People also learn how not to be rigorous and how to be lazy (not look for holes in their hypotheses or experimental technique then just dismiss these shortcomings). I think mythbusters is dangerous precisely because it presents such laziness as reasonable science for laymen.
They're TV performers - none of them studied science academically - what? Russian Lit and no college for the other one?
I don't think that is offtopic at all, and I wish people would stop voting based on how much they like Mythbusters. Mythbusters makes a mockery of the scientific method. I'd be fine if it was recognised as entertainment touching on science, but too many people learn all their science technique from the show instead of using it as an example of how to abuse the scientific method and pay attention to it only when it's an excuse to blow something up or build something wacky.
Be careful with role models. By all accounts he was a brilliant science popularizer and a better than average scientist. But he was also petty and arrogant and thought a lot of himself and treated women badly. Read one of the biographies. I think that is what you should teach kids - that even their heroes and role models may be exemplary in one or more areas of life without being perfect or even acceptably good in other areas. Therefore only emulate the good, and don't be disheartened when you learn about the bad.
That said every child should watch COSMOS at least once and read a few of his books. Pale Blue Dot and Demon Haunted World would be my recommendations (though I'm sure some of the more religious types will disagree with the latter).
It's not just about features, CVS is deeply broken (tagging/branching, directories, binary files, metadata, etc). Subversion is a drop-in replacement that fixes (most) of the problems and can be used in exactly the same workflow. The two are equivalent and one is less broken - it's kind of a no-brainer.
I did a large CVS to SVN conversion earlier this year. Do you have any idea how many scripts had to be changed and what kind of testing had to be done? Drop in replacement my arse.
There's no question in my mind that the point is just to poke more fun at religion, in this case, for no good reason at all.
Poking fun at religion is a good reason in its own right. Mockery is the best response to silliness.
Yes I find that when a large mob comes with sinister instruments designed to torcher, mame or kill me, that responding to accusations with "You big silly" is the wisest move.
Budget cuts in Britain would put a stop to that sort of thing. We can't even get a James Bond film off the ground with American money!
That's because you keep trying to make the bastard politically correct. Bond was a womanising root rat. Any attempt to change that and the character is just lame.
So, it's a "Full, Supported Release", but we can't use it for anything except as a development platform (and what to deploy on?).
From the license agreement: We can't "use the Programs for your own internal business purposes... or for any commercial or production purposes"
So in reality, it's just a way to show off, an try to keep people from jumping ship to linux.
It's definitely the antithesis of FOSS -- nothing is free about it.
They're just giving away the development tools for free. So when/if developers use them, and end users like the result, they've got you by the short and curlies. It's a time honoured tradition, often rightly or wrongly compared to a drug dealer's "the first hit is free, kid".
"humans must begin colonizing another planet as a hedge against a catastrophe on Earth"
If we have the technology to make Mars habitable, then we have the technology to fix Earth. If the Earth goes to hell in a handbasket, would humans living on Mars save your life? Why not spend 1/10th that same energy to fixing this place? If we can't straighten out our own house, what the hell makes us think we could make Mars work out?
At this point a single planetary catastrophe for all intents and purposes could wipe out life - certainly all human life. A ball a few tens of km wide hitting the planet would do the trick nicely, but there are other possible events. No amount of fixing Earth would prevent it. Events that would destroy life on both Earth and Mars at the same time are possible but much less likely.
Of course. But classification by itself isn't necessarily scientifically useful. The criticisms of the current IAU definition "planet" as "junk science" are examples of this.
Talking to you is like talking to someone on a 10th grade debate team. You flap your lips without any regard for logical consistency, just so long as what you say puts forward an counterpoint.
First of all I haven't put forward a scientific definition. I've put forward an opinion on a scientific definition being sub-standard on a message board. There is no subtlety about the difference between these 2 things. One is a working definition and must be held to a high standard. The other requires no such scientific rigour.
An incorrect classification is sometimes not just useless; it can impede understanding.
A historic example was the 17th-century debate over "momentum" versus "impetus", which had similar definitions with subtle differences. Newton effectively showed that "momentum" was the correct term, and "impetus" was dropped from scientific terminology (though it's still around in common English speech and writing). The difference might be subtle, but it's important. If you confuse the two, you can't understand basic physics correctly.
Thanks for the irrelevant history lesson. Would you make your mind up please? Is "planet" a scientific term that should be defined correctly, or is it just a popular term that does not need to be defined correctly? Just what is your viewpoint on this.
I can't help but laugh at the irony of your use of Newton's definition of momentum, given that Newtonian physics has been shown as nothing but a very good approximation at the speeds we humans are use to dealing with.
In any case, I am not trying to do science. I am pointing out that science has been done in a sub-standard way.
A major recent example of this is the success (over the course of successful decades) for the "cladistics" approach in the biological sciences. This is a purely classification concept, and is based on the idea that the only valid classifications are the ones based on common descent. A common textbook example is the term "invertebrate", which is bogus because it's not a complete evolutionary group. It excludes a subset, the vertebrates (which is a valid classification). If you think "invertebrate" is a valid classification, you have a serious misunderstanding of basic biology. It's useful as an informal description, but it's not a classification.
One of my favorite examples is to remark that humans are a species of fish. This mostly gets me funny looks, except among biologists who typically say something like "Of course". We are descended from fish, and if your definition of fish excludes humans, your definition is bogus and impedes your scientific understanding.
A more common example is that the term "ape" must include humans to be valid. This is, of course, rejected by most of humanity, especially the religious types. But we are descended from apes, so that term must include us to be of any scientific value.
Another history lesson. I get it. You've read science history. But again your point isn't relevant. If a scientific definition is logically consistent but goes against intuitive lay thought, that is not a problem so long as there is a very good reason for it. If the definition isn't logically consistent ("JUNK") then there is a problem. If for example humans were specifically excluded from the definition of "fish" but apes were not, I'd have a problem.
The current term "planet" is a nice example of a similarly bogus scientific classification. A small group of publicity-minded astronomers basically decided that they want a term for the publicly-memorable set of big objects that orbit our sun, and made up a convoluted definition that works for that purpose. But the result is just a PR term, of little if any value for any scientific purpose.
Not to sound assholish, but if I were a PHB why would I want to pay you $40,000 a year to make intranet and internet sites when I can go to Vietnam or India and get the same job done for a few hundred bucks? Go to elance.com? They are filled with people paying $100 for formally $15,000 worth of work and people are dying to take these.
Because you want your website to actually fucking work reliably, not contain language errors, and be written in such a way that they scale well when you need to expand instead of having to rewrite the whole thing from scratch again because it was written in the worst possible way at the lowest possible price?
Your question is very much like asking why you'd want to spend $4500 on a full HD TV when you can spend $800 on one that is just as big. Quality vs price.
For pity sake. Classification is fundamental to science, and the word "planet" appears in plenty of the journal articles I've read on Arxiv when I was doing my astronomy degree. SO the whole idea of dismissing this as a non-technical term that doesn't matter is ridiculous.
For a lot of people THIS kind of illogical nonsense - scientists making up stupid definitions that make no sense by committee - is their one of their ONLY exposures to science and they never see it beyond high school level. Every high schooler will be exposed to this debate, whether or not they aspire to become scientists.
This is one reason science is not taken as seriously or given funding. The public see scientists who do this kind of thing as propeller heads that are completely divorced from reality. Is it any wonder they don't want to vote for politicians who'll give these scientists money. It's not the only reason by any means but it is significant. Any scientist grinning at giving people a valid reason to be dismissive of science is a moron and fits the unfortunate stereotype of lacking people skills. Contrary to the saying, not all publicity is good publicity either. A lot of people have been put out by the fact that their pet planet is no longer a planet. So they, though less rational, are also likely to hold a grudge and consider big science a waste of money.
One more thing - the part of the definition requiring that a planet be roughly spherical is not as bad as you seem to think. There definitely is a continuum. But you could define things very precisely if you required a measurement of the deviation from spherical and allowed for flattening due to rotation or presence near a larger body. The definition of course doesn't do that but that is because it is, as I said PURE JUNK, not because it can't be done.
Sure, the definition of a 'planet' could be better, but it's still better than no definition AT ALL, which is what we had before. And don't worry, it will no doubt be revised in the future, lots of times.
No definition at all is MUCH better than an incorrect, imprecise, politically driven definition.
When the difference is a factor of 10,000, there's absolutely no need to create a precise definition, and it would be foolish to do so.
Well if the IAU was going for an IMPRECISE definition they couldn't have done better. Science is all about definitions. Precision is important. The current definition is an utter mess. I couldn't care less that Pluto was named after a Disney character. If we want to be precise it belongs in a different category BUT
1) They created pair of definitions where a "dwarf planet" is not a "planet. That is confusing and ridiculous.
2) They mention "the sun" and therefore the definition as written excludes extrasolar planets. So now we have "dwarf planets" that are not planets and "extrasolar planets" that techincally also are not planets.
3) The clearing the path part of the definition is an arbitrary requirement and a kludge. It is possible we will discover extrasolar planets that cross each other's orbits in a stable way. Fortunately extrasolar planets aren't planets anyway.
There are other things wrong with the definition, but lets just leave it at that shall we? The definition is beauracratic and in terms of science it is PURE JUNK. Science is about understanding things. We humans do this by classifying them, so definitions are important. However in this case everyone was more focused on whether or not Pluto is a planet and was bending the definition to fit their preference.
Post pictures of your girlfriend, and we'll tell you if you should propose.
There's a winning proposition! Because during a long term successful marriage, a girl's appearance is likely to be the deciding factor, and unlikely to ever change!
Your humour is dry and witty with a hint of subtlety. Can I subscribe to your newsletter?
How do you know they are not there to do bodily harm?
How do you know they are? Unless you can prove, without a doubt, that you are acting in self-defence because there is actual, imminent and certain life-threatening events, you should not be firing a gun at someone with the intent to kill.
I'm sorry but you're living with the fairies here. The cold brutal practical truth is that by the time someone has proven without a doubt that there is imminent and certain life-threating intent, you are dead. Someone breaking into your house has demonstrated a willingness to break the law and risk prison time. What's a few more years for taking a life? They don't think they'll get caught anyway. And your life isn't as precious to thema s theirs seems to be to you.
If someone breaks into my home and threatens my family, I'll defend them with any means at my disposal. If I find an opportunity to incapacitate them non-lethally without increasing the rise, sure I'll use it. But I won't be waiting for my family to be raped or killed so I can feel justified using force.
My old room mates parents still pay aol 10 dollars a month. The kicker is they have Time Warner broadband that they pay 50 a month for. Trying to explain this to them results in the deer in a headlight syndrome.
They are also trying to repair their Pentium 2 computer, instead of taking the two year old Core2Duo that my old room mate tried to give them.
I can actually understand that. I find myself buying old stuff at closeout instead of the new model because I'm both familiar with the old, and it does some things better than the new. As an example I still have my Nikon D70 SLR even after having bought a D90 (2 generations ahead). The older camera has a flash sync of 1/500th vs (1/200th on the D90). In most other respects it is inferior, but that one feature allows you to do things you can't with the D90, albeit in very specific circumstances. So I can't bear to part with the older camera. Another example: TVs this year are much cheaper than 2 years ago but I just went through hell trying to find one that doesn't have input lag and in the end I compromised so much on a 55" (which will get more use from my wife and kids watching TV and movies) that I may yet keep the old CRT it's replacing for gaming on old PS2 consoles. Why should i upgrade to a PS3 when my PS2 does just fine for the limit use it gets now (mostly my 2 year old playing guitar hero)? Why throw out stuff that works just because they're obsolete.
To me that's all quite reasonable, but if I get lazy or complacent doing research or come to rely on features from the current generation of technology it does make it hard to let go and I may pass up much better deals the way this couple has. Do you know what they're using their AOL for? Or what they're using the Pentium II to do. There are specialised cases where the old may outdo the new, but most likely they've just become comfortable and somewhat lazy because for them there's more important things in life than gadgets and broadband access.
...for our own weakness and stupidity? Hooray! Hey honey, it wasn't me that was unfaithful, it was Harry Potter. Damn that evil genius socerer! Burn him at the steak (with chips please)!
Terms of the settlement include $8 million to cover lawyer fees and fund privacy policy education on the Internet
Lawyers: $8M HR Consultants to teach "Privacy policy Education": Some token amount Actual users who got @#$%ed: $0
There's justice for you. There needs to be a law established that in a class action suit, the lawyers can get no more than x times the average defendant payout.
Integrating the necessary maths into the disciplines that actually need them might perhaps take some more time, but I think it'd be less of a waste of time than the current situation and probably yield easier learning of the maths useful in those disciplines.
Several problems with this: - Non-specialists teaching math will lead to poor results - Repetition in different classes for different disciplines - Mathematical notation and technique would likely fracture even further
If you had separate classes but some synchronization in teaching the technique in math class and applying the technique in other classes, you'd do better. There should be at least one interesting and relavant example given in the math class too.
The problem is that we don't *know* in 7th or 8th grade who is likely to need more math 5 or 6 years down the line. Most kids, if you tell them in 7th grade that they can stop taking math, they're going to. Then they hit junior or senior year of high school, realize they want to be an engineer, and they have none of the needed mathematical background. Basically we teach 4-5 years of advanced math to every student in the country, so that the 10-15% if them who will actually need it, have it. It's wasteful as Hell, but I can't think of a better way to do it without forcing life altering career choices on 13-14 year olds.
I agree. Considering that Albert Einstein had trouble with Math, I don't think there's any predictor we can use that wouldn't be more wasteful in disallowing brilliant mathematicians from finding their talent. It's just the way the world works. Finding a needle in a haystack requires effort. Once you've found the needle you can't dismiss the effort of looking through the rest of the stack as wasted.
Slashdot Mirror
People also learn how not to be rigorous and how to be lazy (not look for holes in their hypotheses or experimental technique then just dismiss these shortcomings). I think mythbusters is dangerous precisely because it presents such laziness as reasonable science for laymen.
They're TV performers - none of them studied science academically - what? Russian Lit and no college for the other one?
I don't think that is offtopic at all, and I wish people would stop voting based on how much they like Mythbusters. Mythbusters makes a mockery of the scientific method. I'd be fine if it was recognised as entertainment touching on science, but too many people learn all their science technique from the show instead of using it as an example of how to abuse the scientific method and pay attention to it only when it's an excuse to blow something up or build something wacky.
There is no other.
Be careful with role models. By all accounts he was a brilliant science popularizer and a better than average scientist. But he was also petty and arrogant and thought a lot of himself and treated women badly. Read one of the biographies. I think that is what you should teach kids - that even their heroes and role models may be exemplary in one or more areas of life without being perfect or even acceptably good in other areas. Therefore only emulate the good, and don't be disheartened when you learn about the bad.
That said every child should watch COSMOS at least once and read a few of his books. Pale Blue Dot and Demon Haunted World would be my recommendations (though I'm sure some of the more religious types will disagree with the latter).
It's not just about features, CVS is deeply broken (tagging/branching, directories, binary files, metadata, etc). Subversion is a drop-in replacement that fixes (most) of the problems and can be used in exactly the same workflow. The two are equivalent and one is less broken - it's kind of a no-brainer.
I did a large CVS to SVN conversion earlier this year. Do you have any idea how many scripts had to be changed and what kind of testing had to be done? Drop in replacement my arse.
There's no question in my mind that the point is just to poke more fun at religion, in this case, for no good reason at all.
Poking fun at religion is a good reason in its own right. Mockery is the best response to silliness.
Yes I find that when a large mob comes with sinister instruments designed to torcher, mame or kill me, that responding to accusations with "You big silly" is the wisest move.
Budget cuts in Britain would put a stop to that sort of thing. We can't even get a James Bond film off the ground with American money!
That's because you keep trying to make the bastard politically correct. Bond was a womanising root rat. Any attempt to change that and the character is just lame.
code to draw and scale using the squiggly lines.
Splines?
It's pretty funny that you wrote a report on this but can't remember the name for anything :p
That's proof that he hired someone to write the report ;-)
So, it's a "Full, Supported Release", but we can't use it for anything except as a development platform (and what to deploy on?).
From the license agreement: We can't "use the Programs for your own internal business purposes... or for any commercial or production purposes"
So in reality, it's just a way to show off, an try to keep people from jumping ship to linux.
It's definitely the antithesis of FOSS -- nothing is free about it.
They're just giving away the development tools for free. So when/if developers use them, and end users like the result, they've got you by the short and curlies. It's a time honoured tradition, often rightly or wrongly compared to a drug dealer's "the first hit is free, kid".
"humans must begin colonizing another planet as a hedge against a catastrophe on Earth"
If we have the technology to make Mars habitable, then we have the technology to fix Earth. If the Earth goes to hell in a handbasket, would humans living on Mars save your life? Why not spend 1/10th that same energy to fixing this place? If we can't straighten out our own house, what the hell makes us think we could make Mars work out?
At this point a single planetary catastrophe for all intents and purposes could wipe out life - certainly all human life. A ball a few tens of km wide hitting the planet would do the trick nicely, but there are other possible events. No amount of fixing Earth would prevent it. Events that would destroy life on both Earth and Mars at the same time are possible but much less likely.
Of course. But classification by itself isn't necessarily scientifically useful. The criticisms of the current IAU definition "planet" as "junk science" are examples of this.
Talking to you is like talking to someone on a 10th grade debate team. You flap your lips without any regard for logical consistency, just so long as what you say puts forward an counterpoint.
First of all I haven't put forward a scientific definition. I've put forward an opinion on a scientific definition being sub-standard on a message board. There is no subtlety about the difference between these 2 things. One is a working definition and must be held to a high standard. The other requires no such scientific rigour.
An incorrect classification is sometimes not just useless; it can impede understanding.
A historic example was the 17th-century debate over "momentum" versus "impetus", which had similar definitions with subtle differences. Newton effectively showed that "momentum" was the correct term, and "impetus" was dropped from scientific terminology (though it's still around in common English speech and writing). The difference might be subtle, but it's important.
If you confuse the two, you can't understand basic physics correctly.
Thanks for the irrelevant history lesson. Would you make your mind up please? Is "planet" a scientific term that should be defined correctly, or is it just a popular term that does not need to be defined correctly? Just what is your viewpoint on this.
I can't help but laugh at the irony of your use of Newton's definition of momentum, given that Newtonian physics has been shown as nothing but a very good approximation at the speeds we humans are use to dealing with.
In any case, I am not trying to do science. I am pointing out that science has been done in a sub-standard way.
A major recent example of this is the success (over the course of successful decades) for the "cladistics" approach in the biological sciences. This is a purely classification concept, and is based on the idea that the only valid classifications are the ones based on common descent. A common textbook example is the term "invertebrate", which is bogus because it's not a complete evolutionary group. It excludes a subset, the vertebrates (which is a valid classification). If you think "invertebrate" is a valid classification, you have a serious misunderstanding of basic biology. It's useful as an informal description, but it's not a classification.
One of my favorite examples is to remark that humans are a species of fish. This mostly gets me funny looks, except among biologists who typically say something like "Of course". We are descended from fish, and if your definition of fish excludes humans, your definition is bogus and impedes your scientific understanding.
A more common example is that the term "ape" must include humans to be valid. This is, of course, rejected by most of humanity, especially the religious types. But we are descended from apes, so that term must include us to be of any scientific value.
Another history lesson. I get it. You've read science history. But again your point isn't relevant. If a scientific definition is logically consistent but goes against intuitive lay thought, that is not a problem so long as there is a very good reason for it. If the definition isn't logically consistent ("JUNK") then there is a problem. If for example humans were specifically excluded from the definition of "fish" but apes were not, I'd have a problem.
The current term "planet" is a nice example of a similarly bogus scientific classification. A small group of publicity-minded astronomers basically decided that they want a term for the publicly-memorable set of big objects that orbit our sun, and made up a convoluted definition that works for that purpose. But the result is just a PR term, of little if any value for any scientific purpose.
Not to sound assholish, but if I were a PHB why would I want to pay you $40,000 a year to make intranet and internet sites when I can go to Vietnam or India and get the same job done for a few hundred bucks? Go to elance.com? They are filled with people paying $100 for formally $15,000 worth of work and people are dying to take these.
Because you want your website to actually fucking work reliably, not contain language errors, and be written in such a way that they scale well when you need to expand instead of having to rewrite the whole thing from scratch again because it was written in the worst possible way at the lowest possible price?
Your question is very much like asking why you'd want to spend $4500 on a full HD TV when you can spend $800 on one that is just as big. Quality vs price.
For pity sake. Classification is fundamental to science, and the word "planet" appears in plenty of the journal articles I've read on Arxiv when I was doing my astronomy degree. SO the whole idea of dismissing this as a non-technical term that doesn't matter is ridiculous.
For a lot of people THIS kind of illogical nonsense - scientists making up stupid definitions that make no sense by committee - is their one of their ONLY exposures to science and they never see it beyond high school level. Every high schooler will be exposed to this debate, whether or not they aspire to become scientists.
This is one reason science is not taken as seriously or given funding. The public see scientists who do this kind of thing as propeller heads that are completely divorced from reality. Is it any wonder they don't want to vote for politicians who'll give these scientists money. It's not the only reason by any means but it is significant. Any scientist grinning at giving people a valid reason to be dismissive of science is a moron and fits the unfortunate stereotype of lacking people skills. Contrary to the saying, not all publicity is good publicity either. A lot of people have been put out by the fact that their pet planet is no longer a planet. So they, though less rational, are also likely to hold a grudge and consider big science a waste of money.
One more thing - the part of the definition requiring that a planet be roughly spherical is not as bad as you seem to think. There definitely is a continuum. But you could define things very precisely if you required a measurement of the deviation from spherical and allowed for flattening due to rotation or presence near a larger body. The definition of course doesn't do that but that is because it is, as I said PURE JUNK, not because it can't be done.
Sure, the definition of a 'planet' could be better, but it's still better than no definition AT ALL, which is what we had before. And don't worry, it will no doubt be revised in the future, lots of times.
No definition at all is MUCH better than an incorrect, imprecise, politically driven definition.
When the difference is a factor of 10,000, there's absolutely no need to create a precise definition, and it would be foolish to do so.
Well if the IAU was going for an IMPRECISE definition they couldn't have done better. Science is all about definitions. Precision is important. The current definition is an utter mess. I couldn't care less that Pluto was named after a Disney character. If we want to be precise it belongs in a different category BUT
1) They created pair of definitions where a "dwarf planet" is not a "planet. That is confusing and ridiculous.
2) They mention "the sun" and therefore the definition as written excludes extrasolar planets. So now we have "dwarf planets" that are not planets and "extrasolar planets" that techincally also are not planets.
3) The clearing the path part of the definition is an arbitrary requirement and a kludge. It is possible we will discover extrasolar planets that cross each other's orbits in a stable way. Fortunately extrasolar planets aren't planets anyway.
There are other things wrong with the definition, but lets just leave it at that shall we? The definition is beauracratic and in terms of science it is PURE JUNK. Science is about understanding things. We humans do this by classifying them, so definitions are important. However in this case everyone was more focused on whether or not Pluto is a planet and was bending the definition to fit their preference.
Post pictures of your girlfriend, and we'll tell you if you should propose.
There's a winning proposition! Because during a long term successful marriage, a girl's appearance is likely to be the deciding factor, and unlikely to ever change!
Your humour is dry and witty with a hint of subtlety. Can I subscribe to your newsletter?
Why would the people implementing security theatre want to subject themselves to it?
They know it's just show. Not to mention the whole being above the law thing.
It has long since ceased being kabuki theater and has passed into bukkake theater.
Only for ordinary riff raff. The minister is excempt and shows contempt. If you do the same prepare to spend time in prison.
How do you know they are not there to do bodily harm?
How do you know they are? Unless you can prove, without a doubt, that you are acting in self-defence because there is actual, imminent and certain life-threatening events, you should not be firing a gun at someone with the intent to kill.
I'm sorry but you're living with the fairies here. The cold brutal practical truth is that by the time someone has proven without a doubt that there is imminent and certain life-threating intent, you are dead. Someone breaking into your house has demonstrated a willingness to break the law and risk prison time. What's a few more years for taking a life? They don't think they'll get caught anyway. And your life isn't as precious to thema s theirs seems to be to you.
If someone breaks into my home and threatens my family, I'll defend them with any means at my disposal. If I find an opportunity to incapacitate them non-lethally without increasing the rise, sure I'll use it. But I won't be waiting for my family to be raped or killed so I can feel justified using force.
They use it, if im not mistaken, because it has the same aol games they have always played.
That's actually a good enough reason, if those games can't be found elsewhere. I know a lot of people that spend more than $10 a month on gaming.
My old room mates parents still pay aol 10 dollars a month. The kicker is they have Time Warner broadband that they pay 50 a month for. Trying to explain this to them results in the deer in a headlight syndrome.
They are also trying to repair their Pentium 2 computer, instead of taking the two year old Core2Duo that my old room mate tried to give them.
I can actually understand that. I find myself buying old stuff at closeout instead of the new model because I'm both familiar with the old, and it does some things better than the new. As an example I still have my Nikon D70 SLR even after having bought a D90 (2 generations ahead). The older camera has a flash sync of 1/500th vs (1/200th on the D90). In most other respects it is inferior, but that one feature allows you to do things you can't with the D90, albeit in very specific circumstances. So I can't bear to part with the older camera. Another example: TVs this year are much cheaper than 2 years ago but I just went through hell trying to find one that doesn't have input lag and in the end I compromised so much on a 55" (which will get more use from my wife and kids watching TV and movies) that I may yet keep the old CRT it's replacing for gaming on old PS2 consoles. Why should i upgrade to a PS3 when my PS2 does just fine for the limit use it gets now (mostly my 2 year old playing guitar hero)? Why throw out stuff that works just because they're obsolete.
To me that's all quite reasonable, but if I get lazy or complacent doing research or come to rely on features from the current generation of technology it does make it hard to let go and I may pass up much better deals the way this couple has. Do you know what they're using their AOL for? Or what they're using the Pentium II to do. There are specialised cases where the old may outdo the new, but most likely they've just become comfortable and somewhat lazy because for them there's more important things in life than gadgets and broadband access.
As long as Facebook is around, Lamebook is totally redundant.
...for our own weakness and stupidity? Hooray! Hey honey, it wasn't me that was unfaithful, it was Harry Potter. Damn that evil genius socerer! Burn him at the steak (with chips please)!
Terms of the settlement include $8 million to cover lawyer fees and fund privacy policy education on the Internet
Lawyers: $8M
HR Consultants to teach "Privacy policy Education": Some token amount
Actual users who got @#$%ed: $0
There's justice for you. There needs to be a law established that in a class action suit, the lawyers can get no more than x times the average defendant payout.
Speaking of unclean and sure to lead us to damnation. ;-)
Give us this day our daily garlic pizza, and deliver us from showering, amen.
Integrating the necessary maths into the disciplines that actually need them might perhaps take some more time, but I think it'd be less of a waste of time than the current situation and probably yield easier learning of the maths useful in those disciplines.
Several problems with this:
- Non-specialists teaching math will lead to poor results
- Repetition in different classes for different disciplines
- Mathematical notation and technique would likely fracture even further
If you had separate classes but some synchronization in teaching the technique in math class and applying the technique in other classes, you'd do better. There should be at least one interesting and relavant example given in the math class too.
The problem is that we don't *know* in 7th or 8th grade who is likely to need more math 5 or 6 years down the line. Most kids, if you tell them in 7th grade that they can stop taking math, they're going to. Then they hit junior or senior year of high school, realize they want to be an engineer, and they have none of the needed mathematical background. Basically we teach 4-5 years of advanced math to every student in the country, so that the 10-15% if them who will actually need it, have it. It's wasteful as Hell, but I can't think of a better way to do it without forcing life altering career choices on 13-14 year olds.
I agree. Considering that Albert Einstein had trouble with Math, I don't think there's any predictor we can use that wouldn't be more wasteful in disallowing brilliant mathematicians from finding their talent. It's just the way the world works. Finding a needle in a haystack requires effort. Once you've found the needle you can't dismiss the effort of looking through the rest of the stack as wasted.