The metaphors argument is, and has always been, a copout. It's useful, though, because the more christians interpret their scriptures "metaphorically", the more they disagree amongst themselves on interpretation, and that ultimately weakens the unity and the power of religion to impose its myths on the wider population.
Christianity was a lot more dangerous before the protestants started interpreting things however they please.
but they also feel they are entitled to harvard,
yale, and stanford.
Why not? If in your country, you have a quality resource, should it be underused? Does it make sense to teach classes that are half empty or less? That's just a waste.
Universities should always be full (not too full, but certainly never underfull). If that means lowering the fees to let more kids into Harvard, that's what should happen. It makes sense to entitle people to go to the best places if there's room (as opposed to if they have the asking money).
Performance isn't often the main motivator for piracy.
People pirate because they want to install the same software at home that they use at work, or because they need compatibility with some system that they interact with frequently. Change the environment, and people's piracy interests will change:
If they can impose linux in all schools, then a lot of people will want to have linux at home just to be compatible. Open source use will grow, Microsoft piracy will shrink.
An imperialist adventure in the middle east has no real consequences "at home". It really doesn't. There's no bombings, killings, or invasions on the US mainland that remind people that there's a war going on (token overhyped "terrorist attacks" notwithstanding). The cost of the wars are abstract numbers that most people don't "feel" personally. The human costs on soldiers and invasion victims are sanitized and buried in nationalist rhetoric about the Land of the Free and its Destiny.
Mexico is different. Firstly, it's close to America, so a real war would spill over into the southern US straightaway. Secondly, America is full of Mexican-Americans and illegals, who would take sides immediately. The result is that an imperialist adventure in Mexico would cause actual, real attacks on American soil everywhere, with actual, real consequences to people, actual real economic damage, and actual, real social upheaval and political crises.
Basically, the war in the Middle East is not a "real" war. The Second World War was a real war, and Vietnam was a semi-real war. Mexico would be a real war, and nobody wants that.
I agree, but I don't need Acrobat. I already have a PDF viewer in Emacs. What I'd like is to open Emacs directly in firefox, then I can get PDF viewing for free. Come on, firefox devs! Complete program reuse is the Unix way!
That's an easy problem. A laser is a COHERENT light beam. Unlike a regular torchlight whose beam fans out over distance, the laser stays focused over distance. So
the area of sky covered at a distance by a travelling beam is roughly time multiplied by beam velocity multiplied by area of the beam.
The area of the beam is the same area as when you shine it on your hand, ie the size of a fly, say. Let's make it 1cm^2.
To get the speed of travel, let's say you flick your wrist in 1s over half the sky. The perimeter of a half circle with radius 1km = 100,000cm is about 314,159cm, which gives a speed of 300,000cm/s.
The total area of the 1km sky shell covered by the laser beam in 1s is therefore approximately 300,000cm^2. But the total area of the sky shell is
4piR^2. Take half that since you're only moving the beam in a hemisphere, you get a total area of 6*(100,000)^2 = 60,000,000,000cm^2.
That's 60 billion cm^2 of sky area, and your beam can cover only 300 thousand cm^2 in one second. So you need 200,000 seconds to cover the full sky, or about 56 hours. If you want to cover 10% of the sky, you'll need 6 hours. And that's assuming you never cover exactly the same place twice.
Face it, your six year old is harmless to airplanes.
The danger from random flicking only becomes "interesting" at short distances, say less than 10m.
The real problem are psycho adults who patiently aim for airplane cockpits while the plane is taking off or landing.
To (wildly) paraphrase: the p-value is the chance that a random fluctuation of the test metric could change the conclusion of the test.
When the p-value is close to 1, fluctuations dominate and the conclusion is useless. When the p-value is close to zero, the conclusion is robust enough to witstand natural fluctuations.
Firstly, maximum likelihood is more efficient
than ad-hoc parameter fitting. That means for the same amount of data
available, the ML estimate makes better use of it.
Secondly, a problem with Black-Scholes is that because the model is so
simple, it doesn't fit real prices consistently. If you have a single
price available, then the volatility sigma is determined by it. But if
you have two or more product prices, then there's no single sigma that
implies all those prices (ie the volatility smile issue).
So fitting a custom model to implied sigma includes an inbuilt inconsistency. Which volatility do you use to obtain the price for a non-traded product?
Maximum likelihood isn't used as much as you think.
Finance types usually
prefer calibrating models so as to match implied volatility. Basically,
they have a number of pricing functions f(sigma) which represent the prices
of some contracts under some standard simplified model (eg black scholes).
The prices are known from the market, so they can invert f to obtain the "implied sigma". Now they adjust
the parameters of *their* model (which has nothing to do with black scholes or f) until the sigma that is predicted is the same as the implied one that was observed. Crazy, eh?
We could easily cap food, clothes and housing/energy at fixed rates, by law (it will never happen, but it's economically possible - markets can be rigged to only legally trade surplus). Combine this with an allowance that pays for those rates, and it would mean that anybody who does work actually wants to, for whatever reason (*). More importantly, people would not be forced to work just to live.
However, our societies are historically structured to exploit our populations for the upper classes, by making work necessary (unless you're part of the upper class).
(*) there are a lot of different reasons why people go to work even though they don't actually have to - boredom, competition, internal drive, social status, giving back, ideology, etc.
That's quite easy to do if the company is private. A privately held company can focus on delivering a vision instead of looking only at the bottom line.
Of course, making radical changes like Jobs did is high risk. He was very lucky to actually succeed.
I always get refurbished Thinkpads. 1) you get cheap high end hardware that lasts and lasts and lasts,... and is actually designed to be opened up for maintenance. 2) there's good linux hardware support since you're not on the bleeding marketing edge. 3) The nipple rocks.
So what you're saying is, the key to making great products^H^H^H^H students is throwing chairs at the teachers? Teachers! Teachers! Teachers! Teachers! Teachers! Teachers!
Eh? If you're going to invoke real issues, then get it right. The real
issue here is that Gates is trying to get his pet project noticed in
the media. That's the reason TFA has shown up on slashdot, that's the
reason you're commenting. If you're not addressing that point, then
you're off on a tangent.
All that ranting about education and
parents is irrelevant. There are always lots of issues on
anything. The real issue here is Gates wants to make schools more like
Microsoft.
Wikileaks should split itself into two BabyWikileaks. The first one can get funded by the Chinese, as long as it leaks information exclusively about the West.
The second one leaks information only about China, and they'll be funded by...
If you have a moving camera, you can already compare neighbouring frames to build a perspective model of the 3d geometry. So yeah, with a fast computer and a wobbling camera, this could be done without human input. Sorry, rotoscopers;-)
Slashdot Mirror
Christianity was a lot more dangerous before the protestants started interpreting things however they please.
Wait another 5-10 years, and people will just use terminals with TAB-completion, like the gods always intended ;-)
Hey man, this is slashdot. Imaginary wives' opinions only count for (1d20 + 0.2) percent unless they happen to be carrying the Sword of Pandora.
Sorry, I don't make the rules.
Ok. If a driverless car causes an accident, then the owner of the IP should be liable for the accident damages though...
Why not? If in your country, you have a quality resource, should it be underused? Does it make sense to teach classes that are half empty or less? That's just a waste.
Universities should always be full (not too full, but certainly never underfull). If that means lowering the fees to let more kids into Harvard, that's what should happen. It makes sense to entitle people to go to the best places if there's room (as opposed to if they have the asking money).
I try to scream but terror takes the sound before I make it
I start to freeze as horror looks me right between the eyes
I'm paralyzed!
If they can impose linux in all schools, then a lot of people will want to have linux at home just to be compatible. Open source use will grow, Microsoft piracy will shrink.
Mexico is different. Firstly, it's close to America, so a real war would spill over into the southern US straightaway. Secondly, America is full of Mexican-Americans and illegals, who would take sides immediately. The result is that an imperialist adventure in Mexico would cause actual, real attacks on American soil everywhere, with actual, real consequences to people, actual real economic damage, and actual, real social upheaval and political crises.
Basically, the war in the Middle East is not a "real" war. The Second World War was a real war, and Vietnam was a semi-real war. Mexico would be a real war, and nobody wants that.
I agree, but I don't need Acrobat. I already have a PDF viewer in Emacs. What I'd like is to open Emacs directly in firefox, then I can get PDF viewing for free. Come on, firefox devs! Complete program reuse is the Unix way!
The area of the beam is the same area as when you shine it on your hand, ie the size of a fly, say. Let's make it 1cm^2.
To get the speed of travel, let's say you flick your wrist in 1s over half the sky. The perimeter of a half circle with radius 1km = 100,000cm is about 314,159cm, which gives a speed of 300,000cm/s.
The total area of the 1km sky shell covered by the laser beam in 1s is therefore approximately 300,000cm^2. But the total area of the sky shell is 4piR^2. Take half that since you're only moving the beam in a hemisphere, you get a total area of 6*(100,000)^2 = 60,000,000,000cm^2.
That's 60 billion cm^2 of sky area, and your beam can cover only 300 thousand cm^2 in one second. So you need 200,000 seconds to cover the full sky, or about 56 hours. If you want to cover 10% of the sky, you'll need 6 hours. And that's assuming you never cover exactly the same place twice.
Face it, your six year old is harmless to airplanes. The danger from random flicking only becomes "interesting" at short distances, say less than 10m. The real problem are psycho adults who patiently aim for airplane cockpits while the plane is taking off or landing.
So THAT's where the dinosaurs went 65 million years ago!
They built starships and flew into the sun!
Six year olds can't stand still long enough to point a laser pointer at the cockpit of an aircraft far away, especially if it's in flight.
When the p-value is close to 1, fluctuations dominate and the conclusion is useless. When the p-value is close to zero, the conclusion is robust enough to witstand natural fluctuations.
Firstly, maximum likelihood is more efficient than ad-hoc parameter fitting. That means for the same amount of data available, the ML estimate makes better use of it.
Secondly, a problem with Black-Scholes is that because the model is so simple, it doesn't fit real prices consistently. If you have a single price available, then the volatility sigma is determined by it. But if you have two or more product prices, then there's no single sigma that implies all those prices (ie the volatility smile issue). So fitting a custom model to implied sigma includes an inbuilt inconsistency. Which volatility do you use to obtain the price for a non-traded product?
Maximum likelihood isn't used as much as you think. Finance types usually prefer calibrating models so as to match implied volatility. Basically, they have a number of pricing functions f(sigma) which represent the prices of some contracts under some standard simplified model (eg black scholes). The prices are known from the market, so they can invert f to obtain the "implied sigma". Now they adjust the parameters of *their* model (which has nothing to do with black scholes or f) until the sigma that is predicted is the same as the implied one that was observed. Crazy, eh?
A FART you say? That's not so bad.... At least it's not a single BUTTERFLY flapping its wings. Now THAT could ruin your whole hurricane experience!
First reply.... motivated by distrust of nuclear energy!
However, our societies are historically structured to exploit our populations for the upper classes, by making work necessary (unless you're part of the upper class).
(*) there are a lot of different reasons why people go to work even though they don't actually have to - boredom, competition, internal drive, social status, giving back, ideology, etc.
That's quite easy to do if the company is private. A privately held company can focus on delivering a vision instead of looking only at the bottom line. Of course, making radical changes like Jobs did is high risk. He was very lucky to actually succeed.
I always get refurbished Thinkpads. 1) you get cheap high end hardware that lasts and lasts and lasts,... and is actually designed to be opened up for maintenance. 2) there's good linux hardware support since you're not on the bleeding marketing edge. 3) The nipple rocks.
So what you're saying is, the key to making great products^H^H^H^H students is throwing chairs at the teachers? Teachers! Teachers! Teachers! Teachers! Teachers! Teachers!
All that ranting about education and parents is irrelevant. There are always lots of issues on anything. The real issue here is Gates wants to make schools more like Microsoft.
Wikileaks should split itself into two BabyWikileaks. The first one can get funded by the Chinese, as long as it leaks information exclusively about the West. The second one leaks information only about China, and they'll be funded by ...
I hear Don Knuth's LiNuX is nearly there already...
If you have a moving camera, you can already compare neighbouring frames to build a perspective model of the 3d geometry. So yeah, with a fast computer and a wobbling camera, this could be done without human input. Sorry, rotoscopers ;-)