I understand what you are saying, but that is not what I'm saying. I'm talking about use of energy, not the intake of energy. There is a maximal amount of energy that can be derived from a piece of food, and there is a minimal amount of energy needed to make certain physical movements, thus after a certain amount of movement has been made the energy expended will overtake the energy consumed, and that imbalance will inevitably lead to weight loss. While a piece of food has a maximal limit on energy, there is no limit of movement a person can make. Now mind you this is not taking into account what others have said regarding children expending less energy elsewhere if they expend more at school. Still absurdly simplistic?
So are these scientists claiming that children don't expend energy while exercising? Don't the laws of conservation apply to children as well, or are they from an alternate universe? The UK should be careful publishing these results, lest some nut starts enslaving children to build his perpetual motion device.
They are buying up lots of companies that provide Office-type applications, web-based or otherwise, and are also providing business customized versions of their services. Perhaps they are converging towards this type of model...
Thanks for contributing to the "this country GOOD, that country BAD!" propaganda and world view, because China is the only country which does bad things.
Despite any official designations, Tokyo is a city, and Ginza is a district in the sense that most readers of Slashdot would understand, so quit yer' misrepresenting. And I think you insult the Japanese by assuming they are so easily offended by an obvious unintentional and noninflammatory mistake.
Despite the grandparent's moderation as a troll, I think he has a point. When did market success validate the quality and design of a product? Oh yeah, when it's Apple and you're reading Slashdot. Even though Apple is successful, I still know quite a few people, usually somewhat technically astute, that still flinch at the thought of buying an iPod because of it's lock-in... which is why there is still a market for other players such as Archos, etc. Oh, but wait, this is Slashdot, market share is important when it comes to rating a product.
The ability to detect humor by slashdot moderators has seriously suffered recently. I've seen several posts modded as 5, Funny, that are mocking a parent poster's ironic joke that the poster and the moderators did not get themselves. Either that or the poster is purposely just sucking karma from the parent.
Based on your explanation, the problem of the Fermi Paradox is that it is too narrow minded. Perhaps evolution towards complexity accelerates, and becomes unrecognizable to humans very quickly. Using radio waves for communication may only be present for an extremely short period of time during the evolution of an intelligent species. Also, perhaps what we perceive to be the universe is only a tiny slice. Other intelligent species could quickly move to populating other dimensions. We would (or could) have no understanding of these dimensions, the same way a bacteria has no understanding of a high-rise. Anyway, maybe the universe IS populated by intelligent life. Maybe it is surrounding you right now, and you just don't know it. We could take it even further - who says that we are the top, the ultimate species in the tree of life? Perhaps there are more advanced species that are just not perceptable to us that came from the same earthly evolutionary chain and are right here right now! We have no direct evidence for any of this of course, but my purpose is just to show that this "paradox" is not necessarily such a paradox.
Pink Floyd and the Clash were two of the most influential rock bands of all time. And I happen to know several engineering professors that are multi-millionaires because of patents, startups, and other endeavors. It is not uncommon for engineering and science professors to be wealthy. Who's showing their ignorance now?
I believe that we should return to teletypes and 110bps connections and 8 inch floppy disks, because these focussed the mind
HAHAHA, I would have spit milk through my nose if I happened to be drinking it. Thank you for bringing some rationality back - that guy's post was unnerving. I was waiting for him to don a white hooded robe and burn some plastic boxes...
anonymous idiot, 5 seconds of thought would have given you a solution. You'd need software about as complicated as elevators currently have. Basically a person would load into a drop chamber, and it would only drop the person into the tube when there was no chance of hitting or being hit by someone. The person would not decide when to drop themselves, duhhhhhhhh
We're not talking about censorship here, we're talking about privacy. It's made clear to the public that their internet activities are monitored through postings on the walls of internet cafes. And despite what the Chinese government may say to those outside of China about censorship not existing, it's obvious to everyone in China that it exists, as blocked sites all timeout in the same fashion, and public boards and blogs are actively moderated by officials. If you want to talk about censorship ratings, see this previous article: US Slips Again In Freedom of the Press Ranking.
Human rights, eh, I don't know. But privacy? It's not a big issue here in Beijing, where I've happened to live for the last year and a half. First and foremost, there are almost no contracts that you must agree to. You anonymously buy prepaid cards for your anonymously purchased SIM card that you put in your anonymously purchased phone. Online purchases are done using phone credits that you purchased anonymously. Most rental agreements are done directly with the landlord to avoid paying taxes. A good portion of the vehicles on the road are unregistered. Many of the citizens are not even registered as existing. Gas and electricity are purchased anonymously through smart cards and recharged in the home. You pay for water anonymously to a lady that comes to your door to collect. International credit cards are accepted almost no where, and the one national credit card is not used very much. Everything is in cash. The country is too busy building up it's economy and bringing the poor into the fold to mess around putting surveilance everywhere. Airport security is less strict that PRE-9/11 US airports.
In retrospect, it looks like most of the stuff I just mentioned is in regards to corporations and their respect of privacy. People in the US (I'm a US citizen) seem to think it's OK for corporations to keep all this data on you, because you supposedly agreed to it. But is there any other way to not live like a caveman other than to give up your privacy? And who believes that the government and the public corporations aren't already one entity anyway? How many senators and congressmen take money from corps? How many of them are actually investors and on the board of directors for these corps?
It's ironic that you have a far greater level of privacy in China than in the US.
At the government level privacy in China a different story, but even then it's not so bad. Internet and other communication are monitored, but that is easily circumvented with the use of SSL. They are monitored in every other country in the world as well. In fact, China may be more honest here for at least admitting it publicly.
We all realize this is a joke, but the problem is not that Universal Tube buyers are getting confused and going to youtube.com instead. The problem is that utube.com's servers are being swamped.
the wording of this article clearly indicates that the author believes himself to be on the track of the tall, skinny, intelligent class. After species split in two, does one species still believe the other to be more attractive, or are they more attracted to their own? The "ugly, squat" creatures will actually find their own characteristics more beautiful. You don't see sparrows and woodchucks trying to chase down Swedes do you? Beauty is SUBJECTIVE. This is all bullshit anyway, as genetic engineering will interfere and specialize the human classes far sooner than any naturally occuring dualistic split.
My faith in Slashdot is not completely lost when I seeth at the mawkishness of another buzzword riddled article, ready to post reply criticizing the overuse of the term "mashup", and in delight I find that most highly rated replies are in the exact same vein as I was planning to post. SWEET!
Your points are well taken, but I think they are overstated. Let's look at them:
1. Inflection and emphasis of some words over others
This problem is mitigated by several factors. Speakers and listeners will likely be aware that the emphasis is lost, and will probably speak slowly and evenly, and listen more carefully to what is being said. Most anyone would not take offense or grossly misunderstand the translation unless it was in perfect Arabic or English. It won't be - it's going to sound like broken Arabic or English, and the mind unconsiously braces, compensates, and forgives when hearing a speaker that doesn't have a full grasp of the language.
2. Colloquial expressions and figures of speech.
While colloquialisms are many, they are still finite, and thus easily conquered by table lookup. Chinese is a perfect example of this. In Chinese they are often formalized into something called chengyu, which are four character combinations that often have no obvious meaning from a direct translation. Nevertheless, my electronic dictionary has virtually every chengyu still in use. There is no reason an electronic dictionary couldn't have the large majority of Arabic and English colloqiualisms.
3. Body language
This is mitigated in the same way as point 1, but even more so. While a computer ignorant person may still try to use inflection or emphasis when speaking into the computer, almost no one is stupid enough to try to use body language when speaking into it. People should already have an instinct for this, as everyone uses the phone, and knows how to speak in a clear fashion when the body isn't visible.
The problems you present are real, but nothing compared to issues involving meaning embedded in the phrases themselves. I see it as a scale from the most literal language to the most poetic. The further you move the dial towards the poetic and abstract, the less likely you will have a good machine or even human translation. See other posts in reply to this article for more detailed discussions on semantics and meaning.
Slashdot Mirror
I understand what you are saying, but that is not what I'm saying. I'm talking about use of energy, not the intake of energy. There is a maximal amount of energy that can be derived from a piece of food, and there is a minimal amount of energy needed to make certain physical movements, thus after a certain amount of movement has been made the energy expended will overtake the energy consumed, and that imbalance will inevitably lead to weight loss. While a piece of food has a maximal limit on energy, there is no limit of movement a person can make. Now mind you this is not taking into account what others have said regarding children expending less energy elsewhere if they expend more at school. Still absurdly simplistic?
So are these scientists claiming that children don't expend energy while exercising? Don't the laws of conservation apply to children as well, or are they from an alternate universe? The UK should be careful publishing these results, lest some nut starts enslaving children to build his perpetual motion device.
and reasonably cute, blah blah basement blah blah over 30 blah blah imaginary blah blah
Why not just use the command line? I didn't see anything in this article that would exclude its usage...
Google.
They are buying up lots of companies that provide Office-type applications, web-based or otherwise, and are also providing business customized versions of their services. Perhaps they are converging towards this type of model...
Thanks for contributing to the "this country GOOD, that country BAD!" propaganda and world view, because China is the only country which does bad things.
Oh, and BTW have you walked around Ginza? It basically IS one big shopping mall, considering the concentration of high-end stores and restaurants.
Despite any official designations, Tokyo is a city, and Ginza is a district in the sense that most readers of Slashdot would understand, so quit yer' misrepresenting. And I think you insult the Japanese by assuming they are so easily offended by an obvious unintentional and noninflammatory mistake.
Despite the grandparent's moderation as a troll, I think he has a point. When did market success validate the quality and design of a product? Oh yeah, when it's Apple and you're reading Slashdot. Even though Apple is successful, I still know quite a few people, usually somewhat technically astute, that still flinch at the thought of buying an iPod because of it's lock-in... which is why there is still a market for other players such as Archos, etc. Oh, but wait, this is Slashdot, market share is important when it comes to rating a product.
The ability to detect humor by slashdot moderators has seriously suffered recently. I've seen several posts modded as 5, Funny, that are mocking a parent poster's ironic joke that the poster and the moderators did not get themselves. Either that or the poster is purposely just sucking karma from the parent.
Based on your explanation, the problem of the Fermi Paradox is that it is too narrow minded. Perhaps evolution towards complexity accelerates, and becomes unrecognizable to humans very quickly. Using radio waves for communication may only be present for an extremely short period of time during the evolution of an intelligent species. Also, perhaps what we perceive to be the universe is only a tiny slice. Other intelligent species could quickly move to populating other dimensions. We would (or could) have no understanding of these dimensions, the same way a bacteria has no understanding of a high-rise. Anyway, maybe the universe IS populated by intelligent life. Maybe it is surrounding you right now, and you just don't know it. We could take it even further - who says that we are the top, the ultimate species in the tree of life? Perhaps there are more advanced species that are just not perceptable to us that came from the same earthly evolutionary chain and are right here right now! We have no direct evidence for any of this of course, but my purpose is just to show that this "paradox" is not necessarily such a paradox.
LS
Pink Floyd and the Clash were two of the most influential rock bands of all time. And I happen to know several engineering professors that are multi-millionaires because of patents, startups, and other endeavors. It is not uncommon for engineering and science professors to be wealthy. Who's showing their ignorance now?
I believe that we should return to teletypes and 110bps connections and 8 inch floppy disks, because these focussed the mind
HAHAHA, I would have spit milk through my nose if I happened to be drinking it. Thank you for bringing some rationality back - that guy's post was unnerving. I was waiting for him to don a white hooded robe and burn some plastic boxes...
anonymous idiot, 5 seconds of thought would have given you a solution. You'd need software about as complicated as elevators currently have. Basically a person would load into a drop chamber, and it would only drop the person into the tube when there was no chance of hitting or being hit by someone. The person would not decide when to drop themselves, duhhhhhhhh
We're not talking about censorship here, we're talking about privacy. It's made clear to the public that their internet activities are monitored through postings on the walls of internet cafes. And despite what the Chinese government may say to those outside of China about censorship not existing, it's obvious to everyone in China that it exists, as blocked sites all timeout in the same fashion, and public boards and blogs are actively moderated by officials. If you want to talk about censorship ratings, see this previous article: US Slips Again In Freedom of the Press Ranking.
Human rights, eh, I don't know. But privacy? It's not a big issue here in Beijing, where I've happened to live for the last year and a half. First and foremost, there are almost no contracts that you must agree to. You anonymously buy prepaid cards for your anonymously purchased SIM card that you put in your anonymously purchased phone. Online purchases are done using phone credits that you purchased anonymously. Most rental agreements are done directly with the landlord to avoid paying taxes. A good portion of the vehicles on the road are unregistered. Many of the citizens are not even registered as existing. Gas and electricity are purchased anonymously through smart cards and recharged in the home. You pay for water anonymously to a lady that comes to your door to collect. International credit cards are accepted almost no where, and the one national credit card is not used very much. Everything is in cash. The country is too busy building up it's economy and bringing the poor into the fold to mess around putting surveilance everywhere. Airport security is less strict that PRE-9/11 US airports.
In retrospect, it looks like most of the stuff I just mentioned is in regards to corporations and their respect of privacy. People in the US (I'm a US citizen) seem to think it's OK for corporations to keep all this data on you, because you supposedly agreed to it. But is there any other way to not live like a caveman other than to give up your privacy? And who believes that the government and the public corporations aren't already one entity anyway? How many senators and congressmen take money from corps? How many of them are actually investors and on the board of directors for these corps?
It's ironic that you have a far greater level of privacy in China than in the US.
At the government level privacy in China a different story, but even then it's not so bad. Internet and other communication are monitored, but that is easily circumvented with the use of SSL. They are monitored in every other country in the world as well. In fact, China may be more honest here for at least admitting it publicly.
LS
We all realize this is a joke, but the problem is not that Universal Tube buyers are getting confused and going to youtube.com instead. The problem is that utube.com's servers are being swamped.
Sorry to be a party pooper.
LS
You fell into a troll's trap and modded insightful. Not bad!
Can someone post a copy of the linked article. It's blocked in China and I can't read it. I'm not kidding.
LS
should they already be coining a term "web-rage" for it??
Perhaps we should them a thing or two.
the wording of this article clearly indicates that the author believes himself to be on the track of the tall, skinny, intelligent class. After species split in two, does one species still believe the other to be more attractive, or are they more attracted to their own? The "ugly, squat" creatures will actually find their own characteristics more beautiful. You don't see sparrows and woodchucks trying to chase down Swedes do you? Beauty is SUBJECTIVE. This is all bullshit anyway, as genetic engineering will interfere and specialize the human classes far sooner than any naturally occuring dualistic split.
LS
My faith in Slashdot is not completely lost when I seeth at the mawkishness of another buzzword riddled article, ready to post reply criticizing the overuse of the term "mashup", and in delight I find that most highly rated replies are in the exact same vein as I was planning to post. SWEET!
LS
Your points are well taken, but I think they are overstated. Let's look at them:
1. Inflection and emphasis of some words over others
This problem is mitigated by several factors. Speakers and listeners will likely be aware that the emphasis is lost, and will probably speak slowly and evenly, and listen more carefully to what is being said. Most anyone would not take offense or grossly misunderstand the translation unless it was in perfect Arabic or English. It won't be - it's going to sound like broken Arabic or English, and the mind unconsiously braces, compensates, and forgives when hearing a speaker that doesn't have a full grasp of the language.
2. Colloquial expressions and figures of speech.
While colloquialisms are many, they are still finite, and thus easily conquered by table lookup. Chinese is a perfect example of this. In Chinese they are often formalized into something called chengyu, which are four character combinations that often have no obvious meaning from a direct translation. Nevertheless, my electronic dictionary has virtually every chengyu still in use. There is no reason an electronic dictionary couldn't have the large majority of Arabic and English colloqiualisms.
3. Body language
This is mitigated in the same way as point 1, but even more so. While a computer ignorant person may still try to use inflection or emphasis when speaking into the computer, almost no one is stupid enough to try to use body language when speaking into it. People should already have an instinct for this, as everyone uses the phone, and knows how to speak in a clear fashion when the body isn't visible.
The problems you present are real, but nothing compared to issues involving meaning embedded in the phrases themselves. I see it as a scale from the most literal language to the most poetic. The further you move the dial towards the poetic and abstract, the less likely you will have a good machine or even human translation. See other posts in reply to this article for more detailed discussions on semantics and meaning.
LS
In retrospect I didn't really believe in what I was saying when I typed it. Eh, momentum gets you sometimes...