Well, it's not quite so cryptic -- the article you cite lists the "pillar peso" as just one theory, as if it was no more supported than crackpot theories by the likes of Rand-- but take a look at the peso itself -- it is difficult for anyone who has seen it to doubt that that was the origin of the dollar symbol
Yes, it was given an *extremely* negative review in the January 16th issue of Science. Basically, the reviewer demonstrated that Wallace has no real understanding of the subject by pointing out glaring errors such as confusing Cantor's continuum problem and Cantor's continuum hypothesis -- two entirely different things. But I'm sure many Wallace fans in English departments and the like will buy the book and think the reason why it doesn't make any sense is that it soooo deep.
The notion of human-shaped machines goes a lot further back than that - right back to Greek mythology. But such things were considered magic and/or supernatural: only with the Industrial Revolution did it become possible to think of machines that were manufactured, which is about the right date for a 1727 citation
Also, even Capek's usage of the term "robot" isn't really our usage -- the "robots" of Capek's RUR were artifical (but still biological) humans, much like the replicants of Blade Runner.
Yes, I know it sounds cool, I know a lot of people might think I'm being picky and overtly PC, but Totenkopf isn't a German surname (Dr. Deaths Head!?),
Why couldn't it be? I know people named Himmelreich (Heavenly kingdom) and Fleishman (Meat man). German surnames generally actually mean something and are derivable from German words.
Lord of the Rings had a literary antecedent that people were bound to be interested in, and a preexisting fan following. This is basically coming out of nowhere.
There have been plenty of other geek movies: Spiderman, Batman, Star Trek, but they all had a franchise. Only thing I can think of that came out of nowhere was Star Wars...
How about Indiana Jones -- that seems like it is the closest equivalent, considering that both Indy and Sky Captain are inspired from 1930's pulps and serials.
For starters, why not go to the flea market or ebay and pick up an ancient laptop?
If your idea of a lcd picture frame is a tiny little screen, sure. To me that would be pretty silly -- except for little pictures that people hang in their bathrooms, "real" framed pictures tend to be quite a bit larger than a laptop screen.
Not only is Sedna not Roman, but we already have a planet named after a sea god -- Neptune. If they want to name a planet after an Inuit god, why not use one that isn't redundant?
Last I heard they were building a huge gas fired plant near Montreal since their hydro production cannot keep up with demand just in the provice of Quebec
I lived in Montreal for three years and the first thing I learned is that "hydro" is just Canadian slang for electricity -- it doesn't mean that it was actually produced by hydroelectric dams, although a lot of it is.
Well, maybe not musical, but back in the "old days" of the early eighties, many home computers allowed you to type BASIC keywords with one key -- of course that was in part because of the wretched nature of keyboards on cheap home computers then would make extensive typing painful,
Re:Ugh, these aren't viruses...
on
The Virus Squad
·
· Score: 1
First of all, as a biologist, I would have to classify biological viruses as parasites, although certainly not all biological parasites are biological viruses.
But that's not really the point -- an e-mail worm can't spread by itself -- you need to get the e-mail and open it up and run the attachment (or have a brain-dead mail client that does this automatically). How is this any more "independent" than a computer virus that is only active when you run the infected program?
The purpose of people at the Media lab is basically to act cool and make MIT look good and therefore get donations from companies and rich people -- they don't do research like proving P != NP or stuff like that there.
Re:Ugh, these aren't viruses...
on
The Virus Squad
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
If it can't infect any arbitrary EXE file, its not a virus, its a trojan or a worm, depending on wether or not its a moronic user or a security hole that allows it to enter the system.
I agree trojans aren't viruses, but worms are exactly the same thing as EXE viruses except at a bigger scale -- instead of merely infecting EXEs on one system, it infects systems on a network.
You're using the word "hybrid" in two rather different senses. But yes, I have much more concern about a tomato hybridized with a fish than with a Best Boy hybridized with a Beefstake.
But that's *exactly* my point -- you are making a distinction between the two, based on an inconsistent reasoning. If it were merely that both are new and unproven, there would be no distinction possible.
Or would you swallow any substance I gave you if I said "No one has yet proved this is harmful?"
I would use my knowledge of chemistry to determine whether or not there was any reasonable possibility that the substance you gave me could be harmful. I certainly wouldn't say "Hey, this is new, it could be harmful". Similarly, I can use my knowledge of biology to determine that there is no reasonable possibility that GM food could be harmful.
(Consider how long it took to prove tobacco smoking harmful.)
Right. But that just goes to show that there is no proof that any natural product is safe despite thousands of years of use. So are you planning to starve to death or simply rely on the fact that there is no reason to suspect that, tomatoes for instance, are harmful?
In fact, I'm not even demanding proof - I'm demanding the ability to make a choice. Why are you so against people having choice?
I'm against people making *irrational* choices.
Do you work for Monsanto, or what?
No, but I am a professional scientist.
To take an example right under your nose, did technology end apartheid? Or segregation in the U.S.? Or get the right to vote extended past white male landowners? End exploitive child labor practices? Eliminate torture as an acceptable practice? Establish democracy as a replacement for monarchy? No, those were done by social movements.
Not really -- there was a huge economic push for all of these things -- and technology is at the base of all economic advances -- For example, American slavery ended not because people suddenly became more moral, but because the economic might of the North (based on factories and machines) could overwhelm the South (with an economy based on slave labor).
Alright, let's see. Do you want to have hybrids created by traditional selective breeding labeled too, or only ones created by GM?
Let me give you some advice on rhetoric: this statement is so ridiculous that it undermines any credibility that your argument might otherwise have. Comparing the desire to know what's in your food with racial discrimination...the absurdity speaks for itself.
Can you really not see that the point is the fallacy of trying to prove a negative? The whole point of showing you an example that uses your exact reasoning to come up with a result you may not approve of is to point out the flaws of your reasoning, not to assert that the two cases are related.
You can't solve a sociological problem with a technological approach; and this particular technology makes the problem worse, not better.
On the contrary, technology is the *only* way to solve problems. Can you give an example of even one problem solved by a sociologist?
Besides the problem of GM crops escaping into the wild and displacing original species, risks to wild animals (like birds and butterflies) from toxins produced by GM crops, and increased use of pesticides on "Roundup Ready" crops, there are risks of gene transfer into other organisms - including disease organisms.
You can't have it both ways -- Anti-GM zealots like to say that GM is different than selective breeding because according to them, "genes don't cross species". Yet, when it suits them, the exact same anti-GM crowd turns around and invokes the possibility of lateral gene transfer between GM crops and wild crops. That's doublethink -- the ability to hold two contradictory ideas at once.
Second, GM crops have not existed long enough to be proven safe
It is logically impossible to "prove anything safe". We could find out tomorrow that totally "natural" carrots cause cancer, The simple fact is according to all known rules of molecular biology, there is not even a single logical reason to suspect that GM crops are any more or less healthy than non-GM crops.
You wanna eat 'em? Hey, I support your right to put anything you want into your body - so long as you grow them under biohazard protocols and label them, so that I don't have to assume the risk too.
That was more or less the same reasoning that white South Africans used to justify Apartheid -- you want to live around Blacks, then fine, so long as I don't have to assume the risk too. The point is just like the anti-GM crowd, the white South Africans had no evidence for their prejudices, although they could certainly say that there was no *proof* that Blacks were safe.
The idea that third world farmers should plant "golden rice" rather than go back to those local crops rich in vitamin A that were displaced by globalization - where third world nations have to grow food that can be exported for the profit of others, rather than feed their own populations - would be laughable if it were not so tragic.
It may or not be tragic that traditional life styles were displaced by capitalization, but the fact is the clock is not going to turn back to medieval times before European contact, no matter how much some people may want it too. Either technology can be used to help the problems of the third world, or the problems can remain unsolved
Yes the anti-GM at all costs people are small and vocal but the "please label what I'm about to eat crowd" are pretty mainstream.
Yes, because ignorance is mainstream. Think about it. If people would demand labels that say "this food has been harvested by members of ethnic minority X", everybody would agree that that would be simple ignorance because there is no scientific evidence to suggest that food processed by any ethnic group is worthy of being avoided. Yet this is exactly analogous to what the GM-labeling people want -- information that is only useful for making irrational decisions. There is *no* evidence that genetic engineered foods can harm you,
Well, socially I'd have to say the ants are more complex -- they have more social casts, and thus are better adapted to living as hive animals than the mole rats. I know that's hard for us mammals to accept, but mammals aren't the pinnacle of social animals -- heck, most species of mammals don't even live in packs/herds.
The question I have is this: Is there any change from the book that actually bothers people?
Yes,How about: 1) Faramir being evil (or at least a jerk) in the movie
2) Strider having a crush on Eowen in the movie
3) Strider being an unpleasant wimp in the movie (not wanting to be king and all that)
4) The hobbits (at least Merry in particular) having Irish accents. The hobbits according to Tolkien were inspired by the *English* rural culture that he saw disappearing. He had little or no interest in the Irish.
5) Gimli being reduced to simply the same unfunny "comic relief" character that John Rhys-Davies always plays.
These changes weren't needed to make a movie out of a book. Jackson just added them for the hell of it. This is okay when you are adapting a book by say, Stephen King (Kubrick vastly improved 'The Shining'), because there is a good chance that the screenwriter is more talented than Stephen King. But in the case of Tolkien, it is just hubris.
Damn, where the hell did my $50,000 student loans come from??
If you attended a public university, I have no idea why you would need a loan. For Harvard, sure, but I paid for my own undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin by working at the university library 20-30 hours a week. And like every other doctoral student in science or engineering, I got *paid* to go to grad school.
Yes, but his administration was the one that passed the "land grant university act", which started the public university system, thus making university education cheap and available.
Don't underestimate the convenience. 20 gig is enough for many people to rip and download all of their CDs. They don't have to plan ahead what they want to take with them.
Heck, I'd expect that for typical people, 5 gigs would be more than enough to store their complete collection. It is for me, and I actually have more CDs (about 80) than most of my friends.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, it's not quite so cryptic -- the article you cite lists the "pillar peso" as just one theory, as if it was no more supported than crackpot theories by the likes of Rand-- but take a look at the peso itself -- it is difficult for anyone who has seen it to doubt that that was the origin of the dollar symbol
Yes, it was given an *extremely* negative review in the January 16th issue of Science. Basically, the reviewer demonstrated that Wallace has no real understanding of the subject by pointing out glaring errors such as confusing Cantor's continuum problem and Cantor's continuum hypothesis -- two entirely different things. But I'm sure many Wallace fans in English departments and the like will buy the book and think the reason why it doesn't make any sense is that it soooo deep.
The notion of human-shaped machines goes a lot further back than that - right back to Greek mythology. But such things were considered magic and/or supernatural: only with the Industrial Revolution did it become possible to think of machines that were manufactured, which is about the right date for a 1727 citation
Also, even Capek's usage of the term "robot" isn't really our usage -- the "robots" of Capek's RUR were artifical (but still biological) humans, much like the replicants of Blade Runner.
Yes, I know it sounds cool, I know a lot of people might think I'm being picky and overtly PC, but Totenkopf isn't a German surname (Dr. Deaths Head!?),
Why couldn't it be? I know people named Himmelreich (Heavenly kingdom) and Fleishman (Meat man). German surnames generally actually mean something and are derivable from German words.
Lord of the Rings had a literary antecedent that people were bound to be interested in, and a preexisting fan following. This is basically coming out of nowhere.
There have been plenty of other geek movies: Spiderman, Batman, Star Trek, but they all had a franchise. Only thing I can think of that came out of nowhere was Star Wars...
How about Indiana Jones -- that seems like it is the closest equivalent, considering that both Indy and Sky Captain are inspired from 1930's pulps and serials.
The point is that it's supposed to be the future as depicted in 1930's pulp magazines.
For starters, why not go to the flea market or ebay and pick up an ancient laptop?
If your idea of a lcd picture frame is a tiny little screen, sure. To me that would be pretty silly -- except for little pictures that people hang in their bathrooms, "real" framed pictures tend to be quite a bit larger than a laptop screen.
Not only is Sedna not Roman, but we already have a planet named after a sea god -- Neptune. If they want to name a planet after an Inuit god, why not use one that isn't redundant?
The mistletoe was the only plant or animal that hadn't promised not to harm Balder. Though how you make an arrow out of mistletoe, I don't know ...
I'm still wondering how one gets a plant to promised anything.
Last I heard they were building a huge gas fired plant near Montreal since their hydro production cannot keep up with demand just in the provice of Quebec
I lived in Montreal for three years and the first thing I learned is that "hydro" is just Canadian slang for electricity -- it doesn't mean that it was actually produced by hydroelectric dams, although a lot of it is.
Well, maybe not musical, but back in the "old days" of the early eighties, many home computers allowed you to type BASIC keywords with one key -- of course that was in part because of the wretched nature of keyboards on cheap home computers then would make extensive typing painful,
First of all, as a biologist, I would have to classify biological viruses as parasites, although certainly not all biological parasites are biological viruses.
But that's not really the point -- an e-mail worm can't spread by itself -- you need to get the e-mail and open it up and run the attachment (or have a brain-dead mail client that does this automatically). How is this any more "independent" than a computer virus that is only active when you run the infected program?
The purpose of people at the Media lab is basically to act cool and make MIT look good and therefore get donations from companies and rich people -- they don't do research like proving P != NP or stuff like that there.
If it can't infect any arbitrary EXE file, its not a virus, its a trojan or a worm, depending on wether or not its a moronic user or a security hole that allows it to enter the system.
I agree trojans aren't viruses, but worms are exactly the same thing as EXE viruses except at a bigger scale -- instead of merely infecting EXEs on one system, it infects systems on a network.
In building a suburb you chop all the trees down, killing all the birds, and yet the streets are named Bluebird Lane and Oak Street....
Well, this is probably the occurrence:m arch/03302mys tery.html
http://www.thesunlink.com/news/2001/
You're using the word "hybrid" in two rather different senses. But yes, I have much more concern about a tomato hybridized with a fish than with a Best Boy hybridized with a Beefstake.
But that's *exactly* my point -- you are making a distinction between the two, based on an inconsistent reasoning. If it were merely that both are new and unproven, there would be no distinction possible.
Or would you swallow any substance I gave you if I said "No one has yet proved this is harmful?"
I would use my knowledge of chemistry to determine whether or not there was any reasonable possibility that the substance you gave me could be harmful. I certainly wouldn't say "Hey, this is new, it could be harmful". Similarly, I can use my knowledge of biology to determine that there is no reasonable possibility that GM food could be harmful.
(Consider how long it took to prove tobacco smoking harmful.)
Right. But that just goes to show that there is no proof that any natural product is safe despite thousands of years of use. So are you planning to starve to death or simply rely on the fact that there is no reason to suspect that, tomatoes for instance, are harmful?
In fact, I'm not even demanding proof - I'm demanding the ability to make a choice. Why are you so against people having choice?
I'm against people making *irrational* choices.
Do you work for Monsanto, or what?
No, but I am a professional scientist.
To take an example right under your nose, did technology end apartheid? Or segregation in the U.S.? Or get the right to vote extended past white male landowners? End exploitive child labor practices? Eliminate torture as an acceptable practice? Establish democracy as a replacement for monarchy? No, those were done by social movements.
Not really -- there was a huge economic push for all of these things -- and technology is at the base of all economic advances -- For example, American slavery ended not because people suddenly became more moral, but because the economic might of the North (based on factories and machines) could overwhelm the South (with an economy based on slave labor).
Nice attempt to put words in my mouth.
Alright, let's see. Do you want to have hybrids created by traditional selective breeding labeled too, or only ones created by GM?
Let me give you some advice on rhetoric: this statement is so ridiculous that it undermines any credibility that your argument might otherwise have. Comparing the desire to know what's in your food with racial discrimination...the absurdity speaks for itself.
Can you really not see that the point is the fallacy of trying to prove a negative? The whole point of showing you an example that uses your exact reasoning to come up with a result you may not approve of is to point out the flaws of your reasoning, not to assert that the two cases are related.
You can't solve a sociological problem with a technological approach; and this particular technology makes the problem worse, not better.
On the contrary, technology is the *only* way to solve problems. Can you give an example of even one problem solved by a sociologist?
Besides the problem of GM crops escaping into the wild and displacing original species, risks to wild animals (like birds and butterflies) from toxins produced by GM crops, and increased use of pesticides on "Roundup Ready" crops, there are risks of gene transfer into other organisms - including disease organisms.
You can't have it both ways -- Anti-GM zealots like to say that GM is different than selective breeding because according to them, "genes don't cross species". Yet, when it suits them, the exact same anti-GM crowd turns around and invokes the possibility of lateral gene transfer between GM crops and wild crops. That's doublethink -- the ability to hold two contradictory ideas at once.
Second, GM crops have not existed long enough to be proven safe
It is logically impossible to "prove anything safe". We could find out tomorrow that totally "natural" carrots cause cancer, The simple fact is according to all known rules of molecular biology, there is not even a single logical reason to suspect that GM crops are any more or less healthy than non-GM crops.
You wanna eat 'em? Hey, I support your right to put anything you want into your body - so long as you grow them under biohazard protocols and label them, so that I don't have to assume the risk too.
That was more or less the same reasoning that white South Africans used to justify Apartheid -- you want to live around Blacks, then fine, so long as I don't have to assume the risk too. The point is just like the anti-GM crowd, the white South Africans had no evidence for their prejudices, although they could certainly say that there was no *proof* that Blacks were safe.
The idea that third world farmers should plant "golden rice" rather than go back to those local crops rich in vitamin A that were displaced by globalization - where third world nations have to grow food that can be exported for the profit of others, rather than feed their own populations - would be laughable if it were not so tragic.
It may or not be tragic that traditional life styles were displaced by capitalization, but the fact is the clock is not going to turn back to medieval times before European contact, no matter how much some people may want it too. Either technology can be used to help the problems of the third world, or the problems can remain unsolved
Yes the anti-GM at all costs people are small and vocal but the "please label what I'm about to eat crowd" are pretty mainstream.
Yes, because ignorance is mainstream. Think about it. If people would demand labels that say "this food has been harvested by members of ethnic minority X", everybody would agree that that would be simple ignorance because there is no scientific evidence to suggest that food processed by any ethnic group is worthy of being avoided. Yet this is exactly analogous to what the GM-labeling people want -- information that is only useful for making irrational decisions. There is *no* evidence that genetic engineered foods can harm you,
Well, socially I'd have to say the ants are more complex -- they have more social casts, and thus are better adapted to living as hive animals than the mole rats. I know that's hard for us mammals to accept, but mammals aren't the pinnacle of social animals -- heck, most species of mammals don't even live in packs/herds.
Yes,How about:
1) Faramir being evil (or at least a jerk) in the movie
2) Strider having a crush on Eowen in the movie
3) Strider being an unpleasant wimp in the movie (not wanting to be king and all that)
4) The hobbits (at least Merry in particular) having Irish accents. The hobbits according to Tolkien were inspired by the *English* rural culture that he saw disappearing. He had little or no interest in the Irish.
5) Gimli being reduced to simply the same unfunny "comic relief" character that John Rhys-Davies always plays.
These changes weren't needed to make a movie out of a book. Jackson just added them for the hell of it. This is okay when you are adapting a book by say, Stephen King (Kubrick vastly improved 'The Shining'), because there is a good chance that the screenwriter is more talented than Stephen King. But in the case of Tolkien, it is just hubris.
Damn, where the hell did my $50,000 student loans come from??
If you attended a public university, I have no idea why you would need a loan. For Harvard, sure, but I paid for my own undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin by working at the university library 20-30 hours a week. And like every other doctoral student in science or engineering, I got *paid* to go to grad school.
Abraham Lincoln educated himself by reading
Yes, but his administration was the one that passed the "land grant university act", which started the public university system, thus making university education cheap and available.
Don't underestimate the convenience. 20 gig is enough for many people to rip and download all of their CDs. They don't have to plan ahead what they want to take with them.
Heck, I'd expect that for typical people, 5 gigs would be more than enough to store their complete collection. It is for me, and I actually have more CDs (about 80) than most of my friends.