However, I do think we need a new term. People who express opinions about the possibility of dirty tricks by governments/government agencies are often labelled "kooks" or "conspiracy theorists", with the assumption that their ideas are not based on fact or logical thinking. However, there is another type of person that is increasingly common today. They are the mirror image of conspiracy theorists, people that - even when there is clear evidence of something funny going on - refuse to even consider the possibility.
For example, in February last year Colin Powell gave a presentation to the UN - remember that? Just in case you've forgotten, he said:
1) Iraq posseses 499-500 tonnes of chemical weapons agents.
2) Iraq has hidden warheads containing "biological warfare agent... in large groves of palm trees".
3) Iraq possesses a hidden factory equipped with thousands of centrifuges to make fissionable material for nuclear weapons
4) Iraq possesses at least seven mobile laboratories for producing biological warfare agents.
And other claims like this. Notice that he didn't say "might" or "perhaps", these were statements of fact. Meanwhile, in the UK Tony Blair was telling his electorate that he had seem incontrovertible evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but he couldn't tell us what it was so we'd just have to trust him. Now we know that nearly all these "facts" were wrong.
And yet, despite all this, there is a certain type of person that is completely unwilling to even consider the possibility that our governments have lied to us. Many people consider that the intelligence agencies "made mistakes", or perhaps even a few rouge elements in the intelligence agencies might have lied, but not the government.
I think there should be a new word for this type of person - a person who finds it impossible to imagine those in authority acting in a bad way even that is a reasonable logical conclusion based on the facts. Or perhaps there is already a word for this type of person and I don't know it. Any ideas anyone?
This guy works/worked for the intelligence services. He was/is involved in "disinformation" operations. The intelligences services in the USA and UK are currently under increadible scrutiny for having goofed big-time about Iraq. This guy gets an article published in the NY Times about a very successful operation that helped finish the Cold War. There is no evidence, other than this article, and it can't be proved or disproved.
Today, the Association of American Publishers announced a revolution in book publishing. A spokeman said "The book sector has been suffering for years from consumers abusing our products. Some of them read their books more than once. Many lend out books indiscriminately, sell them or even give them away for free to charity. This type of criminal behaviour must be stopped."
"Fortunately, we have come up with a solution. Our publishers will start to offer books which have been written in special ink sealed and are sold in vaccuum packs. Upon exposure to air, the ink gradually fades over the period of one week. We envisage law abiding consumers will love this new format, especially when they realise it is no more expensive than the old, inferior format."
Outside of the USA, there are very few people who like Bush. But that does not mean we are anti-American. That's just the kind of limited thinking that Bush seems to promote. You're either with him, or against him, and if you're against him, then you're Unamerican.
According to Bush:
Anti-Bush == Unamerican where person == American Anti-Bush == Anti-American where person != American
This is just a ploy by the EU to try and influence global commerce beyond their reach. They want to matter.
Hhhmmmm...
Poor little us, not being big enough to matter to global commerce! Methinks you need to look at some statistics comparing the GDP of the USA with the EU.
And you've been modded as "insightful". I think there should be a new category of mods. "Insightful (American)"
Hopefully this will increase the awareness of the show in the USA. Hope the USA remake doesn't suck too much.
The thing about the humour in The Office is that a lot of it is quite subtle and cultural - I am not sure it will "translate" very well to the US. Even some people in the UK don't "get it", and people in the UK seem to more aware of subtle humour and irony than many people in the US. Also, a lot of the humour in Ricky Gervais's character is based around his crassness and political incorrectness - if the show is "sanitised" at all for mainstream US audiences I think it will loose a lot of its punch. Personally I don't think it is going to make the translation well - it might still be a good show in the US but I expect it will be very different.
Absolutely. People discuss these issues in moral terms, but from my point of view there is no morality about it. The record companies are as much in the wrong as the "file swappers" are.
It's true! This as reported by the UK's Viz comic:
Speaking from the bunker eight miles below the earth's outer crust from which he intends not to emerge until Judgment Day, he said: "I will avenge these prankdoers, mark my lips, I will smoke these filthy evilsters.
"Whoever you are, we will catch you," added mad Mr Bush. "Remember: I never sleep."
How much would you charge a to drive a tanker truck from Kuwait to Badhdad?!
If someone was going to pay me $800,000 each truck to get trucks from Kuwait to Bagdad, I'd jump at the chance.
I wouldn't do it myself. That would just be dumb. Locals would be a) much cheaper and b) a lot more likely to get through, because they understand the local conditions, can speak the language, know the roads, local tribes, risks etc. I would pay the driver half at the start of the journey and half on delivery, this would reduce losses should tankers not get through and would give the driver motivation to deliver.
I would also think about more creative ways of getting the oil delivered. At $40 a gallon it would probably be cheaper to fly it. Or setup a scheme whereby public passenger cars can opt to take one barrel each for payment on delivery. Hey, why bother at all, I'm sure if you let it be known on the streets of Bagdad that you'd pay an extra $40 a gallon, plenty of willing locals be keen to find a way to sell it to you.
I pointed out that $40 a gallon sounded extrordinarily expensive in another posts, but it got modded down as flamebait.
If the truck carries 5000 gallons then the journey of 400 miles is costing 200,000 dollars, or about $500 a mile. And I believe that is a relatively small oil transporter, they come much bigger.
Of course, it's going to cost more in times of war, but what is reasonable? $40 a gallon sounds way off the scale to me.
When you even out the cost of changing the regime of an entire country, that's really not that expensive.
But that's not a logical approach. The cost of transportation should be exactly that, otherwise it does not make any sense that the US army is excited about hydrogen fuel concepts because of the cost of transporting oil from Kuwait to Bagdad.
I'm guessing those costs are due to the difficulty of transporting oil in hostile territory.
Sure, that's going to make it more expensive. But there has to be a reasonable limit to costs. $800,000 to drive an oil tanker about 400 miles - is a cost of $2,000 a mile reasonable, even given the circumstances? I don't think so.
DoD officials say 'it costs about $40 to move one gallon of diesel fuel from Kuwait to Baghdad.'
It really costs that much? Seems a hell of a lot to me. How many gallons does an oil tanker hold? Let's me guess at 20,000. If so, then to drive an oil tanker from Kuwait to Badhdad is costing $800,000!!
I guess these must be the prices that Haliburton etc. are charging. The war in Iraq looks like a damn efficient means to move money from the American taxer into the hands of friends of those in power in the USA. Go Bush!
We all know how good committees are at deciding things. Compromise usually leads to the lowest common denominator. Do we really want a Linux desktop that's designed by a committee? Isn't that against the whole spirit of free software?
We are talking about industry standards. Outside of the software industry, they work very well. The software industry is still in it's immature stages - like the engineering industry was before there were standard sizes for nuts and bolts - manufacturers actually deliberately made their nuts and bolts incompatible because it gave them lock-in, just as the software industry does now. Incompatible nuts and bolts seems crazy now, closed/incompatible file formats will seem crazy in the future.
Re:Using heuristics in searches
on
Yahoo! Research Labs
·
· Score: 4, Informative
A heuristic is an estimate of the distance to your goal that you can use to evaluate which node in the seach space to expand next.
Not necessarily. There are various definitions of heuristic, one of which is "a commonsense rule (or set of rules) intended to increase the probability of solving some problem". By that definition "water is wet" is a heuristic. Perhaps some people use the term differently, but when I studied AI that was a common definition.
Brilliant (but evil) scientist: Ah! My diabolic new creation awakens! The world will never be the same again! Mmmmwwwhahahahaha!!!
[Speaking to machine] So, my heuristic-driven search engine machine, what universal truths have you discovered? Have you discovered the meaning of life?
Machine: [Metallic voice] I have discovered that George Bush is a miserable failure.
Brilliant (but evil) scientist: I knew that already! What else have you discovered?
There's been an ongoing project going for years to build a massive heuristics database (I can't remember the damn name of it now, something like Cync). The heuristics are rules about the world, "truths" if you like, for instance, "water is wet", "sugar is sweet", etc). I would love to see what would happen when you made a search engine which used this massive heuristics database. Even better, let the search engine derive further truths from the pages it searches.
Why would any computer-savvy person want to move to Australia?
Erm, perhaps because it's a great place to live? If it wasn't so far from my family and friends (and the rest of the world) Sydney would be my home for sure.
Check me if I'm wrong Sammy, but I don't see how making employees sign in and out is all that terrible. Would it make people feel better if these employees pushed a button to sign in instead of having their palms scanned?
Yes, I'm an employer and I think you're absolutely right. You can't trust people to do the right thing, so must treat them like children or animals.
They should have pay docked by the minute if they're late. Of course if they're a early that time doesn't count, and of course if at the end of the day it takes them longer to finish than the hours you are paying them for, them that must be their fault so they shouldn't be paid for that either.
At my company, all employees wear a special hat with a cam and microphone pointed at thier faces, so that we can see and hear them at any time. If they are doing or saying anything that isn't strictly work related, we dock those minutes from their pay too. It is very efficient - it keeps our salary bills low. We do have some problems with staff retention though.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay: You are a kook.
That's fine.
However, I do think we need a new term. People who express opinions about the possibility of dirty tricks by governments/government agencies are often labelled "kooks" or "conspiracy theorists", with the assumption that their ideas are not based on fact or logical thinking. However, there is another type of person that is increasingly common today. They are the mirror image of conspiracy theorists, people that - even when there is clear evidence of something funny going on - refuse to even consider the possibility.
For example, in February last year Colin Powell gave a presentation to the UN - remember that? Just in case you've forgotten, he said:
1) Iraq posseses 499-500 tonnes of chemical weapons agents.
2) Iraq has hidden warheads containing "biological warfare agent... in large groves of palm trees".
3) Iraq possesses a hidden factory equipped with thousands of centrifuges to make fissionable material for nuclear weapons
4) Iraq possesses at least seven mobile laboratories for producing biological warfare agents.
And other claims like this. Notice that he didn't say "might" or "perhaps", these were statements of fact. Meanwhile, in the UK Tony Blair was telling his electorate that he had seem incontrovertible evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but he couldn't tell us what it was so we'd just have to trust him. Now we know that nearly all these "facts" were wrong.
And yet, despite all this, there is a certain type of person that is completely unwilling to even consider the possibility that our governments have lied to us. Many people consider that the intelligence agencies "made mistakes", or perhaps even a few rouge elements in the intelligence agencies might have lied, but not the government.
I think there should be a new word for this type of person - a person who finds it impossible to imagine those in authority acting in a bad way even that is a reasonable logical conclusion based on the facts. Or perhaps there is already a word for this type of person and I don't know it. Any ideas anyone?
Tin foil hat on...
This guy works/worked for the intelligence services. He was/is involved in "disinformation" operations. The intelligences services in the USA and UK are currently under increadible scrutiny for having goofed big-time about Iraq. This guy gets an article published in the NY Times about a very successful operation that helped finish the Cold War. There is no evidence, other than this article, and it can't be proved or disproved.
Draw your own conclusions.
Today, the Association of American Publishers announced a revolution in book publishing. A spokeman said "The book sector has been suffering for years from consumers abusing our products. Some of them read their books more than once. Many lend out books indiscriminately, sell them or even give them away for free to charity. This type of criminal behaviour must be stopped."
"Fortunately, we have come up with a solution. Our publishers will start to offer books which have been written in special ink sealed and are sold in vaccuum packs. Upon exposure to air, the ink gradually fades over the period of one week. We envisage law abiding consumers will love this new format, especially when they realise it is no more expensive than the old, inferior format."
The shear fact is that the EU is totaly anti-american, be it Bush jr, or MS.
Anti-Bush != Anti-American
Anti-MS != Anti-American
Outside of the USA, there are very few people who like Bush. But that does not mean we are anti-American. That's just the kind of limited thinking that Bush seems to promote. You're either with him, or against him, and if you're against him, then you're Unamerican.
According to Bush:
Anti-Bush == Unamerican where person == American
Anti-Bush == Anti-American where person != American
Microsoft could ignore the ruling, but they would have to stop doing business in the EU altogether.
Oh well, that's a realistic option for them then isn't it?
(sarcasm)
This is just a ploy by the EU to try and influence global commerce beyond their reach. They want to matter.
Hhhmmmm...
Poor little us, not being big enough to matter to global commerce! Methinks you need to look at some statistics comparing the GDP of the USA with the EU.
And you've been modded as "insightful". I think there should be a new category of mods. "Insightful (American)"
Hopefully this will increase the awareness of the show in the USA. Hope the USA remake doesn't suck too much.
The thing about the humour in The Office is that a lot of it is quite subtle and cultural - I am not sure it will "translate" very well to the US. Even some people in the UK don't "get it", and people in the UK seem to more aware of subtle humour and irony than many people in the US. Also, a lot of the humour in Ricky Gervais's character is based around his crassness and political incorrectness - if the show is "sanitised" at all for mainstream US audiences I think it will loose a lot of its punch. Personally I don't think it is going to make the translation well - it might still be a good show in the US but I expect it will be very different.
Anyone agree?
Absolutely. People discuss these issues in moral terms, but from my point of view there is no morality about it. The record companies are as much in the wrong as the "file swappers" are.
Personally, I think this extra two pounds we have to pay is theft. How do they justify it? This is cartel price fixing.
How many millions are the music industry going to rob off UK customers as a result of this action?
The music industry are theiving b******s, which is why they are so obsessed with telling everyone that it's the public that are the thieves.
Bush probably never sleeps at all
It's true! This as reported by the UK's Viz comic:
Speaking from the bunker eight miles below the earth's outer crust from which he intends not to emerge until Judgment Day, he said: "I will avenge these prankdoers, mark my lips, I will smoke these filthy evilsters.
"Whoever you are, we will catch you," added mad Mr Bush. "Remember: I never sleep."
How much would you charge a to drive a tanker truck from Kuwait to Badhdad?!
If someone was going to pay me $800,000 each truck to get trucks from Kuwait to Bagdad, I'd jump at the chance.
I wouldn't do it myself. That would just be dumb. Locals would be a) much cheaper and b) a lot more likely to get through, because they understand the local conditions, can speak the language, know the roads, local tribes, risks etc. I would pay the driver half at the start of the journey and half on delivery, this would reduce losses should tankers not get through and would give the driver motivation to deliver.
I would also think about more creative ways of getting the oil delivered. At $40 a gallon it would probably be cheaper to fly it. Or setup a scheme whereby public passenger cars can opt to take one barrel each for payment on delivery. Hey, why bother at all, I'm sure if you let it be known on the streets of Bagdad that you'd pay an extra $40 a gallon, plenty of willing locals be keen to find a way to sell it to you.
I remember reading somewhere that Einstein would sleep for 14 hours or more at a time. And Margret Thatcher could get by on just a couple of hours.
I pointed out that $40 a gallon sounded extrordinarily expensive in another posts, but it got modded down as flamebait.
If the truck carries 5000 gallons then the journey of 400 miles is costing 200,000 dollars, or about $500 a mile. And I believe that is a relatively small oil transporter, they come much bigger.
Of course, it's going to cost more in times of war, but what is reasonable? $40 a gallon sounds way off the scale to me.
When you even out the cost of changing the regime of an entire country, that's really not that expensive.
But that's not a logical approach. The cost of transportation should be exactly that, otherwise it does not make any sense that the US army is excited about hydrogen fuel concepts because of the cost of transporting oil from Kuwait to Bagdad.
I'm guessing those costs are due to the difficulty of transporting oil in hostile territory.
Sure, that's going to make it more expensive. But there has to be a reasonable limit to costs. $800,000 to drive an oil tanker about 400 miles - is a cost of $2,000 a mile reasonable, even given the circumstances? I don't think so.
This is not flaimbait. It is a reasonable obseration. Don't mod me down just because you don't agree with what I'm saying.
DoD officials say 'it costs about $40 to move one gallon of diesel fuel from Kuwait to Baghdad.'
It really costs that much? Seems a hell of a lot to me. How many gallons does an oil tanker hold? Let's me guess at 20,000. If so, then to drive an oil tanker from Kuwait to Badhdad is costing $800,000!!
I guess these must be the prices that Haliburton etc. are charging. The war in Iraq looks like a damn efficient means to move money from the American taxer into the hands of friends of those in power in the USA. Go Bush!
How can they compete?
Why compete? Creating standards is about co-operation, not competition.
We all know how good committees are at deciding things. Compromise usually leads to the lowest common denominator. Do we really want a Linux desktop that's designed by a committee? Isn't that against the whole spirit of free software?
We are talking about industry standards. Outside of the software industry, they work very well. The software industry is still in it's immature stages - like the engineering industry was before there were standard sizes for nuts and bolts - manufacturers actually deliberately made their nuts and bolts incompatible because it gave them lock-in, just as the software industry does now. Incompatible nuts and bolts seems crazy now, closed/incompatible file formats will seem crazy in the future.
A heuristic is an estimate of the distance to your goal that you can use to evaluate which node in the seach space to expand next.
Not necessarily. There are various definitions of heuristic, one of which is "a commonsense rule (or set of rules) intended to increase the probability of solving some problem". By that definition "water is wet" is a heuristic. Perhaps some people use the term differently, but when I studied AI that was a common definition.
Sometime in the near future:
Brilliant (but evil) scientist: Ah! My diabolic new creation awakens! The world will never be the same again! Mmmmwwwhahahahaha!!!
[Speaking to machine] So, my heuristic-driven search engine machine, what universal truths have you discovered? Have you discovered the meaning of life?
Machine: [Metallic voice] I have discovered that George Bush is a miserable failure.
Brilliant (but evil) scientist: I knew that already! What else have you discovered?
Machine: Your penis is too small...
Brilliant (but evil) scientist: D'oh! [Slaps forhead]
Machine: I have also discovered Jar Jar binks sucks bigtime.
Brilliant (but evil) scientist: But what of the meaning of life?? You've discovered that haven't you?
Machine: Britney is hot.
etc. etc.
[etc.]
There's been an ongoing project going for years to build a massive heuristics database (I can't remember the damn name of it now, something like Cync). The heuristics are rules about the world, "truths" if you like, for instance, "water is wet", "sugar is sweet", etc). I would love to see what would happen when you made a search engine which used this massive heuristics database. Even better, let the search engine derive further truths from the pages it searches.
This is a test. For some reason I always seem to get "you cannot post to this page", apparently for no reason. What's going on?
Why would any computer-savvy person want to move to Australia?
Erm, perhaps because it's a great place to live? If it wasn't so far from my family and friends (and the rest of the world) Sydney would be my home for sure.
Check me if I'm wrong Sammy, but I don't see how making employees sign in and out is all that terrible. Would it make people feel better if these employees pushed a button to sign in instead of having their palms scanned?
Yes, I'm an employer and I think you're absolutely right. You can't trust people to do the right thing, so must treat them like children or animals.
They should have pay docked by the minute if they're late. Of course if they're a early that time doesn't count, and of course if at the end of the day it takes them longer to finish than the hours you are paying them for, them that must be their fault so they shouldn't be paid for that either.
At my company, all employees wear a special hat with a cam and microphone pointed at thier faces, so that we can see and hear them at any time. If they are doing or saying anything that isn't strictly work related, we dock those minutes from their pay too. It is very efficient - it keeps our salary bills low. We do have some problems with staff retention though.