Oh yeah, I was sitting here trying to remember how I got this book. Someone else mentioned that no one actually bought the book. But I couldn't think of where I got it. I didn't read it for a while, then about four years ago I took of the shelf because there was nothing else to read, and loved it! Thanks for reminding me where th book came from.
Heinlen is excellent, my favorite scifi author. I like the fact that he never lets technology get in the way of the story, he uses it to enhances the plot. I have read much of his work but tnever noticed the trend you describe. Which of his stuff did you feel was preachy? What are some of his first books?
I think this goes for any topic, not just career's. If someone is knowledgble in a particular topic, and they see a movie about it the exprience is usually negative. As a sailor and a computer guy I find movies done on either topic to be extremely painful. Suspension of Disbelief is just impossible when you know how fake everything on the screen is. I'm sure every CIA, Police Officer, Doctor, ect.. feels the same way during just about every movie. Oh, and cowboys too...
You could rip to wave files, then use a sound editing prog to paste the wav's together. You could even make one stream of multiple CDs. Then you just encode the one resulting wav.
sorry, last i checked fitting something like the Libretto in my pocket was decidedly uncomftorble. The who purpose of a plamtop is that you can take with you everywhere, which I do. Three things I always have with my now are my watch, wallet and Palm.
Jon Katz's has once again posted a thought provoking article. When discussing ethics it is always important to push the boundaries. No matter how black and white we view issues, there are always certain issues which fall in the gray area, these deserve the most thought. Those gray issues force us to think about what we really believe.
I think the process is similar to the one described in an article posted on/. recently. It discussed the process of mapping. If we choose to think about an ethical problem, eventually we will come to a conclusion. This is important, because without convictions you can never be sure of yourself.
I believe where Katz goes wrong is when he states that the US is not free because there is persecution. The distinction is between being legally free and being free from persecution as Katz might put it. Obviously the US is the most legally free country in the world. The question then is whether it is worth being legally free if we are not totally free. I think the answer is that it is more than worth it. In this country the persecution of an individual should not be legally supported. There are cases of course where the system fails, but in general the system works. A murderer who kills a doctor in an abortion clinic will not be legally supported. There have been repeated attempts, some successful, by the government to support persecution (i.e. McCarthy) but the constitution generally keeps things in check.
The real problem is that human opinion does not change over night. Opinions, which have been held for long periods of time, are often held irrationally, long past their time.
Both sides can currently debate many of the issues Katz has raised rationally. If the discussion continues long enough one side will win out, but there will still be irrational opposition. In a country less free, the discussion might get stopped before this point, meaning the issue would never get resolved satisfactorily.
For politicians, they are not elected to be controversial, if they were controversial, they wouldn't have gotten elected. The politicians must follow the masses, that is their purpose, to reflect the wishes of their supporters. Does this mean they cannot speak their minds? No they have just as many rights as anyone else, but their actions and their words must differ in these cases. If Jesse Ventura things that organized religion is a bad thing, then he is allowed to say so. But he cannot take action to ban the catholic church from his state unless his electors agree with that decision.
The sum up, there is an important difference between being persecuted by a government, and being flamed. In the case of the Singer, sorry the best we can do is punish people who harm him, we cannot force people to think rationally and debate with him. Being controversial and forward thinking always carries risk, at least in this country we don't have to fear execution, imprisonment, or exile because of our ideas.
The only point of nitpicking I have with the article is the statement, "...as food production continues to decline." I would love for Katz to find a recent decade in which food production has declined. He should look for numbers, not just pick up the doomsayers party line.
I don't know where you grew up, but I currently at the University of Texas at Austin. I am from Connrcticut, so I'm bit out of my geographic area. The only reason I ever heard of this school was because of its computer science department. The curriculum focused on concepts not languages as others have mentioned. Also the school is in the process of finishing an entirely new building for the department, built from the grond up to support CS.
The other great part of the equation is Austin itself. Dell, Motorola and Texas Instuments are some of the heavy hitters in the area, but Austin has recently been nichnamed the silicon hills. It has become an alternative fo VC, and there is a lot of activity in startups and such that are hard t find anywhere else in country, beside California.
On another, equally important note, Austin as a city rocks, add into the mix 50,000 college students, great athletics and you get a very flexible situation which will let you do just about anything you want.
Having recently graduated high school I have had the chance to use these papers in High School English class. I have never used any of the pay sites, so maybe I am missing out, but I never found a paper online which I would consider handing in. In general I found the papers to of similar quality to something I could write starting at 12:00am the morning before the paper was due. Not to mention the fact that finding a paper on your topic can be difficult as well.
All in all I don't think there is much of a threat to education, although it may widen the gap between students who are in school for a reason and students who are just there. I don't want to sound hypocritical, I hate most classes as much as the next student, but I am usually able to drag myself to class on the promise of learning something useful.
As for the grading software, I'm not sure I would be opposed to it. I have been both the victim and benefactor of subjective teachers. Nothing is more depressing than having a teacher who gives you the same low grade no matter how hard you work, or more effort sapping than a teacher who gives any drivel you write an A. It would seem the smart thing to do, if you are going to be using software, is establish a database of papers available n-line, and compare students' papers to them, putting warning flags up for similarities.
Over all I don't see a huge problem. No self-respecting student would hand in a paper written by someone else. And no self-respecting professor would let software grade papers for him.
I think that a lack of anonymity is a good thing. Especial in online forums such as slashdot. The fact is that the old saying, "think before you speak" still holds, perhaps more so because as the article says, "the internet does not forget." At the end of the day accountability is a good thing, it leads to more thoughtful discussion and less irrational, knee-jerk posting.
The problem is that people have not yet realised that their words online are perpetual. I think many people view posting online to be similar to shouting in a crowded noisy room (slashdot feels like this at times). How important can your one quote be when it is among 300 others? In a traditional forum it would not be, but on the internet it could mean the world. I think that once people come to realise this we will see much more order online.
Th benefit of online discussion is getting credit for your ideas, but with this comes responsibility, something which many people choose not to accept.
If I remember correctly, RAM prices were already skyrocketing before the quake. The quake has of course compounded the problem, but RAM had already double in price by the time the quake happened.
The difference between the US and Russian government would never let a story like this leak to the press. Maybe it is just hubris,but I was would be extremely suprised if we (the US) were not keeping close tabs on Russian government servers.
It is very possible that you are right. However the track record of oil surplus predictions has been pretty bad. Since the turn of the century we have never had more than 30 years of oil left in the ground, by the predictions of oil companies and governments. Yet, 100 years later we still are pumping oil. I think the oil crisis of the '70s proved that while the middle eastern countries have control over the short term, they do not have absolute control. When the OPEC nations raised prices, oil companies looked for alternate sources. When enough oil was founf outside of the the middle east OPEC was forced to fold it's hand.
An interesting advance in this field in the last few years has been the use of high posered computers and seismic triangulation to get three dimensional pictures of oil pockets. Apparently, tapping an oil pocket at its highest point gives you the most oil (or natural gas I suppose it would be). Before this process finding the highest point was simply guess work. Now many old oil field have been reopened because more oil has been found in them.
I suppose we will run out eventually, but historically, veryone has greatly underestimated the supply of all of our resources, not just oil.
First off, take it easy about the exact beginning, its not a matter of life or death.
Secondly, the question is a matter of perception, do you consider the year 1980 to be part of the '80s or the last year of the '70s? Regardless of the technicalities, most would group the year with the '80s. Its a common understanding, let's stick to it.
Julian Simon is the authority on subjects like this. As far as I know he was the only one in the business who was not consistently wrong. Whenever I see something new on the subject I wonder what his take would have been on it.
So now the prediction is 15 years. In the late '60s Paul Ehrlich predicted we would see famines in the '70s and '80s in which hundreds of millions of people would die.
This has simply not happened. As mentioned in another post, we have seen negative population growth in developed countries (something that was not forseen) and more growth in food production than was thought possible. Causes of famines have been political not supply problems.
The United nation current estimates show the worst case for population growth is linear, not exponential, the best case is slowing growth, with max population reached in the late 2030s. (UN 1998 Population figures)
There have always been doomsayers that do not think human ingenuity can keep up with the the expansion of the human race. IMHO ingenuity and technology will always prevail, even if we don't see how it is possible now, a lot can change in 20-30 years.
You would also think that they would realise that for their system/algorithm to be popular it would have to be easily implemented, and cheap. Maybe encryption would be more widespread today if this were the case.
Sure, just move to another MSN site with the links on the page. Anyone can fee free to check my mail or my stock accounts with abandon. They won'y be there much longer.
Ever since oil has been used as an energy source people have estimated that we are about to run out. Whether it ba a few decades or a century. There is far more oil in the earth than commonly assumed. Also, if oil becomes very expensive because of scarcity it will not be long before other energy sources are adopted.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh yeah, I was sitting here trying to remember how I got this book. Someone else mentioned that no one actually bought the book. But I couldn't think of where I got it. I didn't read it for a while, then about four years ago I took of the shelf because there was nothing else to read, and loved it! Thanks for reminding me where th book came from.
IMHO Time Enough For Love is a must read classic.
Hey, if I post a paper I have to write for class, would you guys help me proof it? ;-)
I think this goes for any topic, not just career's. If someone is knowledgble in a particular topic, and they see a movie about it the exprience is usually negative. As a sailor and a computer guy I find movies done on either topic to be extremely painful. Suspension of Disbelief is just impossible when you know how fake everything on the screen is. I'm sure every CIA, Police Officer, Doctor, ect.. feels the same way during just about every movie. Oh, and cowboys too...
You could rip to wave files, then use a sound editing prog to paste the wav's together. You could even make one stream of multiple CDs. Then you just encode the one resulting wav.
sorry, last i checked fitting something like the Libretto in my pocket was decidedly uncomftorble. The who purpose of a plamtop is that you can take with you everywhere, which I do. Three things I always have with my now are my watch, wallet and Palm.
I think the process is similar to the one described in an article posted on /. recently. It discussed the process of mapping. If we choose to think about an ethical problem, eventually we will come to a conclusion. This is important, because without convictions you can never be sure of yourself.
I believe where Katz goes wrong is when he states that the US is not free because there is persecution. The distinction is between being legally free and being free from persecution as Katz might put it. Obviously the US is the most legally free country in the world. The question then is whether it is worth being legally free if we are not totally free. I think the answer is that it is more than worth it. In this country the persecution of an individual should not be legally supported. There are cases of course where the system fails, but in general the system works. A murderer who kills a doctor in an abortion clinic will not be legally supported. There have been repeated attempts, some successful, by the government to support persecution (i.e. McCarthy) but the constitution generally keeps things in check.
The real problem is that human opinion does not change over night. Opinions, which have been held for long periods of time, are often held irrationally, long past their time.
Both sides can currently debate many of the issues Katz has raised rationally. If the discussion continues long enough one side will win out, but there will still be irrational opposition. In a country less free, the discussion might get stopped before this point, meaning the issue would never get resolved satisfactorily.
For politicians, they are not elected to be controversial, if they were controversial, they wouldn't have gotten elected. The politicians must follow the masses, that is their purpose, to reflect the wishes of their supporters. Does this mean they cannot speak their minds? No they have just as many rights as anyone else, but their actions and their words must differ in these cases. If Jesse Ventura things that organized religion is a bad thing, then he is allowed to say so. But he cannot take action to ban the catholic church from his state unless his electors agree with that decision.
The sum up, there is an important difference between being persecuted by a government, and being flamed. In the case of the Singer, sorry the best we can do is punish people who harm him, we cannot force people to think rationally and debate with him. Being controversial and forward thinking always carries risk, at least in this country we don't have to fear execution, imprisonment, or exile because of our ideas.
The only point of nitpicking I have with the article is the statement, "...as food production continues to decline." I would love for Katz to find a recent decade in which food production has declined. He should look for numbers, not just pick up the doomsayers party line.
The other great part of the equation is Austin itself. Dell, Motorola and Texas Instuments are some of the heavy hitters in the area, but Austin has recently been nichnamed the silicon hills. It has become an alternative fo VC, and there is a lot of activity in startups and such that are hard t find anywhere else in country, beside California.
On another, equally important note, Austin as a city rocks, add into the mix 50,000 college students, great athletics and you get a very flexible situation which will let you do just about anything you want.
"Below is the alfabetized list. "
We got lots of essays on disk...
All in all I don't think there is much of a threat to education, although it may widen the gap between students who are in school for a reason and students who are just there. I don't want to sound hypocritical, I hate most classes as much as the next student, but I am usually able to drag myself to class on the promise of learning something useful.
As for the grading software, I'm not sure I would be opposed to it. I have been both the victim and benefactor of subjective teachers. Nothing is more depressing than having a teacher who gives you the same low grade no matter how hard you work, or more effort sapping than a teacher who gives any drivel you write an A. It would seem the smart thing to do, if you are going to be using software, is establish a database of papers available n-line, and compare students' papers to them, putting warning flags up for similarities.
Over all I don't see a huge problem. No self-respecting student would hand in a paper written by someone else. And no self-respecting professor would let software grade papers for him.
The problem is that people have not yet realised that their words online are perpetual. I think many people view posting online to be similar to shouting in a crowded noisy room (slashdot feels like this at times). How important can your one quote be when it is among 300 others? In a traditional forum it would not be, but on the internet it could mean the world. I think that once people come to realise this we will see much more order online.
Th benefit of online discussion is getting credit for your ideas, but with this comes responsibility, something which many people choose not to accept.
If I remember correctly, RAM prices were already skyrocketing before the quake. The quake has of course compounded the problem, but RAM had already double in price by the time the quake happened.
The difference between the US and Russian government would never let a story like this leak to the press. Maybe it is just hubris,but I was would be extremely suprised if we (the US) were not keeping close tabs on Russian government servers.
An interesting advance in this field in the last few years has been the use of high posered computers and seismic triangulation to get three dimensional pictures of oil pockets. Apparently, tapping an oil pocket at its highest point gives you the most oil (or natural gas I suppose it would be). Before this process finding the highest point was simply guess work. Now many old oil field have been reopened because more oil has been found in them.
I suppose we will run out eventually, but historically, veryone has greatly underestimated the supply of all of our resources, not just oil.
First off, take it easy about the exact beginning, its not a matter of life or death.
Secondly, the question is a matter of perception, do you consider the year 1980 to be part of the '80s or the last year of the '70s? Regardless of the technicalities, most would group the year with the '80s. Its a common understanding, let's stick to it.
Julian Simon is the authority on subjects like this. As far as I know he was the only one in the business who was not consistently wrong. Whenever I see something new on the subject I wonder what his take would have been on it.
This has simply not happened. As mentioned in another post, we have seen negative population growth in developed countries (something that was not forseen) and more growth in food production than was thought possible. Causes of famines have been political not supply problems.
The United nation current estimates show the worst case for population growth is linear, not exponential, the best case is slowing growth, with max population reached in the late 2030s. (UN 1998 Population figures)
There have always been doomsayers that do not think human ingenuity can keep up with the the expansion of the human race. IMHO ingenuity and technology will always prevail, even if we don't see how it is possible now, a lot can change in 20-30 years.
Spencer
You would also think that they would realise that for their system/algorithm to be popular it would have to be easily implemented, and cheap. Maybe encryption would be more widespread today if this were the case.
Sure, just move to another MSN site with the links on the page. Anyone can fee free to check my mail or my stock accounts with abandon. They won'y be there much longer.
Spencer
Ever since oil has been used as an energy source people have estimated that we are about to run out. Whether it ba a few decades or a century. There is far more oil in the earth than commonly assumed. Also, if oil becomes very expensive because of scarcity it will not be long before other energy sources are adopted.
retina scanning would require close contact
this is iris scanning which occurs from about a foot away