Sheesh that one has been around for at least 10 years. Epic fail?:)
With respect to the rest of your comment, I can see your point. Frankly it's like trying to hold back the tide. I myself always thought that the great shifts in language arose from geographical isolation of populations - for example the differences between American and British and Australian English are subtle but they do exist, both in terms of accent and the occasional spelling (color, colour, humor, humour, center, centre, etc). And from this, I always assumed that mass communication firstly through television and radio and later via the internet, would be something that would tend to place us in a linguistic stasis rather than encourage more diversity in the language since the geographical barriers are now effectively gone. Perhaps I am wrong.
I guess it's just something we'll have to witness over time.
That's what they said about Japanese goods a few decades ago, and about American goods a few decades before that.
Oh I agree. There's nothing inherently "bad" about a product because it was made in China. I am sure they will improve over time. And then - watch out! But today, they're not quite there just yet.
Last week my second-grader told me, "Dad, did you know you should read everything your write after you write it?"
That was cute. Ask him to figure out a way to read things BEFORE you write them!
I read the classics at a young age. I learned my grammar and vocabulary from those texts
I agree that being well read is probably the single most important thing you can do to simultaneously improve your grammar and vocabulary, provided you're not always reading the backs of cereal boxes or Twitter... Sadly no one seems to want to read anymore. I was 9 and I had already read the Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia and the Earthsea books by LeGuin. I was 10 and I was sailing the oceans with C.S Forester's Hornblower through 11 books. And then I moved on to contemporary novels. I've read Pliny, Homer and Gibbon, Plato and Hippocrates, and countless others. And of course Anne McCaffery, Arthur C. Clarke, Asimov, Dickson, Adams and Pratchett. Currently I am reading Clausewitz.
However I think that the "now" generation raised (and spoiled) with videogames and home made microwaveable fast food, instant porn and whatever else you want on the internet, I think this generation has forgotten about books. Or maybe I'm just turning into a grumpy old man.
The real breakthrough in computing will be computers that can replicate themselves.
Wonderful. Then we won't just have other humans competing for resources, but the damned robots as well! I can see it now, a new twist on the "war against the humans" theme, not because robots decided we were inherently evil and can't be trusted - but in order to ensure their access to resources.
But of course we humans ARE devious and crafty. I can't wait for one robot to announce: Alumino-Lent Green is made out of Robots!
What percentage of freshman students at UW are from Hong Kong?
Just sayin', is all.
[citation needed]
Actually foreigners usually make a greater effort to ensure accurate language. Sometimes they might just not "get it" due to huge semantic differences in the languages, which is why they might say things in a strange way from time to time. But mostly the sloppiness and laziness comes from the native speaker.
I think the point is that currently the language is "de"-volving.
It's ok to create new compound words for new ideas and technologies. It's ok to have colloquial words included in the official language because everybody uses them. It's not OK to simply encourage laziness and sloppiness under the pretext of an evolving language. Maybe fast food restaurants prefer to use a sign that says "Drive Thru" instead of "Drive Through" because the sign is smaller (and therefore cheaper). That's no excuse to use the word "thru" in a thesis.
True. I've even seen it in books, where an obviously out of context word was substituted. It may have passed the "spell check", but certainly that should be no excuse to avoid proof-reading. It's more than just looking for an absence of little red lines under your text.
Hah. If only you knew:) We have a lot of "practical" tests too.. I remember the first sutures I did on a patient. Poor guy ended up looking like a pin-cushion my hands were shaking so badly. Moral of the story: never be the drunk guy getting stitched up at 3 am after a bar fight...
I don't know what it's like in the 'states, but in my country the whole intern year is all about running a ward in a hospital. The more you ask for help, the lower your grades will be. Oh yeah, all your decisions have to be signed off by a senior resident or an attending, but it's you who has to do the work, diagnose the patients, recommend tests and procedures, etc. You can't get much more practical than that. And killing people is murder, even if you didn't mean to. So there are consequences, too.
But the real question is, would you trust the Harvard Man, or your grandfather?
True. My grandfather of course. But only because of his track record. If you offer me a Harvard man or some random guy off the street, I'd have to opt for the Harvard guy. I'm willing to bet that the proportion of absolute ineptitude is lower (although not exactly zero) among the better educated than the general population, especially for a specific task. Although I am open to the idea that there are some fields that could have a tendency to attract more idiots than others.
He said the piece of paper was worthless, not that the schooling was worthless.
Er, the piece of paper represents the schooling. That's implicit. Which is why he followed up with "My real value comes from my work experience".
They didn't have very high English requirements at your school, I take it?
This made me laugh considering the above is a case of logic, not language. I hope you feel better after venting your anger in a passive aggressive manner with your personal attack. I don't care either way, you can say whatever you want about me: you don't know me, or my school. But passive aggressive behavior is usually a sign of some other underlying issues - depression, personality disorders, etc. Just a heads-up, from a concerned physician.
And yet has not been solved in the past 40 years, as far as I know. Just sayin'
Oh that's easy. The Chinese will just put the nuclear waste in baby milk formula.... (ducking and running fast - please don't kill me China, it was a joke!)
Do we really want to do that at this time when we might be on the edge already ?
So you think doing nothing is better?
he greenest way out is to use less and spend what we do use more wisely
What you say makes sense in theory. However it's not going to happen. You would need to fundamentally change human nature. People will starve to death before that happens. You can't ask people not to breed, not to strive for a certain standard of living, to consume less. They won't listen. Oh some might pretend to listen, but if you look at the statistics it just won't be happening.
When I was born in the 60's there were 4 billion people on this planet. We've just about doubled that. And yet when I was young I remember hearing all the time about how important it was to "control" the world population. Guess what? It hasn't happened, and it won't happen.
So go ahead and preach modesty and frugality - you are absolutely correct. But know that no one is listening. Therefore at least let's find some other way of producing what we need in the meantime - because believe me, we WILL use all the resources on this planet at one point. ALL of them. And then we die, just like the J-curve bacteria in the petri dish when they finally deplete their nutrients.
Not sure I agree with you. When you're considering "expense", you also have to take into account quality, life expectancy and maintenance costs too. And while goods from China may be cheap, in my experience, well, they've been mostly crap, too. You get what you pay for. For a disposable product, or something that has a short life-time like shoes or a TV, it's not that important. For industrial equipment it is very important. If you offer me a turbine made in China or a turbine made in Germany, I will take the German one right away and not even think about the price difference. You might have an easier time setting up if you went with the Chinese, but I will be laughing when your turbines break down every 6 months... sure, you want to compete with me? OK... did I mention we'll be doing sales and promotions every time you break down and your inventory dries up?
Of course there are shitty products made in Germany (or the US), too. Due diligence is always necessary. And I am sure there has to be Chinese companies willing to sacrifice greed and excessive profits for quality, too. However some countries have a good or bad reputation for a reason.
That will never happen. For all that the Iranian government has not exactly made friends in the West, I doubt that the Chinese would stay quiet. AND I doubt that the Russians would be happy with so much American presence on their southern flank. They stayed quiet about Afghanistan because the whole world was shocked by 9-11 and expected American retaliation. The Russians protested the Iraq war and Putin at the time (2003) called it an "error". Going into Iran, hmm, I think the Russians would side with China and take action.
Laugh if you must. Perhaps you don't feel threatened by those two very large countries. I'm sure the British scoffed at the American Militia in the late 1700's too. Remember that Iran is a lot closer to Russia and China than it is to the US. Technology alone doesn't win wars. Ask Napoleon. Ask Hitler. Ask the Romans. The strategic outlook for going into Iran is bad bad bad, which is probably why it hasn't happened yet.
I'm surprised that we can ignore all the toxic byproducts created by manufacturing solar panels and still call them "green".
Because there are no toxic byproducts created when fossil fuels are burned, or fossil fuel burning equipment is manufactured?
I've had this argument before. Nothing is really "green", unless you eradicate the human race completely. And then there will still be animal farts to deal with. But honestly when you tell me that a solar panel has a life expectancy of 25 years, well, spread out the manufacturing "damage" over 25 years. It's not so bad after all, compared to burning oil/coal for 25 years, is it?
As a doctor, I find that knowing more facts can lead to fewer mistakes.
I agree. But if you have a sound understanding of the underlying processes, the basic medical sciences: the facts are not hard to remember at all. They are perfectly natural, logical conclusions if you understand the physio/patho/pharmacology. I'm sure it's the same in any other professional field.
These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.
Way to miss the point completely. As has been mentioned already, a wind turbine or solar panels can be built anywhere. Oil, however, can only be found in specific locations.
What this DOES imply is that China will not be a customer purchasing Western manufactured "clean energy" equipment, which in itself is significant when you consider each wind turbine, for instance, costs several million dollars. The less technological equipment they purchase from the West, the more the balance of trade shifts in their favor.
Two, about those slackers, I don't know what to say. Did they cheat to get their degrees?
Even a mediocre person can get an advanced degree if they are good at taking tests. Testing is by no means an accurate method of gauging a person's understanding of material, only their knowledge of it at that moment in time. Most testing is based on evaluating the knowledge of facts. Testing is easy for institutions to implement and it's supposed to provide a sort of objective insight into the student's depth of study. However only by spending a lot of time with a student can you really evaluate their depth of understanding and whether or not they can associate the stuff they saw in class X in year 1 with some of the stuff they are seeing today, to be able to reach the correct conclusions and take the appropriate actions.
After all, a professional isn't just someone who has memorized a lot of books. It doesn't matter how many times you can parrot both volumes of "Harrison's Internal Medicine" - you still won't be allowed to write a prescription or claim to be a doctor unless you've graduated from medical school and passed board exams. But even then you can still harm people by inaction or inappropriate actions. You need to be able to become more than the sum of the "parts" you have learned throughout your educational career. And there's no way a few hundred hours of tests can evaluate THAT.
Surgeons have a saying: "I spent 10 years learning when to operate a patient, and it took me another 20 years to learn when NOT to operate a patient."
I spent a lot of time to get my advanced degrees, but I have no illusions about their actual value. My real value comes from my work experience and successes in my field.
Just to take the devil's advocate position here: you essentially are implying that you learned nothing in school and could have had the same successes without taking the courses you took?
I (owner of a piece of paper that says I am a medical doctor) agree that at the end of the day a degree is just a piece of paper. The real value is what you yourself put into the course, it's not "granted" to you by some outside force. I know people with exactly the same degree I have who, frankly, I would never let near my children. I myself used my training as an excuse to spend as much time as possible with patients, including weekends and holidays when I really didn't have to be there. So in essence I agree with you, it's not "the degree" that has given me a far more profound understanding of medicine than most of my classmates (who did the bare minimum). Rather it's my attitude towards learning, problem solving, and work that let me get ahead in my field.
However there has to be some objective method of classifying a potential employee, and the degree (and where it came from) is a very simple test. Yes there are bound to be highly efficient individuals who lack university degrees (my grandfather made millions - far more than I could ever hope to earn - and never had more than 3rd grade). And there are bound to be slackers who despite having prestigious degrees are absolutely useless. That's why hiring isn't (or shouldn't be) done on solely a candidate's degree. It's just another tool when sifting through the work-force to help identify the individual you think will be of greatest use to you.
However, all else being equal, I would be more inclined to trust someone with a Harvard degree than a degree from "Concordia Online College"...
if an electrical problem prevented the car from going into neutral - the emergency brake is mechanical - and that's your best bet if all else fails
turn. off. the engine...
No not all the way so you lock the steering wheel (unless you're real fast), but a person that designs a car so as to keep the engine running when the key is turned/removed deserves to be shot. Turn off the engine. You will lose power braking, but I guarantee you won't accelerate to top speed but rather gradually coast to a stop.
Slashdot Mirror
Except that Dragon Age was 2009, and it is now 2010.
I know I'm splitting hairs, but technically "quite a year" can also refer to a 12 month period spanning 2 calendar years...
Robots don't want meat, arable land, pure water, etc, etc (or, at least, I hope they won't)
Oh god, I hope they don't want to round up the humans and get us to do the work for them, so that they can lounge around all day and drink beer!
There a current word going around 'epic'.
Sheesh that one has been around for at least 10 years. Epic fail? :)
With respect to the rest of your comment, I can see your point. Frankly it's like trying to hold back the tide. I myself always thought that the great shifts in language arose from geographical isolation of populations - for example the differences between American and British and Australian English are subtle but they do exist, both in terms of accent and the occasional spelling (color, colour, humor, humour, center, centre, etc). And from this, I always assumed that mass communication firstly through television and radio and later via the internet, would be something that would tend to place us in a linguistic stasis rather than encourage more diversity in the language since the geographical barriers are now effectively gone. Perhaps I am wrong.
I guess it's just something we'll have to witness over time.
That's what they said about Japanese goods a few decades ago, and about American goods a few decades before that.
Oh I agree. There's nothing inherently "bad" about a product because it was made in China. I am sure they will improve over time. And then - watch out! But today, they're not quite there just yet.
Last week my second-grader told me, "Dad, did you know you should read everything your write after you write it?"
That was cute. Ask him to figure out a way to read things BEFORE you write them!
I read the classics at a young age. I learned my grammar and vocabulary from those texts
I agree that being well read is probably the single most important thing you can do to simultaneously improve your grammar and vocabulary, provided you're not always reading the backs of cereal boxes or Twitter... Sadly no one seems to want to read anymore. I was 9 and I had already read the Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia and the Earthsea books by LeGuin. I was 10 and I was sailing the oceans with C.S Forester's Hornblower through 11 books. And then I moved on to contemporary novels. I've read Pliny, Homer and Gibbon, Plato and Hippocrates, and countless others. And of course Anne McCaffery, Arthur C. Clarke, Asimov, Dickson, Adams and Pratchett. Currently I am reading Clausewitz.
However I think that the "now" generation raised (and spoiled) with videogames and home made microwaveable fast food, instant porn and whatever else you want on the internet, I think this generation has forgotten about books. Or maybe I'm just turning into a grumpy old man.
The real breakthrough in computing will be computers that can replicate themselves.
Wonderful. Then we won't just have other humans competing for resources, but the damned robots as well! I can see it now, a new twist on the "war against the humans" theme, not because robots decided we were inherently evil and can't be trusted - but in order to ensure their access to resources.
But of course we humans ARE devious and crafty. I can't wait for one robot to announce: Alumino-Lent Green is made out of Robots!
No u kant GTFO LOL LOL
What percentage of freshman students at UW are from Hong Kong?
Just sayin', is all.
[citation needed]
Actually foreigners usually make a greater effort to ensure accurate language. Sometimes they might just not "get it" due to huge semantic differences in the languages, which is why they might say things in a strange way from time to time. But mostly the sloppiness and laziness comes from the native speaker.
I think the point is that currently the language is "de"-volving.
It's ok to create new compound words for new ideas and technologies. It's ok to have colloquial words included in the official language because everybody uses them. It's not OK to simply encourage laziness and sloppiness under the pretext of an evolving language. Maybe fast food restaurants prefer to use a sign that says "Drive Thru" instead of "Drive Through" because the sign is smaller (and therefore cheaper). That's no excuse to use the word "thru" in a thesis.
True. I've even seen it in books, where an obviously out of context word was substituted. It may have passed the "spell check", but certainly that should be no excuse to avoid proof-reading. It's more than just looking for an absence of little red lines under your text.
That's not practical for medical school
Hah. If only you knew :) We have a lot of "practical" tests too.. I remember the first sutures I did on a patient. Poor guy ended up looking like a pin-cushion my hands were shaking so badly. Moral of the story: never be the drunk guy getting stitched up at 3 am after a bar fight...
I don't know what it's like in the 'states, but in my country the whole intern year is all about running a ward in a hospital. The more you ask for help, the lower your grades will be. Oh yeah, all your decisions have to be signed off by a senior resident or an attending, but it's you who has to do the work, diagnose the patients, recommend tests and procedures, etc. You can't get much more practical than that. And killing people is murder, even if you didn't mean to. So there are consequences, too.
But the real question is, would you trust the Harvard Man, or your grandfather?
True. My grandfather of course. But only because of his track record. If you offer me a Harvard man or some random guy off the street, I'd have to opt for the Harvard guy. I'm willing to bet that the proportion of absolute ineptitude is lower (although not exactly zero) among the better educated than the general population, especially for a specific task. Although I am open to the idea that there are some fields that could have a tendency to attract more idiots than others.
He said the piece of paper was worthless, not that the schooling was worthless.
Er, the piece of paper represents the schooling. That's implicit. Which is why he followed up with "My real value comes from my work experience".
They didn't have very high English requirements at your school, I take it?
This made me laugh considering the above is a case of logic, not language. I hope you feel better after venting your anger in a passive aggressive manner with your personal attack. I don't care either way, you can say whatever you want about me: you don't know me, or my school. But passive aggressive behavior is usually a sign of some other underlying issues - depression, personality disorders, etc. Just a heads-up, from a concerned physician.
And yet has not been solved in the past 40 years, as far as I know. Just sayin'
Oh that's easy. The Chinese will just put the nuclear waste in baby milk formula.... (ducking and running fast - please don't kill me China, it was a joke!)
Do we really want to do that at this time when we might be on the edge already ?
So you think doing nothing is better?
he greenest way out is to use less and spend what we do use more wisely
What you say makes sense in theory. However it's not going to happen. You would need to fundamentally change human nature. People will starve to death before that happens. You can't ask people not to breed, not to strive for a certain standard of living, to consume less. They won't listen. Oh some might pretend to listen, but if you look at the statistics it just won't be happening.
When I was born in the 60's there were 4 billion people on this planet. We've just about doubled that. And yet when I was young I remember hearing all the time about how important it was to "control" the world population. Guess what? It hasn't happened, and it won't happen.
So go ahead and preach modesty and frugality - you are absolutely correct. But know that no one is listening. Therefore at least let's find some other way of producing what we need in the meantime - because believe me, we WILL use all the resources on this planet at one point. ALL of them. And then we die, just like the J-curve bacteria in the petri dish when they finally deplete their nutrients.
Not sure I agree with you. When you're considering "expense", you also have to take into account quality, life expectancy and maintenance costs too. And while goods from China may be cheap, in my experience, well, they've been mostly crap, too. You get what you pay for. For a disposable product, or something that has a short life-time like shoes or a TV, it's not that important. For industrial equipment it is very important. If you offer me a turbine made in China or a turbine made in Germany, I will take the German one right away and not even think about the price difference. You might have an easier time setting up if you went with the Chinese, but I will be laughing when your turbines break down every 6 months... sure, you want to compete with me? OK... did I mention we'll be doing sales and promotions every time you break down and your inventory dries up?
Of course there are shitty products made in Germany (or the US), too. Due diligence is always necessary. And I am sure there has to be Chinese companies willing to sacrifice greed and excessive profits for quality, too. However some countries have a good or bad reputation for a reason.
When the US attacks Iran...
That will never happen. For all that the Iranian government has not exactly made friends in the West, I doubt that the Chinese would stay quiet. AND I doubt that the Russians would be happy with so much American presence on their southern flank. They stayed quiet about Afghanistan because the whole world was shocked by 9-11 and expected American retaliation. The Russians protested the Iraq war and Putin at the time (2003) called it an "error". Going into Iran, hmm, I think the Russians would side with China and take action.
Laugh if you must. Perhaps you don't feel threatened by those two very large countries. I'm sure the British scoffed at the American Militia in the late 1700's too. Remember that Iran is a lot closer to Russia and China than it is to the US. Technology alone doesn't win wars. Ask Napoleon. Ask Hitler. Ask the Romans. The strategic outlook for going into Iran is bad bad bad, which is probably why it hasn't happened yet.
I'm surprised that we can ignore all the toxic byproducts created by manufacturing solar panels and still call them "green".
Because there are no toxic byproducts created when fossil fuels are burned, or fossil fuel burning equipment is manufactured?
I've had this argument before. Nothing is really "green", unless you eradicate the human race completely. And then there will still be animal farts to deal with. But honestly when you tell me that a solar panel has a life expectancy of 25 years, well, spread out the manufacturing "damage" over 25 years. It's not so bad after all, compared to burning oil/coal for 25 years, is it?
Well yes, while that is true, we may ultimately have to stop buying cheap plastic crap from them as a consequence, to even things out.
I'll never give up my melamine-laced White Rabbit Candy, you insensitive clod!!!
(Lawsuit avoidance disclaimer: they've taken the melamine out now. I hope.)
As a doctor, I find that knowing more facts can lead to fewer mistakes.
I agree. But if you have a sound understanding of the underlying processes, the basic medical sciences: the facts are not hard to remember at all. They are perfectly natural, logical conclusions if you understand the physio/patho/pharmacology. I'm sure it's the same in any other professional field.
These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.
Way to miss the point completely. As has been mentioned already, a wind turbine or solar panels can be built anywhere. Oil, however, can only be found in specific locations.
What this DOES imply is that China will not be a customer purchasing Western manufactured "clean energy" equipment, which in itself is significant when you consider each wind turbine, for instance, costs several million dollars. The less technological equipment they purchase from the West, the more the balance of trade shifts in their favor.
Two, about those slackers, I don't know what to say. Did they cheat to get their degrees?
Even a mediocre person can get an advanced degree if they are good at taking tests. Testing is by no means an accurate method of gauging a person's understanding of material, only their knowledge of it at that moment in time. Most testing is based on evaluating the knowledge of facts. Testing is easy for institutions to implement and it's supposed to provide a sort of objective insight into the student's depth of study. However only by spending a lot of time with a student can you really evaluate their depth of understanding and whether or not they can associate the stuff they saw in class X in year 1 with some of the stuff they are seeing today, to be able to reach the correct conclusions and take the appropriate actions.
After all, a professional isn't just someone who has memorized a lot of books. It doesn't matter how many times you can parrot both volumes of "Harrison's Internal Medicine" - you still won't be allowed to write a prescription or claim to be a doctor unless you've graduated from medical school and passed board exams. But even then you can still harm people by inaction or inappropriate actions. You need to be able to become more than the sum of the "parts" you have learned throughout your educational career. And there's no way a few hundred hours of tests can evaluate THAT.
Surgeons have a saying: "I spent 10 years learning when to operate a patient, and it took me another 20 years to learn when NOT to operate a patient."
I spent a lot of time to get my advanced degrees, but I have no illusions about their actual value. My real value comes from my work experience and successes in my field.
Just to take the devil's advocate position here: you essentially are implying that you learned nothing in school and could have had the same successes without taking the courses you took?
I (owner of a piece of paper that says I am a medical doctor) agree that at the end of the day a degree is just a piece of paper. The real value is what you yourself put into the course, it's not "granted" to you by some outside force. I know people with exactly the same degree I have who, frankly, I would never let near my children. I myself used my training as an excuse to spend as much time as possible with patients, including weekends and holidays when I really didn't have to be there. So in essence I agree with you, it's not "the degree" that has given me a far more profound understanding of medicine than most of my classmates (who did the bare minimum). Rather it's my attitude towards learning, problem solving, and work that let me get ahead in my field.
However there has to be some objective method of classifying a potential employee, and the degree (and where it came from) is a very simple test. Yes there are bound to be highly efficient individuals who lack university degrees (my grandfather made millions - far more than I could ever hope to earn - and never had more than 3rd grade). And there are bound to be slackers who despite having prestigious degrees are absolutely useless. That's why hiring isn't (or shouldn't be) done on solely a candidate's degree. It's just another tool when sifting through the work-force to help identify the individual you think will be of greatest use to you.
However, all else being equal, I would be more inclined to trust someone with a Harvard degree than a degree from "Concordia Online College"...
if an electrical problem prevented the car from going into neutral
- the emergency brake is mechanical - and that's your best bet if all else fails
turn. off. the engine...
No not all the way so you lock the steering wheel (unless you're real fast), but a person that designs a car so as to keep the engine running when the key is turned/removed deserves to be shot. Turn off the engine. You will lose power braking, but I guarantee you won't accelerate to top speed but rather gradually coast to a stop.
until 2012 to see the S car go.
Or you could enjoy one tonight at your local French restaurant?