It's clearly targetted at the person who's thinking "I'd really like to learn more about bioinformatics. If only there was a book that explained it without all the egghead jargon of most bioinformatics books."
I've sat in on several sessions for an agoraphobic individual - with multiple shrinks, mind you - and saw no actual psychoanalysis attempted. The shrinks are drug dispensers, basically. Moreover, in many cases the drugs dispensed are inappropriate. Agoraphobia has no known treatment.
The recommended treatment for agoraphobia, like most phobias, is
behavior therapy. This is a form of treatment pioneered by Skinner and Watson. You expose people to something they're afraid of, at first very briefly, but eventually for longer periods of time, and they gradually learn that there are no consequences. Eventually, their conditioned response (fear) extinguishes. Drugs are used occasionally in treating phobias, but not all that often.
This is why I hate Pyschologist call themself "scientist".
So when I do an experiment in which I assign people randomly to different groups, test their memory, find that people in group 1 have better memory than people in group 2, and use that empirical evidence to falsify a previous model of how memory works, am I not doing psychology, or am I not doing science?
Why should someone with a 6th grade education GET a vote?
Someone with a 6th grade education should get a vote because
"we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. .."
There are essentially two ways you can approach the problem of feeling, and psychologists (like me) have had to deal with the problem before. The first is introspectionism (pioneered by Wundt), wherein you know you have feelings because you can think about your own internal state, and understand the way you're feeling. That is, you know you feel happy because you feel happy. As a research technique, it involved performing some task and then giving a long log of your thoughts and feelings. Unfortunately, it's pretty much completely bogus as science, since people can lie about their introspections.
From an introspectionist perspective, you can't know if these ghosts have feelings, because you don't have direct access to their consciousness.
The response to introspectionism was behaviorism, wherein you know what you're feeling not because you can measure your own internal state, but because you can measure the way other people behave around you. That is, you know you're feeling happy not because you feel it, but because other people are smiling at you, laughing, etc. Behaviorism doesn't really seem exactly right from a personal perspective, but from a scientific perspective it makes a whole lot of sense. Alan Turing was essentially being a behaviorist when he realized that the best way to tell if a computer was intelligent was to see if people could tell the difference between a computer and a human in a conversation.
So from a behaviorist perspective, These ghosts only have feelings if we treat them like they have feelings. If we do, they do. If we don't, they don't.
(Old behaviorist joke: Man turns to a woman after having sex, lights up a cigarette, says "It was good for you. How was it for me?")
In her wonderful world of fantasy, the goverment probably fills some kind of fatherly figure, good, powerful and caring.
Well, I guess she doesn't think of government as a parent - probably more like a sibling, since parents have the power to punish YOU, but your siblings would never do that.
So, a sibling, but not a sister - probably a brother, to imply a sense of toughness.
But not a younger brother, 'cause that'd be weaker than you, and you want somebody who's capable of protecting you.
Having an off-site backup is useless. Don't forget that in the digital world, we don't need back-ups, because a digital copy never wears out. It is timeless.
In the Escher-like spirit of "ceci n'est pas un pipe" (http://www.uwrf.edu/history/prints/magritte-pipe. html), I should note that they haven't actually built M C Escher's lithographs, but rather reproductions of those lithographs.
(Okay, sorry about that.:-)
Games like Myst, however, which was more goal-oriented and focused on problem solving, were a huge hit with girls. (Note that games that girls would tend to enjoy would also appeal to boys.) That is, girls like games that make them THINK, not mindlessly shoot things.
It's really a shame that we don't see games that make one think marketted to girls. I'm surprised nobody's tried to make a "Nancy Drew" game. Be ND as she tries to solve a cryptic mystery - appeals to girls for multiple reasons. First, 'cause ND is a popular character with girls, and second, 'cause it would have to use some kind of Myst-like design. If you want to go for crossover, make it Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew, and let the player choose who they want to be at the beginning.
"I am not aware that he actually performed a single experiment. Aristotle regarded experimentation 'beneath right thinkers'."
This attitude is still found today in much of the social sciences and humanities, hence their uselessness
I think you're making an overgeneralization here. Look, for example, at Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, or Memory and Cognition, or Psychological Review. You can't find an article in these journals that doesn't have a new experiment. Most have rigorous mathematical models, that the experiments are designed to test. There are parts of Psychology that involve more theorizing than experimentation (Sociology too, I suppose), but these are the exception, not the rule.
is Sun hypocritically hoping to create an illegal monopoly of their own by giving StarOffice 6 to students for free?
There's no hypocrisy here. They're not trying to create an illegal monopoly, they're trying to find ways to compete with an illegal monopoly that hasn't been punished. If circumstances were different, and there was already intense competition in the market, I'd be extraordinarily suspicious of this tactic. As it is, I think this is legitimate.
It seems to me like this isn't necessarily an effective tool to fight unauthorized copying. If they're giving away free songs on the web to those who bought the CD, then those songs will soon be made available via less-than-legitimate channels. And would you buy an $18 lottery ticket for a $50 concert? Or spend that money for "messages from the band"?
I respect what Bon Jovi is trying to do here - it really is a refreshing change from accusations of "piracy!", but I'm just not sure how effective it'll be.
Well, I try to imagine what it would be like if I went blind tomorrow. Even though I couldn't see, I might like to turn on my favorite TV shows, because, while I couldn't see them, I could still pick up much of the content. You are of course correct in suggesting that radio is an alternative, but a lot of radio consists of top 40 music stations that I might not care for. And maybe I still want to at least listen to some of the things I used to watch on TV. For example, if I like "Headline News", there's hardly any need to see the pictures, since they're mostly just people sitting, talking. So - it's not absurd to suggest that, if I were blind, I might still like to have a television.
But then, one of my favorite parts of headline news (when I could see) was watching the stock prices scroll by at the bottom of the screen; I can't see that any more, that's too bad. Then some guy comes to my door and says "I'll sell you this remote control with a button on it. When you push the button, the newscaster's voice goes silent, and you'll hear somebody reading the stock prices as they scroll by on the bottom of the screen." Great for me. I pay him $50, and we're both happy.
So, that's all anybody has suggested - making stuff that makes things easier (in the case of stock tickers or visual menus) or more fun (in the case of computer games) for blind people.
I'm hostile to people bitching about how a device to receive VISUAL information is discriminating against people who can't see.
Nobody ever said anything about any kind of discrimination. Even the guy who talked about televisions was simply saying it'd be nice for the blind if there were some non-visual alternatives they could use, and it would be. So - there's nobody to be hostile to.
I think it's odd that you seem so hostile to this, since nowhere in the article, not even in the quote you site, does anyone suggest changing the way things work for people who can see. There is a company that's perceived a need (blind people might like to have better access to the news, computer games, etc.) and filling it. No problems there.
Of course blind people are unhappy at how visual television is; they can't see it. So, they'd like to have an alternative that provides them with comparable information. Nothing changes for you. Why is this "beyond ridiculous"?
This part reminded me of the old D&D adventures, where the party would go to a bar and try to hear rumours:
Die roll: result
0-20: He was worth billions but rented an apartment and drove a Toyota hatchback (true.)
He worked in investment banking before starting Amazon.com (true).
21-40: He is really a wererat, using his position of power to infect others with lycanthropy (false).
41-60: He slept only three hours a night (false).
61-80: He imprisons former followers who have turned on him in the dungeons beneath old book warehouses. Mike Daisey is the only one who managed to escape (false).
81-99: He still responded to e-mail at his public address, jeff@amazon.com (true).
As others have pointed out, Opera is free as in beer, as long as you're willing to tolerate a small advertising window. (Or are familiar enough with Opera's keyboard and mouse-gesture navigation to use full-screen mode all the time.)
Star Wars borrowed stuff from Hidden Fortress, borrowed stuff from pulp SF, borrowed stuff from Campbell. Before Star Wars was successful, Lucas talked about the pulp SF mostly. After SW was successful, he talked about Hidden Fortress and Joseph Campbell. There's nothing disingenuous here. People borrow stuff when they make new stuff. When they talk about what they borrowed, they choose the stuff that makes the best newspaper story.
All this article is really about is some guy, who before "Phantom Menace" was released, didn't have any problems with SW, but after it was released, is now saying how it's all pulp SF, and not mythic. He's partly right - it is pulp SF, but it is also mythic. The best point he raises is that many popular movies also have mythic elements, and this should cause us to question not GL, but Joseph Campbell - because his theory of myth is so general that it can be applied to almost anything.
This is something of an oversimplification. It looks to me like the 1974 "Dungeons and Dragons" was published as a collaboration, and the credits on the front cover are "Gygax and Arneson." In this case, there's no stealing going on; credit was given where credit was due.
The first edition "Advanced D&D", however, lists only Gygax as an author. This is the only place where anything like theft is going on, and it's not clear (to me, at least) what the whole story was on the relationship between Gygax, Arneson, and the D&D material, when AD&D was released. Anyone else know?
I'm sure we mostly agree that the judge made the right decision in this case. We're happy because this is a statement that people should be accountable for their own actions, and shouldn't pass the buck. But the entertainment industry is also happy, since video games are very profitable, and big companies like Sony and Microsoft know that kids like games with violence. It's important, I think, to realize that this is a victory for those of us who believe in personal accountability, but it's also a victory for some people in the entertainment industry, who care much more about the fact that they can continue marketing violent games to kids.
The record companies ARE ripping off the artists, but it's not EXACTLY what happens with filesharing. One of the artists interviewed in the article makes more or less the following point.
Suppose you're an artist using the record-label's download service. Suppose your song is downloaded 1,000 times a month, and you make (generously) $10.00. (1 penny each time a song is downloaded, rather than.23 pennies.) Since people have to pay $20.00 a month to use the record-label's service, some people who would like to download the music aren't downloading it, because it costs money.
Now suppose you're an artist providing your songs to a free service. Because no one has to pay to use the service, you get 10,000 downloads a month, and you make no money. But, the exposure you gain when an extra 9,000 people listen to your music may make up for the loss of $10.
This is mostly a matter of degree then. If you got $3,000 a month from making your music available to the pay service, you might be reluctant to make your music available to the free service, since $3,000 a month is a living wage. Or, if you only got 2 or 3 more downloads from using the free service, you might also be reluctant to use it, since you're not getting much more exposure, and you might as well make $10. But, I'm guessing many artists, especially those who have very little exposure at present, would prefer to be paid less for more exposure, in the hope of becoming famous enough to get more money (from concerts, especially) in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
Bioinformatics for Dummies
It's clearly targetted at the person who's thinking "I'd really like to learn more about bioinformatics. If only there was a book that explained it without all the egghead jargon of most bioinformatics books."
The recommended treatment for agoraphobia, like most phobias, is behavior therapy. This is a form of treatment pioneered by Skinner and Watson. You expose people to something they're afraid of, at first very briefly, but eventually for longer periods of time, and they gradually learn that there are no consequences. Eventually, their conditioned response (fear) extinguishes. Drugs are used occasionally in treating phobias, but not all that often.
\offtopic = 1
\nitpick = 1
To be fair, you should first specify that, as an average, you're referring to the mean number of legs rather than the mode.
\nitpick = 0
I know. I'm seeking help.
So when I do an experiment in which I assign people randomly to different groups, test their memory, find that people in group 1 have better memory than people in group 2, and use that empirical evidence to falsify a previous model of how memory works, am I not doing psychology, or am I not doing science?
Someone with a 6th grade education should get a vote because "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . ."
From an introspectionist perspective, you can't know if these ghosts have feelings, because you don't have direct access to their consciousness.
The response to introspectionism was behaviorism, wherein you know what you're feeling not because you can measure your own internal state, but because you can measure the way other people behave around you. That is, you know you're feeling happy not because you feel it, but because other people are smiling at you, laughing, etc. Behaviorism doesn't really seem exactly right from a personal perspective, but from a scientific perspective it makes a whole lot of sense. Alan Turing was essentially being a behaviorist when he realized that the best way to tell if a computer was intelligent was to see if people could tell the difference between a computer and a human in a conversation.
So from a behaviorist perspective, These ghosts only have feelings if we treat them like they have feelings. If we do, they do. If we don't, they don't.
(Old behaviorist joke: Man turns to a woman after having sex, lights up a cigarette, says "It was good for you. How was it for me?")
Well, I guess she doesn't think of government as a parent - probably more like a sibling, since parents have the power to punish YOU, but your siblings would never do that.
So, a sibling, but not a sister - probably a brother, to imply a sense of toughness.
But not a younger brother, 'cause that'd be weaker than you, and you want somebody who's capable of protecting you.
So a big . . .
Oh crap!
Ooh! Me! Me! Pick me! Please?
Having an off-site backup is useless. Don't forget that in the digital world, we don't need back-ups, because a digital copy never wears out. It is timeless.
Just because they're hypocrites, that doesn't mean they're wrong.
In the Escher-like spirit of "ceci n'est pas un pipe" (http://www.uwrf.edu/history/prints/magritte-pipe. html), I should note that they haven't actually built M C Escher's lithographs, but rather reproductions of those lithographs.
(Okay, sorry about that. :-)
It's really a shame that we don't see games that make one think marketted to girls. I'm surprised nobody's tried to make a "Nancy Drew" game. Be ND as she tries to solve a cryptic mystery - appeals to girls for multiple reasons. First, 'cause ND is a popular character with girls, and second, 'cause it would have to use some kind of Myst-like design. If you want to go for crossover, make it Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew, and let the player choose who they want to be at the beginning.
This attitude is still found today in much of the social sciences and humanities, hence their uselessness
I think you're making an overgeneralization here. Look, for example, at Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, or Memory and Cognition, or Psychological Review. You can't find an article in these journals that doesn't have a new experiment. Most have rigorous mathematical models, that the experiments are designed to test. There are parts of Psychology that involve more theorizing than experimentation (Sociology too, I suppose), but these are the exception, not the rule.
There's no hypocrisy here. They're not trying to create an illegal monopoly, they're trying to find ways to compete with an illegal monopoly that hasn't been punished. If circumstances were different, and there was already intense competition in the market, I'd be extraordinarily suspicious of this tactic. As it is, I think this is legitimate.
I respect what Bon Jovi is trying to do here - it really is a refreshing change from accusations of "piracy!", but I'm just not sure how effective it'll be.
Step 2: Sew bills into giant asteroid net circling globe.
Well, I try to imagine what it would be like if I went blind tomorrow. Even though I couldn't see, I might like to turn on my favorite TV shows, because, while I couldn't see them, I could still pick up much of the content. You are of course correct in suggesting that radio is an alternative, but a lot of radio consists of top 40 music stations that I might not care for. And maybe I still want to at least listen to some of the things I used to watch on TV. For example, if I like "Headline News", there's hardly any need to see the pictures, since they're mostly just people sitting, talking. So - it's not absurd to suggest that, if I were blind, I might still like to have a television.
But then, one of my favorite parts of headline news (when I could see) was watching the stock prices scroll by at the bottom of the screen; I can't see that any more, that's too bad. Then some guy comes to my door and says "I'll sell you this remote control with a button on it. When you push the button, the newscaster's voice goes silent, and you'll hear somebody reading the stock prices as they scroll by on the bottom of the screen." Great for me. I pay him $50, and we're both happy.
So, that's all anybody has suggested - making stuff that makes things easier (in the case of stock tickers or visual menus) or more fun (in the case of computer games) for blind people.
I'm hostile to people bitching about how a device to receive VISUAL information is discriminating against people who can't see.
Nobody ever said anything about any kind of discrimination. Even the guy who talked about televisions was simply saying it'd be nice for the blind if there were some non-visual alternatives they could use, and it would be. So - there's nobody to be hostile to.
Of course blind people are unhappy at how visual television is; they can't see it. So, they'd like to have an alternative that provides them with comparable information. Nothing changes for you. Why is this "beyond ridiculous"?
Die roll: result
0-20: He was worth billions but rented an apartment and drove a Toyota hatchback (true.) He worked in investment banking before starting Amazon.com (true).
21-40: He is really a wererat, using his position of power to infect others with lycanthropy (false).
41-60: He slept only three hours a night (false).
61-80: He imprisons former followers who have turned on him in the dungeons beneath old book warehouses. Mike Daisey is the only one who managed to escape (false).
81-99: He still responded to e-mail at his public address, jeff@amazon.com (true).
00: Roll twice on table 1.
As others have pointed out, Opera is free as in beer, as long as you're willing to tolerate a small advertising window. (Or are familiar enough with Opera's keyboard and mouse-gesture navigation to use full-screen mode all the time.)
Rashomon? Hidden Fortress, I believe, but how exactly is Star Wars a blatant ripoff of Rashomon?
All this article is really about is some guy, who before "Phantom Menace" was released, didn't have any problems with SW, but after it was released, is now saying how it's all pulp SF, and not mythic. He's partly right - it is pulp SF, but it is also mythic. The best point he raises is that many popular movies also have mythic elements, and this should cause us to question not GL, but Joseph Campbell - because his theory of myth is so general that it can be applied to almost anything.
The first edition "Advanced D&D", however, lists only Gygax as an author. This is the only place where anything like theft is going on, and it's not clear (to me, at least) what the whole story was on the relationship between Gygax, Arneson, and the D&D material, when AD&D was released. Anyone else know?
I'm sure we mostly agree that the judge made the right decision in this case. We're happy because this is a statement that people should be accountable for their own actions, and shouldn't pass the buck. But the entertainment industry is also happy, since video games are very profitable, and big companies like Sony and Microsoft know that kids like games with violence. It's important, I think, to realize that this is a victory for those of us who believe in personal accountability, but it's also a victory for some people in the entertainment industry, who care much more about the fact that they can continue marketing violent games to kids.
Suppose you're an artist using the record-label's download service. Suppose your song is downloaded 1,000 times a month, and you make (generously) $10.00. (1 penny each time a song is downloaded, rather than .23 pennies.) Since people have to pay $20.00 a month to use the record-label's service, some people who would like to download the music aren't downloading it, because it costs money.
Now suppose you're an artist providing your songs to a free service. Because no one has to pay to use the service, you get 10,000 downloads a month, and you make no money. But, the exposure you gain when an extra 9,000 people listen to your music may make up for the loss of $10.
This is mostly a matter of degree then. If you got $3,000 a month from making your music available to the pay service, you might be reluctant to make your music available to the free service, since $3,000 a month is a living wage. Or, if you only got 2 or 3 more downloads from using the free service, you might also be reluctant to use it, since you're not getting much more exposure, and you might as well make $10. But, I'm guessing many artists, especially those who have very little exposure at present, would prefer to be paid less for more exposure, in the hope of becoming famous enough to get more money (from concerts, especially) in the future.