Fail fast is another way of saying "spot a dumb idea before you've spent a lot of time and treasure, and kill it before it spreads." Unfortunately the MBA types thought it was a business strategy.
The working of your mind isn't gauged by acceptance or rejection of a single thing. There are plenty of people who "accept evolution" who don't think very well.
Abrahamic religions generally preach faith, which is the opposite of skepticism and pretty much anathema to any kind of serious scientific thinking. Most religions seem to share a penchant for elaborate stories used as explanation. Stories are nice, but a tendency to believe them without testing is intellectually lazy.
The OP wasn't very tactful, but some features of religion really do seem to be poison for rational thinking and scientific progress.
I don't assume anything of the kind. I very much hope it won't continue as it exists today.
Leisure classes have always had fewer babies than working classes. You asked what happens when you've got lots of money and free time. The answer? You have fewer kids. There's a possibility that for some reason a society where most people don't have to work will be completely different and the leisure classes will suddenly start doing exactly the opposite of what they've always done before, under any previous system, but that's kind of a stretch, don't you think?
That view just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. The places in the world that have the highest birthrates are also the poorest. The people who have the highest birthrates are the ones who have to work essentially constantly or they'll starve.
The richest countries in the world all have negative endogenous population growth, and also have citizens who have the most education, security, and leisure time. Despite what soccer moms might tell you, the average westerner doesn't work very hard compared to the world average.
2.5% is a lot. Cutting that by 75% might make a big difference. Plus there are the rest of the execs. It would likely improve employee morale.
The effect on the executives might be very desirable too. I've taken organizational behaviour courses. People work best when they're motivated. A very popular motivator is potential earnings, thus the popularity of stock options and such. But if you're already making millions a year, those options aren't going to motivate you nearly as much as if you're making a couple hundred thousand.
If you've got some references (journals are fine) I'd love to see them. I have a collection of papers showing that investment brokers are no better than random, and that most large companies' spreadsheets are so full of errors that their financial decisions are little better than random. Random CEOs would be a welcome addition.
Yup. The doomsaying is a product of people who somehow believe that they have to have a job to have worth. My reaction to anything like this is "finally." We're finally getting good enough technology that it can do some of the monkey work as well as the heavy lifting.
Yeah, capitalism isn't going to work so well anymore, but it was always a necessary evil. Want Star Trek economics? How do you think they got there?
Yes. Because it's not a simulacrum, it's a greatly simplified model. That it works at all suggests you've discovered at least a few of the important principles that let the vastly more complicated original work.
Also, you can poke at the model, see what improves it, what breaks it, plot receptive fields, all those things that are messy, difficult or unappreciated in an actual brain.
It's not instantaneous, because the LIGO detectors saw a delay. You can't specifically say what the speed was because the delay depends on the speed and direction. But the detection is consistent with a wave travelling at the speed of light from a source in the southern sky.
From various observations (and the theory of general relativity) we're pretty sure gravity propagates at the speed of light. You find gravity everywhere because it's already there, the same way that walking from a dark room into sunlight doesn't imply that light travels from the sun to your eyeballs instantaneously.
If the sun were suddenly dematerialized you would continue to see sunlight for another eight minutes. We are also fairly sure that the Earth would continue in it's orbit as if nothing had happened for eight minutes, until the gravitational effects of the disappearing sun had time to propagate.
Since Newton we've made a variety of observations that we're fairly sure imply gravity propagates at a finite speed. If that's true, it's very difficult to construct a theory that doesn't include waves. Realistic MOND theories (i.e. more than just "GR is wrong.") include gravity waves, although they might disagree with relativity about how easy they are to detect.
There's no way we're going to focus gravity waves any time soon. But (I think) you could build a gravity wave interferometer. LIGO effectively IS sort of a gravity wave interferometer right now, with the baseline between the two sites giving it the ability to determine the rough direction to the sources. If you wanted to build up an image you'd need a lot of LIGOs, but it would be possible. And awesome.
We detected the electromagnetic ether a long time ago. Today we call it "the photon field." If we had a quantum field theory of gravity we'd call the gravity ether "the graviton field" but instead we settle for calling it spacetime.
First impression: somebody needs to learn about statistics that have more than one predictor variable.
Second impression: despite the lack of appropriate analysis, the differences in figure 5 are big enough to be reasonably clear. It looks like there is discrimination against anybody who has a gendered profile (maybe maintainers don't like pictures?). This discrimination might be slightly greater against outside women, and is fairly likely greater against inside men.
Third impression: the paper and the Slashdot summary have a strong gender bias; they mention only the small and borderline significant anti-female bias while ignoring the more significant anti-male bias and also the much larger anti-(either) gender identifiable bias.
I certainly discriminate, not altogether unconsciously, against people who consistently bring up their favourite sports team in non-sports related situations.
I believe he was trying to say "practically insignificant." It's a necessary companion to statistically significant, where you look at the size of the effect and decide whether it makes any difference or not, even if it is true.
I haven't read the article so I don't know if he's right, but his general point is good. The p-value isn't the only thing that matters.
When a significant number of people cut their (ad supported) cable and subscribe to Netflix (no ads), then ad supported programming is decreased. All the stuff about the channels pandering to their audience may be true, but it's irrelevant. Note that, despite the existence of Hulu (apparently, I'm in Canada) Netflix continues to expand. There is a growing market for ad-free television.
The super bowl is a special event that happens for a few hours every year. Yes, ads for the super bowl cost a lot. But they also cost a lot last year. We don't know how well an ad-free Super Bowl would do, because it simply aren't offered that way. The super bowl is also a bit of a special case because the ads cost so much that advertisers put more effort into making them entertaining. How well would an ad-free Netflix-like sports service do against regular ad supported sports?
It works just fine. I have a friend who streams. He has sponsors who pay him to endorse their product to his small audience. The sponsor watches his viewer numbers and those come into play when they renegotiate. I know of several niche websites that do similar things: instead of just slapping up a Google ad they make deals with relevant sponsors and show their ads.
Web ad services are so successful because a) they're the lazy solution for both advertisers and hosts and b) they give the marketers low effort data so they can say "see, we're all quantitative!"
Many studies have shown that much of the financial system is essentially random. It's just that everyone else is making random decisions too, so the pigeons all do their dances. There was one study that actually had monkeys pick stocks. They did as well as professional traders.
Then there are the actual criminals, of course. Such as those who manage IPOs.
There is certainly a place for marketing in the world. The web in particular seems to have gone over the top abusive though. And the maxim "it's easier to sell a good product" seems to have suffocated beneath the gelatinous buttocks of "I can sell anything."
Slashdot Mirror
Fail fast is another way of saying "spot a dumb idea before you've spent a lot of time and treasure, and kill it before it spreads." Unfortunately the MBA types thought it was a business strategy.
The working of your mind isn't gauged by acceptance or rejection of a single thing. There are plenty of people who "accept evolution" who don't think very well.
Abrahamic religions generally preach faith, which is the opposite of skepticism and pretty much anathema to any kind of serious scientific thinking. Most religions seem to share a penchant for elaborate stories used as explanation. Stories are nice, but a tendency to believe them without testing is intellectually lazy.
The OP wasn't very tactful, but some features of religion really do seem to be poison for rational thinking and scientific progress.
I don't assume anything of the kind. I very much hope it won't continue as it exists today.
Leisure classes have always had fewer babies than working classes. You asked what happens when you've got lots of money and free time. The answer? You have fewer kids. There's a possibility that for some reason a society where most people don't have to work will be completely different and the leisure classes will suddenly start doing exactly the opposite of what they've always done before, under any previous system, but that's kind of a stretch, don't you think?
That view just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. The places in the world that have the highest birthrates are also the poorest. The people who have the highest birthrates are the ones who have to work essentially constantly or they'll starve.
The richest countries in the world all have negative endogenous population growth, and also have citizens who have the most education, security, and leisure time. Despite what soccer moms might tell you, the average westerner doesn't work very hard compared to the world average.
2.5% is a lot. Cutting that by 75% might make a big difference. Plus there are the rest of the execs. It would likely improve employee morale.
The effect on the executives might be very desirable too. I've taken organizational behaviour courses. People work best when they're motivated. A very popular motivator is potential earnings, thus the popularity of stock options and such. But if you're already making millions a year, those options aren't going to motivate you nearly as much as if you're making a couple hundred thousand.
Sounds like a good opportunity for a competitor to hire a cut rate CEO who performs better than the big money yahoo.
There do seem to be companies out there trying (and succeeding with) new ideas.
If you've got some references (journals are fine) I'd love to see them. I have a collection of papers showing that investment brokers are no better than random, and that most large companies' spreadsheets are so full of errors that their financial decisions are little better than random. Random CEOs would be a welcome addition.
Yup. The doomsaying is a product of people who somehow believe that they have to have a job to have worth. My reaction to anything like this is "finally." We're finally getting good enough technology that it can do some of the monkey work as well as the heavy lifting.
Yeah, capitalism isn't going to work so well anymore, but it was always a necessary evil. Want Star Trek economics? How do you think they got there?
Yes. Because it's not a simulacrum, it's a greatly simplified model. That it works at all suggests you've discovered at least a few of the important principles that let the vastly more complicated original work.
Also, you can poke at the model, see what improves it, what breaks it, plot receptive fields, all those things that are messy, difficult or unappreciated in an actual brain.
It's not instantaneous, because the LIGO detectors saw a delay. You can't specifically say what the speed was because the delay depends on the speed and direction. But the detection is consistent with a wave travelling at the speed of light from a source in the southern sky.
LIGO is a pair of detectors. They know the (rough) direction to this event. It was in the southern sky.
From various observations (and the theory of general relativity) we're pretty sure gravity propagates at the speed of light. You find gravity everywhere because it's already there, the same way that walking from a dark room into sunlight doesn't imply that light travels from the sun to your eyeballs instantaneously.
If the sun were suddenly dematerialized you would continue to see sunlight for another eight minutes. We are also fairly sure that the Earth would continue in it's orbit as if nothing had happened for eight minutes, until the gravitational effects of the disappearing sun had time to propagate.
Since Newton we've made a variety of observations that we're fairly sure imply gravity propagates at a finite speed. If that's true, it's very difficult to construct a theory that doesn't include waves. Realistic MOND theories (i.e. more than just "GR is wrong.") include gravity waves, although they might disagree with relativity about how easy they are to detect.
There's no way we're going to focus gravity waves any time soon. But (I think) you could build a gravity wave interferometer. LIGO effectively IS sort of a gravity wave interferometer right now, with the baseline between the two sites giving it the ability to determine the rough direction to the sources. If you wanted to build up an image you'd need a lot of LIGOs, but it would be possible. And awesome.
We detected the electromagnetic ether a long time ago. Today we call it "the photon field." If we had a quantum field theory of gravity we'd call the gravity ether "the graviton field" but instead we settle for calling it spacetime.
And the dark energy one.
First impression: somebody needs to learn about statistics that have more than one predictor variable.
Second impression: despite the lack of appropriate analysis, the differences in figure 5 are big enough to be reasonably clear. It looks like there is discrimination against anybody who has a gendered profile (maybe maintainers don't like pictures?). This discrimination might be slightly greater against outside women, and is fairly likely greater against inside men.
Third impression: the paper and the Slashdot summary have a strong gender bias; they mention only the small and borderline significant anti-female bias while ignoring the more significant anti-male bias and also the much larger anti-(either) gender identifiable bias.
I certainly discriminate, not altogether unconsciously, against people who consistently bring up their favourite sports team in non-sports related situations.
I believe he was trying to say "practically insignificant." It's a necessary companion to statistically significant, where you look at the size of the effect and decide whether it makes any difference or not, even if it is true.
I haven't read the article so I don't know if he's right, but his general point is good. The p-value isn't the only thing that matters.
"It's like some idiot heard a cool word, and then next thing you know everybody is a freaking czar of something. "
I expect it's not like that at all. It is that. Exactly.
Especially Putin.
When a significant number of people cut their (ad supported) cable and subscribe to Netflix (no ads), then ad supported programming is decreased. All the stuff about the channels pandering to their audience may be true, but it's irrelevant. Note that, despite the existence of Hulu (apparently, I'm in Canada) Netflix continues to expand. There is a growing market for ad-free television.
The super bowl is a special event that happens for a few hours every year. Yes, ads for the super bowl cost a lot. But they also cost a lot last year. We don't know how well an ad-free Super Bowl would do, because it simply aren't offered that way. The super bowl is also a bit of a special case because the ads cost so much that advertisers put more effort into making them entertaining. How well would an ad-free Netflix-like sports service do against regular ad supported sports?
It works just fine. I have a friend who streams. He has sponsors who pay him to endorse their product to his small audience. The sponsor watches his viewer numbers and those come into play when they renegotiate. I know of several niche websites that do similar things: instead of just slapping up a Google ad they make deals with relevant sponsors and show their ads.
Web ad services are so successful because a) they're the lazy solution for both advertisers and hosts and b) they give the marketers low effort data so they can say "see, we're all quantitative!"
Many studies have shown that much of the financial system is essentially random. It's just that everyone else is making random decisions too, so the pigeons all do their dances. There was one study that actually had monkeys pick stocks. They did as well as professional traders.
Then there are the actual criminals, of course. Such as those who manage IPOs.
There is certainly a place for marketing in the world. The web in particular seems to have gone over the top abusive though. And the maxim "it's easier to sell a good product" seems to have suffocated beneath the gelatinous buttocks of "I can sell anything."