I think it is because we are pattern seeking individuals in a world full of chaos... So if you are shown a pattern[,] we are geared to want to believe.
I think that's exactly right.
Next question: how do you make someone want to believe something? I think the answer is to provide an unacceptable alternative, like "if you don't believe and be saved, your life will be meaningless, and when you die, you will burn in hell." Well, that's the Christian version, I don't know what Scientology says is the punishment for not following their religion, but I'm sure there's one.
It also helps to make things easy for your followers. Scientology appeals to wealthy people (like Tom Cruise) because it gives them an advantage in purchasing the church's expensive publications (I think the rest of us are screwed), and as a result it elevates them above other people. What's not to like about that?
Make it more appealing to obey than disobey, even if it means changing what you believe and forgetting what you know to be true. You would have to be a machine to be completely immune to this.
Refill the tank with water you've used to wash your hands with. After all, you don't need 100% clean water to flush down your waste, and you're going to wash your hands anyway after you use the toilet. (You do wash your hands after using the toilet, don't you?)
The Japanese have had toilets for a while now with a spigot on the top of the tank. When you flush the toilet, clean water comes out of the spigot (with which you can wash your hands) and drains into the tank. Check out the picture here.
Actually, the closest degree to CS at UoP is a BSIT (Information Technology). While the programming assignments may not be too difficult (writing a VB.Net app that interfaced with a SQL Server database has been the most involved so far), I doubt a traditional brick-and-morter (TB&M) school really teaches you everything you need to know in order to start a job programming in that language. (Maybe in a Software Engineering degree.)
(P.S. The UoP also has TB&M classes, so it isn't all online. A lot of other colleges around the country also have online courses, they just don't promote them nationally as much as UoP.)
The courses are 5 weeks long and you're only supposed to take them 1 at a time. Some will give you the same amount of knowledge as a TB&M degree course, and some won't.
The parent is partially correct when he/she said that quantity is more important than quality at UoP. You have to show attendence by posting a certain number of messages a certain number of times every week, and this alone can be overwhelming for some people. On the other hand, you can't just post anything--it has to contribute to the discussion.
Some facilitators (the facilitator is your instructor for the course) don't seem to know the subject very well, have trouble communicating with the students, or just don't care. Others are excellent and really know their stuff. I had the same problem at the local community college.
Even with a bad facilitator, you'll always have at least a couple of students in each course who have a lot of practical experience, sometimes even more than the facilitator! The focus on group work also encourages learning from each other. This I think makes the UoP better than at least the community college I attended.
I find myself doing less busy work with UoP than with a TB&M school. On the other hand, sometimes I wonder how many useless facts I'm not learning at the UoP. It seems like the UoP tries to whittle down the the amount of learning you have to do by focusing on the more practical knowledge.
I worry about how prospective employers might view my degree, but at least it's accredited (or will be, when I'm done), and I could always switch to a TB&M school later for a master's or another bachelor's and not list my UoP degree at all. The course at UoP are expensive, but I'm saving a lot of time not having to drive to the school, find a parking space, walk 1/2 mile to my class, or wait up to an hour or so between classes. If your time is worth a lot (and especially if your employer pays for your education), there are definitely worse choices than UoP.
Since the studios pay for duplication and distribution, going to digital won't save the theaters any money. And since the theaters buy their own projectors, they would also have to eat the cost of the new equipment.
Another thing to remember is that the current costs of distribution ($1,500-2,000 per print in bulk) keeps films made by smaller, independent studios out of the mainstream. This helps the larger studios maintain their dominance in the market. Read this Wired story for more details.
This is going to cause problems with medical insurance. If we could cure all diseases and aging, but the cost per person rises exponentially as the person ages (and this will go on for 1000 years per person, not just 80 or 100), who will be stuck with the bill?
I'm still waiting for an airplane that runs on static electricity. The passengers would walk around barefoot on wool rugs touching things in order to power the propellor.
It means that next time there are protests at, say, a political convention in Chicago, they'll be able to track everyone down and arrest them. There will be chilling effects on our 1st amendment right to assemble.
Cameras won't make it any easier to track down protesters. "They're that crowd right there, the one with all the signs."
In fact, I would submit that protestors want as much public exposure as possible. That is, until they start doing something illegal. (Unless protests have suddenly become illegal.)
While adults may be able to...tell the difference between real life and video games, many youngsters do not have the ability to do this. There have been many studies linking violence in movies and video games to violent crimes committed later in life.
(emphasis added)
These two sentences appear to contradict each other.
It's like your ignition key. If you keep it turned for about a second, it starts the car. If you keep it turned for 10 minutes, it burns out the starter.
How many people do you think would have switched from a 3rd party to Gore after they learned Bush was gonna win by such a small margin?
You've made an excellent case for switching from plurality elections (most votes to win) to majority elections (at least 50% of the votes to win). Two election styles that accomplish this include Instant Runoff Voting and Condorcet.
Note that neither of these require doing away with primary elections (although they both reduce the need for them) or the electoral college.
Really. The degree you want is a Bachelor's in Software Engineering. Yes, there is such a degree, even though not many schools offfer it yet, but take a look at that link and learn how such a degree with distinguish yourself from the next hotshot programmer.
BTW, Steve McConnell is the author of some of the more important books on software engineering, such as Code Complete (a new edition is coming in June) and others.
I want one that does a different kind of Denial of Service attack: one that would simultaneously ring every cellular device in the vicinity until people turn their phones off. Call it a port scanner for cell phones.
I'd use one in the theater right before the show starts.
The problem comes when the resulting proof is too involved to be verified by a human, and so the computer's work has to be trusted.
When something is too involved for a human to accomplish -- isn't this what we have computers for? So the solution is simple. Produce another system to verify the first system's proof. Ideally, this second system should be built by a group completely separate from the first so as not to inherit any design flaws or false assumptions.
The same methodology could be applied to electronic voting. Everyone votes twice, once on each of two machines from two different manufacturers, and at the end of the day the results are tallied separately and compared.
Also, we don't know the makeup of the group. With its liberal bias, the group could be composed entirely of Democrats. This would make it easier to come to an agreement on anything.
Mr. Wertheimer said the application of security was inconsistent, with encryption applied in some places without the accompanying technology of authentication...
What's so hard about SSL that they can't use it between the voting machine and the master voting server? This needs to be in place, and as long as it is, whether any part of the link is wireless shouldn't make any difference from a security standpoint. AFAIK, this also resolves the issue of authentication.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that's exactly right.
Next question: how do you make someone want to believe something? I think the answer is to provide an unacceptable alternative, like "if you don't believe and be saved, your life will be meaningless, and when you die, you will burn in hell." Well, that's the Christian version, I don't know what Scientology says is the punishment for not following their religion, but I'm sure there's one.
It also helps to make things easy for your followers. Scientology appeals to wealthy people (like Tom Cruise) because it gives them an advantage in purchasing the church's expensive publications (I think the rest of us are screwed), and as a result it elevates them above other people. What's not to like about that?
Make it more appealing to obey than disobey, even if it means changing what you believe and forgetting what you know to be true. You would have to be a machine to be completely immune to this.
Refill the tank with water you've used to wash your hands with. After all, you don't need 100% clean water to flush down your waste, and you're going to wash your hands anyway after you use the toilet. (You do wash your hands after using the toilet, don't you?)
The Japanese have had toilets for a while now with a spigot on the top of the tank. When you flush the toilet, clean water comes out of the spigot (with which you can wash your hands) and drains into the tank. Check out the picture here.
Actually, the closest degree to CS at UoP is a BSIT (Information Technology). While the programming assignments may not be too difficult (writing a VB.Net app that interfaced with a SQL Server database has been the most involved so far), I doubt a traditional brick-and-morter (TB&M) school really teaches you everything you need to know in order to start a job programming in that language. (Maybe in a Software Engineering degree.)
(P.S. The UoP also has TB&M classes, so it isn't all online. A lot of other colleges around the country also have online courses, they just don't promote them nationally as much as UoP.)
The courses are 5 weeks long and you're only supposed to take them 1 at a time. Some will give you the same amount of knowledge as a TB&M degree course, and some won't.
The parent is partially correct when he/she said that quantity is more important than quality at UoP. You have to show attendence by posting a certain number of messages a certain number of times every week, and this alone can be overwhelming for some people. On the other hand, you can't just post anything--it has to contribute to the discussion.
Some facilitators (the facilitator is your instructor for the course) don't seem to know the subject very well, have trouble communicating with the students, or just don't care. Others are excellent and really know their stuff. I had the same problem at the local community college.
Even with a bad facilitator, you'll always have at least a couple of students in each course who have a lot of practical experience, sometimes even more than the facilitator! The focus on group work also encourages learning from each other. This I think makes the UoP better than at least the community college I attended.
I find myself doing less busy work with UoP than with a TB&M school. On the other hand, sometimes I wonder how many useless facts I'm not learning at the UoP. It seems like the UoP tries to whittle down the the amount of learning you have to do by focusing on the more practical knowledge.
I worry about how prospective employers might view my degree, but at least it's accredited (or will be, when I'm done), and I could always switch to a TB&M school later for a master's or another bachelor's and not list my UoP degree at all. The course at UoP are expensive, but I'm saving a lot of time not having to drive to the school, find a parking space, walk 1/2 mile to my class, or wait up to an hour or so between classes. If your time is worth a lot (and especially if your employer pays for your education), there are definitely worse choices than UoP.
>> Why not UTC?
> Because almost _everything_ as we know it would have to change.
It would be a one-time change. Compare that with DST, which makes us change our clocks twice a year, every year.
> But the obvious downside of that is you live in Saskatchewan (Canada).
There's always Arizona, Hawaii, and certain parts of Indiana.
Since the studios pay for duplication and distribution, going to digital won't save the theaters any money. And since the theaters buy their own projectors, they would also have to eat the cost of the new equipment.
Another thing to remember is that the current costs of distribution ($1,500-2,000 per print in bulk) keeps films made by smaller, independent studios out of the mainstream. This helps the larger studios maintain their dominance in the market. Read this Wired story for more details.
Wasn't 100% compatibility a goal of the 1.0 line? What happened to that?
It's annoying when you have to install an entirely new version just because they have no plans to complete the previous one.
You get what you pay for, I guess.
</rant>
This is going to cause problems with medical insurance. If we could cure all diseases and aging, but the cost per person rises exponentially as the person ages (and this will go on for 1000 years per person, not just 80 or 100), who will be stuck with the bill?
...will fix that, no prob.
Since they're microscopic (they have to be, in order to produce nanotube wool), perhaps they could be trained like circus fleas and sea monkeys.
I'm still waiting for an airplane that runs on static electricity. The passengers would walk around barefoot on wool rugs touching things in order to power the propellor.
Cameras won't make it any easier to track down protesters. "They're that crowd right there, the one with all the signs."
In fact, I would submit that protestors want as much public exposure as possible. That is, until they start doing something illegal. (Unless protests have suddenly become illegal.)
(emphasis added)
These two sentences appear to contradict each other.
It's like your ignition key. If you keep it turned for about a second, it starts the car. If you keep it turned for 10 minutes, it burns out the starter.
And there's also auto-repeat.
"Intelligence says the enemy is headed our way. Quick! To the showers!"
You've made an excellent case for switching from plurality elections (most votes to win) to majority elections (at least 50% of the votes to win). Two election styles that accomplish this include Instant Runoff Voting and Condorcet.
Note that neither of these require doing away with primary elections (although they both reduce the need for them) or the electoral college.
Really. The degree you want is a Bachelor's in Software Engineering. Yes, there is such a degree, even though not many schools offfer it yet, but take a look at that link and learn how such a degree with distinguish yourself from the next hotshot programmer.
BTW, Steve McConnell is the author of some of the more important books on software engineering, such as Code Complete (a new edition is coming in June) and others.
I want one that does a different kind of Denial of Service attack: one that would simultaneously ring every cellular device in the vicinity until people turn their phones off. Call it a port scanner for cell phones.
I'd use one in the theater right before the show starts.
When something is too involved for a human to accomplish -- isn't this what we have computers for? So the solution is simple. Produce another system to verify the first system's proof. Ideally, this second system should be built by a group completely separate from the first so as not to inherit any design flaws or false assumptions.
The same methodology could be applied to electronic voting. Everyone votes twice, once on each of two machines from two different manufacturers, and at the end of the day the results are tallied separately and compared.
I don't see it on the list.
That's an example of observational selection, and argument from authority. In other words, 20 Ph.D's may have agreed, but who knows how many Ph.D's in the world would disagree?
Also, we don't know the makeup of the group. With its liberal bias, the group could be composed entirely of Democrats. This would make it easier to come to an agreement on anything.
What's so hard about SSL that they can't use it between the voting machine and the master voting server? This needs to be in place, and as long as it is, whether any part of the link is wireless shouldn't make any difference from a security standpoint. AFAIK, this also resolves the issue of authentication.