I'm waiting for a 1" x 1" size iPod touch. Then I'm going to build a suit of armor entirely out of iPads and iPods. It will cover my entire body and project an image that will impress the girls. Maybe Hugh Jackman.
I don't see the point of speculating about this, because a real structural engineer could give us an authoritative answer should anyone actually want to build some of these. He'd just plug the configuration into some kind of finite element analysis doohickamajiggie and tell you "go ahead" or "forget it" or "overbuild enough to raise your cost estimate by 5x". That at least covers the kinds of issues you raise here.
It is possible that these things might have unexpected dynamic properties, but that could be checked by prototyping.
While I agree simulating molecules is not a necessary condition for simulating a brain, if you bring up the genome in this context you pretty much have to discuss molecular simulation.
What the genome mostly encodes is proteins, which are very complex molecules. If you rule out molecular simulation, then you rule out what the genome actually encodes, and therefore it's hard to see what relevance the genome has to estimating how hard such a non-molecular simulation would be.
An analogy might be this. The Mandelbrot set is defined by the equations Z[n+1] = z[n]^2 + c and z[0] = 0. This is all you need to know in order to draw all those pretty pictures, but there's a lot of work involved. So suppose I say I'm going to describe some Mandelbrot set picture, but I'm not going to actually do the complex calculations. I can certainly do that (e.g.by generating a bitmap file), but the simplicity of the underlying calculations no longer has any bearing on how difficult that is. It's really easy for regions entirely in the interior or exterior of the set (the bitmap is either all black or all white), but for border regions my work can grow endlessly with the amount of precision I demand.
OK, here goes. The issue is not that the church is creating customer confusion by between its services and Best Buy's. The issue is that its misappropriation of the trademark *dilutes* the value of that trademark to its rightful owner.
There are classes of ways in which dilution can occur, both of which potentially apply here: loss of distinctiveness, and tarnishment. (1) Best Buy has invested considerable money in creating a recognizable symbol. By misappropriating that symbol, the church is denying them the benefit of that investment by reducing the distinctiveness of the service mark. (2) Many of Best Buy's potential customers may have negative opinions of the Catholic Church because of its handling of the clergy sex abuse scandal. The church's misuse of Best Buy's service mark "tarnishes" that mark with a scandal to which Best Buy is not a party. Even supposing you think such a reaction to the scandal is unreasonable and excessive, that reaction should be the church's problem, not Best Buy's. If Best Buy drove around in cars emblazoned with the ecclesiastical arms of the local archbishop, he'd have a right to object that the dignity of his see shouldn't be tied to the quality of service Best Buy offers its customers.
Both of these arguments hinge on the fact that the logo used on the vehicles is obviously a copy of the Geek Squad logo. It is simply not credible that the priest arrived at this design on his own. If he'd come up with the "God Squad" name and his own logo, that would be a different matter. You can have a "Speedy Pizza Delivery" and a "Speedy Muffler Service" because they're in different industries, but if the pizza shop copies the Speedy Muffler trademark to promote their business, they've gone over the line.
In summary, there gray areas in trademark use, but this use is not one of them. Clearly the church is violating Best Buy's trademark rights. I don't think they are intending harm, and I think in cases of such non-commercial uses it might be nice if the trademark owner was polite and understanding rather than threatening. Nonetheless, the church really ought to cease and desist using Best Buy's trademark for its own purposes, even if it believes those purposes are admirable.
I'm not sure what your grievance is here. Why would a worker want to sell his labor for less? I did a check of states with right to work laws, and their unemployment rates tend to be high if you except agricultural states like Wyoming and Nebraska.
Given the age of the children, their adult memories of specific details might be fuzzy, but all they'll need is a hint to bring it back vividly. As a middle aged adult, I have a lot of people now I've lost, and a faded photo is all it takes to bring them back in my imagination. So what you should do is build memories and create triggers that will recall those memories.
What I'd suggest is this. Have the family start making scrapbooks of things you've done that are memorable. They could be big things like vacations, but don't forget the day to day routines, meals, reading together, tucking into bed. Talk about those things as you are putting the scrapbooks together. Have everyone draw pictures of things that happened. Human memory is more creative than mechanical media like HD video, and what you are doing here is literally building memories. The scrapbook will be a trigger for those memories (scan it to back it up).
A variant on this you might want to try for certain events is to make a time capsule, a box into which you can put souvenirs, written accounts, recordings, postcards etc.
Keep things simple, don't go overboard with the tech so that it takes you focus of the important thing, which is the what is left in your human mind, more powerful than the most perfect media record and without which such records are valueless.
Make the most out of every day. Everyone should do that anyway. I was talking with my 14 year old daughter about open ended questions -- ones that don't really have a clear and perfectly satisfying answer. She wanted to know an example of one, and I immediately said, "Why do I have to die?" I think about this almost every day. I could have an accident and not be here for my children tomorrow. These thoughts are unpleasant, but I think it is important to remind myself that I don't have unlimited time. That is the rason I choose to make time for the people who are important to me.
So you see, I have put some thought into this problem already. My answer to "why do I have to die?" is this: so that I remember to make my life worth living. It's not a perfect answer, nor is it one that meets everyone's needs, but it meets mine.
Well, sure, but MP3 players existed before Apple offered the iPod and smartphone existed before Apple offered the iPhone and tablets existed before Apple offered the iPad. All the basic technologies in these products existed before Apple packaged them in successful products.
That doesn't mean Apple isn't innovative. Consumer product innovation is largely a matter of getting the design details right. The argument here seems to be that Keyhole having data and technology that is still used in Google Maps means that Google didn't do any innovation on this product. By that standard Apple can't be called an innovative company either. It's just a silly idea. Google Maps would not be anywhere near where it is today if Google hadn't acquired the it. Google has several "secret sauce" ingredients that make this product a success, not the least of which is an infrastructure to distribute vast quantities of data and handle huge volumes of queries.
Now I'm very sympathetic with TFA author's belief that startups are important to innovation and that software patents stifle innovation, but he is well aware that his argument that Apple is *sui generis* is garbage. That's why he makes a point of dismissing Google because he knows darn well that Google disproves his overly broad thesis. The real difference is that Apple makes consumer hardware. Google is a services company that provides important pieces of infrastructure to other companies. It's a case of... er... Apples and oranges.
In any case, the dichotomy of startup vs. behemoth is simplistic one. True, software patents are very bad for small innovators who want to create companies that they will make a living running. But you can't lump all small innovators into the same category. A lot of those small innovators are looking to sell out to a behemoth as an exit strategy. Software patents are very helpful to the entrepreneurs who are looking to build a business then sell it. It helps them answer the buyer's question, "What am I getting for a my millions of dollars?" The answer is, "a product that nobody else can duplicate because it is patented," and "a bunch more arrows for your IP quiver."
So it's not just a straightforward question of David vs. Goliath. In fact, it's more like the ancient Chinese Romance of the Three Kingdoms; for the young hotshot warrior, today's bitter enemy may be tomorrow's patron.
In the incident I was talking about, bushwhacking directly west would have been feasible in good weather, but the terrain was rough enough to make it risky in bad weather with poor visibility.
One thing I didn't mention were the near whiteout conditions. I estimate visibility was between fifty and a hundred yards, so I could take headings, but not any useful bearings. The meant that compass and map work would have been largely dead reckoning. I use a Silva Ranger, which is a pretty good compass, but a cheap starter compass would have been just as good under these conditions.
Under the circumstances, GPS was by far the best choice for navigating out of trouble, and sticking to the trail was by far the safest choice.
The lesson is to be prepared for the unexpected and to have defense in depth: GPS, compass and map, extra clothing and food, emergency shelter.
No. It is moronic to be less prepared than you could be. In some cases using a map and compass instead of a GPS is moronic, because it puts you at risk, even if you're pretty good with them.
I've certainly been in that situation. I once got caught on a high plain by a sudden blizzard. The day was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky. I looked up and saw the clouds boiling over the mountain range to the east, and I started running like hell to the west. I had about three miles to where the plain dropped off as the crow flies, maybe twice that on foot. Meanwhile the storm roared down the mountainside like an avalanche. I made it about halfway before it caught me, pelting me with big fat icy snowflakes that were whipped by the wind so they hit like snowballs.
Now, I probably *could* have made it out of there with my map and compass, but it would have been a challenge and taken much longer. Just trying to read the map in the wind and driving snow would have consumed precious minutes. So instead, I whipped out the GPS which made navigating down to lower altitude a piece of cake. Most importantly, it made getting to lower altitude quick. I passed dozens of potential false trails on the way out that I was able to ignore with confidence. After reaching the edge of the plain and descending a few hundred feet, the blinding snowstorm turned into a relatively gentle rain.
I'm not saying throw away your map and compass. You should have them and know how to use them well. But its reasonable and sensible to make GPS your first line of defense (and carry backup batteries) because when you're in trouble, time matters.
Of course science has never been perfect, but the state of science as we know it today is a peace dividend of the post-Soviet era. That includes the anemic state of space exploration.
Once upon a time, everything was all about the US vs. the Soviets. Anything decision more complicated than choosing the "Soviet" or "US" was quaintly labeled "multilateral" and dismissed as vaguely tacky and uncooperative. In those days, there was a huge contest to see which form of society was the society could produce the most sustainable progress. We don't get this in modern civilization struggles because Communism had this doctrine of historical determinism. Communism (the communists said) would usher in a golden age for humanity, a society so perfect that history itself would become obsolete.
So, it was very important to show which economic and political system had the biggest progress balls. Can *you* go to the moon? Can *you* create wonder drugs that horrible diseases? Can *you* discover the fundamental laws of the universe? And we spent a lot of public money on this creative machismo contest. Well, not that much really when you look at what we got out of it, but a lot when you look at how much we're willing to spend to Benefit the Progress of Mankind [tm] today.
And then, we won.
Suddenly, the contest wasn't all that important any longer. We had all this expensive to keep running research capability, and no reason to spend the money. And somebody came up with a creative idea that was almost like money for nothing. We'd be able to sustain the growth in our research infrastructure without growing our public investment in it.
It's hard to realize this today, but the concept of university research institutions as primarily IP generating engines was novel in 1980. It even seemed almost a bit obscene, because only a few years prior academic research was ostensibly all about Benefiting the Progress of Mankind [tm].
I'm not so sure that Jurassic Park minus the amazing computer generated effects would be so ridiculous, in the hands of a director who knew how to make movies without that stuff.
Think about the really effective scenes in Jurassic Park. They aren't about what's happening on the screen right now. They're about what *might* be happening in a few seconds. It's suspense that makes a movie like Jurassic Park work. The action set pieces add a lot the movie as we know it of course. If a director like Alfred Hitchcock had made a Jurassic Park movie in the 1950s, it would be a different movie, but possibly just as good.
I actually think Jesus had an interesting philosophical that complements Locke here.
One of the least familiar of the parables is the Parable of Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1-12). In it, a servant is accused of mishandling the master's possessions. Realizing he's going to be let go, the servant sits down with the master's largest debtors and rewrites their obligations to be significantly lighter. When the master discovers this, he praises the steward's shrewdness, and Jesus remarks "I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings."
This parable is less well known than, say, the Parable of the Talents. I think it is because it's a bit puzzling. Jesus is apparently condoning dishonesty, then immediately condemning it in the very next verse. I think that likely the work of a subsequent author, but even if you take the whole thing as... er... *gospel*, the plain point of the parable is clear: a wise man understands what property is for, and does not value it for itself.
Locke had some brilliant insights into the power of money to overcome problems created by private property, but even private property itself is no more fundamentally good than money is. They are both utilitarian values. True wealth is to be found in human experience. Few of us will be so fortunate as to live even a hundred years in relatively good health. Every moment of every human life is irreplaceable.
A person who lives in Bohemian semi-poverty but is rich in friends, ideas, and experiences is wiser than a friendless man who accumulates wealth so vast it can't be experienced except as an abstraction.
Not on public roads. 100 km/hr period is not safe on a residential street or any other roadway that gets significant pedestrian traffic crossing.
Part of driving safely is being predictable, and nobody expects somebody to overtake them from a quarter km back in under ten seconds. I had a friend who once pulled this stunt on me. We were on a relatively deserted stretch of interstate in his brand new sports car when he turned to me and said, "watch this." Then he punched it. It was like going to hyperspeed. We hit 155 mph (200 km/hr).
At 200km/hr the horizon comes up very fast. There was an underpass with a slight rise past it, and as we zoomed under it I thought, "what if there's a little econobox trying to pass a big rig up this grade?"
As important as control is to driving safety, it's a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition. A machine that gives you plenty of control allows you to drive faster than is safe with the illusion of safety, until you discover you need inhumanly fast reflexes to avoid trouble. Furthermore, my friend was totally focused on what was in front of him (as was I). For all we knew we were leaving a dangerous trail of startled drivers behind us.
If I'd been a cop, I'd have arrested my friend on the spot, friend or not. If I'd been the judge, I'd have thrown him in jail. It was an incredibly stupid, inconsiderate, and unnecessary thing to do. Fortunately my friend got the message, and shortly thereafter he found a closed track and got the need for speed out of his system, becoming an exemplary driver after that.
Nobody's impressed by your ability to drive faster than most people would on a residential street. That doesn't take balls, it just takes a willingness to endanger other people who, by the way, don't get to share in the fun. Go to the track, where you can push yourself as far as you dare, and we'll see what you're made of.
Sure. You're saying you've got a conduit to the Truth that's more direct than peer review. You wouldn't be the first. In fact, it's obvious that such conduits exist, for reasons that'll I'll make clear in a moment. You also seem to think your conduit is free from mess of human frailty. That I'm more doubtful of.
What you haven't shown is any understanding of the sociological and epistemological operation of peer review. Peer review is not supposed to be an optimal path to the Truth for an individual. That's the function of reason. Peer review exists because different people arrive at different opinions through what appears to them as purely rational means. Peer review exists to give dissent a role in the formation of scientific consensus. It is neither so potentially perfect as individual reason, nor as automatically unreasonable as putting the issue to a vote.
There are always points about the scientific consensus that can be argued. If they could not be argued, it would not be science. At any given time, any scientist has a number of differences with scientific consensus, and pursuing those differences is his job.
If you think you know better, then you should publish. It's all very well well to feel superior, it's another thing to put your opinions to the test in front of people who are competent to critique them. If you disagree with the scientific consensus, it's going to be hard work, but you will prevail if you know what you are talking about.
Unfortunately the system discriminates against people who want to change scientific consensus but don't have the patience to make their case against a hostile and well informed audience.
Even if all of humanity was unified, we'd still die eventually if we stayed here. This planet has an expiration date. It's nice to pretend that if we were all hippies and lived like cavemen, that it'd last forever, but that isn't the case.
Unfortunately, everything you say is also true of the Universe as a whole. Eventually, heat death will mean that thought itself will become physically impossible. Is it possible to escape into other universes? Maybe. Does that mean we should forget about space travel and put all our efforts into figuring that out?
But wait a minute. Supposing we had descendants traveling around space a billion years from now. It is far from certain they would be recognizably human. They might not even be mammals.
So should we give up on the future?
I think the notion that we should explore space in preparation for abandoning the Earth is misguided. I have no doubt that people sincerely believe this, and I even recognize that interesting philosophical arguments can be made for it. For example, the idea we might have to move off the Earth prematurely because we'd fouled our own nest raises the question why we might survive in hostile space when we could not survive on the benign Earth. The answer might be that humans are not very good at dealing rationally with plenty, but we have our minds wonderfully concentrated by imminent death.
Even so, I think that it is somewhat unnatural to be all that concerned with the fate of the human race in the distant future. How many of us let our day to day actions be guided by a concern for humanity ten generations in the future, much less ten thousand?
The real reason to explore space is not for the extension of the human species' longevity, but for the maximization of human experience. Imagine human experience as a rectangle which sits on a two dimension axis. The X-axis is time, and the "escape Earth" position seeks to maximize the area of the rectangle by stretching it as wide as possible. I have no fundamental objection to this, but it should not be undertaken at the expense of the Y axis, which is the personal growth of individuals in any single generation. At some point humanity will be facing the end of its term and can rationally seek the extension of the species' lifespan, but that is not anytime soon. When that point comes, we will be best served by developing a culture which is creative, informed, and adventurous.
That's the real reason we want to explore space. Space exploration is an adventure both metaphorically and manifestly so. That it is a multi-generational adventure only makes it better. When we have lost the zest for exploration, we have lost the capacity to grow, and are running on the momentum of prior generations.
I didn't expect my wife's profession to impress you in the slightest. I thought having followed the original literature (instead of reports of what that contains) might, but apparently it does not.
Since Wile's proof of Fermat's last theorem involved the theory of elliptic curves, a branch of mathematics that had not been developed in Fermat's lifetime, if Fermat's proof was anything like Wiles' it certainly would not have fit in the margins of any realistic book.
I don't. I often wonder why, because I actually am a troll. I turn to stone if I spend more time the sunlight longer than it takes to snatch a passing goat. I always stay late at the data center in order to avoid venturing out into the Big Blue Room. I show up late for the same reason.
My bosses have gotten used to this; they tolerate it because they're afraid of confronting me. My technical skills are too valuable to lose, and in any case I'm the only one who has all the passwords. Even if that weren't true, they subconsciously know that any confrontation with me would end with me sucking the marrow from their dead white bones (yum!), or at least filing a grievance with personnel over a violation of the company diversity policy.
Oh, by the way, it's "modded", not "moded", moron. Sorry about that outburst, I can't help it. It's a cultural thing (look it up in the employee handbook, dimwit).
I've been following the AGW literature since 1984 (my wife is a physical oceanographer and I reader her journals). I've actually watched the scientific consensus being built. AGW is not a special case, it's just like any other scientific consensus.
Whenever someone says, "peer review", I imagine a group of Climate Scientists sitting around a table, throwing out papers they don't agree with and accepting ones they do.
What you don't seem to understand is that it is supposed to work that way. Publication is not a level playing field for people who want to overturn scientific consensus. Nor should it be.
Suppose you are on the committee for a physics journal, and you receive a paper which purports to overturn the laws of thermodynamics. You take that paper and toss it in the trash, even if the argument and research protocol appears flawless. For decades, perpetual motion machine proponents have railed against the closed mindedness of the scientific establishment, but despite attracting non-scientific adherents, they have failed to create a source of boundless energy.
It is possible to overturn the laws of thermodynamics, but you can't do it in a single paper. You've got to nibble around the edges. You start with a paper demonstrating an unusual phenomenon that is hard to explain using the laws of thermodynamics. Then everyone hops on the bandwagon showing that it could. Then you point out the flaws in their refutation, further demonstrating there's something really peculiar going on here. You repeat this process again and again at higher levels of controversy, but at each stage you win over more people, until you are finally ready to put a stake in the heart of thermodynamics by demonstrating that the "laws" we have accepted up to now are merely the result of special cases of deeper laws of thermodynamics. Minimum time to do this: on the order of a decade. If you try to do it in one paper, that paper will be chucked in the trash.
Looked at from a rational point of view, a single paper or report that purports to overturn two centuries of scientific consensus is almost certainly wrong. Even if it is backed by statistically significant data results, those results are more likely to have happened by chance than to be real. I've seen many credible sounding ghost reports. I'd be delighted if a credible sounding report was true, but rationally it isn't even worth my time to look into the report.
I hope someday that there will be scientific proof of perpetual motion machines and ghosts, but it takes more than a single credible sounding report to establish those things.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm waiting for a 1" x 1" size iPod touch. Then I'm going to build a suit of armor entirely out of iPads and iPods. It will cover my entire body and project an image that will impress the girls. Maybe Hugh Jackman.
I don't see the point of speculating about this, because a real structural engineer could give us an authoritative answer should anyone actually want to build some of these. He'd just plug the configuration into some kind of finite element analysis doohickamajiggie and tell you "go ahead" or "forget it" or "overbuild enough to raise your cost estimate by 5x". That at least covers the kinds of issues you raise here.
It is possible that these things might have unexpected dynamic properties, but that could be checked by prototyping.
While I agree simulating molecules is not a necessary condition for simulating a brain, if you bring up the genome in this context you pretty much have to discuss molecular simulation.
What the genome mostly encodes is proteins, which are very complex molecules. If you rule out molecular simulation, then you rule out what the genome actually encodes, and therefore it's hard to see what relevance the genome has to estimating how hard such a non-molecular simulation would be.
An analogy might be this. The Mandelbrot set is defined by the equations Z[n+1] = z[n]^2 + c and z[0] = 0. This is all you need to know in order to draw all those pretty pictures, but there's a lot of work involved. So suppose I say I'm going to describe some Mandelbrot set picture, but I'm not going to actually do the complex calculations. I can certainly do that (e.g.by generating a bitmap file), but the simplicity of the underlying calculations no longer has any bearing on how difficult that is. It's really easy for regions entirely in the interior or exterior of the set (the bitmap is either all black or all white), but for border regions my work can grow endlessly with the amount of precision I demand.
OK, here goes. The issue is not that the church is creating customer confusion by between its services and Best Buy's. The issue is that its misappropriation of the trademark *dilutes* the value of that trademark to its rightful owner.
There are classes of ways in which dilution can occur, both of which potentially apply here: loss of distinctiveness, and tarnishment. (1) Best Buy has invested considerable money in creating a recognizable symbol. By misappropriating that symbol, the church is denying them the benefit of that investment by reducing the distinctiveness of the service mark. (2) Many of Best Buy's potential customers may have negative opinions of the Catholic Church because of its handling of the clergy sex abuse scandal. The church's misuse of Best Buy's service mark "tarnishes" that mark with a scandal to which Best Buy is not a party. Even supposing you think such a reaction to the scandal is unreasonable and excessive, that reaction should be the church's problem, not Best Buy's. If Best Buy drove around in cars emblazoned with the ecclesiastical arms of the local archbishop, he'd have a right to object that the dignity of his see shouldn't be tied to the quality of service Best Buy offers its customers.
Both of these arguments hinge on the fact that the logo used on the vehicles is obviously a copy of the Geek Squad logo. It is simply not credible that the priest arrived at this design on his own. If he'd come up with the "God Squad" name and his own logo, that would be a different matter. You can have a "Speedy Pizza Delivery" and a "Speedy Muffler Service" because they're in different industries, but if the pizza shop copies the Speedy Muffler trademark to promote their business, they've gone over the line.
In summary, there gray areas in trademark use, but this use is not one of them. Clearly the church is violating Best Buy's trademark rights. I don't think they are intending harm, and I think in cases of such non-commercial uses it might be nice if the trademark owner was polite and understanding rather than threatening. Nonetheless, the church really ought to cease and desist using Best Buy's trademark for its own purposes, even if it believes those purposes are admirable.
I'm not sure what your grievance is here. Why would a worker want to sell his labor for less? I did a check of states with right to work laws, and their unemployment rates tend to be high if you except agricultural states like Wyoming and Nebraska.
Jar-Jar shoots Greedo.
Given the age of the children, their adult memories of specific details might be fuzzy, but all they'll need is a hint to bring it back vividly. As a middle aged adult, I have a lot of people now I've lost, and a faded photo is all it takes to bring them back in my imagination. So what you should do is build memories and create triggers that will recall those memories.
What I'd suggest is this. Have the family start making scrapbooks of things you've done that are memorable. They could be big things like vacations, but don't forget the day to day routines, meals, reading together, tucking into bed. Talk about those things as you are putting the scrapbooks together. Have everyone draw pictures of things that happened. Human memory is more creative than mechanical media like HD video, and what you are doing here is literally building memories. The scrapbook will be a trigger for those memories (scan it to back it up).
A variant on this you might want to try for certain events is to make a time capsule, a box into which you can put souvenirs, written accounts, recordings, postcards etc.
Keep things simple, don't go overboard with the tech so that it takes you focus of the important thing, which is the what is left in your human mind, more powerful than the most perfect media record and without which such records are valueless.
Make the most out of every day. Everyone should do that anyway. I was talking with my 14 year old daughter about open ended questions -- ones that don't really have a clear and perfectly satisfying answer. She wanted to know an example of one, and I immediately said, "Why do I have to die?" I think about this almost every day. I could have an accident and not be here for my children tomorrow. These thoughts are unpleasant, but I think it is important to remind myself that I don't have unlimited time. That is the rason I choose to make time for the people who are important to me.
So you see, I have put some thought into this problem already. My answer to "why do I have to die?" is this: so that I remember to make my life worth living. It's not a perfect answer, nor is it one that meets everyone's needs, but it meets mine.
Well, sure, but MP3 players existed before Apple offered the iPod and smartphone existed before Apple offered the iPhone and tablets existed before Apple offered the iPad. All the basic technologies in these products existed before Apple packaged them in successful products.
That doesn't mean Apple isn't innovative. Consumer product innovation is largely a matter of getting the design details right. The argument here seems to be that Keyhole having data and technology that is still used in Google Maps means that Google didn't do any innovation on this product. By that standard Apple can't be called an innovative company either. It's just a silly idea. Google Maps would not be anywhere near where it is today if Google hadn't acquired the it. Google has several "secret sauce" ingredients that make this product a success, not the least of which is an infrastructure to distribute vast quantities of data and handle huge volumes of queries.
Now I'm very sympathetic with TFA author's belief that startups are important to innovation and that software patents stifle innovation, but he is well aware that his argument that Apple is *sui generis* is garbage. That's why he makes a point of dismissing Google because he knows darn well that Google disproves his overly broad thesis. The real difference is that Apple makes consumer hardware. Google is a services company that provides important pieces of infrastructure to other companies. It's a case of ... er ... Apples and oranges.
In any case, the dichotomy of startup vs. behemoth is simplistic one. True, software patents are very bad for small innovators who want to create companies that they will make a living running. But you can't lump all small innovators into the same category. A lot of those small innovators are looking to sell out to a behemoth as an exit strategy. Software patents are very helpful to the entrepreneurs who are looking to build a business then sell it. It helps them answer the buyer's question, "What am I getting for a my millions of dollars?" The answer is, "a product that nobody else can duplicate because it is patented," and "a bunch more arrows for your IP quiver."
So it's not just a straightforward question of David vs. Goliath. In fact, it's more like the ancient Chinese Romance of the Three Kingdoms; for the young hotshot warrior, today's bitter enemy may be tomorrow's patron.
In the incident I was talking about, bushwhacking directly west would have been feasible in good weather, but the terrain was rough enough to make it risky in bad weather with poor visibility.
One thing I didn't mention were the near whiteout conditions. I estimate visibility was between fifty and a hundred yards, so I could take headings, but not any useful bearings. The meant that compass and map work would have been largely dead reckoning. I use a Silva Ranger, which is a pretty good compass, but a cheap starter compass would have been just as good under these conditions.
Under the circumstances, GPS was by far the best choice for navigating out of trouble, and sticking to the trail was by far the safest choice.
The lesson is to be prepared for the unexpected and to have defense in depth: GPS, compass and map, extra clothing and food, emergency shelter.
No. It is moronic to be less prepared than you could be. In some cases using a map and compass instead of a GPS is moronic, because it puts you at risk, even if you're pretty good with them.
I've certainly been in that situation. I once got caught on a high plain by a sudden blizzard. The day was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky. I looked up and saw the clouds boiling over the mountain range to the east, and I started running like hell to the west. I had about three miles to where the plain dropped off as the crow flies, maybe twice that on foot. Meanwhile the storm roared down the mountainside like an avalanche. I made it about halfway before it caught me, pelting me with big fat icy snowflakes that were whipped by the wind so they hit like snowballs.
Now, I probably *could* have made it out of there with my map and compass, but it would have been a challenge and taken much longer. Just trying to read the map in the wind and driving snow would have consumed precious minutes. So instead, I whipped out the GPS which made navigating down to lower altitude a piece of cake. Most importantly, it made getting to lower altitude quick. I passed dozens of potential false trails on the way out that I was able to ignore with confidence. After reaching the edge of the plain and descending a few hundred feet, the blinding snowstorm turned into a relatively gentle rain.
I'm not saying throw away your map and compass. You should have them and know how to use them well. But its reasonable and sensible to make GPS your first line of defense (and carry backup batteries) because when you're in trouble, time matters.
Of course science has never been perfect, but the state of science as we know it today is a peace dividend of the post-Soviet era. That includes the anemic state of space exploration.
Once upon a time, everything was all about the US vs. the Soviets. Anything decision more complicated than choosing the "Soviet" or "US" was quaintly labeled "multilateral" and dismissed as vaguely tacky and uncooperative. In those days, there was a huge contest to see which form of society was the society could produce the most sustainable progress. We don't get this in modern civilization struggles because Communism had this doctrine of historical determinism. Communism (the communists said) would usher in a golden age for humanity, a society so perfect that history itself would become obsolete.
So, it was very important to show which economic and political system had the biggest progress balls. Can *you* go to the moon? Can *you* create wonder drugs that horrible diseases? Can *you* discover the fundamental laws of the universe? And we spent a lot of public money on this creative machismo contest. Well, not that much really when you look at what we got out of it, but a lot when you look at how much we're willing to spend to Benefit the Progress of Mankind [tm] today.
And then, we won.
Suddenly, the contest wasn't all that important any longer. We had all this expensive to keep running research capability, and no reason to spend the money. And somebody came up with a creative idea that was almost like money for nothing. We'd be able to sustain the growth in our research infrastructure without growing our public investment in it.
It's hard to realize this today, but the concept of university research institutions as primarily IP generating engines was novel in 1980. It even seemed almost a bit obscene, because only a few years prior academic research was ostensibly all about Benefiting the Progress of Mankind [tm].
I'm not so sure that Jurassic Park minus the amazing computer generated effects would be so ridiculous, in the hands of a director who knew how to make movies without that stuff.
Think about the really effective scenes in Jurassic Park. They aren't about what's happening on the screen right now. They're about what *might* be happening in a few seconds. It's suspense that makes a movie like Jurassic Park work. The action set pieces add a lot the movie as we know it of course. If a director like Alfred Hitchcock had made a Jurassic Park movie in the 1950s, it would be a different movie, but possibly just as good.
Yes. It appears he had a sudden stroke of Priorities.
It was grabbing the beer on the way out that was the stroke of genius.
All it really took was reading the article for several examples of how that's not true.
And your point would be?
I actually think Jesus had an interesting philosophical that complements Locke here.
One of the least familiar of the parables is the Parable of Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1-12). In it, a servant is accused of mishandling the master's possessions. Realizing he's going to be let go, the servant sits down with the master's largest debtors and rewrites their obligations to be significantly lighter. When the master discovers this, he praises the steward's shrewdness, and Jesus remarks "I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings."
This parable is less well known than, say, the Parable of the Talents. I think it is because it's a bit puzzling. Jesus is apparently condoning dishonesty, then immediately condemning it in the very next verse. I think that likely the work of a subsequent author, but even if you take the whole thing as ... er ... *gospel*, the plain point of the parable is clear: a wise man understands what property is for, and does not value it for itself.
Locke had some brilliant insights into the power of money to overcome problems created by private property, but even private property itself is no more fundamentally good than money is. They are both utilitarian values. True wealth is to be found in human experience. Few of us will be so fortunate as to live even a hundred years in relatively good health. Every moment of every human life is irreplaceable.
A person who lives in Bohemian semi-poverty but is rich in friends, ideas, and experiences is wiser than a friendless man who accumulates wealth so vast it can't be experienced except as an abstraction.
100 km/hr over the speed limit safe?
Not on public roads. 100 km/hr period is not safe on a residential street or any other roadway that gets significant pedestrian traffic crossing.
Part of driving safely is being predictable, and nobody expects somebody to overtake them from a quarter km back in under ten seconds. I had a friend who once pulled this stunt on me. We were on a relatively deserted stretch of interstate in his brand new sports car when he turned to me and said, "watch this." Then he punched it. It was like going to hyperspeed. We hit 155 mph (200 km/hr).
At 200km/hr the horizon comes up very fast. There was an underpass with a slight rise past it, and as we zoomed under it I thought, "what if there's a little econobox trying to pass a big rig up this grade?"
As important as control is to driving safety, it's a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition. A machine that gives you plenty of control allows you to drive faster than is safe with the illusion of safety, until you discover you need inhumanly fast reflexes to avoid trouble. Furthermore, my friend was totally focused on what was in front of him (as was I). For all we knew we were leaving a dangerous trail of startled drivers behind us.
If I'd been a cop, I'd have arrested my friend on the spot, friend or not. If I'd been the judge, I'd have thrown him in jail. It was an incredibly stupid, inconsiderate, and unnecessary thing to do. Fortunately my friend got the message, and shortly thereafter he found a closed track and got the need for speed out of his system, becoming an exemplary driver after that.
Nobody's impressed by your ability to drive faster than most people would on a residential street. That doesn't take balls, it just takes a willingness to endanger other people who, by the way, don't get to share in the fun. Go to the track, where you can push yourself as far as you dare, and we'll see what you're made of.
You forgot to add: chick magnet.
Sure. You're saying you've got a conduit to the Truth that's more direct than peer review. You wouldn't be the first. In fact, it's obvious that such conduits exist, for reasons that'll I'll make clear in a moment. You also seem to think your conduit is free from mess of human frailty. That I'm more doubtful of.
What you haven't shown is any understanding of the sociological and epistemological operation of peer review. Peer review is not supposed to be an optimal path to the Truth for an individual. That's the function of reason. Peer review exists because different people arrive at different opinions through what appears to them as purely rational means. Peer review exists to give dissent a role in the formation of scientific consensus. It is neither so potentially perfect as individual reason, nor as automatically unreasonable as putting the issue to a vote.
There are always points about the scientific consensus that can be argued. If they could not be argued, it would not be science. At any given time, any scientist has a number of differences with scientific consensus, and pursuing those differences is his job.
If you think you know better, then you should publish. It's all very well well to feel superior, it's another thing to put your opinions to the test in front of people who are competent to critique them. If you disagree with the scientific consensus, it's going to be hard work, but you will prevail if you know what you are talking about.
Unfortunately the system discriminates against people who want to change scientific consensus but don't have the patience to make their case against a hostile and well informed audience.
Even if all of humanity was unified, we'd still die eventually if we stayed here. This planet has an expiration date. It's nice to pretend that if we were all hippies and lived like cavemen, that it'd last forever, but that isn't the case.
Unfortunately, everything you say is also true of the Universe as a whole. Eventually, heat death will mean that thought itself will become physically impossible. Is it possible to escape into other universes? Maybe. Does that mean we should forget about space travel and put all our efforts into figuring that out?
But wait a minute. Supposing we had descendants traveling around space a billion years from now. It is far from certain they would be recognizably human. They might not even be mammals.
So should we give up on the future?
I think the notion that we should explore space in preparation for abandoning the Earth is misguided. I have no doubt that people sincerely believe this, and I even recognize that interesting philosophical arguments can be made for it. For example, the idea we might have to move off the Earth prematurely because we'd fouled our own nest raises the question why we might survive in hostile space when we could not survive on the benign Earth. The answer might be that humans are not very good at dealing rationally with plenty, but we have our minds wonderfully concentrated by imminent death.
Even so, I think that it is somewhat unnatural to be all that concerned with the fate of the human race in the distant future. How many of us let our day to day actions be guided by a concern for humanity ten generations in the future, much less ten thousand?
The real reason to explore space is not for the extension of the human species' longevity, but for the maximization of human experience. Imagine human experience as a rectangle which sits on a two dimension axis. The X-axis is time, and the "escape Earth" position seeks to maximize the area of the rectangle by stretching it as wide as possible. I have no fundamental objection to this, but it should not be undertaken at the expense of the Y axis, which is the personal growth of individuals in any single generation. At some point humanity will be facing the end of its term and can rationally seek the extension of the species' lifespan, but that is not anytime soon. When that point comes, we will be best served by developing a culture which is creative, informed, and adventurous.
That's the real reason we want to explore space. Space exploration is an adventure both metaphorically and manifestly so. That it is a multi-generational adventure only makes it better. When we have lost the zest for exploration, we have lost the capacity to grow, and are running on the momentum of prior generations.
I didn't expect my wife's profession to impress you in the slightest. I thought having followed the original literature (instead of reports of what that contains) might, but apparently it does not.
Since Wile's proof of Fermat's last theorem involved the theory of elliptic curves, a branch of mathematics that had not been developed in Fermat's lifetime, if Fermat's proof was anything like Wiles' it certainly would not have fit in the margins of any realistic book.
Yeh, I get moded as a troll all the time!
I don't. I often wonder why, because I actually am a troll. I turn to stone if I spend more time the sunlight longer than it takes to snatch a passing goat. I always stay late at the data center in order to avoid venturing out into the Big Blue Room. I show up late for the same reason.
My bosses have gotten used to this; they tolerate it because they're afraid of confronting me. My technical skills are too valuable to lose, and in any case I'm the only one who has all the passwords. Even if that weren't true, they subconsciously know that any confrontation with me would end with me sucking the marrow from their dead white bones (yum!), or at least filing a grievance with personnel over a violation of the company diversity policy.
Oh, by the way, it's "modded", not "moded", moron. Sorry about that outburst, I can't help it. It's a cultural thing (look it up in the employee handbook, dimwit).
Calling it a fallacy doesn't make it so.
I've been following the AGW literature since 1984 (my wife is a physical oceanographer and I reader her journals). I've actually watched the scientific consensus being built. AGW is not a special case, it's just like any other scientific consensus.
Whenever someone says, "peer review", I imagine a group of Climate Scientists sitting around a table, throwing out papers they don't agree with and accepting ones they do.
What you don't seem to understand is that it is supposed to work that way. Publication is not a level playing field for people who want to overturn scientific consensus. Nor should it be.
Suppose you are on the committee for a physics journal, and you receive a paper which purports to overturn the laws of thermodynamics. You take that paper and toss it in the trash, even if the argument and research protocol appears flawless. For decades, perpetual motion machine proponents have railed against the closed mindedness of the scientific establishment, but despite attracting non-scientific adherents, they have failed to create a source of boundless energy.
It is possible to overturn the laws of thermodynamics, but you can't do it in a single paper. You've got to nibble around the edges. You start with a paper demonstrating an unusual phenomenon that is hard to explain using the laws of thermodynamics. Then everyone hops on the bandwagon showing that it could. Then you point out the flaws in their refutation, further demonstrating there's something really peculiar going on here. You repeat this process again and again at higher levels of controversy, but at each stage you win over more people, until you are finally ready to put a stake in the heart of thermodynamics by demonstrating that the "laws" we have accepted up to now are merely the result of special cases of deeper laws of thermodynamics. Minimum time to do this: on the order of a decade. If you try to do it in one paper, that paper will be chucked in the trash.
Looked at from a rational point of view, a single paper or report that purports to overturn two centuries of scientific consensus is almost certainly wrong. Even if it is backed by statistically significant data results, those results are more likely to have happened by chance than to be real. I've seen many credible sounding ghost reports. I'd be delighted if a credible sounding report was true, but rationally it isn't even worth my time to look into the report.
I hope someday that there will be scientific proof of perpetual motion machines and ghosts, but it takes more than a single credible sounding report to establish those things.