICP book any time soon! I fail to see how the same material can be taught as effectively with the new curriculum and the new tools, at least from a theory standpoint.
I'm sure playing with robots controlled by Python is fun, though.
I noticed in the comments section of TFA, there were some other anecdotes of similar experiences... so it seems to me this phenomenon was being under-reported before this (and is probably still going to be under-reported for some time to come). Here's the one that struck me:
I can attest to this behavior. I have been working with a few high school students in Orlando, FL who were SUSPENDED for sharing Ubuntu disks.
The comment was that there is no such thing as a "FREE" operating system, this is pirated software.
Unbelievable.
Unfortunately, lots more folks are claiming this has to be a fake letter, that "Karen" either doesn't exist or that she couldn't possibly have written this screed verbatim. Not that skepticism is a bad thing -- I wish more people were skeptical! -- but folks seem very willing to give this teacher a pass, or to claim that Helios is making stuff up. We worship teachers as heroes in our society, even if we don't pay them well (or even enough).
From my own scholastic experiences, I can say that even in a private (Catholic) school, I still ran into my fair share of small-minded bureaucrats. They are everywhere. (I still remember the time that Mister Deburro corrected me when I was asking permission to do something -- he insisted I should say "Can I...?" instead of "May I...?" and wouldn't even let me finish my request until I phrased it how he wanted it. On the other hand, he did introduce my class to the word "umbrage." But he was still being a douchebag pedant, and he was wrong! Even though this guy probably did way more right than wrong in his career, I'll forever remember him as the asshole who corrected me when I didn't need correcting.)
I just attempted to view the Wikipedia entry for "Virgin Killer" (the Scorpions album), and my employer's proxy content filter (supplied by Blue Coat) still lists this particular Wikipedia page as blocked:
Content Filter
The page you have requested has been blocked by the Content Filter.
One of the following categories that this site belongs to is filtered: "IWF-Restricted;Reference"
Not sure if Blue Coat updated their records yet, but I'm about to complain to them about the content filter. This is the first time, incidentally, that I've seen any Wikipedia page blocked, though I've seen plenty of other asinine filters set up for other sites.
And for the record, I'm nowhere near the UK -- this is in Phoenix, Arizona. Nice to see how someone else's "community standards" are being enforced on me, across national boundaries.
Scrap metal dealers are being regulated more, true, but what the article doesn't mention is that there are loopholes you can drive a caterpillar tractor through. In Arizona, there are monetary thresholds for reporting (under $50 doesn't get reported, although this may have been changed recently), so savvy thieves can slide in under that threshold, and even negotiate with the dealer to insure they stay under that threshold. I think the next step is to burden the dealers so much (with regulations, taxes, or what have you) that it's no longer worth it for them to accept small amounts of scrap.
The article mentioned Arizona as one area with a serious copper theft problem. It's getting pretty bad in Phoenix particularly.
Scrap metal dealers here are now required by law to report all scrap metal purchases in excess of $50. The thieves have responded by negotiating with the scrap metal dealers to keep their reimbursement amounts just below that critical threshold.
We've had thieves in my neighborhood take a circular saw to bundles of cables, effectively cutting off Qwest customers from their phones (and in our case, VDSL for TV and broadband). These are cable bundles protected inside of steel conduits or pipes!
It's gotten to the point that Qwest has decided it does not want to maintain its Choice TV service beyond 2010, and so Qwest is now encouraging its customers to switch their TV service to DirecTV (through a partnership deal), and I've been told that they will be transitioning their Choice broadband customers to some new high-speed network standard over the next couple years. (I've been told either 12 or 20 megabit service will be coming to my area.) In the meantime, those of us who are still stuck on Choice TV until we can figure out what to do are left with a dwindling number of viable copper pairs we can use; nobody at Qwest is putting up replacement lines or fixing/reconditioning the existing lines, so I've had Qwest downgrade my broadband service twice from 3 megabit to 1.5 megabit to compensate for now-marginal signal levels.
Although I'm sure it was mainly a business case for Qwest deciding it doesn't want to compete with cable operators after all, I am also sure that repeated vandalism of Qwest property and theft of its copper is playing a large part in this decision.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the link to the article -- it's a nifty read. The conclusion really resonated with me -- the part about scientists usually not being philosophically inclined, and are pragmatic. (The article said "will make use of whatever is a help in their work," which I interpret as pragmatism. Since you do seem philosophically inclined, you might interpret what I'm saying a little differently, since there's a school of philosophy called Pragmatism, but in this case I'm not being quite so careful with my language, and am instead using the general, commonly understood meaning of the English word "pragmatic.")
So here's the thing. I read what you wrote, and I understood a fair bit of it, but I'm one of those scientist types (well, trained as a physicist, then later as a computer scientist, though I now work as a software engineer) who never really grokked philosophy. I got stopped cold by this:
OK, I recognize that "can be shown to be false" is not the same statement as "is false," although I would stop short of calling them "completely different" statements. What I can't figure out is why they're different, or why they should be interpreted differently. For instance, would you ever say that something can be shown to be false, but is not false? Wouldn't that imply that the disproof (the showing to be false) is itself in error? Would you ever say that something is false, but can not be shown to be false? Wouldn't that just be an axiomatic assumption?
Saying that the two are completely different statements is one thing. Explaining that is another. Explaining that in a way that doesn't rely on specialized philosophy jargon (where words do not necessarily mean what the dictionary says they do, not unlike legalese) is yet another.
Which is not to say that your post is so filled with jargon as to be unreadable -- far from it! Although I was puzzled when you wrote, "A perfect illustration of what the RA was saying," and I remember thinking, "Who the hell is RA?" (Yeah, then I noticed the definite article in front of RA. But I still am not sure what RA means in this context. Referenced Article?)
This is probably excessive nit-picking, since you already indicated you typoed in your previous post, but:
digitig wrote:
What you just did is compare "can't be shown to be false" to "IS false," when what I think you meant was "can be shown to be false" compared to "IS false."
Here's my problem: You say digitig points out the difference between "can be shown to be X" vs. "IS X," but in reality, he only points out that there is a difference -- not necessarily what that difference is. And this is probably a distinction that philosophers care about more than anyone else, because in the real world, people commonly use the phrase "can be shown to be..." interchangeably with "is," probably to sound more sophisticated.
In point of fact, even though I took an introductory philosophy course many years ago, and even though I have an excellent command of English, I have a hard time determining precisely what the distinction is between "can be shown to be false" and "is false." I mean, is there ever a time when you could say something can be shown to be false but not actually that it is false? What about the reverse -- are there things we know are false but which we can't prove to be false? (Am I guilty of something here? Is "show" the same as "prove," or did I just commit a further linguistic sin?)
Thanks for the link. I saw one comment left by someone named "John" today, which I just had to respond to, because it makes some erroneous assumptions. The meat of the linked article is pretty good, though I wonder about the futility of the exercise.
Actually, if you read TFA instead of the Slashdot summary, the PC Pro author does go to pains to mention that the statistic you quote includes all user segments, including business and enterprise users, many of whom have usage patterns that are vastly different from the typical home user.
Also note that the statistic quoted talks about the number of concurrent windows that are open, not the number of concurrent applications (which is different).
So the "rebuttal" you're railing against was quoted out of context from TFA, and the full article does in fact qualify this rebuttal. Hypersensitive much?
You're also making the assumption that the quoted statistic is entirely or mostly explained by usage of IE6, when Microsoft has already been pushing out IE7 updates to most XP users -- IE7 has tabbed browsing, and only certain organizations have blocked updates from IE6 (my employer among them -- so we're stuck using IE6). Further, most business and enterprise users don't typically have that many browser windows open, even if they're stuck using IE6. For example, based on my current usage, I have 15 windows open right now, only 6 of which (less than half) are IE6 browser windows. In the absence of additional information, I don't think it's valid to jump to the conclusion that it must be IE6 users skewing the stats.
You're presuming with your question that Apple is, in fact, abusing copyright law. (There's no "trying to" here, really -- either they are, or they aren't. Nobody I know tries to break a law only to fail.)
So far, only Psystar is alleging that Apple has abused copyright law -- and that wasn't even one of Psystar's original claims! The original claim was that Apple is violating antitrust laws, a claim that was thrown out. Seems to me they're flailing about trying to make a charge that sticks. Regardless, only a trial can determine whether Apple is truly guilty of any misconduct. Making an allegation isn't sufficient.
As for the court of public opinion, I don't think there's been enough discussion or evidence presented to support the argument for copyright abuse. Some partisans are going to assume one way or the other without facts; the rest of us would appreciate something a little more concrete.
An unwarranted, baseless assertion with no argument to back it up? Check!
So this is what passes for justification of the preceding assertion. I'm trying to figure out which particular meme this is derived from. WebKit being a fork of KHTML? Apple using OpenBSD / FreeBSD as the basis for OS X? These have all been debated ad nauseum, and have all been debunked. Really, how is Apple a "code thief"?
This strikes me as not even a very good attempt at trolling...
I checked out the article at Ars because the name PearC bore a resemblance to PearPC (which itself reminds us of the CherryOS controversy, see the linked Wikipedia article).
It's important to note that PearC's business model is built upon a particular reading of German law, which will require the German authorities to weigh in on its correctness. That reading wouldn't apply outside of Germany.
How very magnanimous! Not.
So you're willing to give a "pass" to some people of certain specific religions, even though they're not "pure" like you. And any non-Abrahamic religions get substantially shabbier treatment, right?
Although as I'm about to point out, even the "people of the book" don't get such a great deal...
No, you made the mistake of assuming that someone was too stupid to make such a distinction. But there are some fates far worse than forced conversion, including living as a second-class citizen -- which in the real world is how most Muslim nations treat "people of the book" within their borders.
Our history books say otherwise. There are documented military campaigns during the lifetime of Mohammed, well before the Crusades, which resulted in the deaths of many non-Muslims. You must have a pretty twisted view of history to ignore everything that happened prior to the Crusades. Not every tale of conversion in the time of Mohammed is a happy one, and those who refused to convert... well, many died. It's not as rosy a picture as you would like to paint for us.
Oh, you think our history books are a pack of lies? Right back atcha. But if you're a truly courageous individual, maybe you'll be interested in the historical accounts written by non-Westerners which clearly back me up.
I have the VDSL "triple play" service offered by Qwest in Phoenix, branded here as "Qwest Choice." Lately, Qwest has been aggressively trying to move all their cable TV customers to DirecTV -- they're encouraging this by not fixing or upgrading the existing copper serving homes with VDSL, and by setting a firm cut-off date some time in 2010 for the Choice TV and online service. The DirecTV rates they can get for their customers (since Qwest is now a DirecTV reseller) are cheaper than what they are currently charging for their Choice TV package.
Qwest clearly doesn't want to remain in the TV delivery business, so they're happy to outsource that part to a satellite provider (DirecTV) and focus on broadband internet.
Like you, Qwest will be offering me a free upgrade for my broadband, though at this point it isn't clear if I'll be getting 7 Mbps, 12 Mbps, or 20 Mbps. Currently I'm paying for 3 Mbps down / 1 Mbps up (and getting about 2.5 Mbps up / 800 Kbps down). I'm told I'll get at least a minimum of 7 Mbps, and that level of service will be had at no additional cost to me; presumably, if the higher tiers are even available, I'll be paying more. The new "fiber optic" service they've told me of (which I assume is identical to the ADSL2 you speak of) also comes in a 1.5 Mbps flavor which is as fast as the VDSL data rate I used to be at. Hopefully I won't get shafted with the switch to the new service and forced to limp along at 1.5 Mbps.
I find it interesting that the Qwest techs I've spoken to are deliberately vague on the details of the transition. They talk about the new system being "fiber optic," but my understanding was that the VDSL system I currently have is fiber-to-the-neighborhood, with the final segment over copper to the premises; the new system, I am told, is fiber-to-the-premises. Did they wind up running fiber to your house?
At any rate, you're absolutely right -- the telcos in the U.S. are simply greedy. Qwest wouldn't even offer me 3 Mbps downstream initially. I discovered this service level was available when I called them for a routine billing or service question, and upgraded. The "upgrade" consisted of them setting a bit somewhere in their system -- no line upgrade required. One can only assume that they throttled back the bandwidth available for Internet communications because they didn't want any competition for their fledgling cable TV business (which they are now abandoning).
The other thing is, after the last two service calls I made to Qwest, their technician quietly downgraded my service level from 3 Mbps to 1.5 Mbps, presumably on the assumption that I wouldn't notice the difference. They even tried to tell me that I requested the downgrade. So after talking to some Qwest employees both on and off the record, I get the impression that it's too expensive for them (read: not profitable enough) to maintain the copper leading to the customer's home, and the equipment ahead of that copper. The new fiber solution is apparently much cheaper and lasts longer. But somehow, I'm still not expecting any great leap in speeds. If the new solution results in fewer outages and no downgrades performed behind my back, I guess I'll consider that an improvement.
Except that it's called "spooky action at a distance," and the other word you're looking for is tenet.
Also, the phenomenon has been known for way more than a decade -- Einstein is the person who coined the term "spooky action at a distance." He died in 1955, which is over 5 decades ago.
No, he's complaining that the Drudge Report, a conservative blog that gets noticed by a lot of higher-profile conservatives, is reporting the story wrong. Four years from now (or eight, depending), this issue will probably be raised again. When that happens, which version of history are people going to listen to and believe?
In fairness to the Drudge Report and the Time live blog, it seems that a correction (of sorts) has been issued:
Or you need to learn how to open System Preferences to enable right-clicking with your Mighty Mouse. Or you could buy another brand of mouse.
Unless you use a 3rd party mouse (like most users used to do), or one of Apple's Mighty Mouse incarnations (wired or wireless), both of which have a 2D scrolling device (scroll ball instead of scroll wheel, which is clickable in the same way that most scroll wheels can be clicked like a 3rd button); support right and left clicking with the appropriate setting in System Preferences; and even allow you to squeeze the sides of the mouse, behaving like a 4th mouse button. And the Mighty Mouse is now standard equipment on all new Macs sold.
I know you're trying to be funny, but cripes, this joke keeps getting repeated well beyond its expiration date.
Great link, and rather surprising considering it's directly in contradiction to the published Resolution on Violence in Video Games and Interactive Media published by the American Psychological Association, which was referenced from TFA (albeit from the comments section). The APA resolution is interesting reading, since it cites a lot of studies and only grudgingly provides qualifications of any of their claims; when it does provide qualifications of the claims, they're rather amusing to read:
"WHEREAS there appears to be evidence that exposure to violent media increases feelings of hostility, thoughts about aggression, suspicions about the motives of others, and demonstrates violence as a method to deal with potential conflict situations[...]"
(emphasis added)
"WHEREAS perpetrators go unpunished in 73% of all violent scenes, and therefore teach that violence is an effective means of resolving conflict. Only 16% of all programs portrayed negative psychological or financial effects, yet such visual depictions of pain and suffering can actually inhibit aggressive behavior in viewers[...]"
Because, you know, works of fantasy are required to have social value equal to their entertainment value. We also don't know from the above snippet if they're really talking about video games or violent programming -- note the use of the phrase "violent scenes," which implies passive consumption or watching rather than active participation. The use of the term "viewers" later on indicates the authors of this resolution are in fact conflating passive media with video games, perhaps deliberately so.
(There's a reason why works of fiction in general are called "escapism." Negative consequences don't make for very good escapist entertainment.)
The APA goes on to essentially blame video games for promoting negative stereotypes of women and minorities, various "rape myths," and so on. In point of fact, I can't think of a single video game that specifically glorifies rape, nor can I think of one that endorses misogyny or encourages the rape, assault, or murder of women.
What I find most bizarre about Baca's proposal is that he wants this blanket warning label for every video game with a T rating or higher. Yet many non-violent games get a T rating, and it's theoretically possible for even an M-rated game to have no violent content. (The Leisure Suit Larry series of games springs to mind, although most of them predate the ratings system we have now. I have no doubt Larry would have had an M rating when he first debuted. Even Infocom had Leather Goddesses of Phobos, for crying out loud!)
In order to be fair and not adversely harm the sales of non-violent games, shouldn't compulsory warning labels only apply to games whose content is actually deemed violent?
Furthermore, the existing ESRB rating system is a voluntary one agreed upon by the games industry; such a law would imply government endorsement of a privately developed rating system... when said rating system was developed to stave off government interference and regulation, similar to the Comics Code of yesteryear and the MPAA rating system we still use for movies.
Well, his explanation wasn't entirely clear, but he's right. He's not reading what he wants to, you are.
There are actually two obligations described in that sentence. Let me break them out into bullet points, since you seem to need that degree of clarification. Parties to the treaty must:
The "appropriate measures" part of the text simply requires signatories to exercise due dilligence in discharging their obligations under this section of the treaty.
Really, the original sentence was a bit confusingly constructed, but it wasn't so bad that anyone skilled in the legal arts couldn't parse it. It's a legal document, after all.
And it will again about 2 minutes after someone adds any embarrassing information to the article, whether it's supported by citations or not. You can bet any high-profile attorney or politician who has a Wikipedia article about them probably has at least one staffer whose job it is to police information about their boss on Wikipedia, and sanitize it if necessary. It's just another PR function these days.
Um, wrong. The United States Constitution is the fundamental law of the land, from which all other law derives. That's why we have a Supreme Court of the United States to determine whether other laws/statutes are in fact Constitutional (in accordance with the Constitution) or not. That's why there is a whole branch of jurisprudence called "Constitutional law." Many sections of the U.S. Constitution spell out many humdrum aspects of running a government, and need little or no supporting legislation to have the force of law.
Some procedures are only provided by the written word of the Constitution and its interpretation, making this document the sole governing law in such cases. Impeachment is one such procedure. The governing law is laid out in article I, section 2, clause 5; article I, section 3, clauses 6 and 7; and in article 2, section 4. Try telling Bill Clinton he was being tried for crimes under a non-existent law.
Really, this is something you should have learned in an American Civics class. This isn't semantic hair-splitting; just about every article about the U.S. Constitution starts off with some statement to this effect, and the Wikipedia article is no different: "The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. It provides the framework for the organization of the United States Government." Emphasis added by me.
You need to do your research better. A quick check of Amazon shows that the book you mention talks about 5 plants, none of which is spinach; the 5 plants are quinine, sugar, tea, cotton, and the potato.
As for Spinach, it is widely believed that Spinach was a metaphor for hemp / marijuana, not cocaine. The term "spinach" has been slang for marijuana since the early 20th century. A simple Google search for the terms "Popeye marijuana" brings up this article, as well as this follow-up article which includes a scan of an October 1939 Popeye comic book cover.
I used to share your opinion of diet sodas.
Then I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes in December 2007. Since then, I've had to cut out all "regular" sodas. It was quite a shock to my sensibilities -- I remember once declaring that nothing artificially sweetened would ever pass my lips. After I was forced to change my diet, using hardly any real sugar anymore and mostly relying on sugar alcohols (e.g., xylitol) and artificial sweeteners for my sweetening needs, I found that my tastes changed substantially. I was even able to handle sucralose after a few weeks -- this despite my initial bad experience, where I felt one of my kidneys aching after trying a Coke Zero or a Pepsi One.
I noticed you also responded to one of your commenters elsewhere in this thread that you try to avoid HFCS. Good for you. In the year before I was diagnosed with diabetes, I too tried to eliminate HFCS from my diet, or substantially reduce it. It wasn't easy, but Safeway made it easier with their line of organic sodas; Jones Soda Co. also switched from HFCS to cane sugar, which earned them a lot of my business. It still didn't undo the years of drinking Mountain Dew and Doctor Pepper. By the time I switched, my bad genetics had caught up with me.
Amazingly, I was in denial for a few months before I finally saw a doctor. I had somehow convinced myself that the chemical/varnish/paint thinner smell coming from my urine was the result of a bladder infection that wouldn't go away, and didn't realize it was a symptom of diabetic ketosis.
And no, I don't fit the "fat" stereotype, not even before I got my diabetes under control. I lost some weight after I got diagnosed (some due to dietary changes, and the rest due to an unfortunate medication mishap which has since been rectified), so I'm even skinnier now than I was (and I've always been tall and skinny). It just goes to prove that, just because you don't have a particular risk factor, doesn't mean you won't get a certain disease. It also shows that "diet" soft drinks aren't just for overweight people.
Having said all that... I agree that it seems idiotic to tax HFCS sweetened sodas and not tax (or tax much less) sodas sweetened with various unnatural chemicals. Sounds to me as though some chemical companies lobbied very hard to make sure it worked out that way.
You hit the nail right on the head. $100 an ounce tax is pretty ridiculous, since that's more than what most people I know would pay for an ounce of commercial-grade pot. (Yes, I know this varies by state, and we're talking about New York, not Arizona.) $20 an ounce is a substantial hit, but likely tolerable. I can't believe it, but I'm going to cite the Laffer Curve here -- there's a magic tax rate which will maximize tax revenue, and I think the concept applies to goods just as well as income.
Using law enforcement resources to catch and prosecute tax evaders costs money too, so the idea is to find the taxation sweet spot to maximize compliance and reduce the number of scofflaws you need to mobilize resources against.
I'm saddened and shocked by this news. I took 6.001 as an elective (I was a physics major, and decided to stick with physics to finish out my undergrad career). In fact, I had Hal Abelson and Gerry Sussman as my professors for the class, which was totally awesome.
It seems 6.001 is being replaced by 6.00, 6.01, and 6.02; Scheme is, as you say, being replaced with Python... which IMHO is a poor choice to replace Scheme, if for no other reason than it forces you to care about consistent indentation. (Then again, Scheme is pretty ruthless about balanced parentheses, so I guess you can't completely get away from syntax stupidity. That said, parentheses and prefix notation are about the only bits of Scheme syntax you need to even learn, which is why it only took us 10-15 minutes of the first class to cover the basics of the language.)
I found this article which details this transition in some depth. It looks as though even Gerry Sussman knew that 6.001 was not long for this world, and needed to be replaced... but at least he taught the last class. The article says some people really dislike the new curriculum, and I can see why. I'm not throwing out my SICP book any time soon! I fail to see how the same material can be taught as effectively with the new curriculum and the new tools, at least from a theory standpoint.
I'm sure playing with robots controlled by Python is fun, though.
I noticed in the comments section of TFA, there were some other anecdotes of similar experiences... so it seems to me this phenomenon was being under-reported before this (and is probably still going to be under-reported for some time to come). Here's the one that struck me:
Unfortunately, lots more folks are claiming this has to be a fake letter, that "Karen" either doesn't exist or that she couldn't possibly have written this screed verbatim. Not that skepticism is a bad thing -- I wish more people were skeptical! -- but folks seem very willing to give this teacher a pass, or to claim that Helios is making stuff up. We worship teachers as heroes in our society, even if we don't pay them well (or even enough).
From my own scholastic experiences, I can say that even in a private (Catholic) school, I still ran into my fair share of small-minded bureaucrats. They are everywhere. (I still remember the time that Mister Deburro corrected me when I was asking permission to do something -- he insisted I should say "Can I...?" instead of "May I...?" and wouldn't even let me finish my request until I phrased it how he wanted it. On the other hand, he did introduce my class to the word "umbrage." But he was still being a douchebag pedant, and he was wrong! Even though this guy probably did way more right than wrong in his career, I'll forever remember him as the asshole who corrected me when I didn't need correcting.)
I just attempted to view the Wikipedia entry for "Virgin Killer" (the Scorpions album), and my employer's proxy content filter (supplied by Blue Coat) still lists this particular Wikipedia page as blocked:
Not sure if Blue Coat updated their records yet, but I'm about to complain to them about the content filter. This is the first time, incidentally, that I've seen any Wikipedia page blocked, though I've seen plenty of other asinine filters set up for other sites.
And for the record, I'm nowhere near the UK -- this is in Phoenix, Arizona. Nice to see how someone else's "community standards" are being enforced on me, across national boundaries.
Scrap metal dealers are being regulated more, true, but what the article doesn't mention is that there are loopholes you can drive a caterpillar tractor through. In Arizona, there are monetary thresholds for reporting (under $50 doesn't get reported, although this may have been changed recently), so savvy thieves can slide in under that threshold, and even negotiate with the dealer to insure they stay under that threshold. I think the next step is to burden the dealers so much (with regulations, taxes, or what have you) that it's no longer worth it for them to accept small amounts of scrap.
The article mentioned Arizona as one area with a serious copper theft problem. It's getting pretty bad in Phoenix particularly.
Scrap metal dealers here are now required by law to report all scrap metal purchases in excess of $50. The thieves have responded by negotiating with the scrap metal dealers to keep their reimbursement amounts just below that critical threshold.
We've had thieves in my neighborhood take a circular saw to bundles of cables, effectively cutting off Qwest customers from their phones (and in our case, VDSL for TV and broadband). These are cable bundles protected inside of steel conduits or pipes!
It's gotten to the point that Qwest has decided it does not want to maintain its Choice TV service beyond 2010, and so Qwest is now encouraging its customers to switch their TV service to DirecTV (through a partnership deal), and I've been told that they will be transitioning their Choice broadband customers to some new high-speed network standard over the next couple years. (I've been told either 12 or 20 megabit service will be coming to my area.) In the meantime, those of us who are still stuck on Choice TV until we can figure out what to do are left with a dwindling number of viable copper pairs we can use; nobody at Qwest is putting up replacement lines or fixing/reconditioning the existing lines, so I've had Qwest downgrade my broadband service twice from 3 megabit to 1.5 megabit to compensate for now-marginal signal levels.
Although I'm sure it was mainly a business case for Qwest deciding it doesn't want to compete with cable operators after all, I am also sure that repeated vandalism of Qwest property and theft of its copper is playing a large part in this decision.