I'm hard pressed to think of a game that would have benefitted from this. Even with perfect tracking, no wires, and gloves, there's still the limit of having to stand in a particular area. Even a room to walk around in would have been problematic.
I think it would be quite cool, just standing in place but being able to look around in today's games. Even if you're not able to walk around except via a controller, it's still a step up (down?) in immersion.
I did have a go of one of the old Virtuality machines. I didn't find it uncomfortable at all. The game wasn't much fun (shooting a pterodactyl) but that was because it was pretty crappy rather than any technical limitation. The novelty of the experience was quite enjoyable.
My main problem with the TV poll tax^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H licence is that a billionaire with a huge household, 18 children and 145 plasma screen tellies pays the same as an impoverished student on a single-occupancy contract with a black and white portable.
I'd like to see the BBC paid for out of the general taxation system. It would be fairer, and they could save money on the ludicrous enforcement system.
They want to redefine marriage to suit their desires, not fair and this is what the battle is over.
Why isn't it fair? Unfair to whom? Why should this "redefinition" affect you?
Marriage is an entirely artificial construct created for various social and/or religious purposes. We can and should modify it for the greater social good.
normal geeks that would rather believe that there is something chemical that prevents them from engaging socially rather than just plain not being good at it.
There are quite a few "senses" that tell you when something is wrong, which are quite different to the usual ones. Pain, for example (sometimes characterised into different versions, such as visceral pain), the sense of dehydration, and arguable ones like bladder tension.
One that I never hear mentioned, but which seems to me to be very distinct to the other senses, is nausea.
What is it that we're arguing here? Are we trying to establish that the right way to interact with science is to gather consensus?
That's pretty much exactly how it works.
when research is young (say, less than 10 years old), the chances that the consensus is wrong is HIGH.
But climate research is not less than 10 years old!
Anyway, even if your arbitrary cut-off point of 10 years did indicate a lack of confidence in the research, wouldn't you agree that it is still significantly more likely for the consensus to be correct than not?
I had actually parsed "sparse" in its meaning as a synonym of scanty. Still, I don't see that it is particularly relevant. Every country could give excuses as to why it produces excess CO2, many of which would be more plausible. And population concentration is a bit of a more complicated statistic than simply dividing land area by population.
Humans have a natural desire to own material things. They don't want to "share" their car with strangers.
The ownership of personal possessions has never been much of an issue in most communist philosophies. They've been more concerne with the communal ownership of land, factories, companies etc.
I'm not sure your point is true, anyway. I'd be perfectly happy sharing a communal car pool with strangers.
That's my definition of just -- everyone is treated equally
So... if we treat everyone equally, then we can just stick a flat cap on CO2 emissions per capita at a level that is slightly below the current world mean. Most countries in the world would have no problem meeting this target. It would of course hit the USA far, far, harder than anyone else, and be far harsher than Kyoto. Do you think this would be a fair way to do it?
He goes on to explain that many important scientific discoveries have been in direct conflict with the consensus. So please, let's not use the word "consensus" in this context. Discuss warming trends (there's some hard data you can point to), anthropic influence and other real topics, but science is not a popularity game. If you talk about consensus, you're only talking about politics, not science.
Of course we can talk about consensus. There is consensus in many fields of scientific research, such as the lack of evidence for psychic phenomena, Darwinian evolution being the best explanation for the current state of life on the planet, the lack of evidence for cold fusion, and so on. In each of those examples, and in the current climate change models, there is massive scientific consensus and a vocal minority. Although this does not mean that research of alternative theories to the current consensus should not be carried out, it would be madness to make political decisions against the consensus.
Sometimes important advances in science are made against the consensus, but these are memorable because these are so rare. Most science is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. The consensus is far more likely to be right than it is to be wrong. Politicians should should stick to following the scientific consensus and leave challenging it to the scientists.
It's worth pointing that the study was published in the Lancet, one of the world's most respected journals and hence went through a very intense peer review. The 100,000 estimate was also based on some conservative assumptions, such as excluding a data point in Falluja.
Of course, it's only a rough estimate but it's the only attempt at a scientific count so far.
Neither has hesitated to profit from his invention, as well they shouldn't.
To the best of my knowledge, the only way Berners-Lee has made money from the WWW is the awards he has been given for the achievement.
Both will tell you that the reason they released it for free wasn't altruism, but that it was the only way it could have evolved into what it became.
Isn't that the same thing? They might not have grown into what they are now, but both individuals would almost certainly have made more cash for their inventions had they sold them.
I'm not even sure that Berners-Lee would have been able to sell his invention. His research was carried out at CERN, a mostly government-funded institution. So much for your socialist attack.
I don't know anything about Finland's education system but I'd guess also that Torvalds had some government funding while he was studying at Helsinki university and creating Linux.
Let us not fall for the socialist fallacy that the only good thing one can do in life is to give away ones money. People like Tim Berners Lee CREATE wealth, which is a greater virtue then passing it around!
Both Berners Lee and Torvalds did both though. They created the WWW and Linux/and/ gave them away. Sounds pretty close to the socialist ideal to me.
Remember, 25 years ago these same folks were howling about 'global cooling', that should tell you something.
Yeah, it's really terrible that scientists should change their predictions when new evidence is found, rather than sticking to their ideas no matter what, like a priest or a politician.
And despite that:
1) You're wrong anyway
2) Even if you weren't, after 25 years the top climatologists are not the "same folks"
3) If the original evidence did point to global cooling, then the current rise in global temperatures is even more indicative of human influence.
Carrying on:
There's no actual consensus on 'global warming' is in fact happening,
Wrong! Absolutely no one with any credibility suggests that global warming is not occuring.
whether or not human activity has anything to do with it.
Any fringe theory will find a handful of scientists to support it.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but here's something to think about: if you had been granted the same genome as this hypothetical individual in the genetic lottery and were brought up in the same society, your actions would have been the same.
All that matters is the one actual data point which, based on the statistics in the paper, has a 95% chance of being between 8 and 200 thousand. That is not a reasonable range.
It's true that it's a big scale, but it gives us some idea of the expected scale of deaths. Values are more likely to be towards the middle of the scale than either end; 100k is more likely than either 8k or 194k.
All it tells us is that it is hard to estimate war casualties by using such a small random sample (which just happens to include Falluja).
It's true that it is hard to accurately estimate the number of deaths (though the sample wasn't small), but as the only scientific study so far it is the best we have.
However, you have totally missed the point about Falluja. Because one of their (randomly-chosen) clusters fell within Falluja and greatly increased their estimate, they decided to exclude it, thereby revising the total estimate downwards.
From the paper (would you like a copy? You don't seem to have read it):
We estimate that 98000 more deaths than expected (8000-194000) happened after the invasion outside of Falluja and far more if the outlier Falluja cluster is included.
Furthermore we have actual verified data that places the number closer to 17000
Once again, (how many times do we have to go over this?) the IBC study only counts civilians who have been killed and have been reported by two media sources. They do not claim to give an accurate estimate of total deaths.
Ok, so lets go with the high number, 17,000. Still far fewer than 100,000.
Have you even looked at their site? 17k is still a conservative estimate. The range is because sometimes a range was reported. Many or most deaths go unreported by news organisations in war. Do you dispute this?
The count was only of civilian deaths anyway, and you were talking about total deaths. Do you dispute this?
The published and peer-reviewed claim (8-200 thousand) was not the number that was refuted.
That was not their claim. Their claim was "more than 100,000". The range with confidence value was given as standard. From the paper:
Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths.
The paper was one of the most heavily peer-reviewed papers ever in one of the world's most respected journals. They do not get away with making baseless claims.
No, it (the number of civilians killed in Iraq) is one data point. One data point cannot be a bell curve.
The bell-curve I was talking about is the statistical distribution of probable Iraqi deaths from the deaths investigated by the researchers. I suspect you are being deliberately stupid here to avoid acknowledging your own misconceptions, but if not tell me and I shall try to educate you about statistics.
But as someone who frequents/. I'm sure you have enough of a grasp of statistics to know that when you get one study that is a factor of ten larger than any other, you treat it with skepticism anyways.
That's a logical fallacy and assumes that the sources are of equal value.
The Lancet paper is the only scientific study, so there is nothing else to compare it with. By all means treat it with some scepticism but it is the best we have so far.
In any case, the other "studies" are not. Two merely state minimums, and "Iraq body count" is a count of reported civilian deaths. I couldn't find the Brookings Institution study but it wasn't out by a factor of 10, whatever its nature.
Here is the whole story
Thanks, but sane people put more confidence in scientists than journalists.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm hard pressed to think of a game that would have benefitted from this. Even with perfect tracking, no wires, and gloves, there's still the limit of having to stand in a particular area. Even a room to walk around in would have been problematic.
I think it would be quite cool, just standing in place but being able to look around in today's games. Even if you're not able to walk around except via a controller, it's still a step up (down?) in immersion.
I did have a go of one of the old Virtuality machines. I didn't find it uncomfortable at all. The game wasn't much fun (shooting a pterodactyl) but that was because it was pretty crappy rather than any technical limitation. The novelty of the experience was quite enjoyable.
I don't own a telly myself but I still use the BBC website, radio etc. -- arguably it's even less fair that I should be able to do so for free.
My main problem with the TV poll tax^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H licence is that a billionaire with a huge household, 18 children and 145 plasma screen tellies pays the same as an impoverished student on a single-occupancy contract with a black and white portable.
I'd like to see the BBC paid for out of the general taxation system. It would be fairer, and they could save money on the ludicrous enforcement system.
They want to redefine marriage to suit their desires, not fair and this is what the battle is over.
Why isn't it fair? Unfair to whom? Why should this "redefinition" affect you?
Marriage is an entirely artificial construct created for various social and/or religious purposes. We can and should modify it for the greater social good.
You cave on a Petzl Tikka? Isn't it a bit dim and susceptible to water? I use a Speleotechnics Nova for caving. It's rather nice :)
Ommmmmmmmmm....
I think you're wrong.
normal geeks that would rather believe that there is something chemical that prevents them from engaging socially rather than just plain not being good at it.
What's the difference?
There are quite a few "senses" that tell you when something is wrong, which are quite different to the usual ones. Pain, for example (sometimes characterised into different versions, such as visceral pain), the sense of dehydration, and arguable ones like bladder tension.
One that I never hear mentioned, but which seems to me to be very distinct to the other senses, is nausea.
What is it that we're arguing here? Are we trying to establish that the right way to interact with science is to gather consensus?
That's pretty much exactly how it works.
when research is young (say, less than 10 years old), the chances that the consensus is wrong is HIGH.
But climate research is not less than 10 years old!
Anyway, even if your arbitrary cut-off point of 10 years did indicate a lack of confidence in the research, wouldn't you agree that it is still significantly more likely for the consensus to be correct than not?
Absolutely right. Except for the comment about Crichton being a decent novelist.
I had actually parsed "sparse" in its meaning as a synonym of scanty. Still, I don't see that it is particularly relevant. Every country could give excuses as to why it produces excess CO2, many of which would be more plausible. And population concentration is a bit of a more complicated statistic than simply dividing land area by population.
Humans have a natural desire to own material things. They don't want to "share" their car with strangers.
The ownership of personal possessions has never been much of an issue in most communist philosophies. They've been more concerne with the communal ownership of land, factories, companies etc.
I'm not sure your point is true, anyway. I'd be perfectly happy sharing a communal car pool with strangers.
That's my definition of just -- everyone is treated equally
So... if we treat everyone equally, then we can just stick a flat cap on CO2 emissions per capita at a level that is slightly below the current world mean. Most countries in the world would have no problem meeting this target. It would of course hit the USA far, far, harder than anyone else, and be far harsher than Kyoto. Do you think this would be a fair way to do it?
Keep in mind that most of the US lives much, much more sparsely than Europeans.
CO2 emissions:
USA 5,410 million tons (20.1 tons per capita)
EU 3,171 million tons (8.5 tons per capita)
Care to justify your statement?
He goes on to explain that many important scientific discoveries have been in direct conflict with the consensus. So please, let's not use the word "consensus" in this context. Discuss warming trends (there's some hard data you can point to), anthropic influence and other real topics, but science is not a popularity game. If you talk about consensus, you're only talking about politics, not science.
Of course we can talk about consensus. There is consensus in many fields of scientific research, such as the lack of evidence for psychic phenomena, Darwinian evolution being the best explanation for the current state of life on the planet, the lack of evidence for cold fusion, and so on. In each of those examples, and in the current climate change models, there is massive scientific consensus and a vocal minority. Although this does not mean that research of alternative theories to the current consensus should not be carried out, it would be madness to make political decisions against the consensus.
Sometimes important advances in science are made against the consensus, but these are memorable because these are so rare. Most science is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. The consensus is far more likely to be right than it is to be wrong. Politicians should should stick to following the scientific consensus and leave challenging it to the scientists.
It's worth pointing that the study was published in the Lancet, one of the world's most respected journals and hence went through a very intense peer review. The 100,000 estimate was also based on some conservative assumptions, such as excluding a data point in Falluja.
Of course, it's only a rough estimate but it's the only attempt at a scientific count so far.
Neither has hesitated to profit from his invention, as well they shouldn't.
To the best of my knowledge, the only way Berners-Lee has made money from the WWW is the awards he has been given for the achievement.
Both will tell you that the reason they released it for free wasn't altruism, but that it was the only way it could have evolved into what it became.
Isn't that the same thing? They might not have grown into what they are now, but both individuals would almost certainly have made more cash for their inventions had they sold them.
I'm not even sure that Berners-Lee would have been able to sell his invention. His research was carried out at CERN, a mostly government-funded institution. So much for your socialist attack.
I don't know anything about Finland's education system but I'd guess also that Torvalds had some government funding while he was studying at Helsinki university and creating Linux.
Let us not fall for the socialist fallacy that the only good thing one can do in life is to give away ones money. People like Tim Berners Lee CREATE wealth, which is a greater virtue then passing it around!
/and/ gave them away. Sounds pretty close to the socialist ideal to me.
Both Berners Lee and Torvalds did both though. They created the WWW and Linux
Jurassic Park. The film wasn't exactly a masterpiece, but the book was a pile of crap.
Remember, 25 years ago these same folks were howling about 'global cooling', that should tell you something.
Yeah, it's really terrible that scientists should change their predictions when new evidence is found, rather than sticking to their ideas no matter what, like a priest or a politician.
And despite that:
1) You're wrong anyway
2) Even if you weren't, after 25 years the top climatologists are not the "same folks"
3) If the original evidence did point to global cooling, then the current rise in global temperatures is even more indicative of human influence.
Carrying on:
There's no actual consensus on 'global warming' is in fact happening,
Wrong! Absolutely no one with any credibility suggests that global warming is not occuring.
whether or not human activity has anything to do with it.
Any fringe theory will find a handful of scientists to support it.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but here's something to think about: if you had been granted the same genome as this hypothetical individual in the genetic lottery and were brought up in the same society, your actions would have been the same.
All that matters is the one actual data point which, based on the statistics in the paper, has a 95% chance of being between 8 and 200 thousand. That is not a reasonable range.
It's true that it's a big scale, but it gives us some idea of the expected scale of deaths. Values are more likely to be towards the middle of the scale than either end; 100k is more likely than either 8k or 194k.
All it tells us is that it is hard to estimate war casualties by using such a small random sample (which just happens to include Falluja).
It's true that it is hard to accurately estimate the number of deaths (though the sample wasn't small), but as the only scientific study so far it is the best we have.
However, you have totally missed the point about Falluja. Because one of their (randomly-chosen) clusters fell within Falluja and greatly increased their estimate, they decided to exclude it, thereby revising the total estimate downwards.
From the paper (would you like a copy? You don't seem to have read it):
We estimate that 98000 more deaths than expected (8000-194000) happened after the invasion outside of Falluja and far more if the outlier Falluja cluster is included.
Furthermore we have actual verified data that places the number closer to 17000
Once again, (how many times do we have to go over this?) the IBC study only counts civilians who have been killed and have been reported by two media sources. They do not claim to give an accurate estimate of total deaths.
Ok, so lets go with the high number, 17,000. Still far fewer than 100,000.
Have you even looked at their site? 17k is still a conservative estimate. The range is because sometimes a range was reported. Many or most deaths go unreported by news organisations in war. Do you dispute this?
The count was only of civilian deaths anyway, and you were talking about total deaths. Do you dispute this?
The published and peer-reviewed claim (8-200 thousand) was not the number that was refuted.
That was not their claim. Their claim was "more than 100,000". The range with confidence value was given as standard. From the paper:
Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths.
The paper was one of the most heavily peer-reviewed papers ever in one of the world's most respected journals. They do not get away with making baseless claims.
No, it (the number of civilians killed in Iraq) is one data point. One data point cannot be a bell curve.
The bell-curve I was talking about is the statistical distribution of probable Iraqi deaths from the deaths investigated by the researchers. I suspect you are being deliberately stupid here to avoid acknowledging your own misconceptions, but if not tell me and I shall try to educate you about statistics.
But as someone who frequents /. I'm sure you have enough of a grasp of statistics to know that when you get one study that is a factor of ten larger than any other, you treat it with skepticism anyways.
That's a logical fallacy and assumes that the sources are of equal value.
The Lancet paper is the only scientific study, so there is nothing else to compare it with. By all means treat it with some scepticism but it is the best we have so far.
In any case, the other "studies" are not. Two merely state minimums, and "Iraq body count" is a count of reported civilian deaths. I couldn't find the Brookings Institution study but it wasn't out by a factor of 10, whatever its nature.
Here is the whole story
Thanks, but sane people put more confidence in scientists than journalists.