I'd add to the list of obnoxious ads: Anything which tries to track me. And that's unfortunately about 100% of all online ads. If tracking were necessary, advertising would not have been survived on magazines, TVs, etc., where individual tracking has never been an option.
I thought this is a rite of passage for anyone buying his first car and showing it off to his buddies - pop the hood and everyone stands around looking at the engine.
That's kind of pointless these days. If you open the hood on a modern car, usually all you get to see is a big piece of black plastic covering up anything of interest. I'm not sure why.
IE Users who also watch Fox News are more likely than most to be in a coma and on life support, but on their own dime... cause even in a coma, they didn't need no damn government assistance!
And if you see strange things, you don't know whether to go to the psychiatrist for hallucinations, or to tech support for someone hacking your augmented reality system.
Or to look at it another way, this would allow advertisers to systematically ruin anything we take pleasure in by killing it with hollow advertisements
For that they don't need any new technology. They are already very good in it.
Well, reading the actual article (which ziel gratefully provided a link for) reveals that while the participants didn't know that they were learning visual patterns, they still had to actively participate (their task was to somehow increase a green circle). I'm pretty sure you can't be put into an MRI machine without noticing it (unless you are unconscious or sleeping, but then this scheme cannot work anyway). So if you are put into an MRI, and you fear them secretly teaching you bad things, just refuse to do any mental tasks while there.
However if you look closer, you'll find that the actual number of tricks needed is quite small. You'll find that the following rules suffice for quite a lot of calculations:
(1) (c f(x))' = c f'(x) (2) (x^c)' = c x^(c-1) (3) (a^x)' = a^x ln a (4) (ln x)' = 1/x (5) the chain rule (6) If there's more than one x in the formula, derive with respect to each one independently treating all others as constants and add up the results
Note that a lot of commonly taught rules are obtained quite naturally from those. For example:
c'=0: c' = (c x^0)' = c (x^0)' = c (0 x^-1) = 0 (rules 1 and 2) x'=1: x' = (x^1)' = 1 x^0 = 1 (rule 2) Product rule: (f(x)g(x))' = (f(x)g(x))'+(f(x)g(x))' = f'(x)g(x) + f(x)g'(x) (rules 7 and 1; marked the x in respect to which to derive in bold)
Also it allows to easily treat cases which the special rules usually taught instead of rule 6 won't handle as easily:
(x^x)' = (x^x)' + (x^x)' = x x^(x-1) + x^x ln x = x^x(1+ln x)
So actually the universe is a big vaccum production facility, and all we see is just a bit of dirt contaminating the otherwise perfect vacuum. Well, be prepared for the coming of the large vacuum cleaner...:-)
I wonder what the average density of the universe is. Probably about the same as the best vacuum we can create.
From Wikipedia, I get that the average density of the observable universe is slightly below 10^-26 kg/m^3. On the other hand, the best laboratoy vacuum is a bit above 10^-17 kg/m^3.
In other words, our best vacuum is 9 orders of magnitude worse than the universe as a whole.
So actually the universe is a big vaccum production facility, and all we see is just a bit of dirt contaminating the otherwise perfect vacuum. Well, be prepared for the coming of the large vacuum cleaner...:-)
We're special enough we have a president fit for a clown suit and commanded by a teleprompter!
You think that is special? On Betazetis Alpha they have a president who does wear a clown suit. And he is not just commanded by a teleprompter, but he married one.
But the probability that we are in that universe is very low.
However, if generally life can only exist on very unlikely planets, then it's no surprise to find ours to be unlikely. Also note that as far as actual research is concerned, "life in the universe" is equal to "life in our neighbourhood". There's no way we could detect life in another galaxy. So it suffices if the probability of an earth-like planet is so that an average there's at most one per galaxy. Then we'd likely not find another one, despite there being billions of others in the universe.
However with this format if 1 bit is flipped anywhere in the file it voids all log entries below it.
That's definitely true for gzipped text files. There's no reason for it to be true for non-compressed, non-encrypted genuinely binary files. And with binary files, you have less reason to additionally compress them, because they are smaller and less compressible.
We had files we could send to our old impact lineprinter which could play music. Hell on ribbons, so save these sources of amusement for the day you were changing the ribbon anyway.
Don't tell this to the MAFIAA, or we'll pay a music tax on printers!
Well, how long until a virus is created which only kills people with certain genetic traits, e.g. only those with or only those without a gene which causes high production of melatonin (that is, it either kills only black or only non-black people)? All it would take is to find the gene, and create a deadly mechanism which involves that gene. If you don't have that gene, you still get ill (and therefore contribute to the epidemic) but the illness is harmless (e.g. you get to sneeze a lot, but don't have any other negative effects). The same could be done for other genes (hair color, eye color, blood group,...)
Indeed, as soon as genetic knowledge is sufficiently advanced, it may even be possible to construct a virus which is deadly for exactly one person, while only mildly annoying for the rest of humanity.
No, it is not a religion. I'm fine with putting it into philosophy because it cannot be experimentally distinguished from other interpretations of quantum mechanics. But it definitely isn't a religion. To start with, it doesn't come with its own moral code. It also doesn't come with dogmas; if at any time a process is found which contradicts quantum mechanics, it most probably will also be incompatible with many worlds, and many worlds will be dead.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd add to the list of obnoxious ads: Anything which tries to track me. And that's unfortunately about 100% of all online ads.
If tracking were necessary, advertising would not have been survived on magazines, TVs, etc., where individual tracking has never been an option.
I thought this is a rite of passage for anyone buying his first car and showing it off to his buddies - pop the hood and everyone stands around looking at the engine.
That's kind of pointless these days. If you open the hood on a modern car, usually all you get to see is a big piece of black plastic covering up anything of interest. I'm not sure why.
So they literally made it a black box.
IE Users who also watch Fox News are more likely than most to be in a coma and on life support, but on their own dime... cause even in a coma, they didn't need no damn government assistance!
That was me.. failing to login before posting.
So you've been a Fox News watching IE user? :-)
And lynx users are bad at imagination, but good at texting.
And if you see strange things, you don't know whether to go to the psychiatrist for hallucinations, or to tech support for someone hacking your augmented reality system.
For that they don't need any new technology. They are already very good in it.
Well, reading the actual article (which ziel gratefully provided a link for) reveals that while the participants didn't know that they were learning visual patterns, they still had to actively participate (their task was to somehow increase a green circle). I'm pretty sure you can't be put into an MRI machine without noticing it (unless you are unconscious or sleeping, but then this scheme cannot work anyway). So if you are put into an MRI, and you fear them secretly teaching you bad things, just refuse to do any mental tasks while there.
However if you look closer, you'll find that the actual number of tricks needed is quite small. You'll find that the following rules suffice for quite a lot of calculations:
(1) (c f(x))' = c f'(x)
(2) (x^c)' = c x^(c-1)
(3) (a^x)' = a^x ln a
(4) (ln x)' = 1/x
(5) the chain rule
(6) If there's more than one x in the formula, derive with respect to each one independently treating all others as constants and add up the results
Note that a lot of commonly taught rules are obtained quite naturally from those. For example:
c'=0: c' = (c x^0)' = c (x^0)' = c (0 x^-1) = 0 (rules 1 and 2)
x'=1: x' = (x^1)' = 1 x^0 = 1 (rule 2)
Product rule: (f(x)g(x))' = (f(x)g(x))'+(f(x)g(x))' = f'(x)g(x) + f(x)g'(x) (rules 7 and 1; marked the x in respect to which to derive in bold)
Also it allows to easily treat cases which the special rules usually taught instead of rule 6 won't handle as easily:
(x^x)' = (x^x)' + (x^x)' = x x^(x-1) + x^x ln x = x^x(1+ln x)
Well, given how often you find apostrophes where they don't belong, I guess apostrophes were out when he needed them.
So actually the universe is a big vaccum production facility, and all we see is just a bit of dirt contaminating the otherwise perfect vacuum. ... :-)
Well, be prepared for the coming of the large vacuum cleaner
I wonder what the average density of the universe is. Probably about the same as the best vacuum we can create.
From Wikipedia, I get that the average density of the observable universe is slightly below 10^-26 kg/m^3. On the other hand, the best laboratoy vacuum is a bit above 10^-17 kg/m^3.
In other words, our best vacuum is 9 orders of magnitude worse than the universe as a whole.
Why should anyone believe those radioactivity theories when they cannot accurately predict even the next atomic decay?
So actually the universe is a big vaccum production facility, and all we see is just a bit of dirt contaminating the otherwise perfect vacuum. ... :-)
Well, be prepared for the coming of the large vacuum cleaner
If those figures held, we'd certainly have picked up some one else's TV signals by now.
Not necessarily. What if life is abundant, but intelligent life is rare? Maybe 99% of all biospheres never enter the stage of multi-cell organisms.
>>We're not that special.
We're special enough we have a president fit for a clown suit and commanded by a teleprompter!
You think that is special? On Betazetis Alpha they have a president who does wear a clown suit. And he is not just commanded by a teleprompter, but he married one.
But the probability that we are in that universe is very low.
However, if generally life can only exist on very unlikely planets, then it's no surprise to find ours to be unlikely. Also note that as far as actual research is concerned, "life in the universe" is equal to "life in our neighbourhood". There's no way we could detect life in another galaxy. So it suffices if the probability of an earth-like planet is so that an average there's at most one per galaxy. Then we'd likely not find another one, despite there being billions of others in the universe.
which obviously includes you because otherwise you would not have written:
However with this format if 1 bit is flipped anywhere in the file it voids all log entries below it.
That's definitely true for gzipped text files. There's no reason for it to be true for non-compressed, non-encrypted genuinely binary files. And with binary files, you have less reason to additionally compress them, because they are smaller and less compressible.
Arrh!!! Ip0 on Fire!
What is new, is old.
We had files we could send to our old impact lineprinter which could play music. Hell on ribbons, so save these sources of amusement for the day you were changing the ribbon anyway.
Don't tell this to the MAFIAA, or we'll pay a music tax on printers!
While it is clearly not a FQDN, does an address in someone else's domain count as an URL? It's not like they really own it...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Locator
The term "URL" is not in any way related to the concept of ownership.
Also, this is not the first research to create genetically engineered flu with higher virulence, see wired Virulent Bird-Human Flu Hybrid Made in Lab
I think wireless viruses are more dangerous than wired ones. :-)
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/12_Monkeys
Oops, correction: I meant melanin, not melatonin, of course.
Well, how long until a virus is created which only kills people with certain genetic traits, e.g. only those with or only those without a gene which causes high production of melatonin (that is, it either kills only black or only non-black people)? All it would take is to find the gene, and create a deadly mechanism which involves that gene. If you don't have that gene, you still get ill (and therefore contribute to the epidemic) but the illness is harmless (e.g. you get to sneeze a lot, but don't have any other negative effects). The same could be done for other genes (hair color, eye color, blood group, ...)
Indeed, as soon as genetic knowledge is sufficiently advanced, it may even be possible to construct a virus which is deadly for exactly one person, while only mildly annoying for the rest of humanity.
Is there a meaningful distinction between "Freedom from religion" and "Freedom of religion"?
Definitely. If a state disallows and punishes any form of religion, you have freedom from religion but not freedom of religion.
No, it is not a religion. I'm fine with putting it into philosophy because it cannot be experimentally distinguished from other interpretations of quantum mechanics. But it definitely isn't a religion. To start with, it doesn't come with its own moral code. It also doesn't come with dogmas; if at any time a process is found which contradicts quantum mechanics, it most probably will also be incompatible with many worlds, and many worlds will be dead.