It's ironic that the annual Lake Baikal Marathon (http://www.baikalexpress.de/eismarathon/index_eng.htm) is rarely patronized by the local indigenous Buryat people.
Maybe it's just because most indigenous Buryat people are too intelligent to do such futile things as running in a Marathon.
Perhps, in that most general sense, sure. But Newton wasn't really trying to explain a set of measurements with his reasoning about gravity - he was trying to deduce what it must be, what the most attractive model was. Unlike most of his writings, which were comically bad, he happened to be right about gravity. We don't teach the rest of his ideas because he really wasn't very concerned with facts
Newton certainly wanted to reproduce Kepler's laws which at the time were the best description of the solar system. Which in turn Kepler would never have been found without having access to the precise measurements of Tycho Brahe. Of course, Newtons laws don't exactly reproduce Kepler's laws, but I think it is safe to say that without knowing Kepler's laws, and thus without the measurement data of Tycho Brahe (although Newton himself possibly never has seen that data himself), Newton would never have found the law of gravitation.
Of course it is a fallacy to think that you can derive a model from existing data. But without existing data, you are at least very unlikely to find a correct model. You have to look at the data (either directly, or indirectly by considering earlier theories or hypotheses based on that data) to have a chance to find a correct model. Of course you also have to distance yourself from that data, because your model will never exactly reproduce the data. Every data contains errors. But trying to find a model without looking at the data (either directly, or indirectly by looking at models already tested with that data).
Yes, in principle you can by pure chance find a model without relying on existing data. But that's unlikely for anything but the most simple models. It is inconceivable that quantum mechanics would ever have been found if there had not been measurements of cavity radiation spectra or atomic spectra, for example.
But mostly I was just warning of the natural inclination to prefer theories for their explanatory power (of facts known the theory was formulated), when that's just a seductive fallacy.
What you are saying now is that every model must be tested with new data/experiments. To this I wholeheartedly agree. However note that "new" data also includes data which did exist before, but didn't enter into the model building. That's why explaining Mercury's perihelion shift is considerd one of the early successes of General Relativity: Einstein didn't derive General Relativity to describe the perihelion shift, and didn't include that in his considerations. Of course that doesn't mean that there was no need to make further experiments to test GR further. And indeed, such experiments have been done (like the famous one by Eddington measuring the bending of light by the sun).
But what you claimed previously was that the building of models was completely independent of existing data. Which simply is wrong.
It says "more than", and it is obvious from context that it doesn't exclude an effect for less than 1000 miles (actually, the absolute biggest effect of a city is at 0 miles distance for sure). Therefore it cannot be an exact number.
Also, how probable is it that a natural phenomenon agrees to four significant digits with a completely arbitrary length unit not based on that phenomenon?
what the fuck is going to make the typical slashdotter happy then? first you all complain about how apple uses chinese factories which exploit child labor; now you're saying they should do the opposite?
Not only that, but afterwards you complain about your own inconsistency! How inconsistent!
Or maybe... there are different people on Slashdot, with different opinions on certain topics?
1. Your argument that removing children from the labor pool aids workers because it raises wages and reduces labor supply would apply without limit to the adult working population as well. Removing women from the labor pool,
While children later turn into adults, women don't generally turn into men. Therefore removing women would only benefit half of the population, namely the male half. But of course, it would benefit the workers which by definition would then be only the men.
removing half of all men from the labor pool,
That's exactly why jobs needing higher education get better pay: The supply is lower. Now whether this is good or bad depends on whether everyone can get a better education if he wants to. It definitely benefits those with higher education, though.
reducing everyone but a few from the labor pool, would follow the same argument that this benefits the workers.
If you remove everyone but a few, then it is clear that not everyone will eventually belong to the few. It would definitely benefit the chosen few, though.
The reason that proponents of the anthropomorphic theory
You mean the anthropogenic theory. Unless you mean a theory which claims the climate doesn't like what we do and therefore punishes us with more heat.:-)
for my alternative math axioms 2+2 is infinity, therefore from now on for the rest of you 2+2 is no longer 4. Please update your math coprocessors accordingly.
Sorry, but I calculate the mean value with my math axioms, where the mean value of 4 and infinity is 4. Therefore there's no need to update my math oprocessor.
Note, however, that from the data of the last 2000 years as shown by the first link, one finds that even the 1.9C raise predicted by the study this story is about would still go clearly outside the previous temperature fluctuation range and result in temperatures much higher than the temperatures 2000 years ago.
The problem is that regardless of what the magnitude of anthropogenic global warming actually is, it *started* with substantial political and corporate interests framing it as certain and apocalyptic.
I think the NYT's reporting is very telling here. His first reaction on January 26th is that it's not peer-reviewed, and therefore must be treated skeptically.
Of course the NYT could just have waited with reporting until it is peer reviewed...
OK, so it's a language issue. "nfs share the whole box" to me implies that the box contains the files and shares them (with the checking machine) via nfs. Your setup I would describe as "store the files on external nfs".
Without having facts, you don't even know what to model. If someone told me to model the solar system and I had no facts about the solar system, my model might look like "a=b+c" where a is the a-ness of the solar system, b is the b-ness and c is the c-ness. Of course that has nothing to do at all with the solar system. But I can't know that without any facts about the solar system.
If the factory jobs are the high-paying ones, maybe the solution would be to have two part-time jobs: One part-time factory job for the good pay, and one part-time office job for your brain.
This is IMHO not related to overpopulation. After all, if all else were equal, you'd need twice as many people to support twice as many people. The need scales with the supply because both are essentially identical.
Slashdot Mirror
It's ironic that the annual Lake Baikal Marathon (http://www.baikalexpress.de/eismarathon/index_eng.htm) is rarely patronized by the local indigenous Buryat people.
Maybe it's just because most indigenous Buryat people are too intelligent to do such futile things as running in a Marathon.
Newton certainly wanted to reproduce Kepler's laws which at the time were the best description of the solar system. Which in turn Kepler would never have been found without having access to the precise measurements of Tycho Brahe. Of course, Newtons laws don't exactly reproduce Kepler's laws, but I think it is safe to say that without knowing Kepler's laws, and thus without the measurement data of Tycho Brahe (although Newton himself possibly never has seen that data himself), Newton would never have found the law of gravitation.
Of course it is a fallacy to think that you can derive a model from existing data. But without existing data, you are at least very unlikely to find a correct model. You have to look at the data (either directly, or indirectly by considering earlier theories or hypotheses based on that data) to have a chance to find a correct model. Of course you also have to distance yourself from that data, because your model will never exactly reproduce the data. Every data contains errors. But trying to find a model without looking at the data (either directly, or indirectly by looking at models already tested with that data).
Yes, in principle you can by pure chance find a model without relying on existing data. But that's unlikely for anything but the most simple models. It is inconceivable that quantum mechanics would ever have been found if there had not been measurements of cavity radiation spectra or atomic spectra, for example.
What you are saying now is that every model must be tested with new data/experiments. To this I wholeheartedly agree. However note that "new" data also includes data which did exist before, but didn't enter into the model building. That's why explaining Mercury's perihelion shift is considerd one of the early successes of General Relativity: Einstein didn't derive General Relativity to describe the perihelion shift, and didn't include that in his considerations. Of course that doesn't mean that there was no need to make further experiments to test GR further. And indeed, such experiments have been done (like the famous one by Eddington measuring the bending of light by the sun).
But what you claimed previously was that the building of models was completely independent of existing data. Which simply is wrong.
What the heck is he smoking?
I don't know. Whatever you smoke when you try to get more money, I guess. Maybe a cigar?
Indeed, with the original BitTorrent protocol, effectively the clients are also proxying the data stream from the server.
It says "more than", and it is obvious from context that it doesn't exclude an effect for less than 1000 miles (actually, the absolute biggest effect of a city is at 0 miles distance for sure). Therefore it cannot be an exact number.
Also, how probable is it that a natural phenomenon agrees to four significant digits with a completely arbitrary length unit not based on that phenomenon?
Not only that, but afterwards you complain about your own inconsistency! How inconsistent!
Or maybe ... there are different people on Slashdot, with different opinions on certain topics?
While children later turn into adults, women don't generally turn into men. Therefore removing women would only benefit half of the population, namely the male half. But of course, it would benefit the workers which by definition would then be only the men.
That's exactly why jobs needing higher education get better pay: The supply is lower. Now whether this is good or bad depends on whether everyone can get a better education if he wants to. It definitely benefits those with higher education, though.
You mean the anthropogenic theory. Unless you mean a theory which claims the climate doesn't like what we do and therefore punishes us with more heat. :-)
for my alternative math axioms 2+2 is infinity, therefore from now on for the rest of you 2+2 is no longer 4. Please update your math coprocessors accordingly.
Sorry, but I calculate the mean value with my math axioms, where the mean value of 4 and infinity is 4. Therefore there's no need to update my math oprocessor.
I have been to Norway (January). They could use some Global Warming.
I'm not sure about that. If, as some predict, the gulf stream breaks down due to global warming, Norway probably will actually get colder.
Note, however, that from the data of the last 2000 years as shown by the first link, one finds that even the 1.9C raise predicted by the study this story is about would still go clearly outside the previous temperature fluctuation range and result in temperatures much higher than the temperatures 2000 years ago.
love that "denier" bit, the term purposely chosen by the green stalinistas for its "holocaust denier" connotations.
While people like you don't stop at connotations, but just make the blatantly silly claims ("stalinistas") directly.
you forgot to mention that...elvis still lives and americans didn't land on the moon.
Almost right: Americans still live, and Elvis didn't land on the moon.
[citation needed]
And the title of one of Einstein's papers was:
Does the Inertia of a Body Depend upon its Energy-Content?
So maybe it just doesn't apply to scientific papers?
Of course the NYT could just have waited with reporting until it is peer reviewed ...
No need for that. The number of gods already is divine by definition. ;-)
OK, so it's a language issue. "nfs share the whole box" to me implies that the box contains the files and shares them (with the checking machine) via nfs. Your setup I would describe as "store the files on external nfs".
If you hacked the box, you can certainly also modify the NFS server running on that box.
If each phone is half the size of the previous phone, I can fit an infinite number in my pocket!
I hope each one is also half the price of the previous one ...
The Brits probably do it best, "Mobile" is as amorphous as you can get.
Well, in Germany we usually call it "Handy". That's even more amorphous, isn't it? :-)
Exactly. Technological development. Not population growth.
You can have a population growth with very little technical development, and you can have technological development without population growth.
Without having facts, you don't even know what to model. If someone told me to model the solar system and I had no facts about the solar system, my model might look like "a=b+c" where a is the a-ness of the solar system, b is the b-ness and c is the c-ness. Of course that has nothing to do at all with the solar system. But I can't know that without any facts about the solar system.
If the factory jobs are the high-paying ones, maybe the solution would be to have two part-time jobs: One part-time factory job for the good pay, and one part-time office job for your brain.
This is IMHO not related to overpopulation. After all, if all else were equal, you'd need twice as many people to support twice as many people. The need scales with the supply because both are essentially identical.