Your take is correct, but surely you're aware that al Qaeda is currently on tour in Iraq, with record attendance and topping the charts like never before. They already have the U.S. Pres as one of their top promoters, so they have little need for another publicity stunt in the states.
Do you really think that if we just stopped bothering with security and were just "friendly" to everyone instead that there would be no attacks against western culture?
Seems to have worked for Canada and a host of other Western countries.
But no, I'm sure it's just that they hate us for our freedom. We seem to be solving that problem, though.
And given the relative absence of terrorist attacks in the US since then, it must be difficult for even Al Qaeda, a group with considerable resources and manpower, to find people to carry out such attacks.
This is unrelated to this system, but I'd say that given the US behavior since 9/11, Al Qaeda hasn't had any need to carry out such attacks.
This again goes to the prior poster's complaint. Why are you turning this into a false dilemma between "perfect" and "utterly worthless"? Anything that doesn't measurably hinder passengers yet significant increases the hurdle for terrorist acts on airlines is a good thing, right?
Why are you acting like this system is only a smidgen off from being perfect? This isn't a case of some false dilemna, this is a case of correctly identifying a system as utterly worthless.
Even an 8% failure rate (assuming it doesn't go up) is not worse than the current random screening rate.
Actually the "failure" rate, which I would say is allowing a real terrorist to get through, aka false negatives, is 15% (in their simulated test). 8% is the rate of false positives, i.e. identifying an innocent person as a terrorist.
That's worthless, not because it isn't "perfect", but because it's really truly shitty. First, it can easily be proven mathematically that anyone the system actually flags is almost certainly an innocent. I've ran the math with profiles that claimed much higher accuracy and specificity than this one, and under any reasonable assumption of the ratio of terrorists to innocents it's in the high 99%. For this system, the odds of the person under consideration being an actual terrorist would be ridiculously small. I could run the math for you if you doubt it, but practical experience would show it to be true and thus cause the system to not be taken seriously, making the chance of the one terrorist out of thousands of innocents flagged being vetted much higher. Second, you're talking about 8% of all passengers being flagged as terrorists. That's 80 per 1,000 passengers. Now think of how many people pass through security at an airport like O'Hare. That's a ridiculous quantity of suspects if you're going to even pretend that you're thoroughly investigating them. And you'd have to, because the system inherently requires more effort to validate, knowing full well that there's basically zero chance of them actually being guilty.
See, unlike say a metal detector, it is difficult to prove that you have in fact found a false positive. If I walk through a metal detector and it goes off, I can pretty easily reveal that the problem was my belt buckle and not a concealed weapon. If the biometric sensor goes off, how exactly do I prove that the biometric readings it saw are not evidence of malign intent? You can't prove whether or not malign intent exists; the only way to do so would be to find some physical evidence, like a weapon or explosives, which we already have detectors for and which don't suffer from the horrible false positive problem that this does.
Anything that doesn't measurably hinder passengers yet significant increases the hurdle for terrorist acts on airlines is a good thing, right?
But this would necessarily create a large hinderence for passengers yet would would not provide a significant hurdle for terrorists that is not already created by existing detectors, therefore this is not a good thing, it's a retarded thing.
It's unfortunate that we have to come to this level, but I'd rather sacrifice my precious water bottle on a long flight than end up crashing into a building any day.
I'd love to see your sure to be hilarious explanation for how a liquid explosive results in your plane crashing into a building. Does it create the kind of explosion that can pilot a plane? Maybe by placing the explosive on exactly the right part of the plane, it directs what remains of the fuselage towards the building of the terrorist's choice?
Since you obviously thought the cause and effect through so much, let me give you a hint of how to achieve real safety, because you're never going to stop somone from smuggling things onto a plane. You might stop particular instances, but if there's a will, there's a way. The key to real safety is to remove the will. But that requires doing actual work and making tough choices and recognizing uncomfortable truths. So nevermind, sacrifice your precious water so your plane won't crash into a building, that's as real as its going to get.
I really hate to be so calous, but given her or the other almost 100 people on board, she can die. Hell if it were me, let him take me out and then take him out. Better than getting an upfront view of what's about to happen.
That statement was meant to be considered in the old regime of hijackings leading to negotiations on the ground, so please bear that in mind. In the modern regime, then yes of course you wouldn't let that stop you because she would die anyway. Yet this discussion was about the 9/11 hijackings, which were the transition from old regime to new.
It would make perfect sense if you knew anything about hijackings pre-9/11.
Pre-9/11, SOP for hijackings was to cooperate so as not to be hurt until the plane landed, when negotiators would take over. That was the way things worked. On three of the flights, that's what the passengers did, expecting that by cooperating they would escape unharmed. Clearly they were wrong. The fourth flight was behaving similarly, until the passengers discovered what the fate of the previous three flights were. Realizing the rules had changed, they took matters into their own hands.
Which is what would happen in any post-9/11 hijacking. Personally I think hijacking a plane now with anything less than a fully automatic or a passenger crew full of geriatrics would be impossible. I think pretty much everyone realizes this, which is why the main tactic/concern has been explosives designed to destroy a plane in flight, not take it over.
BTW, I thought the hijackers used the box cutters to fashion larger shivs.
So what happen if the terrorist develop a bomb that they can drink it and piss it on the toilet to explode? Do we test for urine sample before boarding?
Sounds like too much trouble.
Personally, from banning liquid containers, I think the next step is a terrorist plot to smuggle liquid explosives onto a plane in balloons shoved up their assholes. Once this happens, say goodbye to the airline industry...
Exactly, I hate it when these sort of things hit the news. The government has all sorts of wacky proposals coming into it all the time. I review technology proposals for a particular agency and you wouldn't believe the wacky stuff that comes down the pipe.
Yeah, I bet! Now I'd appreciate if you could hurry through that garbage and get to my ingenious proposal to defend our northern border from a deadly Canadian Moose Blitz via electrified orphans.
There should be better secrecy regarding proposal submission so as not to impede the free flow of ideas resulting from paranoia that your idea will land on the cover of the Post and make you look like a shmuck, much like this case.
Which must be even worse because this would only disuade the somewhat rational and self-aware, while the true loons would be undeterred.
Between 20 - 40% of your compiled code is spent moving data in and out of the accumulator register, since most instructions depend on specific data being in that register - to the point that they introduced zero-cycle add/mov functionality in the P4 line - basically, if your code performs an add and then movs ax immediately out to memory (like the above code - and possibly the most common arithmetic operation in compiled code), if the pipeline and data caches are all available, the P4 will execute both instructions with enough time to put something else in the instruction pipeline that cycle. It's not really a zero-cycle function - you can do something like 2.5 (add,mov,add,mov,add) a cycle if you stack them back to back to back, for instance...
The only zero-cycle mov I'm familiar with on the P4 is a register-to-register mov, and that just takes advantage of the fact that the P4 has a physical register file and a map between the architectural registers and the physical ones. E.g. given add bx, [cx] mov ax, bx
the mapper might assign bx to physical register 10. It will then realize that ax is just a copy of bx, so it will make ax point at register 10 as well, and the mov never has to execute at all, thus 'zero cycle'.
You seem to be saying that the P4 can write the result of an add to the cache in zero cycles, or more than two values in a cycle, which doesn't mesh with what i know of the P4 which is that it has a two-ported cache. But I'm only intimately familiar with early revs of P4; if you know what rev this was added in I would be interested.
The problem is to define what is a planet. Many people have proposed ways to define "Planet" but then what you apply the proposed definition to our solar system yu get undesired results. Almost every resonable proposed definition results in a solar system with either 8 planets or more than 9.
If there are so many reasonable definitions of a planet, then that tells me that there is not a fundamental, useful difference between the objects that may or may not be included in the set of planets. Stars, planets, and comets are fundamentally different objects, and identifying something as one of the three conveys useful information. Possible planet of size A vs possible planet of size B is not a fundamental difference. Do any of these proposed definitions of "planet" vs "planetoid" convey truly useful information in the same way "reptile" vs "mammal" does? If not, it's really just a matter of human naming convention, and I'm perfectly happy with a rough definition of planet such that Pluto is a planet while some other, possibly larger object is not.
Yep, I called it. Many moons ago I said if they rule it's a planet it means science is dead. Real science doesn't label something based on feel good social acceptance, but strives for as much exactness as possible.
Pfft. Science dies when people start thinking that everything can, should, and must be defined solely through rigorous scientific exactness. Not everything can, should, or must be given an exact classification and therefore the attempt to force such classifications introduces innaccuracy, inexactness, and feel-good social acceptance but labels it science, ruining the very thing that was striven for.
You have to learn that a name is just a name, and "planet" isn't scientifically well-defined. If anyone was doing real calculations regarding Pluto, then they'd use its measured properties with as much exactness as possible, not the properties implied by the term "planet".
But if alcohol is legal, why is marijuana not? It's less harmful to the user and much much less harmful to others around the user. (Assuming you ignore second-hand smoke. And maybe even then.)
There are some obvious political-economic reasons why this is so today, as others have pointed out.
Historically, alcohol and marijuana were both made illegal at the same time. Marijuana was swept up with alcohol in the prohibition craze, in large part due to the efforts of William Hearst the newspaper magnate, who actually invented the word "marijuana" to refer to the drug in his propaganda. When the prohibition ammendment was repealed and the era ended, the other drug laws that had been enacted didn't leave the books. Thus we have a situation where a commonly enjoyed but dangerous drug is seen as our right to consume -- so long as we do so responsibly -- while a much less harmful drug is vilified.
Speaking of history, I find it rather tragic that we are taught in school about the Prohibition Era and its effects, and why it was repealed. Today we have a situation that's very similar to Prohibition in its negative effects, particularly those involving the creation of criminal -- especially organized criminal -- black markets, and the resulting lack of quality leading to a lack of safety. Yet somehow this obvious repetition of history goes unnoticed. We go straight from U.S. history class to D.A.R.E. and are told to accept both.
Is this just due to taking less credits per semester to 'enjoy the college life'??
Yeah, since especially in the junior and senior years a 16 credit workload can be rather stifling. Don't plan on having anything like a life, and it would be very tough if you had to work. It's not so much about taking it easy as not overstressing oneself.
Now I got my Masters in 5 years -- scholarships and no social life let me take full course loads -- but that's only because of a lot of high school AP credit and a special program that let me double up some of my last semester of Bachelor's credits towards my graduate program. Effectively a 1.5 year masters overlapped with a 4 year bachelor's. Getting in isn't guaranteed, but it could be that the advisor made the plan under the assumption that your brother would get in. I haven't really kept up on their policies, but certainly around the time they started the program is when they started realizing that sending their talented students off to other colleges for graduate degrees was a stupid idea. They may have expanded it to the point where the advisor can basically promise admittance with decent scholastic performance.
It's easy to get confused if you're used to a two-party system. You can tell just by the phrase "that side of the divide", as if there were a canyon and there are only two sides of the canyon that you can stand on. The two party system here taints all discussion and even thinking about politics, even my own though I try to be aware of it. Everything becomes an "either-or" issue with two choices, and the worst part is that both of them are usually bad. Thus the phrase "lesser of two evils", which denies the existence of possible third choices.
It could go one step furthur, they could link it up to the security cameras and only authorize it if it recognizes me - if it doesn't, then they can phone me up on my mobile (which they have from when I signed up to the loyality card) and ask if I know that my car is being driven by somebody else. The reason why this doesn't happen is that while it would be of great convience to me
Your idea of convenience is having gas station security call you every time your SO takes your car to the station? Or you're on a road trip and your friend fills up while you go in to buy munchies? That's weird.
But good call on recognizing why it hasn't happened -- though maybe they'll start putting vending machines at the pumps.:P
What happens when they need a massive upgrade of the technology in 10 years?
Um, same thing that would happen in any other situation? It'll cost money, and either the county has it or they'll have to charge more or they'll have to pass a bond or other money-raising initiative. A private company that had to spend money on upgrades wouldn't hesitate to pass that cost plus some profit margin on to their customers, so I'm not seeing how it's really different.
Ann Arbor already has horrible taxes, this will make it worse.
Maybe, but the article claims that the plan is being rolled out without using any tax money. So we'll see.
What incentive will private companies have to come in to deliver unique and innovative services if they will just get undercut by the county government?
If their services are unique and innovative, then they'll have value even if someone else (government or otherwise) charges less. If it's just the same ol' wifi internet access, then they could sell their services to the county. It's not as if the county will be building and installing their own wireless routers. In this sense the county is not actually competing with ISPs, but is rather potentially their largest customer.
What happens when the folks running Washtenaw County decide to censor websites or emails or blogs that they decide sexist or racist or bigoted? U of M had one of the most restrictive speach codes in the nation, until it was struck down in the courts. Now folks with that same sensibility will have a hand on your access to the internet.
U of M is a state college and reflects state government sensibilities, and while it's size makes it the focal point of Ann Arbor, that doesn't make U of M's policies anywhere close to those of Washtenaw or Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor in particular has stood up to the state government quite often, for example going against the drug laws and making marijuanna posession a civil offense similar to a parking ticket. So I'd argue that the sensibilities in question are much more open and accepting. That said, U of M's speech codes were struck down, how much more rapidly would one based on a public community service? The 1st Ammendment argument would be right there.
Neither am I, that was just my speculation on how Heisenberg would interact with a discreet universe and the impact on chaos theory, regarding the question: in a discreet universe, could you measure accurately enough to get predictible outcomes from chaotic systems? Heisenberg and quantum mechanics are definitely not an area I know much about, so I'm just guessing.
actually i was living under the impression that chaotic is a system whos outcome can't be predicted by a lower complexity order system, using analysis tools inherent to this lower complexity class observer system (using linear math etc).
Close. A chaotic system is one which you cannot analytically predict the outcome of using the chaotic system itself, because it produces outputs which diverge hugely based on infintesimal changes in inputs. This means that even knowning the exact math used by the chaotic system, you wouldn't be able to predict the result because you would need infinite precision in your measurements to make sure the output of your calculations matched the output of the real system.
The classic real-world example of a chaotic system is the weather. We do use lower complexity systems to try to predict the weather, but that's because we don't know the real equations. Chaos Theory says that even if we knew the exact actual equations that governed weather patterns, we still couldn't predict the weather precisely because we could never measure the relevent state with enough precision. We would still have to use probabilistic models -- "for 30% of inputs within our error range, we get rain, for 65% we get sun, and for 5%, tornadoes. Have a nice weekend!"
Re:Maybe Chaos Theory will give us the answer?
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An Older, Larger Universe
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· Score: 2, Informative
The brain's thoughts can be predicted as well as everything else, if the information of what ever it and it's body is made of and what the brain experienced earlier in life is known... There is nothing random in animals (including humans) decisions.
Choas Theory is about systems that are sensitively dependent on initial conditions, to use the specific phrase that was used when I learned about it. These chaotic systems may follow rigorous non-random rules, but this does not mean that you can look at the current state and predict what the next state will be, because to do so requires literally (really literally) infinite precision. Look at something like the Mandelbrot Set. It uses a very simple iterative equation, nothing random about it, yet the output of the equation is sensitively dependent on the inputs, such the border is infinitely convoluted. You can identify whether a specific point is in the set, but you can't say whether any of the points in the range +/- your last significant digit are.
Assuming the brain is similarly controlled by such chaotic processes, and I don't think this is unreasonable, then it is impossible to actually measure the state of the brain with enough precision to be able to predict its next state, because you would need infinite precision. Does this make it free will? That's a philosophical discussion; I believe in free will, but that's neither here nor there. The point is that an actual predictive simulation of the brain would, at best, be probabilistic and much like our weather predictions would diverge rapidly.
Now there is an interesting twist on this, which is some evidence that our universe is actually discreet and not continuous. This would mean that there actually is a level of precision which is sufficient, because unlike in the real numbers, you could have two points which have no possible points between them. This would mean that it is principle possible to have perfect simulations of the weather, the brain, etc.
However even in this case, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle means that it would still be impossible to measure all of the state in the brain or any other object with that precision, as you would necessarily change its state by measuring it. So you couldn't form a perfectly predictive model of a real human brain; however you could create a perfect model of a hypothetical brain with assumed initial state. That would be highly useful for a variety of purposes, but determining proceduraly (instead of probabilistically) what someone will do in the distant future isn't one of them.
But maybe you're right about Chaos Theory, I actually didn't know that this kind of thinking wasn't a part of it.:)
Chaos Theory shows that many things which appear random are not, they are just "chaotic" and produce wildly divergent results based on the tiniest difference in inputs. However it also justifies thinking about such things as though they are random, since you can never know the inputs with enough detail to know the output, so it may as well be random as far as we are concerned. The most obvious practical application of which has been producing better random number generators.
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Your take is correct, but surely you're aware that al Qaeda is currently on tour in Iraq, with record attendance and topping the charts like never before. They already have the U.S. Pres as one of their top promoters, so they have little need for another publicity stunt in the states.
Do you really think that if we just stopped bothering with security and were just "friendly" to everyone instead that there would be no attacks against western culture?
Seems to have worked for Canada and a host of other Western countries.
But no, I'm sure it's just that they hate us for our freedom. We seem to be solving that problem, though.
I don't know if I like the idea, but think of the totally sweet action movie you could make based on the concept: Drug Lords vs Terrorists!
And given the relative absence of terrorist attacks in the US since then, it must be difficult for even Al Qaeda, a group with considerable resources and manpower, to find people to carry out such attacks.
This is unrelated to this system, but I'd say that given the US behavior since 9/11, Al Qaeda hasn't had any need to carry out such attacks.
This again goes to the prior poster's complaint. Why are you turning this into a false dilemma between "perfect" and "utterly worthless"? Anything that doesn't measurably hinder passengers yet significant increases the hurdle for terrorist acts on airlines is a good thing, right?
Why are you acting like this system is only a smidgen off from being perfect? This isn't a case of some false dilemna, this is a case of correctly identifying a system as utterly worthless.
Even an 8% failure rate (assuming it doesn't go up) is not worse than the current random screening rate.
Actually the "failure" rate, which I would say is allowing a real terrorist to get through, aka false negatives, is 15% (in their simulated test). 8% is the rate of false positives, i.e. identifying an innocent person as a terrorist.
That's worthless, not because it isn't "perfect", but because it's really truly shitty. First, it can easily be proven mathematically that anyone the system actually flags is almost certainly an innocent. I've ran the math with profiles that claimed much higher accuracy and specificity than this one, and under any reasonable assumption of the ratio of terrorists to innocents it's in the high 99%. For this system, the odds of the person under consideration being an actual terrorist would be ridiculously small. I could run the math for you if you doubt it, but practical experience would show it to be true and thus cause the system to not be taken seriously, making the chance of the one terrorist out of thousands of innocents flagged being vetted much higher. Second, you're talking about 8% of all passengers being flagged as terrorists. That's 80 per 1,000 passengers. Now think of how many people pass through security at an airport like O'Hare. That's a ridiculous quantity of suspects if you're going to even pretend that you're thoroughly investigating them. And you'd have to, because the system inherently requires more effort to validate, knowing full well that there's basically zero chance of them actually being guilty.
See, unlike say a metal detector, it is difficult to prove that you have in fact found a false positive. If I walk through a metal detector and it goes off, I can pretty easily reveal that the problem was my belt buckle and not a concealed weapon. If the biometric sensor goes off, how exactly do I prove that the biometric readings it saw are not evidence of malign intent? You can't prove whether or not malign intent exists; the only way to do so would be to find some physical evidence, like a weapon or explosives, which we already have detectors for and which don't suffer from the horrible false positive problem that this does.
Anything that doesn't measurably hinder passengers yet significant increases the hurdle for terrorist acts on airlines is a good thing, right?
But this would necessarily create a large hinderence for passengers yet would would not provide a significant hurdle for terrorists that is not already created by existing detectors, therefore this is not a good thing, it's a retarded thing.
It's unfortunate that we have to come to this level, but I'd rather sacrifice my precious water bottle on a long flight than end up crashing into a building any day.
I'd love to see your sure to be hilarious explanation for how a liquid explosive results in your plane crashing into a building. Does it create the kind of explosion that can pilot a plane? Maybe by placing the explosive on exactly the right part of the plane, it directs what remains of the fuselage towards the building of the terrorist's choice?
Since you obviously thought the cause and effect through so much, let me give you a hint of how to achieve real safety, because you're never going to stop somone from smuggling things onto a plane. You might stop particular instances, but if there's a will, there's a way. The key to real safety is to remove the will. But that requires doing actual work and making tough choices and recognizing uncomfortable truths. So nevermind, sacrifice your precious water so your plane won't crash into a building, that's as real as its going to get.
Who thinks this stuff up? Honestly. It's not just pointless -- it's bad security since it creates a false sense of something being done.
The ones who think it up are the ones for whom creating a sense of something being done is the only goal, whether it is false or not, of course.
I really hate to be so calous, but given her or the other almost 100 people on board, she can die. Hell if it were me, let him take me out and then take him out. Better than getting an upfront view of what's about to happen.
That statement was meant to be considered in the old regime of hijackings leading to negotiations on the ground, so please bear that in mind. In the modern regime, then yes of course you wouldn't let that stop you because she would die anyway. Yet this discussion was about the 9/11 hijackings, which were the transition from old regime to new.
You know that never made sense to me.
It would make perfect sense if you knew anything about hijackings pre-9/11.
Pre-9/11, SOP for hijackings was to cooperate so as not to be hurt until the plane landed, when negotiators would take over. That was the way things worked. On three of the flights, that's what the passengers did, expecting that by cooperating they would escape unharmed. Clearly they were wrong. The fourth flight was behaving similarly, until the passengers discovered what the fate of the previous three flights were. Realizing the rules had changed, they took matters into their own hands.
Which is what would happen in any post-9/11 hijacking. Personally I think hijacking a plane now with anything less than a fully automatic or a passenger crew full of geriatrics would be impossible. I think pretty much everyone realizes this, which is why the main tactic/concern has been explosives designed to destroy a plane in flight, not take it over.
BTW, I thought the hijackers used the box cutters to fashion larger shivs.
So what happen if the terrorist develop a bomb that they can drink it and piss it on the toilet to explode? Do we test for urine sample before boarding?
Sounds like too much trouble.
Personally, from banning liquid containers, I think the next step is a terrorist plot to smuggle liquid explosives onto a plane in balloons shoved up their assholes. Once this happens, say goodbye to the airline industry...
Exactly, I hate it when these sort of things hit the news. The government has all sorts of wacky proposals coming into it all the time. I review technology proposals for a particular agency and you wouldn't believe the wacky stuff that comes down the pipe.
Yeah, I bet! Now I'd appreciate if you could hurry through that garbage and get to my ingenious proposal to defend our northern border from a deadly Canadian Moose Blitz via electrified orphans.
There should be better secrecy regarding proposal submission so as not to impede the free flow of ideas resulting from paranoia that your idea will land on the cover of the Post and make you look like a shmuck, much like this case.
Which must be even worse because this would only disuade the somewhat rational and self-aware, while the true loons would be undeterred.
Between 20 - 40% of your compiled code is spent moving data in and out of the accumulator register, since most instructions depend on
specific data being in that register - to the point that they introduced zero-cycle add/mov functionality in the P4 line - basically, if your code performs an add and then movs ax immediately
out to memory (like the above code - and possibly the most common arithmetic operation in compiled code), if the pipeline and data caches are all available, the P4 will
execute both instructions with enough time to put something else in the instruction pipeline that
cycle. It's not really a zero-cycle function - you can do something like 2.5 (add,mov,add,mov,add) a cycle if you stack them back to back to back, for instance...
The only zero-cycle mov I'm familiar with on the P4 is a register-to-register mov, and that just takes advantage of the fact that the P4 has a physical register file and a map between the architectural registers and the physical ones. E.g. given
add bx, [cx]
mov ax, bx
the mapper might assign bx to physical register 10. It will then realize that ax is just a copy of bx, so it will make ax point at register 10 as well, and the mov never has to execute at all, thus 'zero cycle'.
You seem to be saying that the P4 can write the result of an add to the cache in zero cycles, or more than two values in a cycle, which doesn't mesh with what i know of the P4 which is that it has a two-ported cache. But I'm only intimately familiar with early revs of P4; if you know what rev this was added in I would be interested.
The problem is to define what is a planet. Many people have proposed ways to define "Planet" but then what you apply the proposed definition to our solar system yu get undesired results. Almost every resonable proposed definition results in a solar system with either 8 planets or more than 9.
If there are so many reasonable definitions of a planet, then that tells me that there is not a fundamental, useful difference between the objects that may or may not be included in the set of planets. Stars, planets, and comets are fundamentally different objects, and identifying something as one of the three conveys useful information. Possible planet of size A vs possible planet of size B is not a fundamental difference. Do any of these proposed definitions of "planet" vs "planetoid" convey truly useful information in the same way "reptile" vs "mammal" does? If not, it's really just a matter of human naming convention, and I'm perfectly happy with a rough definition of planet such that Pluto is a planet while some other, possibly larger object is not.
Yep, I called it. Many moons ago I said if they rule it's a planet it means science is dead. Real science doesn't label something based on feel good social acceptance, but strives for as much exactness as possible.
Pfft. Science dies when people start thinking that everything can, should, and must be defined solely through rigorous scientific exactness. Not everything can, should, or must be given an exact classification and therefore the attempt to force such classifications introduces innaccuracy, inexactness, and feel-good social acceptance but labels it science, ruining the very thing that was striven for.
You have to learn that a name is just a name, and "planet" isn't scientifically well-defined. If anyone was doing real calculations regarding Pluto, then they'd use its measured properties with as much exactness as possible, not the properties implied by the term "planet".
Oops, thanks for correcting my timeline.
But if alcohol is legal, why is marijuana not? It's less harmful to the user and much much less harmful to others around the user. (Assuming you ignore second-hand smoke. And maybe even then.)
There are some obvious political-economic reasons why this is so today, as others have pointed out.
Historically, alcohol and marijuana were both made illegal at the same time. Marijuana was swept up with alcohol in the prohibition craze, in large part due to the efforts of William Hearst the newspaper magnate, who actually invented the word "marijuana" to refer to the drug in his propaganda. When the prohibition ammendment was repealed and the era ended, the other drug laws that had been enacted didn't leave the books. Thus we have a situation where a commonly enjoyed but dangerous drug is seen as our right to consume -- so long as we do so responsibly -- while a much less harmful drug is vilified.
Speaking of history, I find it rather tragic that we are taught in school about the Prohibition Era and its effects, and why it was repealed. Today we have a situation that's very similar to Prohibition in its negative effects, particularly those involving the creation of criminal -- especially organized criminal -- black markets, and the resulting lack of quality leading to a lack of safety. Yet somehow this obvious repetition of history goes unnoticed. We go straight from U.S. history class to D.A.R.E. and are told to accept both.
Is this just due to taking less credits per semester to 'enjoy the college life'??
Yeah, since especially in the junior and senior years a 16 credit workload can be rather stifling. Don't plan on having anything like a life, and it would be very tough if you had to work. It's not so much about taking it easy as not overstressing oneself.
Now I got my Masters in 5 years -- scholarships and no social life let me take full course loads -- but that's only because of a lot of high school AP credit and a special program that let me double up some of my last semester of Bachelor's credits towards my graduate program. Effectively a 1.5 year masters overlapped with a 4 year bachelor's. Getting in isn't guaranteed, but it could be that the advisor made the plan under the assumption that your brother would get in. I haven't really kept up on their policies, but certainly around the time they started the program is when they started realizing that sending their talented students off to other colleges for graduate degrees was a stupid idea. They may have expanded it to the point where the advisor can basically promise admittance with decent scholastic performance.
It's easy to get confused if you're used to a two-party system. You can tell just by the phrase "that side of the divide", as if there were a canyon and there are only two sides of the canyon that you can stand on. The two party system here taints all discussion and even thinking about politics, even my own though I try to be aware of it. Everything becomes an "either-or" issue with two choices, and the worst part is that both of them are usually bad. Thus the phrase "lesser of two evils", which denies the existence of possible third choices.
It could go one step furthur, they could link it up to the security cameras and only authorize it if it recognizes me - if it doesn't, then they can phone me up on my mobile (which they have from when I signed up to the loyality card) and ask if I know that my car is being driven by somebody else. The reason why this doesn't happen is that while it would be of great convience to me
:P
Your idea of convenience is having gas station security call you every time your SO takes your car to the station? Or you're on a road trip and your friend fills up while you go in to buy munchies? That's weird.
But good call on recognizing why it hasn't happened -- though maybe they'll start putting vending machines at the pumps.
What happens when they need a massive upgrade of the technology in 10 years?
Um, same thing that would happen in any other situation? It'll cost money, and either the county has it or they'll have to charge more or they'll have to pass a bond or other money-raising initiative. A private company that had to spend money on upgrades wouldn't hesitate to pass that cost plus some profit margin on to their customers, so I'm not seeing how it's really different.
Ann Arbor already has horrible taxes, this will make it worse.
Maybe, but the article claims that the plan is being rolled out without using any tax money. So we'll see.
What incentive will private companies have to come in to deliver unique and innovative services if they will just get undercut by the county government?
If their services are unique and innovative, then they'll have value even if someone else (government or otherwise) charges less. If it's just the same ol' wifi internet access, then they could sell their services to the county. It's not as if the county will be building and installing their own wireless routers. In this sense the county is not actually competing with ISPs, but is rather potentially their largest customer.
What happens when the folks running Washtenaw County decide to censor websites or emails or blogs that they decide sexist or racist or bigoted? U of M had one of the most restrictive speach codes in the nation, until it was struck down in the courts. Now folks with that same sensibility will have a hand on your access to the internet.
U of M is a state college and reflects state government sensibilities, and while it's size makes it the focal point of Ann Arbor, that doesn't make U of M's policies anywhere close to those of Washtenaw or Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor in particular has stood up to the state government quite often, for example going against the drug laws and making marijuanna posession a civil offense similar to a parking ticket. So I'd argue that the sensibilities in question are much more open and accepting. That said, U of M's speech codes were struck down, how much more rapidly would one based on a public community service? The 1st Ammendment argument would be right there.
Actually 5 years is becomming pretty common for an engineering undergrad degree, at least at Michigan.
Neither am I, that was just my speculation on how Heisenberg would interact with a discreet universe and the impact on chaos theory, regarding the question: in a discreet universe, could you measure accurately enough to get predictible outcomes from chaotic systems? Heisenberg and quantum mechanics are definitely not an area I know much about, so I'm just guessing.
actually i was living under the impression that chaotic is a system whos outcome can't be predicted by a lower complexity order system, using analysis tools inherent to this lower complexity class observer system (using linear math etc).
Close. A chaotic system is one which you cannot analytically predict the outcome of using the chaotic system itself, because it produces outputs which diverge hugely based on infintesimal changes in inputs. This means that even knowning the exact math used by the chaotic system, you wouldn't be able to predict the result because you would need infinite precision in your measurements to make sure the output of your calculations matched the output of the real system.
The classic real-world example of a chaotic system is the weather. We do use lower complexity systems to try to predict the weather, but that's because we don't know the real equations. Chaos Theory says that even if we knew the exact actual equations that governed weather patterns, we still couldn't predict the weather precisely because we could never measure the relevent state with enough precision. We would still have to use probabilistic models -- "for 30% of inputs within our error range, we get rain, for 65% we get sun, and for 5%, tornadoes. Have a nice weekend!"
The brain's thoughts can be predicted as well as everything else, if the information of what ever it and it's body is made of and what the brain experienced earlier in life is known... There is nothing random in animals (including humans) decisions.
:)
Choas Theory is about systems that are sensitively dependent on initial conditions, to use the specific phrase that was used when I learned about it. These chaotic systems may follow rigorous non-random rules, but this does not mean that you can look at the current state and predict what the next state will be, because to do so requires literally (really literally) infinite precision. Look at something like the Mandelbrot Set. It uses a very simple iterative equation, nothing random about it, yet the output of the equation is sensitively dependent on the inputs, such the border is infinitely convoluted. You can identify whether a specific point is in the set, but you can't say whether any of the points in the range +/- your last significant digit are.
Assuming the brain is similarly controlled by such chaotic processes, and I don't think this is unreasonable, then it is impossible to actually measure the state of the brain with enough precision to be able to predict its next state, because you would need infinite precision. Does this make it free will? That's a philosophical discussion; I believe in free will, but that's neither here nor there. The point is that an actual predictive simulation of the brain would, at best, be probabilistic and much like our weather predictions would diverge rapidly.
Now there is an interesting twist on this, which is some evidence that our universe is actually discreet and not continuous. This would mean that there actually is a level of precision which is sufficient, because unlike in the real numbers, you could have two points which have no possible points between them. This would mean that it is principle possible to have perfect simulations of the weather, the brain, etc.
However even in this case, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle means that it would still be impossible to measure all of the state in the brain or any other object with that precision, as you would necessarily change its state by measuring it. So you couldn't form a perfectly predictive model of a real human brain; however you could create a perfect model of a hypothetical brain with assumed initial state. That would be highly useful for a variety of purposes, but determining proceduraly (instead of probabilistically) what someone will do in the distant future isn't one of them.
But maybe you're right about Chaos Theory, I actually didn't know that this kind of thinking wasn't a part of it.
Chaos Theory shows that many things which appear random are not, they are just "chaotic" and produce wildly divergent results based on the tiniest difference in inputs. However it also justifies thinking about such things as though they are random, since you can never know the inputs with enough detail to know the output, so it may as well be random as far as we are concerned. The most obvious practical application of which has been producing better random number generators.
I disagree - I think it's all perspective. 90% of everything is crap, consistently. It was then, and it is now.
As the proud owner of Deadly Towers, Athena, and Donkey Kong 3, I support this post.
P.S. if you aren't aware all of these games were terrible.