Karl Marx wasn't perfectly right, either: Specifically, he failed to account for (a) socialist societies becoming authoritarian societies, and (b) socialist ideas getting absorbed by capitalist societies. He failed to envision the USSR or the PRC turning out the way they did, and also failed to envision modern Finland, France, and Germany.
What Marx very accurately described, though, is what capitalism's tendencies are if left unchecked by government action, and what capitalism was doing in his day. A couple of his very accurate predictions: 1. Foreign trade creates a race to the lowest wages as countries try to out-do each other in oppressing workers to lower the cost of production. 2. Unregulated banks will eventually collapse and take a lot of other financial institutions and ordinary people with them.
Not quite true, actually: South Korea responded with massive employment programs and has fairly low unemployment right now. Iceland's response was also interesting, in that it basically said "screw the banks, take care of our citizens", and that has helped its economy pretty much recover from the worst of it.
Stephen Chu was the first person to hold the title of Secretary of Energy who had the scientific background to understand how energy capture / extraction actually worked. It's kind of amazing when you think about it: his predecessors included Navy officers, politicians, lawyers, and a former Coca-Cola executive, but nobody who understood the nitty-gritty of what the Energy Department was supposed to be doing.
As far as why he resigned, I wouldn't read too much into it - the overall timing (shortly after re-election) is in line with wanting to get back in the lab rather than dealing with bureaucracy.
This probably has something to do with enjoying cooking, so for me there's very little incentive to automate more than we already do. I mean, we have gadgets to: - chop just about anything quickly - slice just about anything quickly - peel vegetables - open cans really easily - time absolutely everything - clean the dishes afterwords - turn the oven on while you're not even in the house so that the casserole will be finished just as you're getting home
"I think we should look at this from the military point of view. I mean, supposing the Russkies stashes away some big bomb, see. When they come out in a hundred years they could take over! I think it would be extremely naive of us, Mr. President, to imagine that these new developments are going to cause any change in Soviet expansionist policy. I mean, we must be... increasingly on the alert to prevent them from taking over other mineshaft space, in order to breed more prodigiously than we do, thus, knocking us out in superior numbers when we emerge! Mr. President, we must not allow... a mine shaft gap!" - Buck Turgidson
Dean Kamen's first invention, a wearable infusion pump, was something he came up with while a college undergrad entirely on his own, and he then developed a line of medical products based on that. He's definitely involved in the technical work that goes on at his company, even if he doesn't do it all himself.
I've actually met Kamen on several occasions, because I grew up about 3 miles from his company's office. He's a science geek first, and a businessman second, and puts a huge amount of enthusiasm and effort into not only his own research but in science education.
Some of the inventions to his name: - the Segway - the iBot wheelchair, capable of climbing stairs - a home dialysis machine - an insulin pump to help diabetics maintain a proper level - a low-power water purifier for use in developing countries
He's advised a lot of other people too. Point being that if you think he was bought off (for a measly $37K, which given that he's probably a millionaire is basically chump change), you're probably wrong. He's also explicitly mentioned his work whenever he's written about it.
Well, 3 was really intended as the Hindu belief system (although Plato also speculated about that idea), and 6 as the various mythologies of pre-Christian Europe, but you're right that Hinduism also includes many gods who like to mess with people.
Wait, that gives me an idea! We'll confuse our enemies with New York Times columns that are wildly inaccurate or simply have no bearing on reality at all. It's really easy too - all we need to do is hire back Tom Friedman.
There also clearly needs to be some fuzziness built in. If you have a politician stating that the annual budget of some agency is $15.6 million and it's actually $16.2 million, that's considerably less wrong than saying that the agency is entirely responsible for adding $1 trillion to the debt.
Also, Futurama did it first: Morbo: Morbo demands an answer to the following question: If you saw delicious candy in the hands of a small child would you seize and consume it? Jack Johnson: Unthinkable. John Jackson: I wouldn't think of it. Morbo: What about you, Mr. Nixon? I remind you, you are under a truth-o-scope. Richard Nixon: Uh, well, I, uh... the question is-is vague. You don't say what kind of candy, whether anyone is watching or, uh... At any rate, I certainly wouldn't harm the child.
If you can count it (like the number of articles of clothing you have on), it's "fewer". If you can measure it but can't count it it's "less".
You're right that "less clothing" might have been more precise, to deal with the purely theoretical loophole of some guy claiming I advised him to take a picture of himself with 3 shirts on but no pants and no underpants.
The HSBC money laundering case is another good one: That bank was caught laundering billions for drug lords, and there will be no jail time for anybody involved.
Not really. The only possible damage is a little embarrassment.
Or, as a sibling poster pointed out, end of a career, public scandal if you're a public figure, divorce, loss of child custody, etc. Compare that to getting the clap, which is typically handled quietly by a doctor's visit and a couple of shots or pills.
If you're already an xxx model, then you would be comfortable going nude in public, so my standard still stands.
consider this, if you were considering between two women and the other had hiv and chlamydia and the other had stripped for a webcam and her naked gorgeous body was as result available online...
I'd probably pick "none of the above", because there are plenty of great women out there who have done neither of those.
Just like in the Anthony Wiener scandal, the clear bit of advice to come out of this: Never, ever, ever transmit pictures of yourself over a computer network with fewer clothes on than you'd wear in public.
I'm sure some people find that kind of thing fun, but the simple fact is that the damage is greater than getting many STDs.
When I think of skeptics, the first thing that comes to mind is a little story that Dilbert came up with years ago of Ratbert's psychic powers: Ratbert started off by predicting coin flips (as landing on the edge!), and the skeptic debunks him by arguing that Ratbert's description of a hidden drawing, while remarkably similar to what it actually was, was not quite correct.
So what do you to handle people who disbelieve a claim even in the face of positive evidence of that claim, arguing that their position is one simply of skepticism? Or do you not consider that a problem?
Also, a bank may help you finance something you otherwise wouldn't be able to do. For example, I involved a bank with my first car purchase, because without the loan I couldn't afford a car, and without the car I couldn't get to work. Now, that made the car more expensive than if I could have just paid cash, but because the car allowed me to take a job that paid far more than the interest I had to pay it was worth it for me to take out the loan.
Many potentially targeted organizations will not spend the time and money to make the necessary changes without prodding. I've seen this in payment security too: A lot of companies are shocked and dismayed when they find out that they are supposed to store credit card numbers in some way other than in plaintext in a database accessible to anyone with the single database login that everyone in the company has.
The only thing that will prod them is experiencing a cost of doing nothing that is higher than the cost of implementing the solution.
There is no good reason for having to tell the interpreter the type of the variable once its been created. It should already know.
I always saw those kind of symbols as reminders for the programmer, not for the interpreter / compiler. One of the many dumb decisions in PHP is using $ for all variables, regardless of whether $foo is a scalar, a hash, an object, a list, or something completely different.
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It was also brought up during the Bush years. And in my view it was completely justified in both that case and this case.
Karl Marx wasn't perfectly right, either: Specifically, he failed to account for (a) socialist societies becoming authoritarian societies, and (b) socialist ideas getting absorbed by capitalist societies. He failed to envision the USSR or the PRC turning out the way they did, and also failed to envision modern Finland, France, and Germany.
What Marx very accurately described, though, is what capitalism's tendencies are if left unchecked by government action, and what capitalism was doing in his day. A couple of his very accurate predictions:
1. Foreign trade creates a race to the lowest wages as countries try to out-do each other in oppressing workers to lower the cost of production.
2. Unregulated banks will eventually collapse and take a lot of other financial institutions and ordinary people with them.
No government has applied Keynesian policy.
Not quite true, actually: South Korea responded with massive employment programs and has fairly low unemployment right now. Iceland's response was also interesting, in that it basically said "screw the banks, take care of our citizens", and that has helped its economy pretty much recover from the worst of it.
Not only have 4 other bad things happened, we've also failed to get rid of that ridiculous expression!
How many attacks like this have to happen before people realize what kind of war we are in?
One in which nobody's died?
Stephen Chu was the first person to hold the title of Secretary of Energy who had the scientific background to understand how energy capture / extraction actually worked. It's kind of amazing when you think about it: his predecessors included Navy officers, politicians, lawyers, and a former Coca-Cola executive, but nobody who understood the nitty-gritty of what the Energy Department was supposed to be doing.
As far as why he resigned, I wouldn't read too much into it - the overall timing (shortly after re-election) is in line with wanting to get back in the lab rather than dealing with bureaucracy.
This probably has something to do with enjoying cooking, so for me there's very little incentive to automate more than we already do. I mean, we have gadgets to:
- chop just about anything quickly
- slice just about anything quickly
- peel vegetables
- open cans really easily
- time absolutely everything
- clean the dishes afterwords
- turn the oven on while you're not even in the house so that the casserole will be finished just as you're getting home
What's left that isn't better handled by people?
"I think we should look at this from the military point of view. I mean, supposing the Russkies stashes away some big bomb, see. When they come out in a hundred years they could take over! I think it would be extremely naive of us, Mr. President, to imagine that these new developments are going to cause any change in Soviet expansionist policy. I mean, we must be... increasingly on the alert to prevent them from taking over other mineshaft space, in order to breed more prodigiously than we do, thus, knocking us out in superior numbers when we emerge! Mr. President, we must not allow... a mine shaft gap!"
- Buck Turgidson
"If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let 'em go, because man, they're gone."
-Jack Handey
Dean Kamen's first invention, a wearable infusion pump, was something he came up with while a college undergrad entirely on his own, and he then developed a line of medical products based on that. He's definitely involved in the technical work that goes on at his company, even if he doesn't do it all himself.
I've actually met Kamen on several occasions, because I grew up about 3 miles from his company's office. He's a science geek first, and a businessman second, and puts a huge amount of enthusiasm and effort into not only his own research but in science education.
Some of the inventions to his name:
- the Segway
- the iBot wheelchair, capable of climbing stairs
- a home dialysis machine
- an insulin pump to help diabetics maintain a proper level
- a low-power water purifier for use in developing countries
They do investigate consumer complaints, which is why one of the major companies running the "Rachel from Cardholder Services" scam got caught.
Yeah, about that: Paul Krugman on his work for Enron.
He's advised a lot of other people too. Point being that if you think he was bought off (for a measly $37K, which given that he's probably a millionaire is basically chump change), you're probably wrong. He's also explicitly mentioned his work whenever he's written about it.
Well, 3 was really intended as the Hindu belief system (although Plato also speculated about that idea), and 6 as the various mythologies of pre-Christian Europe, but you're right that Hinduism also includes many gods who like to mess with people.
Wait, that gives me an idea! We'll confuse our enemies with New York Times columns that are wildly inaccurate or simply have no bearing on reality at all. It's really easy too - all we need to do is hire back Tom Friedman.
There also clearly needs to be some fuzziness built in. If you have a politician stating that the annual budget of some agency is $15.6 million and it's actually $16.2 million, that's considerably less wrong than saying that the agency is entirely responsible for adding $1 trillion to the debt.
Also, Futurama did it first: ... the question is-is vague. You don't say what kind of candy, whether anyone is watching or, uh... At any rate, I certainly wouldn't harm the child.
Morbo: Morbo demands an answer to the following question: If you saw delicious candy in the hands of a small child would you seize and consume it?
Jack Johnson: Unthinkable.
John Jackson: I wouldn't think of it.
Morbo: What about you, Mr. Nixon? I remind you, you are under a truth-o-scope.
Richard Nixon: Uh, well, I, uh
[The truth-o-scope beeps.]
If you can count it (like the number of articles of clothing you have on), it's "fewer". If you can measure it but can't count it it's "less".
You're right that "less clothing" might have been more precise, to deal with the purely theoretical loophole of some guy claiming I advised him to take a picture of himself with 3 shirts on but no pants and no underpants.
The HSBC money laundering case is another good one: That bank was caught laundering billions for drug lords, and there will be no jail time for anybody involved.
Not really. The only possible damage is a little embarrassment.
Or, as a sibling poster pointed out, end of a career, public scandal if you're a public figure, divorce, loss of child custody, etc. Compare that to getting the clap, which is typically handled quietly by a doctor's visit and a couple of shots or pills.
If you're already an xxx model, then you would be comfortable going nude in public, so my standard still stands.
consider this, if you were considering between two women and the other had hiv and chlamydia and the other had stripped for a webcam and her naked gorgeous body was as result available online...
I'd probably pick "none of the above", because there are plenty of great women out there who have done neither of those.
Just like in the Anthony Wiener scandal, the clear bit of advice to come out of this: Never, ever, ever transmit pictures of yourself over a computer network with fewer clothes on than you'd wear in public.
I'm sure some people find that kind of thing fun, but the simple fact is that the damage is greater than getting many STDs.
When I think of skeptics, the first thing that comes to mind is a little story that Dilbert came up with years ago of Ratbert's psychic powers: Ratbert started off by predicting coin flips (as landing on the edge!), and the skeptic debunks him by arguing that Ratbert's description of a hidden drawing, while remarkably similar to what it actually was, was not quite correct.
So what do you to handle people who disbelieve a claim even in the face of positive evidence of that claim, arguing that their position is one simply of skepticism? Or do you not consider that a problem?
Also, a bank may help you finance something you otherwise wouldn't be able to do. For example, I involved a bank with my first car purchase, because without the loan I couldn't afford a car, and without the car I couldn't get to work. Now, that made the car more expensive than if I could have just paid cash, but because the car allowed me to take a job that paid far more than the interest I had to pay it was worth it for me to take out the loan.
Many potentially targeted organizations will not spend the time and money to make the necessary changes without prodding. I've seen this in payment security too: A lot of companies are shocked and dismayed when they find out that they are supposed to store credit card numbers in some way other than in plaintext in a database accessible to anyone with the single database login that everyone in the company has.
The only thing that will prod them is experiencing a cost of doing nothing that is higher than the cost of implementing the solution.
There is no good reason for having to tell the interpreter the type of the variable once its been created. It should already know.
I always saw those kind of symbols as reminders for the programmer, not for the interpreter / compiler. One of the many dumb decisions in PHP is using $ for all variables, regardless of whether $foo is a scalar, a hash, an object, a list, or something completely different.