Re:Nothing on TV, and you still pay for it??
on
The Last Place
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· Score: 1
Sounds like a good compromise to me. You still get the entertainment value of TV with none of the commercials. Good for you! I just might try it myself.
Re:Bhutanese Culture will cease to exist.
on
The Last Place
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Not that it's a bad thing ofcourse. A single world-culture and a single world language would be good for trade. I still own a TV and I watch it BTW and I think that a strong mind can use TV rather than be used by it.
I just don't hold any illusions that you can preserve a local culture under the constant wash of TV. It just is as it is. TV's unblinking eye serves us well in many ways. As it connects it also provides a common experience to all who are watching, the common experience causes common culture. Just how GNU/Linux has a culture formed about it, and TV shows tend to spawn sub-cultures too (ie: Star Trek, Star Wars, et al.).
So maybe I'm being a bit harsh with my last post. Still, it is sad to see the end of a culture. Just like it was sad to see the end of Amiga, OS2, or Novell.
Bhutanese Culture will cease to exist.
on
The Last Place
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Just like I've seen the culture of a small Alaskan village cease due to the introduction of T.V. So will the culture of Bhutan. This letter to the editor is very convincing on that point.
When I was young, we were Alaskans. We had our own culture and music both the old (native alaskans) and the new Russians and Americans had forged a unique identity that was Alaskan. Then TV came. By the time I left High School you could see the changes.
My point is well illustrated by this story:
I graduated high school in 1992, the kids from our class did the Christmas dance theme on some cute "Stairway to Heaven" or other schmaltzy thing. The kids that were class of 1994 did "Christmas in da 'Hood". The '94 kids had gang violence in their classrooms. Kids bringing guns to school (with the intent of shooting other kids and not to show off their new hunting rifle), weapons, and grafiti became problems.
The ironic thing was that the younger classes were smaller ours was the largest graduating class.
I remember all the Rappers and the oppressed gansta' types sulking about the remote and wild wilderness of one of the remotest places on earth. Some people run away to the untouched beauty of Alaska to escape inner-city grime. How ironic that an aspiring young rap-star would be cursed with living in a place where there was hardly any crime and the government paid you to live there.
If religion is the opiate of the masses, then television is the crystal-meth of the glue huffing, crack-smoking, I-got-the-munchies masses.
Once again America doesn't need MORE laws just to apply the existing ones judiciously.
In all seriousness, could some one explain to me why we need to crack down on "Cyber Terrorists"? I thought it was the regular, box-cutter-weilding, gun-toting, bomb-making kind that were giving us problems lately. Shouldn't the government be trying to stream line its paperwork processes and attempting to fix internal security problems?
Shouldn't we be working harder to fix existing government agencies that don't work as intended instead of making new ones?
Consider this analogy: we all like superman, but what would you prefer - a law enforcement system that is efficient
or one that relies on Superman to come their rescue every time?
I've seen "superman" cause the failure of many projects by his own resistance to change. Then at the last minute he swoops in and saves the day putting in massive overtime. The "superman" looks like a hero at the end of the day and is applauded for his brilliance. He is promoted, given pay raises, and becomes an icon in the company.
Until one day the smart kid comes in and rewrites his code from scratch or documents everything. Now "superman" has Kryptonite on his face. What does he do? He 'offs the kid (layoff that is). I've never won in this scenario yet... and if I ever do I risk becoming a false superman myself.
Ofcourse, I'd prefer to be the real Superman... the one who can fly I mean. But, the false superman is comfortable with a Dilbert or a Milton because he knows they won't try to take the glory themselves.
Perhaps the US could offer a service (for a fee) to other countries and store their waste too? Then everyone could just trust the US to keep it all safe. That would help with the Siberian problem no?
I don't think anyone will ever die saying "if only I had played more Quake.."
That is the most insightful thing I've read all day.
I woke up one day and realised that I hadn't read any of the "classics"... old english classics, scifi classics, fantasy classics, or any science journals... whatever. So I've started reading these old books and I'm finding that a lot of the ideas that I thought I'd come up with are really old, old, old ideas.
No one really can say what is better... reading, movies, video games, and all forms of entertainment are just a wastes of time.
This is wonderful for us unemployed programmers! All we need to do is get jobs writing in Sloppy! Does O'Reily have a book on Sloppy? Where are the Teach yourself Sloppy in 30 days books?
Does anyone here write Sloppy Code?...darn, didn't think so...
Dear Slashdot, I'm a new college graduate trying to get a job making Sloppy Code can you help me?
To make my veiled sarcasm plain: I don't like the fact that UNC forces students to buy laptops. I don't like the fact that because the students now all have laptops they have to have broadband. I think students who wouldn't have bought broadband anyhow probably would rather buy the Ramen Noodles. I don't really want UNC to force its students to buy broadband (even at reduced prices) because it has some kind of shady deal with a telco.
Reality should intervene at some point here and force people to realize that if kids today go to college without a laptop and don't get internet access on their own... They have much bigger problems than being able to download pdf's! They are having problems just getting to go to college to begin with!
Don't give me sob stories about kids going to a college that is practically Ivy Leauge.
Don't laugh. I lived in Alaska for many years and knew folks who went to the University of Alaska in Fairbanks by day and commuted 60 or so miles to thier ultra cheap log cabins by night. Cabins with no plumbing mind you. You'd be surprized where you'll find techies and what they'll cook up... no plumbing but they had electricity and phone somehow. I hear you can even get Cable broadband now in some of he small communities along the Al-Can highway.
Ofcourse I'm living in Bavaria now so I don't keep up with things Alaskan as much as I should.
from places like Time Warner Cable and students can get DSL from Verizon. Again, both in your area. Not good options but at least you have options. Where I am I can't get broadband... period. It sounds like you are complaining because you can't get broadband for free from your school.
Another poster insightfully gave you a Google link that you should use for your wireless dream. I suggest that since your school is dictating that students have laptops and certain kinds of laptops (and I assume the school doesn't pay for the laptops) why not dictate that students also have internet access and pay for it themselves? Really, we are talking about $14.95 for dial-up or $50 per month for broadband compared to a $1400 laptop they already have to buy.
temperature required for Automend to heal -- between 240 degrees and 250 degrees Fahrenheit
So it's not like the stuff magically heals itself or anything but I still want a windshield for my car made out of the stuff since it is transparent. My windshields always get cracked by rocks and gravel. Folks in cold climates will love it because they get heat and cold cracks on their windshields and with this stuff a hot clothes iron could heal it.
I wonder how Automend would perform in Car accidents? If it shatters then you certainly don't want it for you car... cars use "saftey glass" to avoid that flesh ripping statter action.
What is "Computer Literate"? How do you determine if someone is "Computer Literate"?
I'm seriously asking you seriously, not with any sarcasm. Does Computer Literate and Computer skills mean that they can make word documents? Does it mean they can use MS Outlook? (If it does, then I'm not computer literate because I've never used MS Outlook and never bothered learning MS Word. But, I can use Star Office and Netscape) I did find this paper which may be helpful and does address this question for you. I would seriously stress the idea of truly evaluating what using a computer really means. I think when you folks boil stuff down you'll end up teaching searching and researching techniques as well as basic e-mail concepts... really... the thought process behind forming a good search isn't intuitive to everyone it involves a very basic understanding of set theory and many poorly educated kids will have no clue what that means but it could be valuable to teach them.
Think "Library Science" and you might be heading in the right direction for "Computer Literacy". Offer the course in an "at your own pace" format if you can. Make it so the smart kids can finish in a week and the not-so-smart can take a whole semester if they need to.
As for more advanced IT topics, are you going to teach System Administration? Web Development? Programming? PC Repair and troubleshooting?
As for programming I reccommend taht you consider Pre-Calc as a prerequisite. I've taught programming to students who hadn't been introduced to the concept of a "function" without the mental tool of the "function" in the student's head your programming instructor will have a hell of a time.
Some of my student's didn't know what a variable was and it was very hard to progress past "Hello World" with those students... and this was a COLLEGE class... albiet the Adult Education section.
you are no doubt religious
so they teach to to do that..but still
*LOL* it's spelled J-O-K-E. You make too many assumptions! I used to do experiments on lab rats and flies when I was a biology student just like everybody else... Inherently any experimentation on emergent systems requires the use of a selector or predation algorithm. This guy happens to be applying the same principles I used when developing evolutionary models inside a computer (using EA or evolutionary algorithms), only he's applying them to living organisms. A better title for the article would be Principa Evolvica in a Petri Dish
But I do think it's funny that the researcher is sitting in his lab frying little organisms and performing an EA step by step essentially by hand. Which is to say he generates a population, runs predation or selectors, reproduces and mutates, runs predation, reproduce and mutate, predate, mutate,... ect. put that way it doesn't sound funny but if you put it this way: "You guys alive? *zap* You guys still alive? *zap* Still alive? *zap* Not dead yet? *zap*" I personally think it's funny as hell. I certainly wouldn't want to have to sit and run an EA by hand anyhow. BTW: They're called Tropisms not instincts when you're dealing with non-cephalized creatures.
According to an old salt...
on
Black Water
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I asked my coworker here that used to do Marine studies in Biscayne and Florida Bay, his answer was so thoroughly educational and authoritative sounding I thought I'd post it here:
Zarf:
> You guys ever hear of this stuff?
I've seen it.
As you are well aware, every drop of seawater is loaded with micro-organisms.
Try to cheat and jump start your aquarium by getting a few buckets of seawater
straight from the source, but screw it up and don't aerate it or give it enough
light. Leave it in the car trunk too long.
Or just leave seawater standing in the bowl in your sailboat's head. The water
dies. It doesn't even have the good manners to stay clear. It turns black and
anaerobic, and fits the description in the Naples' article. An absentee captain
who kept his motorboat in the slip next to me used to complain that someone was
breaking onto his boat and using his head without flushing it when he wasn't
around. He just left water sitting in it for weeks on end. Same stuff.
BTW, "blackwater" means sewage to us sailors. Even the phrase "deadwater" is
already used. ("Deadwater" is where there is a sharp boundary very near the
surface between fresh melted glacier water and seawater. This boundary supports
internal waves. Displacement boats at the surface create a second wake at the
boundary which slows them to a crawl, hence the name. This is usually found in
fjords.... but I digress.)
I've got two ideas about where this stuff came from.
The first is that something was released into the water that killed everything.
Some sort of toxic dumping. I'm sure that's what some people are thinking. But
I think that's overstating what happened.
More likely, the cause wasn't so deliberately evil. My guess is that someone
ballasted a very large ship with a lot of seawater. The water sat in her tanks
for a long time, and died just as though it were sitting in my sailboat's head
too long. Then, as they approached port, they realized they'd forgotten to dump
it overboard offshore. So they dumped on the coastal shelf on the way in. The
fish know something is wrong, which is why they're avoiding it and acting
funny. But it's nothing as actively toxic as a red tide bloom. Just ballast
water.
It's important to realize that the waters there are relatively still. I should
know, this was the very stuff I studied at RSMAS. The Straits of Florida act as
a bandpass filter and so only a weak diurnal tide is left (the strong lunar
driven semi-diurnal tides are restricted to the East coast of the state). If
the Loop Current is even in the area right now (it meanders wildly and
unpredictably) it probably isn't riding up onto the shelf where this
ballastwater is or it would have swept this stuff away. I haven't looked at
Florida weather lately, but maybe they haven't had a good strong cold front for
a while either. Wind driven circulation is important; cold fronts are the
biggest feature around Florida during this season. Heck, maybe it would have
stayed together through weather events like that. Given those conditions and
assuming the salinity of the ballast water is close to the surrounding water,
diffusion will be painfully slow and patches will remain identifiable for a long
time. (I used to use freshwater releases from the mainland as a tracer; I'd zip
around in a speedboat and map the salinity across Biscayne and Florida Bay from
one week to the next. You could follow the blobs of water even though their
integrity was being attacked by density driven circulation from its low
salinity.) What is left is a weak flow, a combination of wind and tidally
driven pumping, that slowly brings water from that area into Florida Bay and
then pumps it south through passes between the Keys into Hawk Channel. On the
other side, the boundary between chalky/murky green runoff from Florida Bay and
the cleaner Florida Straits water is so clear it can be seen from a boat as a
sharp line. Perhaps the residents in the Keys will get a close view of it as it
passes by?
Slainte'
John
John doesn't read slashdot anyhow so this information might never have made a post here. But, I do find his explination remarkable in that it gives a relatively simple cause that seems very plausable. I like answers like that so I could be a little biased especially since it takes a lot of steam out of the hype surrounding the story.
I know this won't get modded up now but perhaps a few people will read this and be enlightened.
If I only knew I could have justified watching the Simpsons at work as Research for better teaching materials. "No, I can't go to the Campus Pub for lunch, I've got to watch all these damn Simpsons episodes! No, it's research honest! Hey, I've got to teach classes now you know..." Maybe I would have actually become a Professor?
"You can introduce a lot of mutations in the lab," explains Hall. "In effect, you can
take millions of copies of this gene and give each one a different mutation." Those
mutated genes are introduced back into the cells, "and then you ask, can you grow
on lactose now?"
So basically you screw 'em up somehow and then torture them. I know that they're just microbes but it still... if you prick them do they not bleed? The process is still, "Ooh, you still alive, *zap* how 'bout now? Still kickin'? *zap* how 'bout now? Nope? *zap* how 'bout now?" Perhaps I have too much imagination but just picture this with fuzzy animals... not funny "ha ha" funny strange.
Ofcourse the "revolution" is "stalling" the economy is "stalling". If you get a bunch of dot-coms going dongles up then I guess thier innovation and momentum will kinda hafta go with 'em won't they?
Fortunately there hasn't been a rash of programmer suicides because of failing companies and layoffs so it is only a matter of time before those charming, benevolent, lovable, affable and near god-like programmers start innovating somewhere and some how else.
Don't worry folks, we'll pull through. We'll be smarter, wiser, and have new ideas brought on by temporary hunger and exhaustion. Remeber this too shall pass.
If you don't know GNU from Unix then you'll get a nice introduction. This interview obviously isn't for the slashdot set. It is definately for the Director's, Manager's, and other people who are intrested in matters Open Source or PERL but just don't know a register increment from the bit-bucket.
So from that perspective, this is a nice little piece... and it's news for nerds in that the interview is good for use as evangalism... pass the link around to those whom you feel are ready for the good-news brothers and sisters!
Actually, you've got a nice point. If we did get rid of juries it would expidite things but then we have juries to make things "more fair" not faster.
So I propose that when your number comes up for jury duty you get whisked off into a giant plastic bubble to serve your term of jury duty with only the company of other jurors. You will live blind-folded with oven mitts on your hands at all times; as well as large balls of cotton stuffed into, and taped onto, your ears.
This will be inconvenient at first... but that will all be solved once we begin cloning jurors. We'll find the perfect jurors from our initial population and mass produce the most fit of them in great vats. The result will be an entire race of jurors.
It will be glorious. An entire population of perfectly blank slates. Ofcourse we'll need BladeRunners to terminate the 'jurors' after they gain a certain level of awareness. We'll give our artificial jurors a limited life span to compensate... say 3 years... then boom!
Last time I was on Jury duty, we were on the honor system to not discuss or research our case in the intrest of a fair trial. From the article I gather this is virtually the only concern aborting this retrial. When screened for jury duty last time I was asked a series of questions to determine my bias. I was also asked on the honor system to not do any research, visit crime scenes, or discuss the case...
I assume that the Aussies also have a similar convention. So, my confusion is over why it is okay for me to say... "no, I've never heard of this case nor will I go look it up in the library." Yet my disavowing any readership of CrimeNet is not just as valid a claim. Is my verbal agreement to not read any websites dealing with the case somehow inherently less believable than my word to not research the case at the library?
Shouldn't I still be honor bound and even under some sort of threat of perjury to not research the case? If something is published on the internet, does this make it inherently more dangerous than something published in a periodical?
I am very suspect of this Judge's reasoning. Jurors are supposed to operate under instruction from the judge anyway. If a juror does violate thier agreement to not research, ect... then the juror should be penalized. This course of action seems to punish the defendant.
As for the bit about CrimeNet ruining lives... That's another article isn't it? You can seek legal action against a site defaming you right? CrimeNet might be getting a law suit or two eh?
-// Zarf//
Re:Art imitates life...
on
Sim Plague
·
· Score: 1
I stand corrected. On another note tho':
The program is intended to be modifiable, and at some point Maxis, now a division of Electronic Arts, plans to make the language it has created, known as Edith, available to the players. Edith is designed to permit anyone with minimal programming skills to extend the game.
Mr. Wright said he realized that such a language in the hands of antisocial game players would create vexing problems. "Hopefully," he said, "they will be balanced by people doing more creative things."
Actually the Edith programming language concept is really a fun little idea from wright. I'm impressed with the implications. A very simple language to extend play within the game... I'm reading between the lines but I think this is intended to be a kind of interpereted language. If it is a "real" programming language with sufficient facilities it would really boot strap a lot of kids into the world of programming.
I like it, it means that there'll be a whole lotta codin' going on. I can see it now... billy's 'The Sims v2.0' plug-in that allows your character to carry a BFG or a HyperGun and blast his enemies!
Ofcourse there are other implications... but those aren't as much fun as crazy coders building insane extentions to muck up a paradise world. so... I still get to laugh manically...
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like a good compromise to me. You still get the entertainment value of TV with none of the commercials. Good for you! I just might try it myself.
Not that it's a bad thing ofcourse. A single world-culture and a single world language would be good for trade. I still own a TV and I watch it BTW and I think that a strong mind can use TV rather than be used by it.
I just don't hold any illusions that you can preserve a local culture under the constant wash of TV. It just is as it is. TV's unblinking eye serves us well in many ways. As it connects it also provides a common experience to all who are watching, the common experience causes common culture. Just how GNU/Linux has a culture formed about it, and TV shows tend to spawn sub-cultures too (ie: Star Trek, Star Wars, et al.).
So maybe I'm being a bit harsh with my last post. Still, it is sad to see the end of a culture. Just like it was sad to see the end of Amiga, OS2, or Novell.
Just like I've seen the culture of a small Alaskan village cease due to the introduction of T.V. So will the culture of Bhutan. This letter to the editor is very convincing on that point.
When I was young, we were Alaskans. We had our own culture and music both the old (native alaskans) and the new Russians and Americans had forged a unique identity that was Alaskan. Then TV came. By the time I left High School you could see the changes.
My point is well illustrated by this story:
I graduated high school in 1992, the kids from our class did the Christmas dance theme on some cute "Stairway to Heaven" or other schmaltzy thing. The kids that were class of 1994 did "Christmas in da 'Hood". The '94 kids had gang violence in their classrooms. Kids bringing guns to school (with the intent of shooting other kids and not to show off their new hunting rifle), weapons, and grafiti became problems.
The ironic thing was that the younger classes were smaller ours was the largest graduating class.
I remember all the Rappers and the oppressed gansta' types sulking about the remote and wild wilderness of one of the remotest places on earth. Some people run away to the untouched beauty of Alaska to escape inner-city grime. How ironic that an aspiring young rap-star would be cursed with living in a place where there was hardly any crime and the government paid you to live there.
If religion is the opiate of the masses, then television is the crystal-meth of the glue huffing, crack-smoking, I-got-the-munchies masses.
Once again America doesn't need MORE laws just to apply the existing ones judiciously.
In all seriousness, could some one explain to me why we need to crack down on "Cyber Terrorists"? I thought it was the regular, box-cutter-weilding, gun-toting, bomb-making kind that were giving us problems lately. Shouldn't the government be trying to stream line its paperwork processes and attempting to fix internal security problems?
Shouldn't we be working harder to fix existing government agencies that don't work as intended instead of making new ones?
Spanish Inquisition!
Now all we need is for the FBI to issue red vestiments to their Computer Crimes task-force and when the pop in the door they can scream:
No one expects the...
Consider this analogy: we all like superman, but what would you prefer - a law enforcement system that is efficient or one that relies on Superman to come their rescue every time?
I've seen "superman" cause the failure of many projects by his own resistance to change. Then at the last minute he swoops in and saves the day putting in massive overtime. The "superman" looks like a hero at the end of the day and is applauded for his brilliance. He is promoted, given pay raises, and becomes an icon in the company.
Until one day the smart kid comes in and rewrites his code from scratch or documents everything. Now "superman" has Kryptonite on his face. What does he do? He 'offs the kid (layoff that is). I've never won in this scenario yet... and if I ever do I risk becoming a false superman myself.
Ofcourse, I'd prefer to be the real Superman... the one who can fly I mean. But, the false superman is comfortable with a Dilbert or a Milton because he knows they won't try to take the glory themselves.
Perhaps the US could offer a service (for a fee) to other countries and store their waste too? Then everyone could just trust the US to keep it all safe. That would help with the Siberian problem no?
I don't think anyone will ever die saying "if only I had played more Quake.."
That is the most insightful thing I've read all day.
I woke up one day and realised that I hadn't read any of the "classics"... old english classics, scifi classics, fantasy classics, or any science journals... whatever. So I've started reading these old books and I'm finding that a lot of the ideas that I thought I'd come up with are really old, old, old ideas.
No one really can say what is better... reading, movies, video games, and all forms of entertainment are just a wastes of time.
This is wonderful for us unemployed programmers! All we need to do is get jobs writing in Sloppy! Does O'Reily have a book on Sloppy? Where are the Teach yourself Sloppy in 30 days books?
...darn, didn't think so...
Does anyone here write Sloppy Code?
Dear Slashdot, I'm a new college graduate trying to get a job making Sloppy Code can you help me?
To make my veiled sarcasm plain: I don't like the fact that UNC forces students to buy laptops. I don't like the fact that because the students now all have laptops they have to have broadband. I think students who wouldn't have bought broadband anyhow probably would rather buy the Ramen Noodles. I don't really want UNC to force its students to buy broadband (even at reduced prices) because it has some kind of shady deal with a telco.
Reality should intervene at some point here and force people to realize that if kids today go to college without a laptop and don't get internet access on their own... They have much bigger problems than being able to download pdf's! They are having problems just getting to go to college to begin with!
Don't give me sob stories about kids going to a college that is practically Ivy Leauge.
Don't laugh. I lived in Alaska for many years and knew folks who went to the University of Alaska in Fairbanks by day and commuted 60 or so miles to thier ultra cheap log cabins by night. Cabins with no plumbing mind you. You'd be surprized where you'll find techies and what they'll cook up... no plumbing but they had electricity and phone somehow. I hear you can even get Cable broadband now in some of he small communities along the Al-Can highway.
Ofcourse I'm living in Bavaria now so I don't keep up with things Alaskan as much as I should.
from places like Time Warner Cable and students can get DSL from Verizon. Again, both in your area. Not good options but at least you have options. Where I am I can't get broadband... period. It sounds like you are complaining because you can't get broadband for free from your school.
Another poster insightfully gave you a Google link that you should use for your wireless dream. I suggest that since your school is dictating that students have laptops and certain kinds of laptops (and I assume the school doesn't pay for the laptops) why not dictate that students also have internet access and pay for it themselves? Really, we are talking about $14.95 for dial-up or $50 per month for broadband compared to a $1400 laptop they already have to buy.
temperature required for Automend to heal -- between 240 degrees and 250 degrees Fahrenheit
So it's not like the stuff magically heals itself or anything but I still want a windshield for my car made out of the stuff since it is transparent. My windshields always get cracked by rocks and gravel. Folks in cold climates will love it because they get heat and cold cracks on their windshields and with this stuff a hot clothes iron could heal it.
I wonder how Automend would perform in Car accidents? If it shatters then you certainly don't want it for you car... cars use "saftey glass" to avoid that flesh ripping statter action.
What is "Computer Literate"? How do you determine if someone is "Computer Literate"?
I'm seriously asking you seriously, not with any sarcasm. Does Computer Literate and Computer skills mean that they can make word documents? Does it mean they can use MS Outlook? (If it does, then I'm not computer literate because I've never used MS Outlook and never bothered learning MS Word. But, I can use Star Office and Netscape) I did find this paper which may be helpful and does address this question for you. I would seriously stress the idea of truly evaluating what using a computer really means. I think when you folks boil stuff down you'll end up teaching searching and researching techniques as well as basic e-mail concepts... really... the thought process behind forming a good search isn't intuitive to everyone it involves a very basic understanding of set theory and many poorly educated kids will have no clue what that means but it could be valuable to teach them.
Think "Library Science" and you might be heading in the right direction for "Computer Literacy". Offer the course in an "at your own pace" format if you can. Make it so the smart kids can finish in a week and the not-so-smart can take a whole semester if they need to.
As for more advanced IT topics, are you going to teach System Administration? Web Development? Programming? PC Repair and troubleshooting?
As for programming I reccommend taht you consider Pre-Calc as a prerequisite. I've taught programming to students who hadn't been introduced to the concept of a "function" without the mental tool of the "function" in the student's head your programming instructor will have a hell of a time. Some of my student's didn't know what a variable was and it was very hard to progress past "Hello World" with those students... and this was a COLLEGE class... albiet the Adult Education section.
you are no doubt religious so they teach to to do that..but still
... ect. put that way it doesn't sound funny but if you put it this way: "You guys alive? *zap* You guys still alive? *zap* Still alive? *zap* Not dead yet? *zap*" I personally think it's funny as hell. I certainly wouldn't want to have to sit and run an EA by hand anyhow. BTW: They're called Tropisms not instincts when you're dealing with non-cephalized creatures.
*LOL* it's spelled J-O-K-E. You make too many assumptions! I used to do experiments on lab rats and flies when I was a biology student just like everybody else... Inherently any experimentation on emergent systems requires the use of a selector or predation algorithm. This guy happens to be applying the same principles I used when developing evolutionary models inside a computer (using EA or evolutionary algorithms), only he's applying them to living organisms. A better title for the article would be Principa Evolvica in a Petri Dish
But I do think it's funny that the researcher is sitting in his lab frying little organisms and performing an EA step by step essentially by hand. Which is to say he generates a population, runs predation or selectors, reproduces and mutates, runs predation, reproduce and mutate, predate, mutate,
I asked my coworker here that used to do Marine studies in Biscayne and Florida Bay, his answer was so thoroughly educational and authoritative sounding I thought I'd post it here:
Zarf:
> You guys ever hear of this stuff?
I've seen it.
As you are well aware, every drop of seawater is loaded with micro-organisms. Try to cheat and jump start your aquarium by getting a few buckets of seawater straight from the source, but screw it up and don't aerate it or give it enough light. Leave it in the car trunk too long. Or just leave seawater standing in the bowl in your sailboat's head. The water dies. It doesn't even have the good manners to stay clear. It turns black and anaerobic, and fits the description in the Naples' article. An absentee captain who kept his motorboat in the slip next to me used to complain that someone was breaking onto his boat and using his head without flushing it when he wasn't around. He just left water sitting in it for weeks on end. Same stuff.
BTW, "blackwater" means sewage to us sailors. Even the phrase "deadwater" is already used. ("Deadwater" is where there is a sharp boundary very near the surface between fresh melted glacier water and seawater. This boundary supports internal waves. Displacement boats at the surface create a second wake at the boundary which slows them to a crawl, hence the name. This is usually found in fjords.... but I digress.)
I've got two ideas about where this stuff came from. The first is that something was released into the water that killed everything. Some sort of toxic dumping. I'm sure that's what some people are thinking. But I think that's overstating what happened.
More likely, the cause wasn't so deliberately evil. My guess is that someone ballasted a very large ship with a lot of seawater. The water sat in her tanks for a long time, and died just as though it were sitting in my sailboat's head too long. Then, as they approached port, they realized they'd forgotten to dump it overboard offshore. So they dumped on the coastal shelf on the way in. The fish know something is wrong, which is why they're avoiding it and acting funny. But it's nothing as actively toxic as a red tide bloom. Just ballast water.
It's important to realize that the waters there are relatively still. I should know, this was the very stuff I studied at RSMAS. The Straits of Florida act as a bandpass filter and so only a weak diurnal tide is left (the strong lunar driven semi-diurnal tides are restricted to the East coast of the state). If the Loop Current is even in the area right now (it meanders wildly and unpredictably) it probably isn't riding up onto the shelf where this ballastwater is or it would have swept this stuff away. I haven't looked at Florida weather lately, but maybe they haven't had a good strong cold front for a while either. Wind driven circulation is important; cold fronts are the biggest feature around Florida during this season. Heck, maybe it would have stayed together through weather events like that. Given those conditions and assuming the salinity of the ballast water is close to the surrounding water, diffusion will be painfully slow and patches will remain identifiable for a long time. (I used to use freshwater releases from the mainland as a tracer; I'd zip around in a speedboat and map the salinity across Biscayne and Florida Bay from one week to the next. You could follow the blobs of water even though their integrity was being attacked by density driven circulation from its low salinity.) What is left is a weak flow, a combination of wind and tidally driven pumping, that slowly brings water from that area into Florida Bay and then pumps it south through passes between the Keys into Hawk Channel. On the other side, the boundary between chalky/murky green runoff from Florida Bay and the cleaner Florida Straits water is so clear it can be seen from a boat as a sharp line. Perhaps the residents in the Keys will get a close view of it as it passes by?
Slainte'
John
John doesn't read slashdot anyhow so this information might never have made a post here. But, I do find his explination remarkable in that it gives a relatively simple cause that seems very plausable. I like answers like that so I could be a little biased especially since it takes a lot of steam out of the hype surrounding the story.
I know this won't get modded up now but perhaps a few people will read this and be enlightened.
If I only knew I could have justified watching the Simpsons at work as Research for better teaching materials. "No, I can't go to the Campus Pub for lunch, I've got to watch all these damn Simpsons episodes! No, it's research honest! Hey, I've got to teach classes now you know..." Maybe I would have actually become a Professor?
sadistic.
"You can introduce a lot of mutations in the lab," explains Hall. "In effect, you can take millions of copies of this gene and give each one a different mutation." Those mutated genes are introduced back into the cells, "and then you ask, can you grow on lactose now?"
So basically you screw 'em up somehow and then torture them. I know that they're just microbes but it still... if you prick them do they not bleed? The process is still, "Ooh, you still alive, *zap* how 'bout now? Still kickin'? *zap* how 'bout now? Nope? *zap* how 'bout now?" Perhaps I have too much imagination but just picture this with fuzzy animals... not funny "ha ha" funny strange.
It's totally about pragmatism in the face of the unknown. We can act "as if" there's consciousness, but we still don't know...
And by that meter I'd have to wonder if some of my drinking buddies are conscious. Well, truth be told there are times they definately aren't!
I can finally say, "My holo-matrix is unstable"... "Format my Holo-deck" (an array of Holo-drives) ... or how about "I've had a holo-dump".
// Zarf //
Boy I miss the term, "flopto-magnetic" there were lots of good lines there too.
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that the internet is revolting!
// Zarf //
Ofcourse the "revolution" is "stalling" the economy is "stalling". If you get a bunch of dot-coms going dongles up then I guess thier innovation and momentum will kinda hafta go with 'em won't they?
Fortunately there hasn't been a rash of programmer suicides because of failing companies and layoffs so it is only a matter of time before those charming, benevolent, lovable, affable and near god-like programmers start innovating somewhere and some how else.
Don't worry folks, we'll pull through. We'll be smarter, wiser, and have new ideas brought on by temporary hunger and exhaustion. Remeber this too shall pass.
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If you don't know GNU from Unix then you'll get a nice introduction. This interview obviously isn't for the slashdot set. It is definately for the Director's, Manager's, and other people who are intrested in matters Open Source or PERL but just don't know a register increment from the bit-bucket.
// Zarf //
So from that perspective, this is a nice little piece... and it's news for nerds in that the interview is good for use as evangalism... pass the link around to those whom you feel are ready for the good-news brothers and sisters!
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Actually, you've got a nice point. If we did get rid of juries it would expidite things but then we have juries to make things "more fair" not faster.
// Zarf //
So I propose that when your number comes up for jury duty you get whisked off into a giant plastic bubble to serve your term of jury duty with only the company of other jurors. You will live blind-folded with oven mitts on your hands at all times; as well as large balls of cotton stuffed into, and taped onto, your ears.
This will be inconvenient at first... but that will all be solved once we begin cloning jurors. We'll find the perfect jurors from our initial population and mass produce the most fit of them in great vats. The result will be an entire race of jurors.
It will be glorious. An entire population of perfectly blank slates. Ofcourse we'll need BladeRunners to terminate the 'jurors' after they gain a certain level of awareness. We'll give our artificial jurors a limited life span to compensate... say 3 years... then boom!
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Last time I was on Jury duty, we were on the honor system to not discuss or research our case in the intrest of a fair trial. From the article I gather this is virtually the only concern aborting this retrial. When screened for jury duty last time I was asked a series of questions to determine my bias. I was also asked on the honor system to not do any research, visit crime scenes, or discuss the case...
// Zarf //
I assume that the Aussies also have a similar convention. So, my confusion is over why it is okay for me to say... "no, I've never heard of this case nor will I go look it up in the library." Yet my disavowing any readership of CrimeNet is not just as valid a claim. Is my verbal agreement to not read any websites dealing with the case somehow inherently less believable than my word to not research the case at the library?
Shouldn't I still be honor bound and even under some sort of threat of perjury to not research the case? If something is published on the internet, does this make it inherently more dangerous than something published in a periodical?
I am very suspect of this Judge's reasoning. Jurors are supposed to operate under instruction from the judge anyway. If a juror does violate thier agreement to not research, ect... then the juror should be penalized. This course of action seems to punish the defendant.
As for the bit about CrimeNet ruining lives... That's another article isn't it? You can seek legal action against a site defaming you right? CrimeNet might be getting a law suit or two eh?
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I stand corrected. On another note tho':
// Zarf //
The program is intended to be modifiable, and at some point Maxis, now a division of Electronic Arts, plans to make the language it has created, known as Edith, available to the players. Edith is designed to permit anyone with minimal programming skills to extend the game.
Mr. Wright said he realized that such a language in the hands of antisocial game players would create vexing problems. "Hopefully," he said, "they will be balanced by people doing more creative things."
Actually the Edith programming language concept is really a fun little idea from wright. I'm impressed with the implications. A very simple language to extend play within the game... I'm reading between the lines but I think this is intended to be a kind of interpereted language. If it is a "real" programming language with sufficient facilities it would really boot strap a lot of kids into the world of programming.
I like it, it means that there'll be a whole lotta codin' going on. I can see it now... billy's 'The Sims v2.0' plug-in that allows your character to carry a BFG or a HyperGun and blast his enemies!
Ofcourse there are other implications... but those aren't as much fun as crazy coders building insane extentions to muck up a paradise world. so... I still get to laugh manically...
Bwaaa haaa haaa!
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