Our minds can't completely control our bodies, but I'm convinced they do much more than we tend to believe. Either that or someone needs to patent "placebo" because it's potent stuff.
Indeed it is. There's a reason the effectiveness of drugs is always compared to placebo, and not just because you have to administer placebos to have a valid double-blind study. It's because the placebo group often receives a measurable benefit. So even outside of study design, to have an effective drug it can't just be better than nothing. It has to be better than what the mind will do on its own.
What the mind can do when its not simply being tricked into thinking you should be getting better, but is actually exerting willpower, is an interesting area for research.
Remember that the native Americans dies from illnesses which were relatively harmless for the Europeans, because they just didn't have all those illnesses there.
And European explorers, all descendants of survivors of the Black Death, died from tropical diseases at rates far higher than the locals, because they didn't have those diseases in Europe.
Vaccines are all about "training" our immune system. But they only work against the disease the vaccine is designed for.
Mouse pointer indicates what object you want to interact with, mouse click indicates that you want to interact with the object
No, mouse click indicates that you want an action to take place, not that you may want to interact with the object at some point in the future.
That's exactly what's so infuriating about click-to-focus. You have to click just to say "Now I want to be able to interact with this window and its widgets." Unless the window already has focus, in which case clicking means "Activate the widget now!" It's inconsistent.
Speaking of consistency, "mouse pointer indicates what object you want to interact with" using the keyboard implies mouse-focus as well. By treating mouse buttons and keyboard buttons differently, mouse focus is also inconsistent.
Certainly it's hard to argue that the strongest selective pressure for Europeans hasn't been for resistance to the plague (and other communicable diseases).
I know some musicians, whose opinions I respect a lot more than Random Internet Guy, who'd disagree.
That said, that video was awesome and I don't see how you can view it as some kind of insult to Gibson or LP. I mean, being chosen for an inter-species musical experiment would be an honor for any guitar maker!
Also, I never realized what a nice water feature you could make with a guitar case.
It doesn't work if you have another means of switching focus (like alt-tab) because if you bump the mouse then you end up focused on the last window you focused with the mouse.
Not necessarily. And by not necessarily, I mean not in my desktop environment I'm using right now.
Sloppy focus fixes this last problem, but now most of us have a desktop window and that gets focus, so now sloppy focus is deprecated.
In all cases when I say "focus follows mouse" I mean sloppily. In some systems it's the only kind that exists. And huh? Desktop window? I don't know what you're talking about in recent versions of Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse. I move the mouse over the desktop, the last app that had focus keeps it.
Click to focus only falls down for textual applications like terminal windows or text editors; in all other cases you're going to be clicking things in the windows anyway, so it's okay for them to not focus until you click in them. So if you can bend your head around the conflict between task switching with the mouse and doing it with the keyboard, or if you never use GUI applications then I guess focus-follows-mouse is reasonable. For everyone else, click-to-focus makes more sense.
Actually it's largely irrelevant if all you're using is non-gui apps, since you'll be switching with the keyboard too, because moving your hands off the keyboard to grab the mouse just to switch windows is inefficient.
It's only when heavily using GUI apps that it makes a difference, and one of the biggest is when I want to have one app remain on top while I interact with another. Mouse focus is a godsend there.
Also, something that varies in different click-focus systems, is whether or not you can click a widget in an app that doesn't have focus. When you're using a GUI, and have to click a button twice because the first only gives the window focus, that sucks.
But yeah, mouse focus only makes sense if you can wrap your head around it. I don't really see that there's much of anything to it, but preferences are preferences.
Hey, good point. If we could verify that hypothesis, it would strongly suggest life could exist on Enceladus or Europa. Otherwise, it still doesn't exclude the possibility.
but it seems more and more likely that we will find life in the solar system on bodies other than Earth.
I'm not sure how likely it is. We might find life elsewhere in the solar system, but it's also quite possible we won't.
However at the very least what all of the data we're collecting suggests is that liquid water, hydrocarbons and other organic chemicals, the things we associate with the chemical requirements for life, are not actually uncommon. So even if it requires an earth-like planet both in composition and in relative distance from the parent star, we can be confident that the composition itself is not rare, and based on how swimmingly well the search for exoplanets is going*, I think we can say that the odds of there being earth-like planets with liquid water and hydrocarbons and all that around other stars is high.
So, maybe not in our solar system, but I'm putting down the odds of there being life "out there" as being pretty damn good.
* Basically, every type of planet we have the capability of discovering, we discover. First huge gas giants really close to the star, then gas giants farther out, rocky planets of several earth masses very close to the star... Every time our capabilities improve, we readily find planets that only the new capabilities would show.
So you're operating under the assumption that these lifeforms evolved independently from a spontaneously-generated source?
No. It is only establishing that it is possible for life to exist in such environments.
I agree it's probable that the examples on earth evolved from life that formed where solar energy was readily available. But that doesn't necessarily mean its the only possible evolutionary path, any more than our history means warm blooded live-birthing animals can only evolve in the presence of giant reptiles who get conveniently wiped out by meteors. It also doesn't mean life can begin and evolve strictly from geological energy sources... We don't really have a good model of abiogenesis, but the things we're pretty sure are at least prerequisites are water, organic compounds like amino acids, and energy.
I'm not ready to say that the source of energy must be the sun.
None of his software used a mouse for input, so why not use it as an enhanced 2-dimensional task switcher?
I don't understand. If you're using your mouse for input (as I very frequently do), doesn't it make sense that your mouse would be over the application that you're interacting with, which at least suggests it should have focus? If you're using the mouse for input, that implies clicking, which would give that app focus in click-to-focus anyway.
I'm not saying there's something wrong with your preference, I just don't seem to get the usage model that inspires the preference. The more graphical apps I'm using, the more I appreciate focus-follows-mouse.
It makes a lot of sense if you want to be able to put keyboard focus on an app without raising it to the foreground. It makes a lot of sense if you want to be able to change focus quickly, and if you want to interact with widgets on that app quickly and in a predictable way.
I hate click to focus, and I always hate when I'm on a system that can't be easily changed. Even though click to focus is what I learned first, and used for roughly ten years. I just didn't know how much it sucked.
He laughed at me when I said my ultimate technique was the Long Winded Anecdote With No Point (Napping Crane Style). But now I'm 37% more likely to have the last laugh!
Some people can look out for their own interests without dicking over others. For some people, viewing other people's interests as an integral part of their own is "natural".
The difference between "looking out for your own interests" and "looking out for your own interests by fucking over everyone else" is subtle, I admit, but once you grasp the nuance you'll see why behaviors that are on the surface the same are ultimately different, and why one is evil and the other is acceptable.
Okay, let's see... someone says their birthday is in December. Subtract 3 months. So they were conceived in September? Uh... that would mean they were either in the womb for 3 months of 15.
So to answer your question, yes, you're really that stupid.
That's fine, that just makes the next gift that much easier to pick out. It's when she starts asking me to chop down trees with fish that I draw the line. A man has to have some dignity!
Don't forget the "NASA robot 'helps' boy by launching him into space" Space Camp! Not as popular as it used to be, but I'm sticking with it.
But seriously. I'm not convinced that the private sector will succeed, but I do think taking the chance is a better idea than continuing with the Shuttle or Constellation. I'm somewhat heartened by the fact that pretty much all of the rocket engineering was already being done by private companies. So as far as the process of developing launch vehicles go, the shift is probably more subtle than most people first think.
Slashdot Mirror
Our minds can't completely control our bodies, but I'm convinced they do much more than we tend to believe. Either that or someone needs to patent "placebo" because it's potent stuff.
Indeed it is. There's a reason the effectiveness of drugs is always compared to placebo, and not just because you have to administer placebos to have a valid double-blind study. It's because the placebo group often receives a measurable benefit. So even outside of study design, to have an effective drug it can't just be better than nothing. It has to be better than what the mind will do on its own.
What the mind can do when its not simply being tricked into thinking you should be getting better, but is actually exerting willpower, is an interesting area for research.
Remember that the native Americans dies from illnesses which were relatively harmless for the Europeans, because they just didn't have all those illnesses there.
And European explorers, all descendants of survivors of the Black Death, died from tropical diseases at rates far higher than the locals, because they didn't have those diseases in Europe.
Vaccines are all about "training" our immune system. But they only work against the disease the vaccine is designed for.
What about those of us who will not buy StarCraft II without LAN party capability?
Your money will scarcely be missed.
Mouse pointer indicates what object you want to interact with, mouse click indicates that you want to interact with the object
No, mouse click indicates that you want an action to take place, not that you may want to interact with the object at some point in the future.
That's exactly what's so infuriating about click-to-focus. You have to click just to say "Now I want to be able to interact with this window and its widgets." Unless the window already has focus, in which case clicking means "Activate the widget now!" It's inconsistent.
Speaking of consistency, "mouse pointer indicates what object you want to interact with" using the keyboard implies mouse-focus as well. By treating mouse buttons and keyboard buttons differently, mouse focus is also inconsistent.
A lot of != all.
Certainly it's hard to argue that the strongest selective pressure for Europeans hasn't been for resistance to the plague (and other communicable diseases).
I know some musicians, whose opinions I respect a lot more than Random Internet Guy, who'd disagree.
That said, that video was awesome and I don't see how you can view it as some kind of insult to Gibson or LP. I mean, being chosen for an inter-species musical experiment would be an honor for any guitar maker!
Also, I never realized what a nice water feature you could make with a guitar case.
It doesn't work if you have another means of switching focus (like alt-tab) because if you bump the mouse then you end up focused on the last window you focused with the mouse.
Not necessarily. And by not necessarily, I mean not in my desktop environment I'm using right now.
Sloppy focus fixes this last problem, but now most of us have a desktop window and that gets focus, so now sloppy focus is deprecated.
In all cases when I say "focus follows mouse" I mean sloppily. In some systems it's the only kind that exists. And huh? Desktop window? I don't know what you're talking about in recent versions of Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse. I move the mouse over the desktop, the last app that had focus keeps it.
Click to focus only falls down for textual applications like terminal windows or text editors; in all other cases you're going to be clicking things in the windows anyway, so it's okay for them to not focus until you click in them. So if you can bend your head around the conflict between task switching with the mouse and doing it with the keyboard, or if you never use GUI applications then I guess focus-follows-mouse is reasonable. For everyone else, click-to-focus makes more sense.
Actually it's largely irrelevant if all you're using is non-gui apps, since you'll be switching with the keyboard too, because moving your hands off the keyboard to grab the mouse just to switch windows is inefficient.
It's only when heavily using GUI apps that it makes a difference, and one of the biggest is when I want to have one app remain on top while I interact with another. Mouse focus is a godsend there.
Also, something that varies in different click-focus systems, is whether or not you can click a widget in an app that doesn't have focus. When you're using a GUI, and have to click a button twice because the first only gives the window focus, that sucks.
But yeah, mouse focus only makes sense if you can wrap your head around it. I don't really see that there's much of anything to it, but preferences are preferences.
Here's the crazy part. I don't even care about battery life or even having a battery. I just want something I can plug in wherever.
Sounds good, as long as we don't let the folks in the adult novelty department get word of it.
Hey, good point. If we could verify that hypothesis, it would strongly suggest life could exist on Enceladus or Europa. Otherwise, it still doesn't exclude the possibility.
but it seems more and more likely that we will find life in the solar system on bodies other than Earth.
I'm not sure how likely it is. We might find life elsewhere in the solar system, but it's also quite possible we won't.
However at the very least what all of the data we're collecting suggests is that liquid water, hydrocarbons and other organic chemicals, the things we associate with the chemical requirements for life, are not actually uncommon. So even if it requires an earth-like planet both in composition and in relative distance from the parent star, we can be confident that the composition itself is not rare, and based on how swimmingly well the search for exoplanets is going*, I think we can say that the odds of there being earth-like planets with liquid water and hydrocarbons and all that around other stars is high.
So, maybe not in our solar system, but I'm putting down the odds of there being life "out there" as being pretty damn good.
* Basically, every type of planet we have the capability of discovering, we discover. First huge gas giants really close to the star, then gas giants farther out, rocky planets of several earth masses very close to the star... Every time our capabilities improve, we readily find planets that only the new capabilities would show.
So you're operating under the assumption that these lifeforms evolved independently from a spontaneously-generated source?
No. It is only establishing that it is possible for life to exist in such environments.
I agree it's probable that the examples on earth evolved from life that formed where solar energy was readily available. But that doesn't necessarily mean its the only possible evolutionary path, any more than our history means warm blooded live-birthing animals can only evolve in the presence of giant reptiles who get conveniently wiped out by meteors. It also doesn't mean life can begin and evolve strictly from geological energy sources... We don't really have a good model of abiogenesis, but the things we're pretty sure are at least prerequisites are water, organic compounds like amino acids, and energy.
I'm not ready to say that the source of energy must be the sun.
None of his software used a mouse for input, so why not use it as an enhanced 2-dimensional task switcher?
I don't understand. If you're using your mouse for input (as I very frequently do), doesn't it make sense that your mouse would be over the application that you're interacting with, which at least suggests it should have focus? If you're using the mouse for input, that implies clicking, which would give that app focus in click-to-focus anyway.
I'm not saying there's something wrong with your preference, I just don't seem to get the usage model that inspires the preference. The more graphical apps I'm using, the more I appreciate focus-follows-mouse.
It makes a lot of sense if you want to be able to put keyboard focus on an app without raising it to the foreground. It makes a lot of sense if you want to be able to change focus quickly, and if you want to interact with widgets on that app quickly and in a predictable way.
I hate click to focus, and I always hate when I'm on a system that can't be easily changed. Even though click to focus is what I learned first, and used for roughly ten years. I just didn't know how much it sucked.
And then get hit with sexual harassment suits and/or stalking charges...
Nothing says "I love you" like violating a restraining order.
He laughed at me when I said my ultimate technique was the Long Winded Anecdote With No Point (Napping Crane Style). But now I'm 37% more likely to have the last laugh!
Oh well. The funny part is your examples were right, so coulda just let it slide, but this is The Internet after all.
Some people can look out for their own interests without dicking over others. For some people, viewing other people's interests as an integral part of their own is "natural".
The difference between "looking out for your own interests" and "looking out for your own interests by fucking over everyone else" is subtle, I admit, but once you grasp the nuance you'll see why behaviors that are on the surface the same are ultimately different, and why one is evil and the other is acceptable.
You said:
Okay, let's see... someone says their birthday is in December. Subtract 3 months. So they were conceived in September? Uh... that would mean they were either in the womb for 3 months of 15.
So to answer your question, yes, you're really that stupid.
Yeah, but then she'll just demand another one.
That's fine, that just makes the next gift that much easier to pick out. It's when she starts asking me to chop down trees with fish that I draw the line. A man has to have some dignity!
Well and let's not forget that flowers are a plant's reproductive organs.
So it's basically "Hey, honey, I gave you these genitals so you can watch them wither. It's, like, a metaphor!"
No, your way would mean 15/3 months gestation...
Don't forget the "NASA robot 'helps' boy by launching him into space" Space Camp! Not as popular as it used to be, but I'm sticking with it.
But seriously. I'm not convinced that the private sector will succeed, but I do think taking the chance is a better idea than continuing with the Shuttle or Constellation. I'm somewhat heartened by the fact that pretty much all of the rocket engineering was already being done by private companies. So as far as the process of developing launch vehicles go, the shift is probably more subtle than most people first think.
It's definitely not crazy to have a History Eraser Button. It's only crazy to push it. Not crazy at all to have one sitting there.
Haven't they seen ANY film at all?
Yes, but the only one they've seen is Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties.
Which is why they're developing these synthetic lifeforms, knowing full well that the "fail-safes" will fail and they will wipe out humankind.
That's a computer?!
Then what's the thing that balances my checkbook and snorts all my coke?!