Don't bring a GPS - It's much more fun trying to figure out where to go on your own. It's also an excuse to interact with the locals and other travelers. Double the fun if you don't speak their language.
Don't bring an iPod/Mp3 player - You'll absorb the environment better. Hearing the sounds, the noises, and the language of a foreign culture is part of the experience. Also, wearing earphones makes you less accessible. Locals and other travelers won't turn to you and start a conversation. Meeting others, talking, and exchanging info is both fun and useful, even if you're an introverted geek.
Don't bring a laptop - You'll find it easier to turn to the laptop in times of boredom instead of doing something new. It's easier. You know it is. You'll become a target for thieves. There are plenty of those everywhere, especially in countries you go backpacking in. It's heavy; requires constant care; you can't leave it unsupervised; you can't throw your bags or treat your luggage roughly as you sometimes need; you can't sit on your bags; you can't trust tying your bag to a roof of a bus, etc; you need to constantly worry about power, charging, adapters for different regions; moisture issues - you can't travel in rivers or rain without worrying the thing will get wet (and it will). And in the not so uncommon case your luggage gets stolen, you'll be devastated.
Don't bring a camera - You'll be busy taking photos of everything instead of actually seeing things. Then you'll be busy sorting your pictures, choosing which to keep and which to delete (memory fills fast). Finally, you'll have to find a place to burn your precious pictures to discs (more weight), which later turns out weren't burnt properly because someone messed up or the media was cheap. Or you'll find out the discs were damaged or lost in the mail (major disappointment).
If there is one gadget to bring it's a cellphone. It's small, doesn't distract you, won't get stolen (everyone got one), doesn't require much power or accessories, and it's useful: It has a clock, an alarm clock, calculator, simple games, camera for the pictures you just have to take (if you didn't bring a high tech camera), and of course it can be used to make phone calls, especially in emergencies.
Gadgets are a liability. When backpacking, traveling light is the first rule. Taking gadgets also makes you a target for thieves, distracts you from all the fun, and is a major cause of worrying that something will happen to them, and a disappointment when they do get stolen, lost or damaged.
It's hardly debunking any of what was said in TGGWS. I've seen many of these documentaries, the kind that says we're the problem and the kind that says it's natural, and right now the Swindle documentary is the most convincing. Worth watching, if only for the commentary about how independent scientists aren't independent.
It's not a continuous spacewalk record. And it's also not an accumulative spacewalk record. From the article:
Lopez-Alegria has already spent more than 61 hours spacewalking during his astronaut career. This spacewalk, his 10th, should add about six more hours to his total - making him the US astronaut with the most spacewalks performed and the most total time spent walking in space. Only Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyov has spent more time outside the hatch, racking up 82 hours of spacewalking time.
I know you were joking, but ranting is a pretty good bonding strategy. Disliking the same things is a much better ground for friendship than liking the same things. NYT, PDF paper, Wikipedia
Shutting down a large torrent site is a flawed strategy because it forces users to look up alternatives, strengthening many other sites. It's like a hydra. You cut off one head seven other heads grow back.
I'd expect students to stand up for the tazered student and physically try to stop the police officers from continuously harming him, even at risk of being shocked. It takes one person to set an example, and others quickly follow suit, hopefully. It's unfortunate there wasn't a single moral leader courageous enough to at least try and effectively protect the tazered guy.
Parent post made the most important point: The students who were in the library stood there and did nothing. They protested, but only as if they were watching this on YouTube, like the rest of us. Something not right happened -- someone got hurt, and educated college students didn't lift a finger. We question the morals of the police officers because they did, but not the morals of the students who did not.
[...] countries with high software piracy rates have more to gain economically by protecting intellectual property rights. The study even claims potential global gains of 2.4 million new jobs [...]
How do you gain economically by protecting intellectual property rights? 2.4 million new lawyers.
Taikonaut is sometimes used in English for astronauts from China by Western news media. The term was coined in May 1998 by Chiew Lee Yih from Malaysia, who used it first in newsgroups. Almost simultaneously, Chen Lan coined it for use in the Western media based on the term taikong, Chinese for space. In Chinese itself, however, a single term yuhang yuan ("universe navigator") has long been used for astronauts and cosmonauts. The closest term using taikong is a colloquialism taikong ren ("space human") which refers to people who have actually been in space. Official English text issued by the Chinese government uses astronaut.
The games industry is a very much alive cash cow from a business point of view. Yeah, they're milking the consumer and killing creativity. But they don't care as long as the money keeps flowing.
They have considerable real assets, a 20% profit margin, the strongest brand in their industry, and an employee roster that holds some of the best minds in the business, how exactly are they extremely inflated?
No one is saying they're not good. It's just that they're not that good.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you sure you're not working in Adobe's marketing department?
Abraham Lincoln reportedly said that, given eight hours to chop down a tree, he'd spend six sharpening his axe.
Don't bring a GPS - It's much more fun trying to figure out where to go on your own. It's also an excuse to interact with the locals and other travelers. Double the fun if you don't speak their language.
Don't bring an iPod/Mp3 player - You'll absorb the environment better. Hearing the sounds, the noises, and the language of a foreign culture is part of the experience. Also, wearing earphones makes you less accessible. Locals and other travelers won't turn to you and start a conversation. Meeting others, talking, and exchanging info is both fun and useful, even if you're an introverted geek.
Don't bring a laptop - You'll find it easier to turn to the laptop in times of boredom instead of doing something new. It's easier. You know it is. You'll become a target for thieves. There are plenty of those everywhere, especially in countries you go backpacking in. It's heavy; requires constant care; you can't leave it unsupervised; you can't throw your bags or treat your luggage roughly as you sometimes need; you can't sit on your bags; you can't trust tying your bag to a roof of a bus, etc; you need to constantly worry about power, charging, adapters for different regions; moisture issues - you can't travel in rivers or rain without worrying the thing will get wet (and it will). And in the not so uncommon case your luggage gets stolen, you'll be devastated.
Don't bring a camera - You'll be busy taking photos of everything instead of actually seeing things. Then you'll be busy sorting your pictures, choosing which to keep and which to delete (memory fills fast). Finally, you'll have to find a place to burn your precious pictures to discs (more weight), which later turns out weren't burnt properly because someone messed up or the media was cheap. Or you'll find out the discs were damaged or lost in the mail (major disappointment).
If there is one gadget to bring it's a cellphone. It's small, doesn't distract you, won't get stolen (everyone got one), doesn't require much power or accessories, and it's useful: It has a clock, an alarm clock, calculator, simple games, camera for the pictures you just have to take (if you didn't bring a high tech camera), and of course it can be used to make phone calls, especially in emergencies.
Gadgets are a liability. When backpacking, traveling light is the first rule. Taking gadgets also makes you a target for thieves, distracts you from all the fun, and is a major cause of worrying that something will happen to them, and a disappointment when they do get stolen, lost or damaged.
Don't bring gadgets.
It's hardly debunking any of what was said in TGGWS. I've seen many of these documentaries, the kind that says we're the problem and the kind that says it's natural, and right now the Swindle documentary is the most convincing. Worth watching, if only for the commentary about how independent scientists aren't independent.
* Launch into a rant
I know you were joking, but ranting is a pretty good bonding strategy. Disliking the same things is a much better ground for friendship than liking the same things. NYT, PDF paper, Wikipedia
Shutting down a large torrent site is a flawed strategy because it forces users to look up alternatives, strengthening many other sites. It's like a hydra. You cut off one head seven other heads grow back.
This selection technique is not new. It's not unique to Google, and they didn't invent this "algorithm". It's called biodata, and it's quite common.
I'd expect students to stand up for the tazered student and physically try to stop the police officers from continuously harming him, even at risk of being shocked. It takes one person to set an example, and others quickly follow suit, hopefully. It's unfortunate there wasn't a single moral leader courageous enough to at least try and effectively protect the tazered guy.
Parent post made the most important point: The students who were in the library stood there and did nothing. They protested, but only as if they were watching this on YouTube, like the rest of us. Something not right happened -- someone got hurt, and educated college students didn't lift a finger. We question the morals of the police officers because they did, but not the morals of the students who did not.
When comparing The Daily Show fake news with real news, I'm not quite sure which one is the fake.
A good software strives, as it develops, to empower and help the user by itself, and not through third-party support.
Thus, any company which depends on support has an interest to hinder software advancement.
You just made the knock-out argument against companies who profit from support.
Mr. President, we must not allow a science gap!
The real secret to creativity is knowing how to keep your sources secret. The internet doesn't help here.
Isn't there a law that says a company with a number in its name is doomed to failure?
Is there evidence, or not? Is this a concrete advance in our understanding of nature, or is it just another article in Nature?
The games industry is a very much alive cash cow from a business point of view. Yeah, they're milking the consumer and killing creativity. But they don't care as long as the money keeps flowing.
It seems to me that a fraud detection job can be extremely fascinating. Can any shed some light about these jobs?
Is Brian Greene a top scientist, or just a famous one?
No one is saying they're not good. It's just that they're not that good.
Or are they cashing their extremely inflated stock?
Users don't delete the cookies. They just throw away the computer when the spyware reaches critical mass.