You're right, I am a dog person who hates cats. I am not offended by the idea that cats are intelligent -- they certainly are. The problem I have is saying that an octopus is as intelligent as a housecat. I understand that works for telling someone who doesn't care about animal intelligence that an octopus is not a rock, but it implies that intelligence is quantitative (i.e. that housecats and octopuses both scored '40') on an intelligence test, where in reality, housecats and octopuses are very intelligent *in different areas*.
So if you tell someone that an octopus is as smart as a housecat, they wouldn't conclude that an octopus can pick a lock, open a jar, escape an aquarium, etc. (Maybe if cats knew how to do those things they wouldn't need so many lives). By the same token, I'm certain that cats are really smart about something, they just don't go out of their way to show it off;)
In any case, the plural of the greek word octopus is octopodes, and futhermore, when we borrow words from other languages, we only borrow words, not grammar structures (Is the plural of sauna saunaa or saunat? It is in Finnish). So the plural of the English word octopus is octopuses, just like any other regular English word that ends in -s. This just confirms my suspicion that cats are holier-than-thou pompous jerkwads.
Nope. The plural of pus is pedae, so if you want to be a pompous dick, you would say "octopedae" --
But, since octopus is actually an English word (regardless of where we got it from -- we borrow words, not grammar structures), it takes the regular plural of all English words that end in an -s, -es.
C'mon. Is the plural of sauna saunaa or saunat? A lot of our words come from other languages. If we have to adopt their pluarlization rules, that would be a nightmare laundry list of irregular plurals.
"They say the large octopus has an intelligence equivalent to a housecat."
I hate these animal intelligence equivalency metaphors. Of course, it's good to a point - it tells Joe Blow that an Octopus is not a soft, dumb crab. But, octopuses excel at figuring out mazes, picking locks, escaping cages, and most importantly hiding evidence of this from their keepers.
I've never met a cat that cared two licks about any other sentient create around it, including cats. (I think they care about one lick). I honestly don't think cats have as much social intelligence as, say, dogs, people, orangutans, or octopuses. They just aren't as 'aware' of 'others' as other animals are. You could argue that they are aware, but they don't care -- I disagree. Intelligence is not a linear scale, like an IQ test. In this respect, I think that the intelligence of octopuses are qualitatively different than cats. All cats seem to be able to do is groom and hunt.
Well, I would disagree that the 'tree of life' is not a tree. The ultimate root is the very first organism which split and made all of us and everything living*. I don't think it's arbitrary where you choose to start your mapping -- it's probably mostly based on what's relevant to the discussion, but as the links come together you are going back in time to common ancestors, and of course, if you go back far enough, you will get back to the ultimate common ancestor.
"A tree also implies a hierarchy of value"
I disagree. I don't think a tree implies hierarchy any more than, say, the center of a koosh, to borrow your metaphor. On a tree of life diagram, a modern extant frog is at the same branch level as a modern human, fungus, or bacteria, whether the diagram has the branches at the top or bottom of the page. There is no implied hierarchy of value other than what the viewer brings to the table.
He's got billows for smoking! How retarded is that? Does he need a cigarette break after doing chores? Will he snap on you if he doesn't get his fix? Does smoking make him seem less creepy around the house? Do I have to buy him cigarettes? Does a smoker need an artificial smoking buddy? Or is this after coitus?
Man, that blows my mind. The 1940's were a whole different period. He doesn't eat or drink, but man, they made sure that he can light up!
This has been bothering me for a while - it seems to me that the linnean classification system (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus,species) is outdated and showing signs of being such. It's a table structure, developed to classigy animals when people thought they were created by God to belong to certain classes (birds of the air, fish of the sea, etc).
Now with evolutionary theory we have the 'tree of life' model of speciation, which is a tree. Why do we still use the Linnean table structure? You can tell it's out dated because people are making it more tree-like by adding sub-classes, sub-orders, etc. Of course, I understand the use of having a universal naming system, but the linnean table structure is now being used to point out divergence from a common ancestor , which is wasn't designed to do.
One alternate proposal is this: for each species, pick a unique, descriptive, Latin-like name, and reference that to divergence from a common ancestor with other speciie[s]. What do you think?
"OTOH, there could also be missing comments. I think we've all entered projects with no documentation or usable code comments; where the lore of the project is passed from dev to dev."
Cool people comment in l33+, so only cool people can work on it.
"Microsoft has had the Office no-upgrade problem for a long time... Yes, but the longer it goes on, the more of a problem it becomes. Maybe 3 years ago, they said, 'Ok, those stubborn folks will upgrade next year or the year after...' Now it's three years later, and no upgrade in sight. Problem.
"[.NET was developed a long time ago], [.NET is for WinCE], [MS wants people to rent Office]" Yes, but what's new is that MS sees this as their new direction, not selling more copies on Windows + Office.
So, independently, none of these items are "Wow, who would have guessed?!", but something that is slowly boiling to a breaking point.
I'm no longer keeping things on CD or DVD for storage. I keep everything live on a RAID. I plan on building a new raid every 2-3 years as disk prices fall, and just keep the data live.
In fact, if I had enough space, I would back up my commerically manufactured CDs and DVDs, given the horror stories I've heard about their crappy longevity. The MP/RIAA wants you to re-purchase all the content they've sold you every 5-6 years. Screw 'em.
OK, what if the 3 guys are in the same room, on the same hub, and unix guy is just looking over at the monitors and watching what's going on, or just listening to the roomates when they say "OK, I just put the file in the share folder, go ahead and download it now, it's ready!" and the other guy says "OK, I'm downloading it right now!"
The friends didn't allow him to use their computers. They just all happened to be on the same network. Unix guy observed the wire while Windows guys used their own respective computers to share data. Is there a EULA violation there?
"Further, when the Brazilian government and Brazilian businesses spend money on licensing fees, they are actually spending money on things toward building an economy that provides jobs. Paying licensing fees is an integral part of a capitalistic economy."
How exactly does shipping money to Redmond, WA help Brazil's economy?
I too am a small-time consultant. I have a client who likes my work. There has been a lot of feature creep, which is good as far as moeny, but problematic for keeping organized. I'm looking for a software package (hopefully LAMP) that is designed for the one-person developer -- feature estimation with nesting and dependencies, hour tracking, and invoicing. I've looked at dotproject and it seems to lack invoicing.
I would like to do this on my own of course, but I don't have the time with this client! What do you use?
Oh, well it sounds like things have changed since I last heard an author promoting a book on a radio show;)
Anyway, I still would like to see a system like the one I proposed above implemented. It would reduce costs dramatically, help with record keeping, and prevent nasty service companies from repeatedly charging your card even if you've called them several times to cancel the service.
Right now it's way too easy for identity theft to happen. Even if they make harsher laws to deter and punish bad guys, victims are still screwed long after the theft.
If your identity is stolen, it ruins your credit rating for the rest of your life. Why? Because no financial institution will trust that it's really you wanting to finance the furniture or buy the house.
What we need is some kind of system involving cryptographic key exchange between buyers, sellers, and their banks. Sellers should make an offer for a specified amount, going into a specified account. If the buyer approves, they will get an encrypted 'check' only good for *that amount* to be transferred only to *that account*. If someone loses their authentication keys, they can stop by a bank and have them reissued -- the teller will do a 'strong AI' check against biometric IDs of the purported patron -- comparing photographs, signatures, perhaps even fingerprints.
As it currently stands, it's way to easy to commit fraud with blank checks, credit cards, and all the applications that come in the mail. We need a new system.
"from the bacteria's genetics, determine which antibiotics (out of all known ones) can effectively kill it"
I think this is a case of overengineering. Are you talking about *identifying* a bacterium from the genetic sequence, or *modelling* a fully developed organism from the genetic sequence? It would be easier to to simply identfy the bacteria, but third step is seems to be the modelling option. Let me tell you, that's very tough. Once we get rapid DNA sequence cheap an ubiquitous, the hard part begins. From the simple DNA alphabet, a virtually infinite number of protiens can be built. Modelling their interactions is a very difficult problem -- it's the protien folding@home problem, several orders of magantude larger. I think this is very far off in the future.
I guess I feel about as big as you do when you call someone who disagrees with you amoral.
Sports on TV is the most violent program on. I guess you don't watch sports much, because I'm always seeing guys going down and being carried off the field, in so much pain that they're unable to move under their own power. This is not fantasy, make-believe violence. This is real-time, live, actual human injury, brought on by other human beings. I fail to see how that is a stretch. What on TV is more violent?
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So if you tell someone that an octopus is as smart as a housecat, they wouldn't conclude that an octopus can pick a lock, open a jar, escape an aquarium, etc. (Maybe if cats knew how to do those things they wouldn't need so many lives). By the same token, I'm certain that cats are really smart about something, they just don't go out of their way to show it off ;)
In any case, the plural of the greek word octopus is octopodes, and futhermore, when we borrow words from other languages, we only borrow words, not grammar structures (Is the plural of sauna saunaa or saunat? It is in Finnish). So the plural of the English word octopus is octopuses, just like any other regular English word that ends in -s. This just confirms my suspicion that cats are holier-than-thou pompous jerkwads.
Sorry! I'm not blaming you. Hate the system, not the geek ;)
Hm, I stand corrected! It's not pedae, it's podes. I'll be darned. That's why I stick with good old -es.
But, since octopus is actually an English word (regardless of where we got it from -- we borrow words, not grammar structures), it takes the regular plural of all English words that end in an -s, -es.
C'mon. Is the plural of sauna saunaa or saunat? A lot of our words come from other languages. If we have to adopt their pluarlization rules, that would be a nightmare laundry list of irregular plurals.
I hate these animal intelligence equivalency metaphors. Of course, it's good to a point - it tells Joe Blow that an Octopus is not a soft, dumb crab. But, octopuses excel at figuring out mazes, picking locks, escaping cages, and most importantly hiding evidence of this from their keepers.
I've never met a cat that cared two licks about any other sentient create around it, including cats. (I think they care about one lick). I honestly don't think cats have as much social intelligence as, say, dogs, people, orangutans, or octopuses. They just aren't as 'aware' of 'others' as other animals are. You could argue that they are aware, but they don't care -- I disagree. Intelligence is not a linear scale, like an IQ test. In this respect, I think that the intelligence of octopuses are qualitatively different than cats. All cats seem to be able to do is groom and hunt.
Hey, we can nip this barrage of lawsuits in the bud! Cut off their money supply and stop buying DVDs and going to the theater.
I think all that it implies is that they couldn't track you before, but they can now, so you'd better stop.
You are aware that there was some suspicion that google was censoring news going into China, weren't you?
Well, I would disagree that the 'tree of life' is not a tree. The ultimate root is the very first organism which split and made all of us and everything living*. I don't think it's arbitrary where you choose to start your mapping -- it's probably mostly based on what's relevant to the discussion, but as the links come together you are going back in time to common ancestors, and of course, if you go back far enough, you will get back to the ultimate common ancestor.
"A tree also implies a hierarchy of value"
I disagree. I don't think a tree implies hierarchy any more than, say, the center of a koosh, to borrow your metaphor. On a tree of life diagram, a modern extant frog is at the same branch level as a modern human, fungus, or bacteria, whether the diagram has the branches at the top or bottom of the page. There is no implied hierarchy of value other than what the viewer brings to the table.
And anyways, every google image result for 'cladogram' on the first couple of pages shows a tree structure, i.e. one that has a root.
* Unless there were multiple first organisms which never interbred -- then you would just have two or more trees, each with it's own root organism.
Man, that blows my mind. The 1940's were a whole different period. He doesn't eat or drink, but man, they made sure that he can light up!
Now with evolutionary theory we have the 'tree of life' model of speciation, which is a tree. Why do we still use the Linnean table structure? You can tell it's out dated because people are making it more tree-like by adding sub-classes, sub-orders, etc. Of course, I understand the use of having a universal naming system, but the linnean table structure is now being used to point out divergence from a common ancestor , which is wasn't designed to do.
One alternate proposal is this: for each species, pick a unique, descriptive, Latin-like name, and reference that to divergence from a common ancestor with other speciie[s]. What do you think?
Cool people comment in l33+, so only cool people can work on it.
"Microsoft has had the Office no-upgrade problem for a long time...
Yes, but the longer it goes on, the more of a problem it becomes. Maybe 3 years ago, they said, 'Ok, those stubborn folks will upgrade next year or the year after...' Now it's three years later, and no upgrade in sight. Problem.
"[.NET was developed a long time ago], [.NET is for WinCE], [MS wants people to rent Office]"
Yes, but what's new is that MS sees this as their new direction, not selling more copies on Windows + Office.
So, independently, none of these items are "Wow, who would have guessed?!", but something that is slowly boiling to a breaking point.
Ew.
In fact, if I had enough space, I would back up my commerically manufactured CDs and DVDs, given the horror stories I've heard about their crappy longevity. The MP/RIAA wants you to re-purchase all the content they've sold you every 5-6 years. Screw 'em.
OK, what if the 3 guys are in the same room, on the same hub, and unix guy is just looking over at the monitors and watching what's going on, or just listening to the roomates when they say "OK, I just put the file in the share folder, go ahead and download it now, it's ready!" and the other guy says "OK, I'm downloading it right now!"
The friends didn't allow him to use their computers. They just all happened to be on the same network. Unix guy observed the wire while Windows guys used their own respective computers to share data. Is there a EULA violation there?
Yes, everything you read on the internet is true, especially what manufacturers say about their own products.
How exactly does shipping money to Redmond, WA help Brazil's economy?
I too am a small-time consultant. I have a client who likes my work. There has been a lot of feature creep, which is good as far as moeny, but problematic for keeping organized. I'm looking for a software package (hopefully LAMP) that is designed for the one-person developer -- feature estimation with nesting and dependencies, hour tracking, and invoicing. I've looked at dotproject and it seems to lack invoicing.
I would like to do this on my own of course, but I don't have the time with this client! What do you use?
What if you need to buy something that your community doesn't keep in stock?
Anyway, I still would like to see a system like the one I proposed above implemented. It would reduce costs dramatically, help with record keeping, and prevent nasty service companies from repeatedly charging your card even if you've called them several times to cancel the service.
If your identity is stolen, it ruins your credit rating for the rest of your life. Why? Because no financial institution will trust that it's really you wanting to finance the furniture or buy the house.
What we need is some kind of system involving cryptographic key exchange between buyers, sellers, and their banks. Sellers should make an offer for a specified amount, going into a specified account. If the buyer approves, they will get an encrypted 'check' only good for *that amount* to be transferred only to *that account*. If someone loses their authentication keys, they can stop by a bank and have them reissued -- the teller will do a 'strong AI' check against biometric IDs of the purported patron -- comparing photographs, signatures, perhaps even fingerprints.
As it currently stands, it's way to easy to commit fraud with blank checks, credit cards, and all the applications that come in the mail. We need a new system.
I think this is a case of overengineering. Are you talking about *identifying* a bacterium from the genetic sequence, or *modelling* a fully developed organism from the genetic sequence? It would be easier to to simply identfy the bacteria, but third step is seems to be the modelling option. Let me tell you, that's very tough. Once we get rapid DNA sequence cheap an ubiquitous, the hard part begins. From the simple DNA alphabet, a virtually infinite number of protiens can be built. Modelling their interactions is a very difficult problem -- it's the protien folding@home problem, several orders of magantude larger. I think this is very far off in the future.
I guess I feel about as big as you do when you call someone who disagrees with you amoral.
Sports on TV is the most violent program on. I guess you don't watch sports much, because I'm always seeing guys going down and being carried off the field, in so much pain that they're unable to move under their own power. This is not fantasy, make-believe violence. This is real-time, live, actual human injury, brought on by other human beings. I fail to see how that is a stretch. What on TV is more violent?