It was a comment about journalisim rather than the court system. Parramatta court is ~800km away which is just one of the reasons I read newspapers rather than investigating everything in person. All major Aussie newspapers are on the net and not one of them provided any background.
"In Australia, a guy got done for having cartoon porn of the Simpsons."
The odd thing about that story is not that some appeal judge held up an out of touch decicion. The odd thing is nowhere can I find any informatation on the original case or even why the defendent was searched and arrested in the first place.
"Assuming that market forces are going to work all the time is what got us into the current meltdown of both the economy as well as the internet hardware."
Exactly, market forces are defined as "the interaction between supply and demand". That interaction at it's most basic level is provided by "property rights" (ie: market_forces == regulation). The word "free" in the term "free market" does not mean free of regulation since that would translate to "regulation free regulation" which is either anarchy or a tautology. I'm not sure which but it's obviously not an answer that can sustain a civilization.
The opportunity for personal wealth is only part of the equation, but for some people the existing "market forces" that provided that wealth are the answer to everything, unsurprisingly a large proportion of people who think ths way are rich and/or powerfull. I'm not saying that I have the answer just that the tradgedy of the commons and the fact that average income is always much higher than median income tells me "trickle down economics" has always been a miserable failure. If we don't want our grandkids to become goat hearders we have to at least somehow include "the commons" in the economy. To do that we need a system a tad more elaborate than the simplistic dog eat dog regulations typically expoused by over zealous libertarians.
"Free to participate": short of becoming a self-sufficient hermit living undetected in some forgotten wilderness you are forced to participate in the prevailing system. A few generations ago that was still a practical option but there are now so many of us that the entire biosphere is forced to participate in our system.
Do you have any idea how common air-conditioners are in Florida compared to Brazil? Brazil is simply not as wealthy as the US and therfore has a lower per captia energy use.
"I was thinking more like the American people trust Diebold machines."
Hah. Yes, but I would call that kind of trust "blind faith". The kind of trust I am on about can be granted using a rational argument.
The simplistic version of paper counting is that all candidates get to supply X unpaid counters, the box is emptied on a table and the counters start counting. When they have all been counted each counter hands his pile to the guy next to him and so on around the table. Each counter then checks the count and tosses any 'mistakes' back in the middle of the table.
This continues until each counter has counted each pile and there is a bunch of disputed ballots in the center. The counted piles are now logically ballots everyone agrees on and are entered into the record. The process is repeated until there is a clear winner or someone goes to court. The entire process is also under the watchfull eye of election officials and independent observers.
Independent observers is something the neocons also seem to have trouble with but dress up their opposition with patriotic rhetoric (eg: "We don't need the UN to tell us how to run a democracy.") I cannot rationally trust a system that can exclude independent observation by people and/or auditable process.
Having said my peice on the leap of faith need to trust a neocon's idea of "free and fair", it's also true I don't have a rational reason to trust any politician. What I can trust is the observation that politicians don't trust each other, I can use this distrust amoungst politicians to my advantage with a the paper system described above. It's like the "half and half" thing I used to do with the kids when they were young, "one of you split it the other one choose", they are left without a reasonable argument as to why it's not fair. With kids it keeps them quiet, with nations it moderates their overlords.
I'm not from the US but the way I see it the fact that a "hanging chad" dispute went all the way to the supreme court is a testimony to the strength of US democracy, the fact that the court didn't (was unable to?) call on the people to make their wishes clear via a "do over" exposed a weakness.
Like the UK we have a tax on petrol that was instigated during the last oil crisis. People in the 70's shifted to smaller cars but there are still far too many "Toorak tractors" in the weathier suburbs. Most of our stuff is transported by truck (try the Hume hwy just outside sydney at ~7.00am) the rail is mainly between state capitals.
Yes. You know it's broken, you know how it's broken, and you probably know who broke it. With an auditless election you cannot logically know any of these things beyond a reasonable doubt.
Do you understand the normal paper counting process and why it is logicaly possible to trust it? Do you understand why it is logicaly impossible to trust a computer that the opposition cannot audit? Paper is not perfect, neither is democracy come to think of it but both are indeed usefull.
I have owned budgies and seen them in the wild here in Australia, I don't think they are stupid just not as smart as larger parrots. However I think you may have hit the nail on the head whith the age comment, larger parrots live longer and will seem smarter because they have learnt more.
"The truth is that Diebold's problems have nothing to do with the paper or paperless issue...[snip]...considering the relative straight-forwardness of the programming task. A corrupt or inaccurate paper audit trail would be just as useful as no audit trail at all, and arguably more harmful."
Yet another "insightfull" slashdotter that doesn't get it. The issue is TRUST and you can not simply code your way around it.
I'm assuming you're an Aussie because you are definitely describing Australian cockies, even though fly like they are on LSD the only bird that will even think of screwing with a cockatoo is an Eagle. If you are an Aussie you will know what I mean by a magpie but to those that don't have them they are like a black & white crow and they have a very pleasant morning/evening song.
Anyway the light thing in your post reminded me of of a magpie that hangs out in my garden, I moved into a new house recently and I kept hearing this magpie song at 1-2-3am, I've occasionally heard other magpies in the past do this but this one was persistent and I remeber thinking to myself - dumb bird hasn't worked out the sunrise thing yet.
I came home late the other night and as I got out of the car I heard the magpie, I looked up and spotted my "dumb" magpie sitting on top of the street light stuffing his face with moths and beetles that were swarming around the light.
The footage is from the mountains near Melbourne, I've seen and heard lyre birds not 10 miles from where I live. The range of things they mimic is incredible and they are very loud.
Like the OP there have been parrots in our family for years, my parents still have a cockatoo that they aquired when I was ten (fourty years ago). I agree wholeheartedly that parrots will use phrases in the correct context, some examples...
"G'Day mate" when someone comes in the front door (but not when they leave).
"Scratch cocky" if you STOP scratching him under the chin.
It may just be the particular birds I've had experience with but it seems to me the larger parrots (cockatoos, galahs, etc) are smater than the smaller ones (budgies, cockatiels). Parrots aren't the only smart birds, another Attenbouogh clip shows crows are "street wise".
"Without a working visual cortex, nothing from the eyes enters the brain."
Technically the eyes are part of the brain. The visual cortex is brain jelly (mammalian GPU, one per eye, crosswired), perhaps you were thinking of the optic nerve. Nobody is claiming this is a "sixth sense", it's another part of the patients brain doing primative visual processing. Very similar to how some stroke patients have to learn to speak all over again.
"Occam's razor is simply a clever way of justifying self-satisfied ignorance."
Poppycock, you're simply justifying your own self-satisfied ignorance.
Occams razor it's a tool for logical thinking. Like any such tool it's usefullness depends on the accuracy and breadth of the users assumptions. In the 11th century religion and science were the same thing so it's no surprise an 11th century Monk would assume God exists, and that "God did it" is the simplest answer.
Even if Occam were as mad as the March hare it still does not invalidate his tool. Do you dismiss Newton's "Prinipa Mathematica" because he stuck pins in his eyes, had alchemic visions, and wrote over a million words on the meaning of the number 666?
Personally I like Einstein's version of the razor, "as simple as possible but no simpler", but I suppose you think he is just another religious nutcase because of his well know desire to "know the mind of God".
Not exactly. K Dawson is a slashdot editor who compiled the summary from a bunch of user submissions. I have no idea wether he actually belives the partisan crap he posts.
"I rather suspect that whether or not a CS journal demands working code from its authors is a strong predictor for the quality of the articles which appear in that journal."
Your suspision is unfounded, for example how does one create working code to demonstrate the halting problem?
"If nothing else, if you try to implement something that doesn't work, you'll know immediately"
The only thing you will "know immediately" is that your code doesn't work and you will now have your own version of the halting problem (ie: when do you stop looking for coding bugs and start looking for concept bugs). The code is simply a transform of the algorithim into a specific language on specific hardware. It's also quite possible to come up with a algorithims that requires an imaginary type of hardware to implement and thus cannot be transformed into code (eg: quantum computer).
"CS at least potentially has a built-in reality check that pure math lacks."
CS is a branch of mathematics, what on earth makes you think pure maths doesn't have a "reality check"?
It's more insidious than that. Here in Australia...
The top 3 ISP's are Testra, Optus, iiNet. iiNet is a distant third with about 5% of the market.
The only serious cable TV companies are Telstra and Optus
The only serious telco's are also Telstra and Optus.
Of course Tesltra's and Optus' cable/isp/phone divisions are divided into seperate bussiness on paper but they already "volentarily" pass on MAFIAA paperwork to users, iiNet passes the paperwork to the police and are now being sued by the MAFIAA. The MAFIAA are trying to set the precednt that what Teslstra and Optus do is actually now the law under the US-AU trade agreement. Over the next few years I think we will see more and more telco's and content producers jump in bed with each other for their mutual advantage (ie: squeeze independent ISP's out of the market from both sides of the equation).
"Wow, I mean, just wow. You think things are terribly wrong and awful but you can't be bothered to fix them, but you obviously want them to be fixed because otherwise you wouldn't be complaining"
I agee. We smile at the camera in Australia, proving it wasn't you driving is only half of it. Without a statutory declaration naming the driver of YOUR car you are going to need all sorts of paperwork and probably a day in court. Getting caught with false plates, priceless.
Slashdot Mirror
"And by "nowhere" you mean Google."
It was a comment about journalisim rather than the court system. Parramatta court is ~800km away which is just one of the reasons I read newspapers rather than investigating everything in person. All major Aussie newspapers are on the net and not one of them provided any background.
"In Australia, a guy got done for having cartoon porn of the Simpsons."
The odd thing about that story is not that some appeal judge held up an out of touch decicion. The odd thing is nowhere can I find any informatation on the original case or even why the defendent was searched and arrested in the first place.
Thanks for the translation, I couldn't get past the recursive headline.
"Assuming that market forces are going to work all the time is what got us into the current meltdown of both the economy as well as the internet hardware."
Exactly, market forces are defined as "the interaction between supply and demand". That interaction at it's most basic level is provided by "property rights" (ie: market_forces == regulation). The word "free" in the term "free market" does not mean free of regulation since that would translate to "regulation free regulation" which is either anarchy or a tautology. I'm not sure which but it's obviously not an answer that can sustain a civilization.
The opportunity for personal wealth is only part of the equation, but for some people the existing "market forces" that provided that wealth are the answer to everything, unsurprisingly a large proportion of people who think ths way are rich and/or powerfull. I'm not saying that I have the answer just that the tradgedy of the commons and the fact that average income is always much higher than median income tells me "trickle down economics" has always been a miserable failure. If we don't want our grandkids to become goat hearders we have to at least somehow include "the commons" in the economy. To do that we need a system a tad more elaborate than the simplistic dog eat dog regulations typically expoused by over zealous libertarians.
"Free to participate": short of becoming a self-sufficient hermit living undetected in some forgotten wilderness you are forced to participate in the prevailing system. A few generations ago that was still a practical option but there are now so many of us that the entire biosphere is forced to participate in our system.
"drops in wind in one part of the country would almost always be compensated for by other parts of the country"
Not sure about the UK but the CSIRO here in Australia has been saying that for over 10yrs now.
Do you have any idea how common air-conditioners are in Florida compared to Brazil? Brazil is simply not as wealthy as the US and therfore has a lower per captia energy use.
"I was thinking more like the American people trust Diebold machines."
Hah. Yes, but I would call that kind of trust "blind faith". The kind of trust I am on about can be granted using a rational argument.
The simplistic version of paper counting is that all candidates get to supply X unpaid counters, the box is emptied on a table and the counters start counting. When they have all been counted each counter hands his pile to the guy next to him and so on around the table. Each counter then checks the count and tosses any 'mistakes' back in the middle of the table.
This continues until each counter has counted each pile and there is a bunch of disputed ballots in the center. The counted piles are now logically ballots everyone agrees on and are entered into the record. The process is repeated until there is a clear winner or someone goes to court. The entire process is also under the watchfull eye of election officials and independent observers.
Independent observers is something the neocons also seem to have trouble with but dress up their opposition with patriotic rhetoric (eg: "We don't need the UN to tell us how to run a democracy.") I cannot rationally trust a system that can exclude independent observation by people and/or auditable process.
Having said my peice on the leap of faith need to trust a neocon's idea of "free and fair", it's also true I don't have a rational reason to trust any politician. What I can trust is the observation that politicians don't trust each other, I can use this distrust amoungst politicians to my advantage with a the paper system described above. It's like the "half and half" thing I used to do with the kids when they were young, "one of you split it the other one choose", they are left without a reasonable argument as to why it's not fair. With kids it keeps them quiet, with nations it moderates their overlords.
I'm not from the US but the way I see it the fact that a "hanging chad" dispute went all the way to the supreme court is a testimony to the strength of US democracy, the fact that the court didn't (was unable to?) call on the people to make their wishes clear via a "do over" exposed a weakness.
Like the UK we have a tax on petrol that was instigated during the last oil crisis. People in the 70's shifted to smaller cars but there are still far too many "Toorak tractors" in the weathier suburbs. Most of our stuff is transported by truck (try the Hume hwy just outside sydney at ~7.00am) the rail is mainly between state capitals.
Well yes there is that, and the fact the phrase "/rant/pot" appears in the URL. This is the guy who demonised pot.
"So a broken system thats trusted is useful?"
Yes. You know it's broken, you know how it's broken, and you probably know who broke it. With an auditless election you cannot logically know any of these things beyond a reasonable doubt.
Do you understand the normal paper counting process and why it is logicaly possible to trust it? Do you understand why it is logicaly impossible to trust a computer that the opposition cannot audit? Paper is not perfect, neither is democracy come to think of it but both are indeed usefull.
I have owned budgies and seen them in the wild here in Australia, I don't think they are stupid just not as smart as larger parrots. However I think you may have hit the nail on the head whith the age comment, larger parrots live longer and will seem smarter because they have learnt more.
"The truth is that Diebold's problems have nothing to do with the paper or paperless issue...[snip]...considering the relative straight-forwardness of the programming task. A corrupt or inaccurate paper audit trail would be just as useful as no audit trail at all, and arguably more harmful."
Yet another "insightfull" slashdotter that doesn't get it. The issue is TRUST and you can not simply code your way around it.
I'm assuming you're an Aussie because you are definitely describing Australian cockies, even though fly like they are on LSD the only bird that will even think of screwing with a cockatoo is an Eagle. If you are an Aussie you will know what I mean by a magpie but to those that don't have them they are like a black & white crow and they have a very pleasant morning/evening song.
Anyway the light thing in your post reminded me of of a magpie that hangs out in my garden, I moved into a new house recently and I kept hearing this magpie song at 1-2-3am, I've occasionally heard other magpies in the past do this but this one was persistent and I remeber thinking to myself - dumb bird hasn't worked out the sunrise thing yet.
I came home late the other night and as I got out of the car I heard the magpie, I looked up and spotted my "dumb" magpie sitting on top of the street light stuffing his face with moths and beetles that were swarming around the light.
The footage is from the mountains near Melbourne, I've seen and heard lyre birds not 10 miles from where I live. The range of things they mimic is incredible and they are very loud.
Like the OP there have been parrots in our family for years, my parents still have a cockatoo that they aquired when I was ten (fourty years ago). I agree wholeheartedly that parrots will use phrases in the correct context, some examples...
"G'Day mate" when someone comes in the front door (but not when they leave).
"Scratch cocky" if you STOP scratching him under the chin.
It may just be the particular birds I've had experience with but it seems to me the larger parrots (cockatoos, galahs, etc) are smater than the smaller ones (budgies, cockatiels). Parrots aren't the only smart birds, another Attenbouogh clip shows crows are "street wise".
"Without a working visual cortex, nothing from the eyes enters the brain."
Technically the eyes are part of the brain. The visual cortex is brain jelly (mammalian GPU, one per eye, crosswired), perhaps you were thinking of the optic nerve. Nobody is claiming this is a "sixth sense", it's another part of the patients brain doing primative visual processing. Very similar to how some stroke patients have to learn to speak all over again.
"Which makes me wonder what part of my comment you found objectionable?"
The part where you attack the tool rather than it's incorrect use. I agree with everything else you said.
"Occam's razor is simply a clever way of justifying self-satisfied ignorance."
Poppycock, you're simply justifying your own self-satisfied ignorance.
Occams razor it's a tool for logical thinking. Like any such tool it's usefullness depends on the accuracy and breadth of the users assumptions. In the 11th century religion and science were the same thing so it's no surprise an 11th century Monk would assume God exists, and that "God did it" is the simplest answer.
Even if Occam were as mad as the March hare it still does not invalidate his tool. Do you dismiss Newton's "Prinipa Mathematica" because he stuck pins in his eyes, had alchemic visions, and wrote over a million words on the meaning of the number 666?
Personally I like Einstein's version of the razor, "as simple as possible but no simpler", but I suppose you think he is just another religious nutcase because of his well know desire to "know the mind of God".
Not exactly. K Dawson is a slashdot editor who compiled the summary from a bunch of user submissions. I have no idea wether he actually belives the partisan crap he posts.
"I rather suspect that whether or not a CS journal demands working code from its authors is a strong predictor for the quality of the articles which appear in that journal."
Your suspision is unfounded, for example how does one create working code to demonstrate the halting problem?
"If nothing else, if you try to implement something that doesn't work, you'll know immediately"
The only thing you will "know immediately" is that your code doesn't work and you will now have your own version of the halting problem (ie: when do you stop looking for coding bugs and start looking for concept bugs). The code is simply a transform of the algorithim into a specific language on specific hardware. It's also quite possible to come up with a algorithims that requires an imaginary type of hardware to implement and thus cannot be transformed into code (eg: quantum computer).
"CS at least potentially has a built-in reality check that pure math lacks."
CS is a branch of mathematics, what on earth makes you think pure maths doesn't have a "reality check"?
Disclaimer: BSc with majors in CS and OR.
/s "content producers", "content owners"
It's more insidious than that. Here in Australia...
The top 3 ISP's are Testra, Optus, iiNet. iiNet is a distant third with about 5% of the market.
The only serious cable TV companies are Telstra and Optus
The only serious telco's are also Telstra and Optus.
Of course Tesltra's and Optus' cable/isp/phone divisions are divided into seperate bussiness on paper but they already "volentarily" pass on MAFIAA paperwork to users, iiNet passes the paperwork to the police and are now being sued by the MAFIAA. The MAFIAA are trying to set the precednt that what Teslstra and Optus do is actually now the law under the US-AU trade agreement. Over the next few years I think we will see more and more telco's and content producers jump in bed with each other for their mutual advantage (ie: squeeze independent ISP's out of the market from both sides of the equation).
"It's like discovering "no two toasters toast the same. Researches found some toasters browned toast up to 10% faster than others."
What we need is a toaster with an IQ of around 4000.
"Wow, I mean, just wow. You think things are terribly wrong and awful but you can't be bothered to fix them, but you obviously want them to be fixed because otherwise you wouldn't be complaining"
Everyone who gets into politics does so to "fix things" such as the "drug problem". The rest of us will simply try our best to ignore their attempts at "fixing things" and get stoned anyway. It's not that we aren't bothered, it's that we are behaving like humans, and by trivializing the complexity and difficulty of the politics, so are you.
I agee. We smile at the camera in Australia, proving it wasn't you driving is only half of it. Without a statutory declaration naming the driver of YOUR car you are going to need all sorts of paperwork and probably a day in court. Getting caught with false plates, priceless.
3-6 minutes charge time for 52 kWh.
Better use the heavy duty extention cord.