OK, I have only a vague recollection of this one, so I hope there's somebody else out there who remembers it too. Didn't find a link for it, unfortunately.
It was a magazine ad. I think there were three people in the photo - at least one was a woman - and they were sitting and drinking in the hot tub, only visible from the shoulders up. I think they were company employees, but could have been hired models. Might have been from as far back as the pre-DOS days.
I do remember a hot-looking woman in the photo. But that was a _long_ time ago.
Doctor McCoy stands next to the examination table. A red-shirted Enterprise crew member, bloodied, burnt, beaten, and broken lies there. McCoy passes his Ipod over the man a few times, looks at its screen and moves the scroll wheel a bit. He stares at the small plastic device in his hand. His expression is not hopeful.
McCoy: He's dead, Jim.
Captain Kirk looks down at his loyal cannon fodder, saying nothing. The effort to display an emotion leave too little brain power for a verbal response.
McCoy: I hope it's still under warranty. (short pause) Oh, and this guy's not doing too well either.
I think I'd trust my health to a scary-looking guy in native dress waiving a chicken over me before I'd go to someone who has my medical information sharing disk space with illegally downloaded mp3s.
IANATP (TP = Theorectical Physicist, you figure out the rest), but something about the idea of Dark Matter always struck me as an attempt to make the data conform to the (desired) conclusions. I've read a lot of the more accessible articles, the heavily theorectical stuff being above my level of understanding, and I always came away with the feeling that the Dark Matter model requires too much belief to hold up to scientific method.
Hypothesizing Dark Matter isn't a bad idea, but it seems as if it bypassed the vetting process and became accepted as fact too quickly. It does fill a need (accounting for unknowns in the previous model), but it's hardly the only possible explanation. It's almost a scientific equivalent of Haliburton's "no-bid" contracts in Iraq.
People don't like unknowns, and sometimes let their imaginations fill in the gap. Get enough people together imagining the same thing and belief system forms. Carry this too far and it becomes institutionalized. A lot is then staked on that basic belief.
Right now, "Intelligent" Design is making inroads into the American education system. It answers questions a lot of people have, but in no way holds up to scientific scrutiny. Teachers careers have been ruined by opposing it. Education becomes indoctrination and critical thinking becomes the enemy.
Acceptance of the Dark Matter model is hardly on that level, but there quite a few scientific reputations dependent upon it. I wonder how much thought and experimentation may have been stifled because it threatened someone higher up.
Guys, this is just a modest update of an already existing technology: the telegram.
Watch any western movie. Somewhere in it someone will want to send a message to someone else who is far away. The first guy will go to the local telegraph office and dictate his message to the clerk. Clerk hands message to the telegraph operator who keys it into the system in a binary-like format. Message travels via wire to remote telegraph office where second telegraph operator decodes the incoming signal and transcribes it. Hard copy of message is then delivered to recipient. Later improvements allowed for messages to be keyed-in and printed without human interpretation.
No news here. Couldn't system resources be better used watching for SCO's latest folly?
Even scarier is the fact that Isaac Asimov once said, though I forget where, that he liked watching Laverne and Shirley and liked the character Batmite from the '70s Batman cartoons.
No, I am not making this up.
Slashdot Mirror
The kids never actually have to interact with one another. Problem solved.
OK, I have only a vague recollection of this one, so I hope there's somebody else out there who remembers it too. Didn't find a link for it, unfortunately.
It was a magazine ad. I think there were three people in the photo - at least one was a woman - and they were sitting and drinking in the hot tub, only visible from the shoulders up. I think they were company employees, but could have been hired models. Might have been from as far back as the pre-DOS days.
I do remember a hot-looking woman in the photo. But that was a _long_ time ago.
Great, another reminder of how old I'm getting. My self-esteem just went into a corner and shot itself, leaving me another mess to clean up.
I, for one, welcome our really old, "don't fuck with me" rodent overlords.
2. Sue the shit out of anyone who speaks up about it.
3. Profit!
There's no ? about it anymore. Sad.
I think I'd trust my health to a scary-looking guy in native dress waiving a chicken over me before I'd go to someone who has my medical information sharing disk space with illegally downloaded mp3s.
Hypothesizing Dark Matter isn't a bad idea, but it seems as if it bypassed the vetting process and became accepted as fact too quickly. It does fill a need (accounting for unknowns in the previous model), but it's hardly the only possible explanation. It's almost a scientific equivalent of Haliburton's "no-bid" contracts in Iraq.
People don't like unknowns, and sometimes let their imaginations fill in the gap. Get enough people together imagining the same thing and belief system forms. Carry this too far and it becomes institutionalized. A lot is then staked on that basic belief.
Right now, "Intelligent" Design is making inroads into the American education system. It answers questions a lot of people have, but in no way holds up to scientific scrutiny. Teachers careers have been ruined by opposing it. Education becomes indoctrination and critical thinking becomes the enemy.
Acceptance of the Dark Matter model is hardly on that level, but there quite a few scientific reputations dependent upon it. I wonder how much thought and experimentation may have been stifled because it threatened someone higher up.
Yes, the referenced article did list five criteria. My comment was about the /. entry itself.
If somebody involved with this story can't count to five, how seriously should we consider it?
Sponsored by SILA -- Search for Intelligent Life in AmericaWatch any western movie. Somewhere in it someone will want to send a message to someone else who is far away. The first guy will go to the local telegraph office and dictate his message to the clerk. Clerk hands message to the telegraph operator who keys it into the system in a binary-like format. Message travels via wire to remote telegraph office where second telegraph operator decodes the incoming signal and transcribes it. Hard copy of message is then delivered to recipient. Later improvements allowed for messages to be keyed-in and printed without human interpretation.
No news here. Couldn't system resources be better used watching for SCO's latest folly?
Even scarier is the fact that Isaac Asimov once said, though I forget where, that he liked watching Laverne and Shirley and liked the character Batmite from the '70s Batman cartoons. No, I am not making this up.
...and books you tickets for the city ballet when you really wanted to go to the monster truck rally?