Unlike a lot of other "science fiction" books/stories, Andy Weir seemed to make a genuine effort to get as much right as possible, and did his best to drag along the film producer. If all of science fiction was at this level, it would be a miracle. And as you've pointed out, where the science does fail, it fails in such a way as to spark discussion and interest in the real science. I don't feel like my intelligence was insulted after having watched/read it, or that errors and omissions were a result of laziness or "the audience is too dumb/doesn't care anyway, so why bother". (Although the book was better than the movie in that regard.) If anything it served as a launching (punnnns) point for learning more about growing food on Mars and other similar problems.
I think that's the main thing. Typically movie science is built around the plot with occasional nods or Easter eggs for knowledgeable people from the audience (ie using an actual ssh exploit in the Matrix). But fundamentally scriptwriters and directors get too caught up with the story to realize how much those inconsistencies drag people out of the story.
I hope they start realizing how much audiences value scientific sincerity and internal consistency.
it was rebels from Ukraine which were armed by Russia
False. Operating the Buk system is too complicated for "peaceful coal-miners" to have done it — certainly not the mere 3 months into the insurrection. It was Russian military — even if disguised as locals.
Well it apparently was too complicated since they shot down the wrong kind of plane. There's a big difference between experts that years of military training creates and a couple weeks back in Russia being taught which buttons to push in order to shoot down planes. I'm not saying it was locals (or foreign volunteers) for certain, but I don't think we can really know.
Whether they targeted a passenger liner by mistake or deliberately is still a question, but it obviously was not the rebellious locals.
Why is that a question? What possible motive would the rebels have for shooting down a civilian airliner? Why claim to have shot down an AN-26 instead only to go into massive denials once it turned out to be a civilian plane? There are even recordings of phone calls from the first rebels who went to the crash site and called back freaking out when they realized it was full of civilian bodies.
There's overwhelming evidence that the plane was shot down by Russian rebels (active Russian military or not) who thought they were shooting down a Ukrainian military plane. That's already damning enough, we don't need our own unsupported conspiracy theories.
Internal propaganda keeps telling to the Russian audience of 150 million people that Russia does not participate, and that all the weapons, heavy flamethrowers, drones and tanks, are merely bought at military surplus stores.
Entire story would just collapse.
Russia does have a history of keeping the parallel history and making it official.
They still could have come up with a better story than they did. ie: "The rebels stole a loaded BUK from a Ukrainian base (let the Ukrainian's try to disprove that) and tragically shot down a civilian airliner by accident! Oh and we think the Ukrainians left the civilian airspace open to deliberately confuse the rebels about which planes were safe to shoot down."
If Russia pushes that narrative they've instantly acknowledged the obvious with the only major downside being that if the DPR survives they'll probably need to throw them an extra chunk of money to pay off the settlement. The arguments over the origin of the BUK and Ukrainian intensions over leaving the airspace open are fairly academic and the whole thing mostly goes away in the media.
That's one of the problems with being an authoritarian state. There's no one to tell you that you're being an idiot trying to sell a bunch of bizarre conspiracy theories when you can dodge most of the blame with a half-truth.
I wouldn't copy Canada. I personally know someone that was killed by the Canadian system.
Also, don't drink the Kool-Aid. There's a big difference between what gets billed and what gets paid. If you think American health care is overpriced, you're probably looking at a bogus inflated number.
The problem with people trying to turn the US into a European style socialist welfare state is that they don't have any actual experience with those. They just hear a lot of bogus media reports that distort the facts to suit a particular narrative.
As a Canadian I don't know anyone killed by our system. Either way tragic anecdotes happen with every healthcare system, that's the reality of mortality and limited resources, but people here seem much more satisfied with the state of our healthcare than Americans do, and we pay a bunch less at the same time.
I think there's a role for private insurance and companies in the US system for things like drug development. But as for actual hospitals, public insurance and institutions seems to work quite well without all the massive headaches about medical insurance and billings. My father passed away from pancreatic cancer a couple years ago. Chemo, surgery, home care, hospitalization, hospice care, all sorts of things were involved before the end. And other than some fairly cheap pain drugs we bought from the pharmacy I don't think money or insurance was ever mentioned. I think that's something that's severely under appreciated when looking at public health care.
I guess the cut-back-on-staff-to-improve-profitibility(ratings) experiment didn't work.
I would have moved the other three into a different field, maybe a travelling show, visiting schools to do cool science stuff - fewer explosions, sure, but maybe some rocketry +GoPro, or weather balloons. Lots of room for building stuff out of silicone/gelatine, dropping buster onto various surfaces with sensor experiments designed by the students.
I'm sure ratings played a part but it was still a flagship program and I doubt profitability was the main issue.
I suspect this was just a case of the show being on for a very long time and the two stars having retirement money. At this point they're simply not having fun anymore and want to move onto something new. From the article it sounds like Hyneman wants a job where he just wants to build stuff while Savage wants to do some new TV.
8. Continuing Cooperation. I understand and agree that, in my role at SunTrust, I have been responsible for and involved in numerous matters and projects of a significant and/or confidential nature and that, in some instances, I possess knowledge regarding those and other matters that is unique to me and of value to SunTrust or any subsidiary, and that SunTrust or any subsidiary may have need of my continuing assistance in the future with respect to investigations, audits, litigation or potential litigation related to these matters. I understand that SunTrust’s willingness to provide me with the Consideration is expressly conditioned upon the promises made and obligations assumed by me in this Paragraph 8. I further understand and agree that my fulfillment of these promises and obligations hereafter is a condition precedent to SunTrust’s obligation to provide me with the Consideration set forth herein. I agree, beginning on September 1, 2009 and continuing for a period of twenty-four (24) months immediately thereafter, to provide assistance and to make myself reasonably available to SunTrust and its employees, attorneys and/or accountants with respect to investigations, audits, litigation or potential litigation regarding matters in which I have been involved in the course of my employment with SunTrust or any subsidiary and/or about which I have knowledge as a result of my employment with SunTrust. It is understood and agreed that such assistance, to the extent possible, will be requested at such times and in such a manner so as to not unreasonably interfere with any subsequent employment. Such assistance may consist of, without limitation, telephone or in-person meetings with SunTrust employees, attorneys and/or accountants, or the provision of truthful testimony by way of deposition, hearing, trial or affidavit. SunTrust will be responsible for any reasonable and necessary expenses incurred by me in connection with such assistance. I understand that I will not be entitled to any additional consideration or compensation of any kind from SunTrust in exchange for such assistance.
My gut says that for 95-99% of ex-employees this never matters and for the majority of the remainder it's either a couple emails a few months later asking about where they stored some project no one else remembers.
That being said "reasonable" is a bit of a fuzzy term, yeah a couple emails asking if I remembered where I put that old script is reasonable, but what about a 5 minute email every week for six months? Or coming in for 4 hours to answer questions for an internal audit? I suspect different people will have very different expectations of what reasonable is.
Now, that disclaimer having been made: I'm going to tell you exactly, precisely, how much sleep you need every night. You need exactly, precisely as much sleep as you need to sleep. If we could live in a world where you never had an alarm clock waking you up, and went to sleep when you wanted to go to sleep, allowing you to wake up naturally, you'd get exactly, precisely as much sleep as your body needed, every single night. Saying 'you need eight hours sleep a night!' is like saying 'you need to drink at least eight glasses of water per day!'; it's hand-waving, it's one-size-fits-all, it's an over-simplification, and it's fundamentally flawed.
We've already tried that approach with food, it hasn't worked out too well:)
I would also suspect that due to the increased use of our brains for more complex tasks puts more stress on that system. That could require more down time than a tribal hunter/gatherer.
I would imagine hunter/gather tribes solve more complex tasks in a day than the average citizen of a modern Western country--their survival depends on it whereas most of us can smoke weed and drink booze all day knowing we'll still be able to find our next meal easily enough. Reading about the Kardashians, posting on facebook, and watching reality TV isn't exactly intellectually stimulating.
Of course at lot of us spend 8 hours a day working as software developers. Sure it's not exactly full focus the whole work day but there's certainly some highly complex thought going on for a fairly long period.
To the extent hunter gatherers are really using their brains it's probably going to be in socialization and hunting, and the times they're really intensively thinking such as storytelling, high stakes social interaction, or near the climax of a hunt, are going to be a very small fraction of the time.
Personally my experience is that the body can rest whenever you're inactive, the brain is the thing that really needs sleep. I've run some of my best marathons on 4 or 5 hours of sleep and I didn't feel any impairment. But if I try to do intellectual work on that same amount of sleep my effectiveness goes down drastically.
Though CentOS/RHEL is targeted much more at business. A lot of recreational stuff only ends up in the Fedora repos because that's what all the home users use.
Personally I stick to Fedora for my home box, I haven't had issues with upgrades and they're pretty easy to perform.
It's important to note that the actual scientists studying the star aren't the ones screaming "ALIENS!" - that's the journalists who misreport and distort things to make them "sell better".
Actually these are the actual scientists studying the star, they aren't screaming aliens but they do seem to be saying something like "we can't figure out how to model this with any natural phenomena so lets see if non-natural hypothesis fit".
FTA: When I spoke to Boyajian on the phone, she explained that her recent paper only reviews “natural” scenarios. “But,” she said, there were “other scenarios” she was considering. Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, is set to publish an alternative interpretation of the light pattern. SETI researchers have long suggested that we might be able to detect distant extraterrestrial civilizations, by looking for enormous technological artifacts orbiting other stars. Wright and his co-authors say the unusual star’s light pattern is consistent with a “swarm of megastructures,” perhaps stellar-light collectors, technology designed to catch energy from the star. [...] Boyajian is now working with Wright and Andrew Siemion, the Director of the SETI Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. The three of them are writing up a proposal. They want to point a massive radio dish at the unusual star, to see if it emits radio waves at frequencies associated with technological activity.
It's facile. If people are free to criticize Sam Harris's avocation of torture and racist profiling,, whyyyyyyyy isn't Harris free to criticize Islam? There is no line connecting the dots between A and B.
He's free to criticize Islam, the question is whether his criticism of Islam is just, useful, and accurate.
Ie its not, nor should be illegal, but it's unethical. As for women lying about their age I'd say that's also unethical.
So, academic suspension for coeds wearing makeup? Civil fines for women in their 30's who use college graduation pictures on dating sites? The point I'm getting at here is the selective outrage at misrepresentations while dating.
Again I never suggested penalties of any kind.
You're also conflating deception with marketing, there's certainly some overlap but there are significant differences.
I'm certain it's possible to meaningfully upload my consciousness. But that doesn't mean we're smart enough to do it.
Assume the smartest mind possible by the laws of physics has an IQ of 1000, and assume to make an artificial brain you need an IQ of 2000. Although there's a solution to the puzzle it's not a solution that will ever be found.
The entire concept of uploading/duplicating is based on a deterministic view of the universe - one without quantum mechanics.
This viewpoint is false. Not only is quantum mechanics part of the universe, but the specific reactions involved in the brain require quantum mechanics.
There are QM reactions involved when I use an abacus, that doesn't mean calculators are impossible. Just because consciousness is weird and QM is weird doesn't mean consciousness is based on QM.
As such, the concept of a physical copy or uploading is nonsensical. It can not be done. The best we can do is make a poor copy - one that will NOT react the way the real you would.
The only way that's true is if our consciousness is based on some continuous sequence of quantum events... and even then I'm sure there's a way we could meaningfully transition or preserve state.
Unless they're directly buying votes, then that remains true. I'm not sure why we're equating advertising dollars with votes, because they aren't the same thing.
Take for example the Colorado state senate recall election a few years back: 11 times the amount of money was spent lobbying in favor of the incumbents as there was for the newcomers, yet the incumbents lost anyways.
Larry Lessig found this out the hard way, he assumed (very stupidly I might add) that he could just buy votes for his mayday campaign. Instead he found out that every candidate he spent money on that won was already likely to win anyways, and the rest lost.
The "vote buying" isn't that outlandish. There was a lot of talk 4 years ago about the "Sheldon Andelson primary" and how the Republican candidates became a lot more hawkish on Israel when in came up. He single-handedly kept Gingrich in the race for a while and probably swayed the Republican agenda as a result. But you don't even need vote buying, if you give a bunch of money to the candidate who sincerely agrees with you you'll end up with a legislator voting your way.
This is why I think the US needs a more parliamentary system with a powerful Speaker of the House.
It's easy for a billionaire or lobby group to push around a bunch of different legislators or districts at the low level. It's really hard to push around the party as a whole. The easiest way to stop billionaires from influencing the parties is to make the parties into single entities too big and powerful for billionaires to influence.
Hmm, so you state that I'm clearly a guy who hates men,
Why else would you call a misandrist term misogynist? Especially if the negative connotation of the term was invented by misandrists?
The negative connotation of the term was invented by guys calling eachother "bro" and engaging in misogynist behaviour which sometimes includes predatory sexual practices that can extend to rape.
That doesn't apply to everyone who considers themselves to be part of the "bro culture", nor is everyone who calls eachother part of the bro culture, not even close. But that problematic subset does exist and that is the association a lot of people make.
How is it you're allowed to criticize the author's opinions but the author isn't allowed to criticize Feynman's actions?
Because that's a complete non-sequitur, that's why.
How is it a non-sequitur? It's legitimate for the author to judge and criticize the morality Feynman's actions, just like it's legitimate for nickweller to criticize the author, for me to criticize nickweller, and you to criticize me.
And on the topic of consent it carries a lot less weight when it's predicated on a lie. While it's legally nowhere near rape it's still really greasy.
So, you're saying women who lie about their age should be charged with misdemeanors, rather than felonies? Interesting. Maybe let them off with probation in exchange for community service?
I answered your criticism in my post "While it's legally nowhere near rape it's still really greasy". Ie its not, nor should be illegal, but it's unethical. As for women lying about their age I'd say that's also unethical.
This is always a problem: incrementalist thinking, the idea that one can achieve the revolutionary through small intermediate steps with an evolutionary process.
But that's where revolutionary ideas come from. Progress is a long series of small intermediate steps and some of those steps turn out to be the revolutionary ones. That's why you get things like Alexander Graham Bell's "race" to the patent office, or Darwin finding out that Wallace had also discovered natural selection. Revolutionary ideas need a solid foundation of incremental discoveries.
But that's actually kind of off-topic for this story, we have all the revolutionary technology already, it's simply a matter of cost and will, and "incrementalist thinking" is a great way to make each of these easier.
This is very limited (and limiting) thinking, and people who think that way will never achieve anything truly revolutionary. If you think like this, you should probably get the hell out of the way of those of us who don't. We'll come back for you. Some day. Maybe.
I suspect you have it backwards. If you're only interested in the revolutionary you'll never get anywhere because you'll be missing all the intermediate steps. If you want to move forward start by doing all the incremental things, eventually you'll have done enough that the revolutionary is in sight.
I'd instantly get a mental image of the developers being a bunch of frat boys high-fiving calling each other bro.
So because you're clearly a misandrist (and assume "bro" denigrates men), "bro" is somehow misogynist instead?
I'm not even sure Orwell envisioned such a level of semantic contortion was possible.
Hmm, so you state that I'm clearly a guy who hates men, clearly you have the foundation of a solid argument.
Rather consider that people associate the word "bro" with a culture they perceive to be misogynist, maybe that's justified or maybe not, but it's an association that the developers of Brotli had no interest in and you have no interest in criticizing them for changing it.
Someone tells them that in North American culture that extension carries a connotation they didn't realize.
No, Mr. McManus completely invented a connotation that only complete idiots assume exists:
It comes of[sic] misogynistic and unprofessional due to the world it lives in.
If I saw an extension ".bro" there's a change I'd assume it was intentional (or at least they were aware of it) and I'd instantly get a mental image of the developers being a bunch of frat boys high-fiving calling each other bro.
Now it probably wouldn't be a strong association and maybe it wouldn't happen at all.
But it's still an issue, and if your software project has an issue that is easily fixed then you should fix it.
"when he was a young, boyish looking professor at Cornell, Feynman used to pretend to be a student so he could ask undergraduate women out.. Feynman.. trying to get women in bars to sleep with him.. documented affairs with two married women"
Have these fragile flowers ever thought of saying no to sexual advances. What Feynman does/did with his dick - as long as it's between consenting adults - is nobody's business except his.
How is it you're allowed to criticize the author's opinions but the author isn't allowed to criticize Feynman's actions?
And on the topic of consent it carries a lot less weight when it's predicated on a lie. While it's legally nowhere near rape it's still really greasy.
That is the main problem with sexual harassement. Once a sexual harassement case appear, the consequences of being wrong will be terrible in either case: 1/ either you let a sexual harasser free. 2/ or you destroy the life of an innocent.
Neither of these options are preferable. And because it is so hard to get evidence of these, it often ends in "he said/she said". So everyone wants to tiptoe around it.
I've been wondering about the idea of changing how we deal with sexual crimes. I think there's a lot of women who don't report things because they're worried about the degree of consequences to the man, or of the process they'll be put through when trying to report and get charges filed.
For sexual harassment or assault women I wonder if women could have the option of making a report, having an investigation done, informing the defendant of the accusation, and then having the whole thing sit on the shelf.
Nothing happens that the defendant doesn't want to happen.... unless the defendant ends up reported again. Then all his (or her) past victims are notified that there's a new offense and they have a chance to pursue charges again or at least act as a character witness in the new trial.
Now two things happen. First the predator is warned and will hopefully stop after the first report. Second, if they do continue it's easier to find the ones who are actually guilty.
I'm a guy and I don't want to be considered a "bro" or hang around with "bros", so why would you needlessly associate your software project with a subculture that a lot of people (including possibly yourself) don't really like? I don't think this wasn't even a joke as you imply since it seems like the creators weren't even aware of the connotation.
Sure not everyone is going to make the association but it's pretty trivial to change at this point in the game.
I read the article but I wasn't quite certain why people weren't interested.
It sounds like it was too much work to maintain and implement, but it sounded like a lot of their implementation simply wasn't being used by anyone. Is it just the fact that LSB isn't as necessary/useful as people thought it would? I feel like most projects end up checking against Debian or RHEL and most distros adopt one of those as a sort of informal standard.
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Unlike a lot of other "science fiction" books/stories, Andy Weir seemed to make a genuine effort to get as much right as possible, and did his best to drag along the film producer. If all of science fiction was at this level, it would be a miracle. And as you've pointed out, where the science does fail, it fails in such a way as to spark discussion and interest in the real science. I don't feel like my intelligence was insulted after having watched/read it, or that errors and omissions were a result of laziness or "the audience is too dumb/doesn't care anyway, so why bother". (Although the book was better than the movie in that regard.) If anything it served as a launching (punnnns) point for learning more about growing food on Mars and other similar problems.
I think that's the main thing. Typically movie science is built around the plot with occasional nods or Easter eggs for knowledgeable people from the audience (ie using an actual ssh exploit in the Matrix). But fundamentally scriptwriters and directors get too caught up with the story to realize how much those inconsistencies drag people out of the story.
I hope they start realizing how much audiences value scientific sincerity and internal consistency.
False. Operating the Buk system is too complicated for "peaceful coal-miners" to have done it — certainly not the mere 3 months into the insurrection. It was Russian military — even if disguised as locals.
Well it apparently was too complicated since they shot down the wrong kind of plane. There's a big difference between experts that years of military training creates and a couple weeks back in Russia being taught which buttons to push in order to shoot down planes. I'm not saying it was locals (or foreign volunteers) for certain, but I don't think we can really know.
Whether they targeted a passenger liner by mistake or deliberately is still a question, but it obviously was not the rebellious locals.
Why is that a question? What possible motive would the rebels have for shooting down a civilian airliner? Why claim to have shot down an AN-26 instead only to go into massive denials once it turned out to be a civilian plane? There are even recordings of phone calls from the first rebels who went to the crash site and called back freaking out when they realized it was full of civilian bodies.
There's overwhelming evidence that the plane was shot down by Russian rebels (active Russian military or not) who thought they were shooting down a Ukrainian military plane. That's already damning enough, we don't need our own unsupported conspiracy theories.
Internal propaganda keeps telling to the Russian audience of 150 million people that Russia does not participate, and that all the weapons, heavy flamethrowers, drones and tanks, are merely bought at military surplus stores.
Entire story would just collapse.
Russia does have a history of keeping the parallel history and making it official.
They still could have come up with a better story than they did. ie:
"The rebels stole a loaded BUK from a Ukrainian base (let the Ukrainian's try to disprove that) and tragically shot down a civilian airliner by accident! Oh and we think the Ukrainians left the civilian airspace open to deliberately confuse the rebels about which planes were safe to shoot down."
If Russia pushes that narrative they've instantly acknowledged the obvious with the only major downside being that if the DPR survives they'll probably need to throw them an extra chunk of money to pay off the settlement. The arguments over the origin of the BUK and Ukrainian intensions over leaving the airspace open are fairly academic and the whole thing mostly goes away in the media.
That's one of the problems with being an authoritarian state. There's no one to tell you that you're being an idiot trying to sell a bunch of bizarre conspiracy theories when you can dodge most of the blame with a half-truth.
I wouldn't copy Canada. I personally know someone that was killed by the Canadian system.
Also, don't drink the Kool-Aid. There's a big difference between what gets billed and what gets paid. If you think American health care is overpriced, you're probably looking at a bogus inflated number.
The problem with people trying to turn the US into a European style socialist welfare state is that they don't have any actual experience with those. They just hear a lot of bogus media reports that distort the facts to suit a particular narrative.
As a Canadian I don't know anyone killed by our system. Either way tragic anecdotes happen with every healthcare system, that's the reality of mortality and limited resources, but people here seem much more satisfied with the state of our healthcare than Americans do, and we pay a bunch less at the same time.
I think there's a role for private insurance and companies in the US system for things like drug development. But as for actual hospitals, public insurance and institutions seems to work quite well without all the massive headaches about medical insurance and billings. My father passed away from pancreatic cancer a couple years ago. Chemo, surgery, home care, hospitalization, hospice care, all sorts of things were involved before the end. And other than some fairly cheap pain drugs we bought from the pharmacy I don't think money or insurance was ever mentioned. I think that's something that's severely under appreciated when looking at public health care.
I guess the cut-back-on-staff-to-improve-profitibility(ratings) experiment didn't work.
I would have moved the other three into a different field, maybe a travelling show, visiting schools to do cool science stuff - fewer explosions, sure, but maybe some rocketry +GoPro, or weather balloons. Lots of room for building stuff out of silicone/gelatine, dropping buster onto various surfaces with sensor experiments designed by the students.
I'm sure ratings played a part but it was still a flagship program and I doubt profitability was the main issue.
I suspect this was just a case of the show being on for a very long time and the two stars having retirement money. At this point they're simply not having fun anymore and want to move onto something new. From the article it sounds like Hyneman wants a job where he just wants to build stuff while Savage wants to do some new TV.
So here's the clause in question:
8. Continuing Cooperation. I understand and agree that, in my role at SunTrust, I have been responsible for and involved in numerous matters and projects of a significant and/or confidential nature and that, in some instances, I possess knowledge regarding those and other matters that is unique to me and of value to SunTrust or any subsidiary, and that SunTrust or any subsidiary may have need of my continuing assistance in the future with respect to investigations, audits, litigation or potential litigation related to these matters. I understand that SunTrust’s willingness to provide me with the Consideration is expressly conditioned upon the promises made and obligations assumed by me in this Paragraph 8. I further understand and agree that my fulfillment of these promises and obligations hereafter is a condition precedent to SunTrust’s obligation to provide me with the Consideration set forth herein. I agree, beginning on September 1, 2009 and continuing for a period of twenty-four (24) months immediately thereafter, to provide assistance and to make myself reasonably available to SunTrust and its employees, attorneys and/or accountants with respect to investigations, audits, litigation or potential litigation regarding matters in which I have been involved in the course of my employment with SunTrust or any subsidiary and/or about which I have knowledge as a result of my employment with SunTrust. It is understood and agreed that such assistance, to the extent possible, will be requested at such times and in such a manner so as to not unreasonably interfere with any subsequent employment. Such assistance may consist of, without limitation, telephone or in-person meetings with SunTrust employees, attorneys and/or accountants, or the provision of truthful testimony by way of deposition, hearing, trial or affidavit. SunTrust will be responsible for any reasonable and necessary expenses incurred by me in connection with such assistance. I understand that I will not be entitled to any additional consideration or compensation of any kind from SunTrust in exchange for such assistance.
My gut says that for 95-99% of ex-employees this never matters and for the majority of the remainder it's either a couple emails a few months later asking about where they stored some project no one else remembers.
That being said "reasonable" is a bit of a fuzzy term, yeah a couple emails asking if I remembered where I put that old script is reasonable, but what about a 5 minute email every week for six months? Or coming in for 4 hours to answer questions for an internal audit? I suspect different people will have very different expectations of what reasonable is.
This is just my opinion.
Now, that disclaimer having been made: I'm going to tell you exactly, precisely, how much sleep you need every night.
You need exactly, precisely as much sleep as you need to sleep. If we could live in a world where you never had an alarm clock waking you up, and went to sleep when you wanted to go to sleep, allowing you to wake up naturally, you'd get exactly, precisely as much sleep as your body needed, every single night.
Saying 'you need eight hours sleep a night!' is like saying 'you need to drink at least eight glasses of water per day!'; it's hand-waving, it's one-size-fits-all, it's an over-simplification, and it's fundamentally flawed.
We've already tried that approach with food, it hasn't worked out too well :)
I would also suspect that due to the increased use of our brains for more complex tasks puts more stress on that system. That could require more down time than a tribal hunter/gatherer.
I would imagine hunter/gather tribes solve more complex tasks in a day than the average citizen of a modern Western country--their survival depends on it whereas most of us can smoke weed and drink booze all day knowing we'll still be able to find our next meal easily enough. Reading about the Kardashians, posting on facebook, and watching reality TV isn't exactly intellectually stimulating.
Of course at lot of us spend 8 hours a day working as software developers. Sure it's not exactly full focus the whole work day but there's certainly some highly complex thought going on for a fairly long period.
To the extent hunter gatherers are really using their brains it's probably going to be in socialization and hunting, and the times they're really intensively thinking such as storytelling, high stakes social interaction, or near the climax of a hunt, are going to be a very small fraction of the time.
Personally my experience is that the body can rest whenever you're inactive, the brain is the thing that really needs sleep. I've run some of my best marathons on 4 or 5 hours of sleep and I didn't feel any impairment. But if I try to do intellectual work on that same amount of sleep my effectiveness goes down drastically.
Isn't it called CentOS?
Though CentOS/RHEL is targeted much more at business. A lot of recreational stuff only ends up in the Fedora repos because that's what all the home users use.
Personally I stick to Fedora for my home box, I haven't had issues with upgrades and they're pretty easy to perform.
It's important to note that the actual scientists studying the star aren't the ones screaming "ALIENS!" - that's the journalists who misreport and distort things to make them "sell better".
Actually these are the actual scientists studying the star, they aren't screaming aliens but they do seem to be saying something like "we can't figure out how to model this with any natural phenomena so lets see if non-natural hypothesis fit".
FTA:
When I spoke to Boyajian on the phone, she explained that her recent paper only reviews “natural” scenarios. “But,” she said, there were “other scenarios” she was considering.
Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, is set to publish an alternative interpretation of the light pattern. SETI researchers have long suggested that we might be able to detect distant extraterrestrial civilizations, by looking for enormous technological artifacts orbiting other stars. Wright and his co-authors say the unusual star’s light pattern is consistent with a “swarm of megastructures,” perhaps stellar-light collectors, technology designed to catch energy from the star.
[...]
Boyajian is now working with Wright and Andrew Siemion, the Director of the SETI Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. The three of them are writing up a proposal. They want to point a massive radio dish at the unusual star, to see if it emits radio waves at frequencies associated with technological activity.
It's facile. If people are free to criticize Sam Harris's avocation of torture and racist profiling,, whyyyyyyyy isn't Harris free to criticize Islam? There is no line connecting the dots between A and B.
He's free to criticize Islam, the question is whether his criticism of Islam is just, useful, and accurate.
So, academic suspension for coeds wearing makeup? Civil fines for women in their 30's who use college graduation pictures on dating sites? The point I'm getting at here is the selective outrage at misrepresentations while dating.
Again I never suggested penalties of any kind.
You're also conflating deception with marketing, there's certainly some overlap but there are significant differences.
I'm certain it's possible to meaningfully upload my consciousness. But that doesn't mean we're smart enough to do it.
Assume the smartest mind possible by the laws of physics has an IQ of 1000, and assume to make an artificial brain you need an IQ of 2000. Although there's a solution to the puzzle it's not a solution that will ever be found.
The entire concept of uploading/duplicating is based on a deterministic view of the universe - one without quantum mechanics.
This viewpoint is false. Not only is quantum mechanics part of the universe, but the specific reactions involved in the brain require quantum mechanics.
There are QM reactions involved when I use an abacus, that doesn't mean calculators are impossible. Just because consciousness is weird and QM is weird doesn't mean consciousness is based on QM.
As such, the concept of a physical copy or uploading is nonsensical. It can not be done. The best we can do is make a poor copy - one that will NOT react the way the real you would.
The only way that's true is if our consciousness is based on some continuous sequence of quantum events... and even then I'm sure there's a way we could meaningfully transition or preserve state.
Unless they're directly buying votes, then that remains true. I'm not sure why we're equating advertising dollars with votes, because they aren't the same thing.
Take for example the Colorado state senate recall election a few years back: 11 times the amount of money was spent lobbying in favor of the incumbents as there was for the newcomers, yet the incumbents lost anyways.
Larry Lessig found this out the hard way, he assumed (very stupidly I might add) that he could just buy votes for his mayday campaign. Instead he found out that every candidate he spent money on that won was already likely to win anyways, and the rest lost.
The "vote buying" isn't that outlandish. There was a lot of talk 4 years ago about the "Sheldon Andelson primary" and how the Republican candidates became a lot more hawkish on Israel when in came up. He single-handedly kept Gingrich in the race for a while and probably swayed the Republican agenda as a result. But you don't even need vote buying, if you give a bunch of money to the candidate who sincerely agrees with you you'll end up with a legislator voting your way.
This is why I think the US needs a more parliamentary system with a powerful Speaker of the House.
It's easy for a billionaire or lobby group to push around a bunch of different legislators or districts at the low level. It's really hard to push around the party as a whole. The easiest way to stop billionaires from influencing the parties is to make the parties into single entities too big and powerful for billionaires to influence.
Hmm, so you state that I'm clearly a guy who hates men,
Why else would you call a misandrist term misogynist? Especially if the negative connotation of the term was invented by misandrists?
The negative connotation of the term was invented by guys calling eachother "bro" and engaging in misogynist behaviour which sometimes includes predatory sexual practices that can extend to rape.
That doesn't apply to everyone who considers themselves to be part of the "bro culture", nor is everyone who calls eachother part of the bro culture, not even close. But that problematic subset does exist and that is the association a lot of people make.
Because that's a complete non-sequitur, that's why.
How is it a non-sequitur? It's legitimate for the author to judge and criticize the morality Feynman's actions, just like it's legitimate for nickweller to criticize the author, for me to criticize nickweller, and you to criticize me.
So, you're saying women who lie about their age should be charged with misdemeanors, rather than felonies? Interesting. Maybe let them off with probation in exchange for community service?
I answered your criticism in my post "While it's legally nowhere near rape it's still really greasy". Ie its not, nor should be illegal, but it's unethical. As for women lying about their age I'd say that's also unethical.
"..or what intermediate steps have to be taken.."
This is always a problem: incrementalist thinking, the idea that one can achieve the revolutionary through small intermediate steps with an evolutionary process.
But that's where revolutionary ideas come from. Progress is a long series of small intermediate steps and some of those steps turn out to be the revolutionary ones. That's why you get things like Alexander Graham Bell's "race" to the patent office, or Darwin finding out that Wallace had also discovered natural selection. Revolutionary ideas need a solid foundation of incremental discoveries.
But that's actually kind of off-topic for this story, we have all the revolutionary technology already, it's simply a matter of cost and will, and "incrementalist thinking" is a great way to make each of these easier.
This is very limited (and limiting) thinking, and people who think that way will never achieve anything truly revolutionary. If you think like this, you should probably get the hell out of the way of those of us who don't. We'll come back for you. Some day. Maybe.
I suspect you have it backwards. If you're only interested in the revolutionary you'll never get anywhere because you'll be missing all the intermediate steps. If you want to move forward start by doing all the incremental things, eventually you'll have done enough that the revolutionary is in sight.
I'd instantly get a mental image of the developers being a bunch of frat boys high-fiving calling each other bro.
So because you're clearly a misandrist (and assume "bro" denigrates men), "bro" is somehow misogynist instead?
I'm not even sure Orwell envisioned such a level of semantic contortion was possible.
Hmm, so you state that I'm clearly a guy who hates men, clearly you have the foundation of a solid argument.
Rather consider that people associate the word "bro" with a culture they perceive to be misogynist, maybe that's justified or maybe not, but it's an association that the developers of Brotli had no interest in and you have no interest in criticizing them for changing it.
Someone tells them that in North American culture that extension carries a connotation they didn't realize.
No, Mr. McManus completely invented a connotation that only complete idiots assume exists:
It comes of[sic] misogynistic and unprofessional due to the world it lives in.
If I saw an extension ".bro" there's a change I'd assume it was intentional (or at least they were aware of it) and I'd instantly get a mental image of the developers being a bunch of frat boys high-fiving calling each other bro.
Now it probably wouldn't be a strong association and maybe it wouldn't happen at all.
But it's still an issue, and if your software project has an issue that is easily fixed then you should fix it.
"when he was a young, boyish looking professor at Cornell, Feynman used to pretend to be a student so he could ask undergraduate women out .. Feynman .. trying to get women in bars to sleep with him .. documented affairs with two married women"
Have these fragile flowers ever thought of saying no to sexual advances. What Feynman does/did with his dick - as long as it's between consenting adults - is nobody's business except his.
How is it you're allowed to criticize the author's opinions but the author isn't allowed to criticize Feynman's actions?
And on the topic of consent it carries a lot less weight when it's predicated on a lie. While it's legally nowhere near rape it's still really greasy.
That is the main problem with sexual harassement. Once a sexual harassement case appear, the consequences of being wrong will be terrible in either case:
1/ either you let a sexual harasser free.
2/ or you destroy the life of an innocent.
Neither of these options are preferable. And because it is so hard to get evidence of these, it often ends in "he said/she said". So everyone wants to tiptoe around it.
I've been wondering about the idea of changing how we deal with sexual crimes. I think there's a lot of women who don't report things because they're worried about the degree of consequences to the man, or of the process they'll be put through when trying to report and get charges filed.
For sexual harassment or assault women I wonder if women could have the option of making a report, having an investigation done, informing the defendant of the accusation, and then having the whole thing sit on the shelf.
Nothing happens that the defendant doesn't want to happen.... unless the defendant ends up reported again. Then all his (or her) past victims are notified that there's a new offense and they have a chance to pursue charges again or at least act as a character witness in the new trial.
Now two things happen. First the predator is warned and will hopefully stop after the first report. Second, if they do continue it's easier to find the ones who are actually guilty.
Some programmers suggest a particular extension.
Someone tells them that in North American culture that extension carries a connotation they didn't realize.
The original programmers don't want this connotation so they decide on a different extension.
OMG SJWs are ruining everything!!!!
Is the anti-SJW crowd really this thin skinned?
Get a friggin clue.
Bro is a male youth subculture of "conventional guys' guys" who spend time partying in ways similar to each other. Although the popular image of bro lifestyle is associated with sports apparel and fraternities, it lacks a consistent definition.
I'm a guy and I don't want to be considered a "bro" or hang around with "bros", so why would you needlessly associate your software project with a subculture that a lot of people (including possibly yourself) don't really like? I don't think this wasn't even a joke as you imply since it seems like the creators weren't even aware of the connotation.
Sure not everyone is going to make the association but it's pretty trivial to change at this point in the game.
Who says that?
My hunch is someone who doesn't live in the North American culture-sphere.
I read the article but I wasn't quite certain why people weren't interested.
It sounds like it was too much work to maintain and implement, but it sounded like a lot of their implementation simply wasn't being used by anyone. Is it just the fact that LSB isn't as necessary/useful as people thought it would? I feel like most projects end up checking against Debian or RHEL and most distros adopt one of those as a sort of informal standard.