I find this article to be concurrent with my own observations. Your statement further reflects upon my circumstances. I often find that I face the choice between getting sufficient sleep (which increases my productivity at work) and utilizing the creative burst that I get between 10:00 p.m. and midnight. I envy everybody who boasts of hours flexible enough to accommodate even a little bit of variance. I work in inside sales, so my job consists of answering phones from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. According to both this article and my own experiences, I am getting out of work just as my creativity reaches its nadir.
On a related note, does anybody else resent how much of one's schedule is dictated by one's employer? It isn't just the time that you're at work. That dictates the time that you must/should be asleep. That affects when you'll be hungry. And now we have this article that suggests I'm sleeping through my peak creativity, giving average creativity to my employer, and hitting my low point just as my "me time" begins.
In my opinion, the central cause of all of those abuses of the Constitution is the federal income tax. The SCOTUS has upheld the constitutionality of the income tax and, therefore, all other usurpations of authority follow. Whether the federal government actually possesses a particular power or not, it can coerce state governments into toeing the line by threatening to deny them money that came partially from within the state in the first place. (You may remember, for example, that California had to be coerced into lowering the legal alcohol limit from 0.1% to 0.08%.)
I can't understand how any scientist worth his salt can claim to also be a member of any religion as a true believer?
It isn't unscientific to ask philosophical questions about the nature of the universe. I address scientific matters with science and philosophical matters with faith. I allow science to explain the mechanisms of the universe and religion (Lutheran-flavoured Christianity, in my case) to explain the rationale behind the universe (ie: WHY does the universe exist at all?) You might argue that no scientist worth his salt bothers with a question that defies rational explanation, but I would call that a "no true Scotsman" fallacy.
You might also argue that using faith as an explanation for anything precludes trying to use the scientific method to explain it. There are several points that I could make against this argument. 1) I give the scientific method precedence over faith. If science contradicts my faith, then I have misinterpreted something. I believe that there is one truth, that God has not set up the universe to confuse us, and that reason is a gift from God. Therefore, when reason concludes something, I believe that it must be true. 2) I understand that my faith is personal and that "because God did it" is never an appropriate explanation in scientific context. 3) Unlike some Christians, I never try to invoke aesthetic reasons against science. "A loving God would never use an ugly tool like evolution" is anathema to me. I am more likely to operate in the opposite direction. I find the beauty of the mechanisms of the universe to be a testimony of the greatness of God.
You are correct that it would have been convincing if renouncing and denouncing religion altogether were his aim. Clearly, that is not the case. Nor does the tone of his resignation suggest any disrespect for the theory, practice, or establishment of science. I am quite confident that this man retains both a respect for the scientific method and also his religious faith. He resigned to avoid the appearance of impropriety within the scientific community. Most probably, his church does not feel as though his involvement in science tarnished his faith. On the other hand, this incident has caused the scientific community to question his credentials as a scientist. He resigned from the community that was at odds with what he had said.
My intuition is that the interaction between the chip and the larger device is actually pretty important. If the device has a panic button on it, it serves as a homing beacon as long as it remains in the possession of the person with the chip. If it becomes separated from the person with the chip, it could automatically go into panic mode and identify the location where the person was forcibly separated from their device (or, you know, where they accidentally left it at the boutique.) Depending on exactly the range of the interaction between the chip and the device, recovering a victim's device could help to locate them if you come within N meters of them and their chip.
I think that it is false to state that "The majority view among intelligent, educated people always supports liberal positions which is why it is liberal, not conservative, politics that shares the label "progressive.""
In my opinion, liberalism is labeled progressive because liberalism promotes change. Progress occurs because of change. Conservatism, on the other hand, promotes stability. You have established correlation, but not causation. It could well be that intelligent, educated people support liberal/progressive positions because there are fewer opportunities for personal power under the status quo and change is the mechanism by which they seek to obtain power and prosperity for themselves.
My disagreement of unions stems from two very specific instances. One, when I was in high school, I was paid less than I could/should have been because the union capped the wages of teenage employees to secure better wages for adult employees. Further, this was after the promise of an x% raise every six months. They only explained the cap to me after 18 months, when I was supposed to be getting my third raise and didn't. I can understand why, but frankly, it was detrimental to me and I hold a grudge. Two, my grandfather relates a story from when my father was a child of an anonymous caller threatening violence to his children (my aunt and father) because he planned on voting against unionization of his shop.
I have a three-orbital atom tatooed on the bicep of my left arm. One of the orbitals is blue, one is red, and the third is green. (I've had an obsession with the primary colours of light for as long as I can remember.)
I agree with what you're saying. The solution is voluntary compliance with an industry-wide enforcement policy. Unfortunately, nobody seems ready to jump first. Every player in the video game market is afraid that if they refuse to sell Grand Theft Auto to little Timmy, he'll just find another game store.
In that regard, I see a fundamental immaturity in the field of video gaming and I don't know what is necessary to overcome it. As things stand, though, I think that video game retailers offer all the credibility of a head shop when it comes to responsible selling.
It seems to me that this sort of legislation is a necessary precondition of the solution that you propose. I've heard it mentioned before, "Why not enforce the existing ratings?"
Here's the problem: Video game ratings are applied by a voluntary, industry initiative. If a law were passed to enforce those ratings, it would be placing the executive power to evaluate the content into the hands of a non-governmental entity.
In order for the government to enforce any ratings, the government has to legislate to itself the authority to create ratings. In the case under discussion, that's approximately what the government has done -- they have mandated 'labelling' (similar to rating, IMO) of certain kinds of content in video games.
I'm glad that you've been modded up. Granted, it's easy to ascribe mob mentality to "the Slashdot crowd," but it still makes me want to cry "shenanigans" when the same group of people who enthusiastically defend peer-to-peer file-sharing because of its myriad legal uses condemn less-lethal weaponry because some (not all) police officers will use them unethically.
I read that interview too and I agree that his perspective was interesting. He cited a lot of economics to explain why nuclear was the weakest of the solutions we could develop "right now." I was curious, however, whether his analysis was based on current policy or whether it considered the possibility of also using breeder reactors.
I agree with you. Unfortunately, game theory and the math behind it "prove" that a plurality leads rational actors to create and perpetuate a two-party system. If we want to foster the inclusion of more parties, we need to get rid of plurality voting. (Of course, that would take an act of Congress. Do you really think that our Republican and Democratic representatives and senators would support such a change?)
Not only do many Americans not care about it, I've discussed similar laws with other people and they can't even seem to grasp why I care. They can't understand objecting to a law on philosophical or ethical grounds.
That is different from somebody who can say, "I understand why it upsets you, but I won't personally get upset until it affects me." Neither attitude is particularly responsible, in my opinion. The attitude that I see, however, actually has a chilling effect on citizens who do object based on principles alone and also on politicians who might otherwise vote conscientiously. There is a large fraction of people who, because they can't justify an objection on purely philosophical grounds, see opposition to such a law as being soft on terrorism and nothing more.
It bears mentioning that, because of the global nature of many corporations, the work that most people do is impersonal and uninspiring. Assembly line structures may be efficient ways to generate wealth but I have grown tired of our society that defines value in terms of wealth.
I can certainly sympathize with somebody who sees hard work as evil, if his work provides value for somebody he never sees and is measured based upon the amount of wealth that it generates. That really is evil, in my opinion.
I think that your analogy is a good illustration, but it is also important to recognize the limitations of the analogy. In the case of the library, you can not borrow their copy of a DVD without depriving them of their physical media for some time and you can return it without copying it, if you wish. In the filesharing case, at no point is the lender deprived of their copy of the media and you can't "borrow" it, except by copying it.
I think that this distinction is important because it seems very clear to me that filesharing is NOT like library lending in these important ways. This both makes filesharing appear more ethically questionable than library lending (which I believe it is) and also to protect library lending from criticism when the side of the argument representing copyright holders wants to use the same analogy against libraries.
The structure that you describe also ensures that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. There are many people who see a glimpse of that structure, as it really is -- not enough to be revolted -- just enough to see how to game the system. I've asked people, "Why do you tolerate this? How does this culture not collapse?" The answer is basically that most people uphold it because they don't want it to collapse on top of them. Unless everybody cooperates to "let it down gently" (if I may extend the metaphor), then just one person failing to uphold it gets crushed, while the bulk of the structure remains standing. These questions have been on my mind a lot lately as I've been struggling with "humanity vs. the bottom line" in an entry level job. I've gotten really tired of the words "That's just the way that things work" in the past year.
I think that the common trait among the posts you cite, however, is that most of the users mentioned have a computer literate Slashdotter standing by in the off chance that support is needed.
In this sense of the word, I probably am closer to illiterate than literate when it comes to computers. Obviously, they require more savvy to operate than pretty much any other device in my home. At the end of the day, though, my computer is an appliance to me. There are a variety of functions that I expect from it and, if it breaks catastrophically, my options are usually limited to reinstalling the offending program or replacing the offending hardware. (I am smart enough, by the way, to identify which component is acting up, so no, I don't just go out and buy a new computer.)
That said, I am above average at NOT breaking my computer, when it is running Windows and when I do, the damage is usually pretty shallow. In return, Windows provides me with reliable operation. On the other hand, I manage to make a major mistake in Linux about once a month. Sometimes I am able to fix the problem and sometimes I am not. Either way, I find crawling the web, hoping that I can find some reference to my exact error message to be very frustrating.
And sometimes, I just can't get Linux to do what I want it to do at all. I recently wanted to install Xubuntu on my laptop. I had enjoyed working with Kubuntu, but I wanted something just a little less demanding on my hardware. I never did get it recognize my PCMCIA wireless card, though. I knew, conceptually, that the underlying OS was identical between the two, so that the problem should be trivial to correct. Ultimately, though, I had no idea how.
I thought that Calculating God was a terrible book. The main theme of the book was pretty good although not quite what I expected with a name like "Calculating God." The hoops that he jumped through, though, to promote the conflict with the laughibly-inept fundamentalist Christians, killed the story for me. I went in expecting a philosophical exploration and what I got was a lazy caricature of Christianity and a condescending revelation that "God isn't really a god."
Yes, even just talking to a passenger distracts one while driving. I almost always drive alone. When I have a passenger with whom to gab, especially if it's a topic that I find interesting, I miss exits way more often than I do when there is no conversation. Granted, I consider myself a below-average navigator and only a modest multitasker, but consider this additional anecdotal evidence that seemingly innocuous distractions can lead to deficient driving.
Clearly, you're not allowed to do that. The company went out of business because you and the rest of their traitorous customers failed to buy enough of their software to keep them afloat. Obviously, if you can't even be loyal enough to do a little thing like keep a company in business forever, then you don't deserve to play their games.
Momentum describes an observable property, though. Although we defined momentum as p=mv, there is good reason to do so. Increasing either the mass or the velocity by an arbitrary factor results in an object with the same quantity of that observable property. It is not inconceivable that this would not be the case.
Slashdot Mirror
I find this article to be concurrent with my own observations. Your statement further reflects upon my circumstances. I often find that I face the choice between getting sufficient sleep (which increases my productivity at work) and utilizing the creative burst that I get between 10:00 p.m. and midnight. I envy everybody who boasts of hours flexible enough to accommodate even a little bit of variance. I work in inside sales, so my job consists of answering phones from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. According to both this article and my own experiences, I am getting out of work just as my creativity reaches its nadir.
On a related note, does anybody else resent how much of one's schedule is dictated by one's employer? It isn't just the time that you're at work. That dictates the time that you must/should be asleep. That affects when you'll be hungry. And now we have this article that suggests I'm sleeping through my peak creativity, giving average creativity to my employer, and hitting my low point just as my "me time" begins.
In my opinion, the central cause of all of those abuses of the Constitution is the federal income tax. The SCOTUS has upheld the constitutionality of the income tax and, therefore, all other usurpations of authority follow. Whether the federal government actually possesses a particular power or not, it can coerce state governments into toeing the line by threatening to deny them money that came partially from within the state in the first place. (You may remember, for example, that California had to be coerced into lowering the legal alcohol limit from 0.1% to 0.08%.)
I can't understand how any scientist worth his salt can claim to also be a member of any religion as a true believer?
It isn't unscientific to ask philosophical questions about the nature of the universe. I address scientific matters with science and philosophical matters with faith. I allow science to explain the mechanisms of the universe and religion (Lutheran-flavoured Christianity, in my case) to explain the rationale behind the universe (ie: WHY does the universe exist at all?) You might argue that no scientist worth his salt bothers with a question that defies rational explanation, but I would call that a "no true Scotsman" fallacy.
You might also argue that using faith as an explanation for anything precludes trying to use the scientific method to explain it. There are several points that I could make against this argument. 1) I give the scientific method precedence over faith. If science contradicts my faith, then I have misinterpreted something. I believe that there is one truth, that God has not set up the universe to confuse us, and that reason is a gift from God. Therefore, when reason concludes something, I believe that it must be true. 2) I understand that my faith is personal and that "because God did it" is never an appropriate explanation in scientific context. 3) Unlike some Christians, I never try to invoke aesthetic reasons against science. "A loving God would never use an ugly tool like evolution" is anathema to me. I am more likely to operate in the opposite direction. I find the beauty of the mechanisms of the universe to be a testimony of the greatness of God.
You are correct that it would have been convincing if renouncing and denouncing religion altogether were his aim. Clearly, that is not the case. Nor does the tone of his resignation suggest any disrespect for the theory, practice, or establishment of science. I am quite confident that this man retains both a respect for the scientific method and also his religious faith. He resigned to avoid the appearance of impropriety within the scientific community. Most probably, his church does not feel as though his involvement in science tarnished his faith. On the other hand, this incident has caused the scientific community to question his credentials as a scientist. He resigned from the community that was at odds with what he had said.
My intuition is that the interaction between the chip and the larger device is actually pretty important. If the device has a panic button on it, it serves as a homing beacon as long as it remains in the possession of the person with the chip. If it becomes separated from the person with the chip, it could automatically go into panic mode and identify the location where the person was forcibly separated from their device (or, you know, where they accidentally left it at the boutique.) Depending on exactly the range of the interaction between the chip and the device, recovering a victim's device could help to locate them if you come within N meters of them and their chip.
I think that it is false to state that "The majority view among intelligent, educated people always supports liberal positions which is why it is liberal, not conservative, politics that shares the label "progressive.""
In my opinion, liberalism is labeled progressive because liberalism promotes change. Progress occurs because of change. Conservatism, on the other hand, promotes stability. You have established correlation, but not causation. It could well be that intelligent, educated people support liberal/progressive positions because there are fewer opportunities for personal power under the status quo and change is the mechanism by which they seek to obtain power and prosperity for themselves.
Vaingloriously? While that is an excellent word, I believe that the one for which you are searching is fangoriously. And... um... Linebacker.
My disagreement of unions stems from two very specific instances. One, when I was in high school, I was paid less than I could/should have been because the union capped the wages of teenage employees to secure better wages for adult employees. Further, this was after the promise of an x% raise every six months. They only explained the cap to me after 18 months, when I was supposed to be getting my third raise and didn't. I can understand why, but frankly, it was detrimental to me and I hold a grudge. Two, my grandfather relates a story from when my father was a child of an anonymous caller threatening violence to his children (my aunt and father) because he planned on voting against unionization of his shop.
I have a three-orbital atom tatooed on the bicep of my left arm. One of the orbitals is blue, one is red, and the third is green. (I've had an obsession with the primary colours of light for as long as I can remember.)
I agree with what you're saying. The solution is voluntary compliance with an industry-wide enforcement policy. Unfortunately, nobody seems ready to jump first. Every player in the video game market is afraid that if they refuse to sell Grand Theft Auto to little Timmy, he'll just find another game store.
In that regard, I see a fundamental immaturity in the field of video gaming and I don't know what is necessary to overcome it. As things stand, though, I think that video game retailers offer all the credibility of a head shop when it comes to responsible selling.
It seems to me that this sort of legislation is a necessary precondition of the solution that you propose. I've heard it mentioned before, "Why not enforce the existing ratings?"
Here's the problem: Video game ratings are applied by a voluntary, industry initiative. If a law were passed to enforce those ratings, it would be placing the executive power to evaluate the content into the hands of a non-governmental entity.
In order for the government to enforce any ratings, the government has to legislate to itself the authority to create ratings. In the case under discussion, that's approximately what the government has done -- they have mandated 'labelling' (similar to rating, IMO) of certain kinds of content in video games.
I'm glad that you've been modded up. Granted, it's easy to ascribe mob mentality to "the Slashdot crowd," but it still makes me want to cry "shenanigans" when the same group of people who enthusiastically defend peer-to-peer file-sharing because of its myriad legal uses condemn less-lethal weaponry because some (not all) police officers will use them unethically.
We salute you, Mr. CO2 Reducing Ocean Lime Dumper.
I read that interview too and I agree that his perspective was interesting. He cited a lot of economics to explain why nuclear was the weakest of the solutions we could develop "right now." I was curious, however, whether his analysis was based on current policy or whether it considered the possibility of also using breeder reactors.
I agree with you. Unfortunately, game theory and the math behind it "prove" that a plurality leads rational actors to create and perpetuate a two-party system. If we want to foster the inclusion of more parties, we need to get rid of plurality voting. (Of course, that would take an act of Congress. Do you really think that our Republican and Democratic representatives and senators would support such a change?)
Not only do many Americans not care about it, I've discussed similar laws with other people and they can't even seem to grasp why I care. They can't understand objecting to a law on philosophical or ethical grounds.
That is different from somebody who can say, "I understand why it upsets you, but I won't personally get upset until it affects me." Neither attitude is particularly responsible, in my opinion. The attitude that I see, however, actually has a chilling effect on citizens who do object based on principles alone and also on politicians who might otherwise vote conscientiously. There is a large fraction of people who, because they can't justify an objection on purely philosophical grounds, see opposition to such a law as being soft on terrorism and nothing more.
It bears mentioning that, because of the global nature of many corporations, the work that most people do is impersonal and uninspiring. Assembly line structures may be efficient ways to generate wealth but I have grown tired of our society that defines value in terms of wealth.
I can certainly sympathize with somebody who sees hard work as evil, if his work provides value for somebody he never sees and is measured based upon the amount of wealth that it generates. That really is evil, in my opinion.
I think that your analogy is a good illustration, but it is also important to recognize the limitations of the analogy. In the case of the library, you can not borrow their copy of a DVD without depriving them of their physical media for some time and you can return it without copying it, if you wish. In the filesharing case, at no point is the lender deprived of their copy of the media and you can't "borrow" it, except by copying it.
I think that this distinction is important because it seems very clear to me that filesharing is NOT like library lending in these important ways. This both makes filesharing appear more ethically questionable than library lending (which I believe it is) and also to protect library lending from criticism when the side of the argument representing copyright holders wants to use the same analogy against libraries.
The structure that you describe also ensures that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. There are many people who see a glimpse of that structure, as it really is -- not enough to be revolted -- just enough to see how to game the system. I've asked people, "Why do you tolerate this? How does this culture not collapse?" The answer is basically that most people uphold it because they don't want it to collapse on top of them. Unless everybody cooperates to "let it down gently" (if I may extend the metaphor), then just one person failing to uphold it gets crushed, while the bulk of the structure remains standing. These questions have been on my mind a lot lately as I've been struggling with "humanity vs. the bottom line" in an entry level job. I've gotten really tired of the words "That's just the way that things work" in the past year.
I think that the common trait among the posts you cite, however, is that most of the users mentioned have a computer literate Slashdotter standing by in the off chance that support is needed.
In this sense of the word, I probably am closer to illiterate than literate when it comes to computers. Obviously, they require more savvy to operate than pretty much any other device in my home. At the end of the day, though, my computer is an appliance to me. There are a variety of functions that I expect from it and, if it breaks catastrophically, my options are usually limited to reinstalling the offending program or replacing the offending hardware. (I am smart enough, by the way, to identify which component is acting up, so no, I don't just go out and buy a new computer.)
That said, I am above average at NOT breaking my computer, when it is running Windows and when I do, the damage is usually pretty shallow. In return, Windows provides me with reliable operation. On the other hand, I manage to make a major mistake in Linux about once a month. Sometimes I am able to fix the problem and sometimes I am not. Either way, I find crawling the web, hoping that I can find some reference to my exact error message to be very frustrating.
And sometimes, I just can't get Linux to do what I want it to do at all. I recently wanted to install Xubuntu on my laptop. I had enjoyed working with Kubuntu, but I wanted something just a little less demanding on my hardware. I never did get it recognize my PCMCIA wireless card, though. I knew, conceptually, that the underlying OS was identical between the two, so that the problem should be trivial to correct. Ultimately, though, I had no idea how.
***MINOR SPOILERS***
I thought that Calculating God was a terrible book. The main theme of the book was pretty good although not quite what I expected with a name like "Calculating God." The hoops that he jumped through, though, to promote the conflict with the laughibly-inept fundamentalist Christians, killed the story for me. I went in expecting a philosophical exploration and what I got was a lazy caricature of Christianity and a condescending revelation that "God isn't really a god."
Yes, even just talking to a passenger distracts one while driving. I almost always drive alone. When I have a passenger with whom to gab, especially if it's a topic that I find interesting, I miss exits way more often than I do when there is no conversation. Granted, I consider myself a below-average navigator and only a modest multitasker, but consider this additional anecdotal evidence that seemingly innocuous distractions can lead to deficient driving.
Pure savings, except for the percentage that Uncle Sam claims next April. Nobody expects the American Inquisition!
Clearly, you're not allowed to do that. The company went out of business because you and the rest of their traitorous customers failed to buy enough of their software to keep them afloat. Obviously, if you can't even be loyal enough to do a little thing like keep a company in business forever, then you don't deserve to play their games.
Momentum describes an observable property, though. Although we defined momentum as p=mv, there is good reason to do so. Increasing either the mass or the velocity by an arbitrary factor results in an object with the same quantity of that observable property. It is not inconceivable that this would not be the case.