GM crops will lead inevitably to a monopolistic cartel controlling the global food supply, the same way state-of-the-art engineering and science put Big Pharma and Big Oil in control of medicine and energy. What will be so different about applying state-of-the-art engineering and science to the food supply? For this reason alone, GM crops need to be outlawed.
...because the problem is how we produce energy, not how we use it. We need to change our energy production infrastructure, not fuck around with ever-cuter ways of consuming it. EVs (and all the other so-called green technologies) are pretty much the equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, for all the good they are going to do in averting the disaster everybody can see coming. Seriously -- each EV produced still contributes something like 19 tons of carbon to our environment, which truly isn't all that much better than my Lingenfelter C6, if this life-cycle study produced by the British government earlier this year can be believed.
Serious question here: What does it mean to say that Higgs bosons are "real" ?
Physicists often go out of their way to point out that theory is under-determined by data. If you have two theories that account for all our data, but one theory contains a Higgs bosons and the other theory does not, do we still say that Higgs bosons are "real"?
Or, does saying they're "real" assume some standard model of physics as the context for the statement?
Reality, in science, is not a useful label to use. A more useful term would be "observable," or "measurable." Science provides explanations about phenomena we observe; the theories we construct about observable/measurable phenomena are the explanations. And because we use the purely abstract tools of mathematics to articulate them, theories can have no connection with the phenomena they describe. The debate over the ontological status of any of the theoretical constructs deployed in science belongs in lecture halls, not laboratories, i.e, you aren't doing science when you are discussing the reality of gravity, or the Higgs boson, or neutrinos. You are doing philosophy. The most "reality" we can demand from a theoretical construct like the Higgs is that the mathematical model of the Higgs boson is empirically adequate -- we observe phenomena that conform to the mathematical model of the object.
As a former military criminal investigator, I can talk a little about vehicular theft. I have conducted a lot of community outreach classes on personal safety and crime prevention, including classes on how to deal with carjacking and how to minimize your risk of vehicular theft. I can flatly assert there is no anti-theft system that is going to deter a determined pro thief. You can chain your scooter up, but all it takes to defeat your $50 Kryptonite U-Lock is a bottle of liquid nitrogen and a $1 screwdriver. Four guys and a panel van is all it takes to steal a Harley in about ten seconds; a scooter requires two people and a car with a large trunk and about a five second window. Lining the interior of the trunk with small-mesh chicken wire creates a Gaussian cage that will defeat any kind of transponder- or GPS-based tracking system. We routinely confiscated cell-phone blockers from chop shops -- the professionals keep up with the technology they need.
You can deter casual, opportunistic thieves with U-Locks and a prominently displayed LoJac sticker, but if you have a high-ticket scooter and a pro thief wants it, he's going to get it.
Skyrim is not Oblivion. It is still the Elder Scrolls, but this is a new way to experience it. Oblivion was a flawed game because of the leveling system and the armor/weapon/spell crafting system.
The leveling mechanic in Oblivion was abandoned for Skyrim. Suffice it to say, getting your ass handed to you by some motley crew of bandits while exploring a cave at level one is expected. What the Oblivion devs didn't realize was that having your ass handed to you by that same motley crew at level twenty is fucking frustrating -- what is the point of leveling up if the monsters level up with you? In an RPG, I *like* being able to go back and deliver some leveled-up payback to the monsters of my youth. Not being able to revisit lower levels after gaining enough armor/weapons/magicka to handle them contracted the game down to a series of frustratingly similar encounters.
Crafting, especially spell crafting, is not the same in Skyrim. Being able to customize your armor, weapons, and spells was a cool innovation in the earlier games, and I was pleasantly surprised by how satisfying it was in Morrowind. But Oblivion was a living example of why too much of a good thing is bad. An RPG that allows a level one character to become permanently invisible and craft a spell that can one-shot the final boss is broken, period. The game should be about testing your skills and knowledge of the game world, not resisting the temptation to exploit a design flaw in one of the game's critical subsystems.
So, Skyrim is addressing both of these well-publicized and documented problems. I'm downloading this from Steam as I type this, and am looking forward to playing it through.
That entirely depends on what price tag you put on an hour of downtime.
The cost of a virus? The joke that is System Restore from trying to recover from malware?
When you're trying to recover from these events in Windows-land at the 11th hour at the time you need your computer the most is when you really start to see the true costs of alternatives.
heh...and when you are desperately looking for a driver for your linux distro that actually works, and your only goto option is some surly teenager in Helsinki or Kiev? What is the cost of one hour of frustration? The malware strawman that people trot out in the desktop debate doesn't work anymore -- a properly administered Microsoft environment is just as secure as a *nix environment, but is also waaaay more user- and admin-friendly than *nix ever was. Do I have to remind you that the Linux desktop is a punchline to every user-unfriendly joke ever uttered in an IT department? Tell me this -- why has Linux (and OSX, for that matter) failed to make market share gains against Microsoft in the desktop world? Why did Unix lose a market monopoly to the upstart from Redmond? I've been adminning Unix boxen since the Carter administration, and I added Windows to my skill set twenty years ago because it was easy to see the writing on the wall. I watched Microsoft OSs go from a hobby, to a commercial niche, to a full blown commercial juggernaut, while simultaneouly seeing Unix slide into senescence and neglect. Linux was never a serious competitor on the desktop, though it has managed to gain acceptance in the server world -- largely because, IMHO, the core geeks who maintain the linux kernel stick to what they know. Other linux geeks can continue to put lipstick on the pig and call Linux a desktop OS, but all they are doing is insulting real pigs, and lining MIcrosoft's pockets with money from people who are weary of cosmetized porkers.
seriously. ms sidewinder controllers and their forcefeedback controllers were _the_ best.
no, no they weren't. I have seen more MS FF sticks in the dumpster due to failure than I've ever seen in use. Logitech makes (and made) better pads, sticks, mice, keyboards, and indeed, all classes of hardware device that Microsoft has ever made. And the BEST joysticks came from Thrustmaster and Saitek (specifically the Cyborg.)
still have my sidewinder force feedback pro. still play mechwarrior 3 and 4 with it. I do have a brand spanking new logitech 550 wireless keyboard, though, that is about to go back to the vendor because it is the hands-down crappiest keyboard I've ever used. The tactile response is horrible, the keyboard will freeze for seconds at a time, and when it isn't freezing, it is randomly registering phantom keystrokes. I realize I'm offering only one datapoint here, but first impressions are lasting impressions. Logitech will not be getting any more of my money based on my experience with this keyboard. My FF Pro and Microsoft Natural Keyboard on my gaming rig are both pushing fifteen years old and are working fine.
The problem is that their fans throw money at them like toilet paper. $900 for a dual core 16GB 800MHz phone would be laughed at if anyone else tried to sell it. Some would complain about entering a monopoly / being overcharged for anything else, but not them.
There's a lot of money to go through before they stop -- especially considering they've delayed the competition successfully already.
$900? Really? I agree that would be a laughable price point, if it actually existed anywhere but in your mind. I paid $650 for my iPhone 4S from ATT. That is the no-discount, no commitment, I-want-it-right now price. And that is for the 64GB version, not the 16GB. Canadian dollars, maybe? Australian? Seriously, where did you get $900?
Courts once started fining Microsoft $1mil per day for failure to comply with a court order.
I dont care how big you are, that starts to hurt pretty quickly; and if you think that is the upper limit that a court can nail you for if you continue to be belligerent, you are wrong.
Well, no. $1M/day (call it $365M/yr) is not a large amount of money for a corporation whose annual operating expenses are 75X that paltry sum (MSFT operating expenses in 2010 were $28B.) Why would a company like Microsoft, or Apple, or any other company with a twelve digit market cap worry about a nine digit fine? That is just another (relatively small) operating expense, as far as their bottom line is concerned, and if it allows them to continue to throttle competition, it can be easily justified to the board. Increasing the price of even just a few of their myriad products by a few dollars covers that expense, so what is keeping them from doing just that and getting on with business as usual? Don't mean to sound cynical, here -- I'm genuinely curious as to why you think large corporations should be worried about the nickel and dime fines that are the only weapons the legal system has against their practices?
What does that say about your pretense that this was recently thought up?
You've lost me. Where outside some dark corner of your own mind with possible chemical assistance is that suggested? Please quote it.
Dude, you are the one huffing glue. "keep on making" and "dumb idea of the month" imply a level of immediacy and concurrency that is absolutely unwarranted. The guy is hiding behind a 3 digit ID, thinking it shields him when he makes an asinine remark. It doesn't.
Mathematics is complicated, unfortunately that's just the nature of it, there's no shortcuts. Sometimes ideas can be better communicated through metaphor, but I think you're gotten hung up on the pancakes and as a result you're missing the forest for the trees.
Hmmm. That is an interesting take on metaphor. I was taught that metaphor is the refuge of writers whose thoughts are too fuzzy and undisciplined to be articulated in any other way. Metaphors are for communicating fuzzy ideas, not basic mathematical truths derivable from simple postulates. And no...I don't think mathematics is complicated. If it was complicated, humans couldn't do it. As my favorite author put it,
"Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house." Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love (Robert A. Heinlein)
I think anybody can do mathematics. It requires only the will to do it. That most people fail to summon the will necessary is the real issue, as Heinlein implies in his pithy aphorism. Sadly, many otherwise intelligent people I've known dismiss math as "too complicated to bother with" and end up hiring people like me to do the math for them. Sure I profit by their deficit, but I still believe that *anybody* can grasp any branch of mathematics. I was no stellar math student, but I didn't struggle to get a passing grade, either.
1M from the Gates Foundation could probably buy enough mosquito nets to cover the whole of Africa.
Take a longer view. I'm looking forward to the day when this laser barrier is considered "low tech." Pure research is expensive, and even applied research that beats the odds and has a payoff down the road still requires significant seed funds. Purchasing mosquito nets for people who can't afford them is a worthy charitable endeavor (thank you for making me aware of it; I just donated the cost of ten nets) and allows people of any financial means to participate in helping to deal with the immediate problem. Organizations like the The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that have significant financial means can target more permanent solutions by providing funding for targeted research.
This is getting scary, folks. Speaking in general, the Human Race's ability to advance technology in many fields has already out-paced our maturity as a Species, and our ability to fully comprehend the ramifications of what we create. Somewhere there's coming another "Big Bang", and I hope we survive it.
dude -- no species is guaranteed survival. DNA is pretty resilient; while our particular species may indeed fail to emerge from the technological singularity that we seem to be heading for, I'm pretty sure other species will thrive in our absence. There is nothing special or exceptional about our species that guarantees our survival; it is irrational to think otherwise. In fact, a case can be made that we are an exceptionally self-destructive species, and that our technological advances are at best only prolonging the inevitable, if not actually hastening our demise.
It's justified this is news for nerds, if you don't know of noscript I'm just going to petition that we don't want any of you here.
I think the GP meant "slashvertisement." If the clever folks behind NoScript could figure out how to block those, I'd be a truly happy camper. The number of people that regularly surf slashdot is pretty high; posts purporting to be about some new tech or development in science can turn out to be just a publicity grab for some rinky-dink tech start-up. Also, some unscrupulous posters (usually paid-by-the-click tech bloggers) will sensationalize an otherwise mundane tech story and provide a link in the hopes of summoning the slashdot effect to boost their page views. It's sad, but everything can be commercialized, and many slashdot posters are not immune to the greed and corruption that the lure of advertising revenue engenders.
Let's have a beer then. I'll say these things to your face. C'mon down to Vancouver BC. Reply by message to my slashdot profile and I'll meet you anywhere. Your character needs a little attacking, lest your head continue to balloon. Oh and by the way, you called me an idiot, rocket_rancher. I asked who cowed you, I have not called you names.
Hmmm. What part of
Your fear is palpable, I'm glad I will not ever see you standing up and promoting change with those 'mob' types that have built your freedoms and rights.
is *not* calling me a coward?
I'll have a drink with a worthy enemy. Prove you are.
First, no where in the original post does it state a sit-in is illegal. Second, civil disobedience is one of the cornerstones of true freedom, it's why you can drink alcohol in the states. Your fear is palpable, I'm glad I will not ever see you standing up and promoting change with those 'mob' types that have built your freedoms and rights. The American war of independence is the ultimate example of standing up and doing illegal acts with a larger group. You wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for people risking their freedoms and live to promote change and equality. What does your comment promote? Fear of authority? Fear of sacrifice for belief? Who cowed you?
Indeed, the original poster never stated that a sit-in is illegal. Nor did I. You seem to have mastered that bit of the obvious. Well done.
Civil disobedience is a tactic. It can't be a cornerstone of anything, because it can be deployed by any faction in any political feud. For example, during the early years of the civil rights movement in America, Rosa Parks used it to great effect in refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. But so did the governor of Alabama, George Wallace, when he defied federal desegregation laws by personally blocking the doors to Foster Auditorium to prevent blacks from entering the University of Alabama. If you are going to elevate one of these individuals as a supporter of "true freedom" on the basis of their tactics, you have to elevate both, and I really don't think you meant to do that. Care to rethink your assertion?
I'm no stranger to fear -- I wouldn't consider myself a courageous man, if I didn't feel fear. I've done my fair share of standing up and promoting change, and defending our hard-earned freedoms -- though in my case, it was more mercenary than idealistic. I was paid by the US government to promote change (regime change, actually, to be honest, but it was to defend American interests) and it was more by lying down than standing up (easier to dodge bullets that way) but I think you get the point.
And speaking of armed conflicts, a war is not the same thing as civil disobedience. I doubt seriously a bunch of disgruntled and disaffected British aristocrats would have been able to effect any kind of meaningful change in their status by mere civil disobedience towards the Crown, even with an ocean to help distance themselves from the consequences of their behavior. By declaring a war, their seditious, treasonous, and traitorous acts suddenly became patriotic. You do understand that they were traitors, right, to the exact same extent that they were patriots? I'm proud to be an American, and I recognize and appreciate the sacrifice made by anyone who took a bullet in defense of America. But I will not buy into the idea that there is something special or exceptional about America that excuses the circumstances of its birth and the wars it fights to extend its influence. America has much to recommend it to the rest of the civilized world, but it also has much to be ashamed of; I'm realistic enough to acknowledge the latter while simultaneously being patriotic enough to be proud of the former.
As far as fear and cowing goes, my comment was to try to point out the absurdity of the GPs assertion that a DDOS was the moral equivalent of a sit-in. You, unfortunately, didn't get the point. You instead used it as an excuse to attack my character. I truly doubt you would have done so if we had been in the same room, instead of being safely separated by the internet. From my standpoint, and probably from that of anybody else who is bothering with this thread, you sir, are the coward.
You might want to double check whether the state is great or not. Take a careful look at the state seal. Most state seals that I've ever looked at are labeled "The Great Seal of the State of _________" Not "The Seal of the Great State of _________"
That's kind of confusing, if you ask me . ..
sorry...I'll try to remember to include a sarcasm tag next time.
The individuals aren't taking down the site. They're simply making a GET request just like you did to access/.
It's no different in practice from "Slashdotting."
Don't be disingenuous, dude. A man who kills somebody without intending to is not charged with murder. Why do you suppose that is? It is because a crime is composed of two components, an intent and an act. Look up mens rea and actus reus, if you need help with this straight forward concept. Indeed, slashdotting is no different in practice than a DDOS. But it is different in intent, and it is intent that you will hang for. It is your intent to cause harm, not how you are causing it, that is of interest to the jury. The jury probably wouldn't even understand the mechanism of your GET request, but they don't need to, to find you guilty of a crime. Your intent to cause harm is all they need to be convinced of.
A DDOS is several different computers trying to access a website at the same time. It is not illegal for a single computer to try and access a public website so your analogy fails. If your point of view was correct then people who were eating at a restaurant that fills to capacity could be arrested for "bringing down" said restaurant.
Dude, the act may be the same, but the intent is not. As I've pointed out elsewhere in this thread, people really need to understand that a crime has two elements, the intent and the act. Look up mens rea and actus reus, ok? A restaurant at capacity is not causing harm to the owner. Quite the opposite, I should think. Is this coupling between the intent and the act as necessary elements of a crime really all that hard to get your head around?
Slashdot Mirror
GM crops will lead inevitably to a monopolistic cartel controlling the global food supply, the same way state-of-the-art engineering and science put Big Pharma and Big Oil in control of medicine and energy. What will be so different about applying state-of-the-art engineering and science to the food supply? For this reason alone, GM crops need to be outlawed.
...and who the fuck cares what losers think?
...because the problem is how we produce energy, not how we use it. We need to change our energy production infrastructure, not fuck around with ever-cuter ways of consuming it. EVs (and all the other so-called green technologies) are pretty much the equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, for all the good they are going to do in averting the disaster everybody can see coming. Seriously -- each EV produced still contributes something like 19 tons of carbon to our environment, which truly isn't all that much better than my Lingenfelter C6, if this life-cycle study produced by the British government earlier this year can be believed.
...no one can hear you scream.
...I thought RNG quest spawns were bad enough as it is. I can hardly wait 'til Blizz adopts this for WoW.
Serious question here: What does it mean to say that Higgs bosons are "real" ?
Physicists often go out of their way to point out that theory is under-determined by data. If you have two theories that account for all our data, but one theory contains a Higgs bosons and the other theory does not, do we still say that Higgs bosons are "real"?
Or, does saying they're "real" assume some standard model of physics as the context for the statement?
Reality, in science, is not a useful label to use. A more useful term would be "observable," or "measurable." Science provides explanations about phenomena we observe; the theories we construct about observable/measurable phenomena are the explanations. And because we use the purely abstract tools of mathematics to articulate them, theories can have no connection with the phenomena they describe. The debate over the ontological status of any of the theoretical constructs deployed in science belongs in lecture halls, not laboratories, i.e, you aren't doing science when you are discussing the reality of gravity, or the Higgs boson, or neutrinos. You are doing philosophy. The most "reality" we can demand from a theoretical construct like the Higgs is that the mathematical model of the Higgs boson is empirically adequate -- we observe phenomena that conform to the mathematical model of the object.
As a former military criminal investigator, I can talk a little about vehicular theft. I have conducted a lot of community outreach classes on personal safety and crime prevention, including classes on how to deal with carjacking and how to minimize your risk of vehicular theft. I can flatly assert there is no anti-theft system that is going to deter a determined pro thief. You can chain your scooter up, but all it takes to defeat your $50 Kryptonite U-Lock is a bottle of liquid nitrogen and a $1 screwdriver. Four guys and a panel van is all it takes to steal a Harley in about ten seconds; a scooter requires two people and a car with a large trunk and about a five second window. Lining the interior of the trunk with small-mesh chicken wire creates a Gaussian cage that will defeat any kind of transponder- or GPS-based tracking system. We routinely confiscated cell-phone blockers from chop shops -- the professionals keep up with the technology they need.
You can deter casual, opportunistic thieves with U-Locks and a prominently displayed LoJac sticker, but if you have a high-ticket scooter and a pro thief wants it, he's going to get it.
Skyrim is not Oblivion. It is still the Elder Scrolls, but this is a new way to experience it. Oblivion was a flawed game because of the leveling system and the armor/weapon/spell crafting system.
The leveling mechanic in Oblivion was abandoned for Skyrim. Suffice it to say, getting your ass handed to you by some motley crew of bandits while exploring a cave at level one is expected. What the Oblivion devs didn't realize was that having your ass handed to you by that same motley crew at level twenty is fucking frustrating -- what is the point of leveling up if the monsters level up with you? In an RPG, I *like* being able to go back and deliver some leveled-up payback to the monsters of my youth. Not being able to revisit lower levels after gaining enough armor/weapons/magicka to handle them contracted the game down to a series of frustratingly similar encounters.
Crafting, especially spell crafting, is not the same in Skyrim. Being able to customize your armor, weapons, and spells was a cool innovation in the earlier games, and I was pleasantly surprised by how satisfying it was in Morrowind. But Oblivion was a living example of why too much of a good thing is bad. An RPG that allows a level one character to become permanently invisible and craft a spell that can one-shot the final boss is broken, period. The game should be about testing your skills and knowledge of the game world, not resisting the temptation to exploit a design flaw in one of the game's critical subsystems.
So, Skyrim is addressing both of these well-publicized and documented problems. I'm downloading this from Steam as I type this, and am looking forward to playing it through.
Not enough money to switch to Mac...
That entirely depends on what price tag you put on an hour of downtime.
The cost of a virus? The joke that is System Restore from trying to recover from malware?
When you're trying to recover from these events in Windows-land at the 11th hour at the time you need your computer the most is when you really start to see the true costs of alternatives.
heh...and when you are desperately looking for a driver for your linux distro that actually works, and your only goto option is some surly teenager in Helsinki or Kiev? What is the cost of one hour of frustration? The malware strawman that people trot out in the desktop debate doesn't work anymore -- a properly administered Microsoft environment is just as secure as a *nix environment, but is also waaaay more user- and admin-friendly than *nix ever was. Do I have to remind you that the Linux desktop is a punchline to every user-unfriendly joke ever uttered in an IT department? Tell me this -- why has Linux (and OSX, for that matter) failed to make market share gains against Microsoft in the desktop world? Why did Unix lose a market monopoly to the upstart from Redmond? I've been adminning Unix boxen since the Carter administration, and I added Windows to my skill set twenty years ago because it was easy to see the writing on the wall. I watched Microsoft OSs go from a hobby, to a commercial niche, to a full blown commercial juggernaut, while simultaneouly seeing Unix slide into senescence and neglect. Linux was never a serious competitor on the desktop, though it has managed to gain acceptance in the server world -- largely because, IMHO, the core geeks who maintain the linux kernel stick to what they know. Other linux geeks can continue to put lipstick on the pig and call Linux a desktop OS, but all they are doing is insulting real pigs, and lining MIcrosoft's pockets with money from people who are weary of cosmetized porkers.
seriously. ms sidewinder controllers and their forcefeedback controllers were _the_ best.
no, no they weren't. I have seen more MS FF sticks in the dumpster due to failure than I've ever seen in use. Logitech makes (and made) better pads, sticks, mice, keyboards, and indeed, all classes of hardware device that Microsoft has ever made. And the BEST joysticks came from Thrustmaster and Saitek (specifically the Cyborg.)
still have my sidewinder force feedback pro. still play mechwarrior 3 and 4 with it. I do have a brand spanking new logitech 550 wireless keyboard, though, that is about to go back to the vendor because it is the hands-down crappiest keyboard I've ever used. The tactile response is horrible, the keyboard will freeze for seconds at a time, and when it isn't freezing, it is randomly registering phantom keystrokes. I realize I'm offering only one datapoint here, but first impressions are lasting impressions. Logitech will not be getting any more of my money based on my experience with this keyboard. My FF Pro and Microsoft Natural Keyboard on my gaming rig are both pushing fifteen years old and are working fine.
actually, maybe *you* need to learn not to feed the trolls.
The problem is that their fans throw money at them like toilet paper. $900 for a dual core 16GB 800MHz phone would be laughed at if anyone else tried to sell it. Some would complain about entering a monopoly / being overcharged for anything else, but not them.
There's a lot of money to go through before they stop -- especially considering they've delayed the competition successfully already.
$900? Really? I agree that would be a laughable price point, if it actually existed anywhere but in your mind. I paid $650 for my iPhone 4S from ATT. That is the no-discount, no commitment, I-want-it-right now price. And that is for the 64GB version, not the 16GB. Canadian dollars, maybe? Australian? Seriously, where did you get $900?
Courts once started fining Microsoft $1mil per day for failure to comply with a court order.
I dont care how big you are, that starts to hurt pretty quickly; and if you think that is the upper limit that a court can nail you for if you continue to be belligerent, you are wrong.
Well, no. $1M/day (call it $365M/yr) is not a large amount of money for a corporation whose annual operating expenses are 75X that paltry sum (MSFT operating expenses in 2010 were $28B.) Why would a company like Microsoft, or Apple, or any other company with a twelve digit market cap worry about a nine digit fine? That is just another (relatively small) operating expense, as far as their bottom line is concerned, and if it allows them to continue to throttle competition, it can be easily justified to the board. Increasing the price of even just a few of their myriad products by a few dollars covers that expense, so what is keeping them from doing just that and getting on with business as usual? Don't mean to sound cynical, here -- I'm genuinely curious as to why you think large corporations should be worried about the nickel and dime fines that are the only weapons the legal system has against their practices?
You've lost me. Where outside some dark corner of your own mind with possible chemical assistance is that suggested? Please quote it.
Dude, you are the one huffing glue. "keep on making" and "dumb idea of the month" imply a level of immediacy and concurrency that is absolutely unwarranted. The guy is hiding behind a 3 digit ID, thinking it shields him when he makes an asinine remark. It doesn't.
Mathematics is complicated, unfortunately that's just the nature of it, there's no shortcuts. Sometimes ideas can be better communicated through metaphor, but I think you're gotten hung up on the pancakes and as a result you're missing the forest for the trees.
Hmmm. That is an interesting take on metaphor. I was taught that metaphor is the refuge of writers whose thoughts are too fuzzy and undisciplined to be articulated in any other way. Metaphors are for communicating fuzzy ideas, not basic mathematical truths derivable from simple postulates. And no...I don't think mathematics is complicated. If it was complicated, humans couldn't do it. As my favorite author put it,
"Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house." Lazarus Long, Time Enough for Love (Robert A. Heinlein)
I think anybody can do mathematics. It requires only the will to do it. That most people fail to summon the will necessary is the real issue, as Heinlein implies in his pithy aphorism. Sadly, many otherwise intelligent people I've known dismiss math as "too complicated to bother with" and end up hiring people like me to do the math for them. Sure I profit by their deficit, but I still believe that *anybody* can grasp any branch of mathematics. I was no stellar math student, but I didn't struggle to get a passing grade, either.
Great research.
But this seems to me like overkill. A mosquito net works and is proven and costs very very little.
And hey, there actually already are charitable initiatives for this. http://www.nothingbutnets.net/
1M from the Gates Foundation could probably buy enough mosquito nets to cover the whole of Africa.
Take a longer view. I'm looking forward to the day when this laser barrier is considered "low tech." Pure research is expensive, and even applied research that beats the odds and has a payoff down the road still requires significant seed funds. Purchasing mosquito nets for people who can't afford them is a worthy charitable endeavor (thank you for making me aware of it; I just donated the cost of ten nets) and allows people of any financial means to participate in helping to deal with the immediate problem. Organizations like the The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that have significant financial means can target more permanent solutions by providing funding for targeted research.
This is getting scary, folks. Speaking in general, the Human Race's ability to advance technology in many fields has already out-paced our maturity as a Species, and our ability to fully comprehend the ramifications of what we create. Somewhere there's coming another "Big Bang", and I hope we survive it.
dude -- no species is guaranteed survival. DNA is pretty resilient; while our particular species may indeed fail to emerge from the technological singularity that we seem to be heading for, I'm pretty sure other species will thrive in our absence. There is nothing special or exceptional about our species that guarantees our survival; it is irrational to think otherwise. In fact, a case can be made that we are an exceptionally self-destructive species, and that our technological advances are at best only prolonging the inevitable, if not actually hastening our demise.
It's justified this is news for nerds, if you don't know of noscript I'm just going to petition that we don't want any of you here.
I think the GP meant "slashvertisement." If the clever folks behind NoScript could figure out how to block those, I'd be a truly happy camper. The number of people that regularly surf slashdot is pretty high; posts purporting to be about some new tech or development in science can turn out to be just a publicity grab for some rinky-dink tech start-up. Also, some unscrupulous posters (usually paid-by-the-click tech bloggers) will sensationalize an otherwise mundane tech story and provide a link in the hopes of summoning the slashdot effect to boost their page views. It's sad, but everything can be commercialized, and many slashdot posters are not immune to the greed and corruption that the lure of advertising revenue engenders.
"made the trains run on time" has actually become a special English phrase/term:
http://www.snopes.com/history/govern/trains.asp
Godwin, subverted.
Let's have a beer then. I'll say these things to your face. C'mon down to Vancouver BC. Reply by message to my slashdot profile and I'll meet you anywhere. Your character needs a little attacking, lest your head continue to balloon.
Oh and by the way, you called me an idiot, rocket_rancher. I asked who cowed you, I have not called you names.
Hmmm. What part of
Your fear is palpable, I'm glad I will not ever see you standing up and promoting change with those 'mob' types that have built your freedoms and rights.
is *not* calling me a coward?
I'll have a drink with a worthy enemy. Prove you are.
First, no where in the original post does it state a sit-in is illegal.
Second, civil disobedience is one of the cornerstones of true freedom, it's why you can drink alcohol in the states.
Your fear is palpable, I'm glad I will not ever see you standing up and promoting change with those 'mob' types that have built your freedoms and rights.
The American war of independence is the ultimate example of standing up and doing illegal acts with a larger group.
You wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for people risking their freedoms and live to promote change and equality.
What does your comment promote? Fear of authority? Fear of sacrifice for belief? Who cowed you?
Indeed, the original poster never stated that a sit-in is illegal. Nor did I. You seem to have mastered that bit of the obvious. Well done.
Civil disobedience is a tactic. It can't be a cornerstone of anything, because it can be deployed by any faction in any political feud. For example, during the early years of the civil rights movement in America, Rosa Parks used it to great effect in refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. But so did the governor of Alabama, George Wallace, when he defied federal desegregation laws by personally blocking the doors to Foster Auditorium to prevent blacks from entering the University of Alabama. If you are going to elevate one of these individuals as a supporter of "true freedom" on the basis of their tactics, you have to elevate both, and I really don't think you meant to do that. Care to rethink your assertion?
I'm no stranger to fear -- I wouldn't consider myself a courageous man, if I didn't feel fear. I've done my fair share of standing up and promoting change, and defending our hard-earned freedoms -- though in my case, it was more mercenary than idealistic. I was paid by the US government to promote change (regime change, actually, to be honest, but it was to defend American interests) and it was more by lying down than standing up (easier to dodge bullets that way) but I think you get the point.
And speaking of armed conflicts, a war is not the same thing as civil disobedience. I doubt seriously a bunch of disgruntled and disaffected British aristocrats would have been able to effect any kind of meaningful change in their status by mere civil disobedience towards the Crown, even with an ocean to help distance themselves from the consequences of their behavior. By declaring a war, their seditious, treasonous, and traitorous acts suddenly became patriotic. You do understand that they were traitors, right, to the exact same extent that they were patriots? I'm proud to be an American, and I recognize and appreciate the sacrifice made by anyone who took a bullet in defense of America. But I will not buy into the idea that there is something special or exceptional about America that excuses the circumstances of its birth and the wars it fights to extend its influence. America has much to recommend it to the rest of the civilized world, but it also has much to be ashamed of; I'm realistic enough to acknowledge the latter while simultaneously being patriotic enough to be proud of the former.
As far as fear and cowing goes, my comment was to try to point out the absurdity of the GPs assertion that a DDOS was the moral equivalent of a sit-in. You, unfortunately, didn't get the point. You instead used it as an excuse to attack my character. I truly doubt you would have done so if we had been in the same room, instead of being safely separated by the internet. From my standpoint, and probably from that of anybody else who is bothering with this thread, you sir, are the coward.
"in my great State of Arizona"
You might want to double check whether the state is great or not. Take a careful look at the state seal. Most state seals that I've ever looked at are labeled "The Great Seal of the State of _________" Not "The Seal of the Great State of _________"
That's kind of confusing, if you ask me . . .
sorry...I'll try to remember to include a sarcasm tag next time.
The individuals aren't taking down the site. They're simply making a GET request just like you did to access /.
It's no different in practice from "Slashdotting."
Don't be disingenuous, dude. A man who kills somebody without intending to is not charged with murder. Why do you suppose that is? It is because a crime is composed of two components, an intent and an act. Look up mens rea and actus reus, if you need help with this straight forward concept. Indeed, slashdotting is no different in practice than a DDOS. But it is different in intent, and it is intent that you will hang for. It is your intent to cause harm, not how you are causing it, that is of interest to the jury. The jury probably wouldn't even understand the mechanism of your GET request, but they don't need to, to find you guilty of a crime. Your intent to cause harm is all they need to be convinced of.
... not legal for an individual to do. [blah blah blah].
So, Rosa Parks was a criminal - right? You fucking fucking moron.
uh, yes...by definition, she was. your point, if you have one? The law she was guilty of disobeying was pretty stupid, but that is irrelevant.
A DDOS is several different computers trying to access a website at the same time. It is not illegal for a single computer to try and access a public website so your analogy fails. If your point of view was correct then people who were eating at a restaurant that fills to capacity could be arrested for "bringing down" said restaurant.
Dude, the act may be the same, but the intent is not. As I've pointed out elsewhere in this thread, people really need to understand that a crime has two elements, the intent and the act. Look up mens rea and actus reus, ok? A restaurant at capacity is not causing harm to the owner. Quite the opposite, I should think. Is this coupling between the intent and the act as necessary elements of a crime really all that hard to get your head around?