I don't follow the global climate change controversy very closely, myself, but probably a lot moreso than the usual USian. So my response is only that my points in my post were meant to apply to almost every scientific discipline, and to say that many scientists DO publish, and some are even outspoken. As long as people keep believing all the hoax emails that go around, though (as an example) without even doing some basic research like checking out snopes.com, I will keep asserting that people believe what they want to, especially if it's a bit flashy and seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom. And there will continue to be people who make their living (or just get their kicks) producing new rumours and disputing whatever the evidence seems to posit.
From the grandparent: This really makes no sense: a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science
From the parent: I'm always skeptical of claims that hundreds or thousands of supposedly respectable scientists hold a non-mainstream view but can't express it because some shadowy cabal is forcing them to stay quiet.
From me: There's a lot of difference between publishing (which is what very many scientists do) in reputable journals, and stating things publicly. There shouldn't be. But even people with open access to journals can pick and choose about which evidence to support. Just because one faction is outspoken and has flashy "evidence" to support a view, and another faction has supposedly solid evidence to support a contrary view but stays relatively quiet does not mean, unfortunately, that the better evidence will win. It means that people will hear the loud, flashy stuff, and (for the people who have a sense of curiosity, but perhaps not a driving need to delve into the literature on their own) just wonder why the other side hasn't said much: Gosh, perhaps the flashy, outspoken side IS right. Why haven't I heard much from the contrary viewpoints?
Shouldn't the analysis on extrasolar data be based on the properties of celestial bodies, not if they're called planets or not? It's just a gut feeling, but defining "planet" and then looking specifically for those for life could maybe even hurt the discovery of such celestial bodies with life (which I believe is the extrasolar body analysis that's most interesting to humanity), in case the definition was such to not cover all possible bodies.
Not going specifically for what's defined as "planets" feels like freeing yourself of the boundaries a group of scientists thought up in a conference room, and that feels quite important when we know so little about extrasolar life.
OK, if we don't define "planet", as per your suggestion, do we also not define "life"? That's gotta be an even harder one, yet more important.
unfotunately a machine won't look at something and say "Should this be done?" A human free world is very pretty, but rather dull. Thermonuclear destruction Hypothesis proven. But where can I get a good drink, and dance with a pretty girl?
The danger, though, is when the pretty girls get such machines and decide that thermonuclear destruction is a pretty damned good alternative to dancing with us.
I'm wondering if this whole "blindness" thing happens all at once, or if one's vision slowly degrades. You'd think that someone slowly losing his sight would ruminate, "Gee, pr0n or the ability to see sunsets, great works of art, my grandchildren, my wife..."
Then again, 750 GB is a LOT of pictures of grandchildren and sunsets. Gotta fill it up somehow.
It's a much more efficient way to store musical data [...]
Just a bit of nitpickiness here (just so people aren't thrown off by that quoted statement above). The Fourier Transform (whether general or Fast) is NOT more efficient at storing musical data (or any kind of signal data) than the original signal. The original signal and the transformed signal are totally equivalent in the amount of data they contain, and, generally, in the space they take up. You have to do some creative and careful filtering to cut out frequency information which you don't want to store (and this isn't part of the Fourier Transforming algorithm) to be "more efficient", and you're throwing away parts of that original signal if you do that.
To draw an analogy-which-isn't-really, compare MIDI music to a corresponding CD or.mp3 or.ogg or whatever recording. The MIDI will be much, much smaller, in general, because only very certain frequencies have been kept. On the other hand, MIDI generally sounds like crap, and the original recording can not be reconstructed from the MIDI file.
Where in schools do we teach students that "nobody should have their feelings hurt", or that everyone should wait for the stupid or lazy to catch up?
I'm very thankful for the education I got in high school. I was challenged by my classes, and many of my friends, being more mathematically or foreign-language-inclined, were able to take college classes at the local college. My first year of junior high was not quite as good, but still a pretty good experience.
However, after my first year of junior high, the school system transitioned over to a "middle school". Whereas previously, some students were able to take advanced classes, and some, remedial classes, once we hit middle school, everyone in a given grade was stuck in the same level. No matter how advanced or remedial the student, everyone ended up taking the same classes.
Perhaps it was the best the school district could do then, and perhaps things are better now. But the middle school system I saw was frustrating (and not in a character-building way) for at least 60% of the students -- both those behind the norm, and those ahead. Especially those who wanted to learn more, and excel in many subjects (and that happened to be a significant fraction of the students; perhaps 40%) were held back and had to wait for others to catch up.
At my high school (ten years ago, admittedly), the people most into the drugs and alcohol (openly to their fellow students, anyway) were among the smartest people in the school. That's not to disparage the other students, but it seemed to me that among the stoners and drinkers were some very smart (and very bored) kids. Very many of these students are now remarkably successful (by any metric) and happy, several with Ph.D.s.
It seems that, at least *sometimes*, students into the drugs and alcohol are simply doing that because they're bored with the curriculum (which is, oftentimes, not challenging enough). There are exceptions to this and every human situation, but to blame drugs and alcohol might be misdirected.
The research into magnetic field reversals shows that over the last 3000 years it has changed 250 times, and indicate that within the next 50 to 100 years the next reversal will cause a failure in the magnetic field. The next reversal has already started, the strength of the magnetic field protecting us from the radiation of the sun has been dropping, since around 1950.
Whoa. Your basic information is right, but there are order-of-magnitude errors here. You might be mixing up the sun's magnetic field with that of the earth (Sol's field flips about once ever 7 to 15 years); the earth's switches polarities as rapidly as once every 50000 years, but it's often roughly constant for tens of millions of years.
All good points. EXCEPT that it implies that people KNOW that these things don't exist. Perhaps if they're cheated once, and realize it, and perhaps do a little research, then they'll know. But if you're newly-online-Grandma, and you get an email requesting information, you send in the information. And it only takes people getting cheated once for the phisher to make some money. There are lots of newly-online-Grandmas to take advantage of, once.
Slashdot Mirror
You're absolutely right.
I don't follow the global climate change controversy very closely, myself, but probably a lot moreso than the usual USian. So my response is only that my points in my post were meant to apply to almost every scientific discipline, and to say that many scientists DO publish, and some are even outspoken. As long as people keep believing all the hoax emails that go around, though (as an example) without even doing some basic research like checking out snopes.com, I will keep asserting that people believe what they want to, especially if it's a bit flashy and seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom. And there will continue to be people who make their living (or just get their kicks) producing new rumours and disputing whatever the evidence seems to posit.
From the grandparent: This really makes no sense: a lot of whom know (but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science
From the parent:
I'm always skeptical of claims that hundreds or thousands of supposedly respectable scientists hold a non-mainstream view but can't express it because some shadowy cabal is forcing them to stay quiet.
From me: There's a lot of difference between publishing (which is what very many scientists do) in reputable journals, and stating things publicly. There shouldn't be. But even people with open access to journals can pick and choose about which evidence to support. Just because one faction is outspoken and has flashy "evidence" to support a view, and another faction has supposedly solid evidence to support a contrary view but stays relatively quiet does not mean, unfortunately, that the better evidence will win. It means that people will hear the loud, flashy stuff, and (for the people who have a sense of curiosity, but perhaps not a driving need to delve into the literature on their own) just wonder why the other side hasn't said much: Gosh, perhaps the flashy, outspoken side IS right. Why haven't I heard much from the contrary viewpoints?
So goatse girl is, like, a 5?
Don't be too hard on him. His job as slashdot poster is being outsourced.
I hope the replacements he has to train do as good a job!
Bless Firefox and the NoScript (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/722/) extension.
...we schizophrenics are left to -- Who are you?
Hi, I'm your other sel... Never mind. Want some free music?
Do I! Let's go!
Shouldn't the analysis on extrasolar data be based on the properties of celestial bodies, not if they're called planets or not? It's just a gut feeling, but defining "planet" and then looking specifically for those for life could maybe even hurt the discovery of such celestial bodies with life (which I believe is the extrasolar body analysis that's most interesting to humanity), in case the definition was such to not cover all possible bodies.
Not going specifically for what's defined as "planets" feels like freeing yourself of the boundaries a group of scientists thought up in a conference room, and that feels quite important when we know so little about extrasolar life.
OK, if we don't define "planet", as per your suggestion, do we also not define "life"? That's gotta be an even harder one, yet more important.
No way, dude. Boobs've gotta be WAY better in 3D.
For one thing, beer is never going to be popular with more than 37 percent of law-abiding college students in the United States[...]
Pfft. Those two guys are a little creepy anyway.
"Free as in iPod"?!? I think not.
unfotunately a machine won't look at something and say "Should this be done?" A human free world is very pretty, but rather dull. Thermonuclear destruction Hypothesis proven. But where can I get a good drink, and dance with a pretty girl?
The danger, though, is when the pretty girls get such machines and decide that thermonuclear destruction is a pretty damned good alternative to dancing with us.
Brilliant. I wish I hadn't used up all my mod points about three hours ago.
I'm wondering if this whole "blindness" thing happens all at once, or if one's vision slowly degrades. You'd think that someone slowly losing his sight would ruminate, "Gee, pr0n or the ability to see sunsets, great works of art, my grandchildren, my wife..."
Then again, 750 GB is a LOT of pictures of grandchildren and sunsets. Gotta fill it up somehow.
It's a much more efficient way to store musical data [...]
.mp3 or .ogg or whatever recording. The MIDI will be much, much smaller, in general, because only very certain frequencies have been kept. On the other hand, MIDI generally sounds like crap, and the original recording can not be reconstructed from the MIDI file.
Just a bit of nitpickiness here (just so people aren't thrown off by that quoted statement above). The Fourier Transform (whether general or Fast) is NOT more efficient at storing musical data (or any kind of signal data) than the original signal. The original signal and the transformed signal are totally equivalent in the amount of data they contain, and, generally, in the space they take up. You have to do some creative and careful filtering to cut out frequency information which you don't want to store (and this isn't part of the Fourier Transforming algorithm) to be "more efficient", and you're throwing away parts of that original signal if you do that.
To draw an analogy-which-isn't-really, compare MIDI music to a corresponding CD or
Where in schools do we teach students that "nobody should have their feelings hurt", or that everyone should wait for the stupid or lazy to catch up?
I'm very thankful for the education I got in high school. I was challenged by my classes, and many of my friends, being more mathematically or foreign-language-inclined, were able to take college classes at the local college. My first year of junior high was not quite as good, but still a pretty good experience.
However, after my first year of junior high, the school system transitioned over to a "middle school". Whereas previously, some students were able to take advanced classes, and some, remedial classes, once we hit middle school, everyone in a given grade was stuck in the same level. No matter how advanced or remedial the student, everyone ended up taking the same classes.
Perhaps it was the best the school district could do then, and perhaps things are better now. But the middle school system I saw was frustrating (and not in a character-building way) for at least 60% of the students -- both those behind the norm, and those ahead. Especially those who wanted to learn more, and excel in many subjects (and that happened to be a significant fraction of the students; perhaps 40%) were held back and had to wait for others to catch up.
Partially agreed with this. *HOWEVER*...
At my high school (ten years ago, admittedly), the people most into the drugs and alcohol (openly to their fellow students, anyway) were among the smartest people in the school. That's not to disparage the other students, but it seemed to me that among the stoners and drinkers were some very smart (and very bored) kids. Very many of these students are now remarkably successful (by any metric) and happy, several with Ph.D.s.
It seems that, at least *sometimes*, students into the drugs and alcohol are simply doing that because they're bored with the curriculum (which is, oftentimes, not challenging enough). There are exceptions to this and every human situation, but to blame drugs and alcohol might be misdirected.
Uh, so if I give you a free dog that pisses in your beer and eats your kids, it's better than any dog you paid for?
Wait -- is this typical American beer? Because that's going to make a big difference in my decision.
if you get a letter, leave it in the mailbox and tell the postman you are refusing mail from them.
*gasp* Refuse a friendly fellow citizen his rightful job? You should be sued for that.
No, but it has "Welcome to Windows Vista, 3rd World Edition" movies looping on it.
Yes! Especially poignant is the epitaph mentioned in Ch. 1:
The gravestone:
What's in his trachea?
Oh, look, a Nokia!
The research into magnetic field reversals shows that over the last 3000 years it has changed 250 times, and indicate that within the next 50 to 100 years the next reversal will cause a failure in the magnetic field. The next reversal has already started, the strength of the magnetic field protecting us from the radiation of the sun has been dropping, since around 1950.
Whoa. Your basic information is right, but there are order-of-magnitude errors here. You might be mixing up the sun's magnetic field with that of the earth (Sol's field flips about once ever 7 to 15 years); the earth's switches polarities as rapidly as once every 50000 years, but it's often roughly constant for tens of millions of years.
Soylent Green.
Yay! A classicist!
"sponging off Apollo"
Damn you, Slashdot! Now I'm picturing some strange Greek Hentai stuff. *goes to stab out eyes*
All good points. EXCEPT that it implies that people KNOW that these things don't exist. Perhaps if they're cheated once, and realize it, and perhaps do a little research, then they'll know. But if you're newly-online-Grandma, and you get an email requesting information, you send in the information. And it only takes people getting cheated once for the phisher to make some money. There are lots of newly-online-Grandmas to take advantage of, once.
God, that sounded wrong.