I was born the year after the first sputnik, I watched the moon landing, I saw the pale blue dot, and more recently man's impact on his tiny dot. Putting that stuff in front of people has already had a huge and positive impact on humanity's view of itself, making it available to Google is a great coup for the public interest everywhere.
"But the fact remains that money IS necessary for them to carry on their projects......And if they can get it on Slashdot, they are virtually assured of getting funding as 'the next big thing.'"
Nobody is disputing the fact that scientists have to eat, or that fact that corporations are free to piss their money away on vapourware. If you insist on buying what the ufologists are selling I can't stop you and given the state of many other public institutions I really can't blame you.
I have to admit that was an amusing way of changing the subject, however my point still stands.
Parroting the spin that peer-reviewed science can be bought just gives nut job's with their creation stickers and "Phd's" in ufology more power. But by far the worst aspect of spreading that false meme (consiously or otherwise) is that it gives tacit approval for politicians and mass-media to ignore science and consult astrologers when it's "in our best interests". Go into any newsagent and you will find the "science" section chock full of ufology, astrology and phycic magazines.
Skepticism is healthy and the best practioners of science are true skeptics in the vein of Carl Sagan and James Randi. The one thing all good skeptics have in common is the tendency to apply the same standards to their own thinking without restricting their imagination. If you can do that and still insist that "science can be bought" I and many others would be interested to see your evidence.
We all know "think-tank" and "lobbyist" are often inseprable, but exactly how do you "buy" peer-reviews in journals such as Nature or Science, let alone enthusiastic confirmations from your competitors that dot the rest of the nation/planet?/rant.
I have a thicker skin than that, I would rather argue my point. I wholeheartedly agree that the slashdot editors have the "right to offend", and if they don't want to hear me complain they also agree they have a "right to censor".
"I presume you've never made a joke about any kind of military conflict, you never watched M*A*S*H for instance?"
Context and reality are the key concepts here, I watched most of the MASH episodes the first time round in black and white and loved the show, same with "Hogan's heros". OTOH: Attaching the tag "deadgrunts" to a slashdot story about recent events in Iraq would not get me to "crack a smile".
Have I ever laughed at something inappropriate, you bet! I just don't find "deadhookers" at all funny in this context and I get a bit prickly when it comes to dehumanising the victims.
"Many prostitutes call themselves hookers with pride but do not like the term being used in derogatory ways.
Exactly! And illustrates the point I tried to make elsewhere about the "deadhookers" tag! Imagine if the story was about a series of race related murders, would the story be tagged as "deadniggers" or "deadgooks"?
My "moral compass" tells me it is just as offensive to dehumanise prostitutes as it is to dehumanise any other group. If anyone in this case could be considered "less than human" it would be the perpetrator, and even he will be afforded basic human rights by a civil society. In the UK (like most other western countries) this means that even though he took the "right to life" from others, the state does not have the right to take it from him as punishment.
Disclaimer: I recognise that Slashdot has the "right to offend", I don't dispute that. I am simply registering my dismay that they excercised it to: insinuate "they asked for it", trivialise murder, disrespect the dead, and possibly upset the still greiving relatives/freinds.
Yep, I will second that. Here in Oz we have something called the sex workers union. Personally I think the "deadhookers" tag is extremely bad taste, it is disrespectful toward both the dead and their greiving relatives.
Just for the record, I live in Australia and saw the incident on TV. Mind you I was watching SBS, AFAIK it did not appear on the commercial stations. Watching coverage of Iraq from the BBC, and it's Aussie counterparts the ABC and SBS and then comparing it to CNN, FOX and our own commercial stations was like watching two different wars. I suspect there are media outlets in the US that do give a different picture but as in this country most will not bother to look for them.
BTW: As other poster's have pointed out it was the first election and the protester's were accusing him of stealing it.
"And don't tell me that these are not "real" sciences"
Ok, I will tell you that they are "humanities" or "social science", sure science can be used on them (mainly statistical math such as epedimiology studies) but there tends to be alot of speculation about what the stats mean with no few tests available to differentiate between speculations (theories), especially in areas like history and politics.
The problem is not science as such, the scientific method is the best thing we have for understanding the natural world, the problem is the humans that perform it and politicians who contort it. In the "hard sciences" few get away with deliberately rigged experiments, and those that do don't last for very long. OTOH: A politician or corporate sponsor can silence or dismiss science itself when it does not fit the worldview they portray.
The idea that a bunch of scientists simultaneously invent problems to increase funding comes from politics (machevelian). It is in the interests of politicians and corporate captains to push this message onto the general poulation in order to portray the notion that scientific method as "just another opinion".
The GP's post looked familiar to me (the odd spelling of Jupiter), so I checked and sure enough the format of his cut and paste spam is getting better but the content is still just as silly. I think alot of the crap he quotes was originally generated by the psuedo-scientific "electic universe theory".
IMHO, the remnants of the anti-AGW crowd have now evolved into a run of the mill anti-science crowd. In the past I have found this mythbusting search an excellent resource, but I doubt this guy's skeptisim is motivated by science, logic or even common sense.
I never said it was a common need, nor do I deny that SQL would benifit from a concat function that would replace nulls with a given string, in fact I think you will find that the treatment of NULL's by concatenation in many RDBMS's can be set programmatically. I am simply arguing NULL's are there for a reason, I am not defending how any particular implementation of SQL treats them.
As to an uncommon example, merging multiple databases with varying degrees of completeness into one big 'clean' database where the difference between say "no middle intial" and "unknown" is important.
Besides, I don't think any RDBMS vendors will drop well understood functionality that it implemented by all their major competitors but if you nag them they might be inspired to make it simpler to ignore.
"Theory does not necessarily always translate into practical benefits."
Agreed, and string theory is a prime example (pun intended).
"I would think that open-minded people would want choices to compare and evaluate."
Agreed, but EU has already been compared and evaluated, in the early 60's it was found to be hoplessly inadequate compared to the currently accepted theories. Black holes and CBR were predicted by current theory and found by observation, EU theory tacked on a bit to explain them after they were discovered, see the difference yet?
I first met you because of a comment about global warming and you may have noticed I pay scant attention to the details of your theories. However I am genuinely curious, exactly what is it that makes you think you are right and just about every scientist on the planet is wrong about everything from gravity to glaciers?
All credit for trying, I was simply warning you (and others) that this guy seems like a lost cause. As Albert once said to a journalist, "How can I tell you about baking a cake when you know nothing of butter, milk and flour."
Slashdot Mirror
I was born the year after the first sputnik, I watched the moon landing, I saw the pale blue dot, and more recently man's impact on his tiny dot. Putting that stuff in front of people has already had a huge and positive impact on humanity's view of itself, making it available to Google is a great coup for the public interest everywhere.
"But the fact remains that money IS necessary for them to carry on their projects......And if they can get it on Slashdot, they are virtually assured of getting funding as 'the next big thing.'"
Nobody is disputing the fact that scientists have to eat, or that fact that corporations are free to piss their money away on vapourware. If you insist on buying what the ufologists are selling I can't stop you and given the state of many other public institutions I really can't blame you.
Yep the story is about skype, hookers and murder.
"Hookers are hookers. Their activities speak for themselves. Being dead does not give you a clean slate on the actions you made during your life."
Get of your psuedo-christian pedestal, we all whore for money unless daddy is rich, they did not "ask for it"?
You can laugh your head off for all I care, I am registering my disgust.
I have to admit that was an amusing way of changing the subject, however my point still stands.
/rant.
Parroting the spin that peer-reviewed science can be bought just gives nut job's with their creation stickers and "Phd's" in ufology more power. But by far the worst aspect of spreading that false meme (consiously or otherwise) is that it gives tacit approval for politicians and mass-media to ignore science and consult astrologers when it's "in our best interests". Go into any newsagent and you will find the "science" section chock full of ufology, astrology and phycic magazines.
Skepticism is healthy and the best practioners of science are true skeptics in the vein of Carl Sagan and James Randi. The one thing all good skeptics have in common is the tendency to apply the same standards to their own thinking without restricting their imagination. If you can do that and still insist that "science can be bought" I and many others would be interested to see your evidence.
We all know "think-tank" and "lobbyist" are often inseprable, but exactly how do you "buy" peer-reviews in journals such as Nature or Science, let alone enthusiastic confirmations from your competitors that dot the rest of the nation/planet?
"Then they can go read a different site."
I have a thicker skin than that, I would rather argue my point. I wholeheartedly agree that the slashdot editors have the "right to offend", and if they don't want to hear me complain they also agree they have a "right to censor".
"I presume you've never made a joke about any kind of military conflict, you never watched M*A*S*H for instance?"
Context and reality are the key concepts here, I watched most of the MASH episodes the first time round in black and white and loved the show, same with "Hogan's heros". OTOH: Attaching the tag "deadgrunts" to a slashdot story about recent events in Iraq would not get me to "crack a smile".
Have I ever laughed at something inappropriate, you bet! I just don't find "deadhookers" at all funny in this context and I get a bit prickly when it comes to dehumanising the victims.
Tell me you have never whored yourself for something and I will tell you that you have never worked a day in your life.
"Many prostitutes call themselves hookers with pride but do not like the term being used in derogatory ways.
Exactly! And illustrates the point I tried to make elsewhere about the "deadhookers" tag! Imagine if the story was about a series of race related murders, would the story be tagged as "deadniggers" or "deadgooks"?
My "moral compass" tells me it is just as offensive to dehumanise prostitutes as it is to dehumanise any other group. If anyone in this case could be considered "less than human" it would be the perpetrator, and even he will be afforded basic human rights by a civil society. In the UK (like most other western countries) this means that even though he took the "right to life" from others, the state does not have the right to take it from him as punishment.
Disclaimer: I recognise that Slashdot has the "right to offend", I don't dispute that. I am simply registering my dismay that they excercised it to: insinuate "they asked for it", trivialise murder, disrespect the dead, and possibly upset the still greiving relatives/freinds.
Yep, I will second that. Here in Oz we have something called the sex workers union. Personally I think the "deadhookers" tag is extremely bad taste, it is disrespectful toward both the dead and their greiving relatives.
Yeah, 'cause we all "know" science is "just another opinion" up for sale. /sarcasm
BTW: Your point numbering system is as fucked up as that old funding "joke".
The answer is always 42, you can't argue with Douglas Adams.
BTW: Put down the slide rule, you just need to realise every edge has exactly two adjacent faces.
Nope, ball with 12 slightly curved pentagons => 30 edges + 12 faces => 30 + 12 = 42
Just for the record, I live in Australia and saw the incident on TV. Mind you I was watching SBS, AFAIK it did not appear on the commercial stations. Watching coverage of Iraq from the BBC, and it's Aussie counterparts the ABC and SBS and then comparing it to CNN, FOX and our own commercial stations was like watching two different wars. I suspect there are media outlets in the US that do give a different picture but as in this country most will not bother to look for them.
BTW: As other poster's have pointed out it was the first election and the protester's were accusing him of stealing it.
...so your saying, it only works with catfish? :)
Yep, who here wanted to fly Aeroflot after the wall came down?
"And don't tell me that these are not "real" sciences"
Ok, I will tell you that they are "humanities" or "social science", sure science can be used on them (mainly statistical math such as epedimiology studies) but there tends to be alot of speculation about what the stats mean with no few tests available to differentiate between speculations (theories), especially in areas like history and politics.
The problem is not science as such, the scientific method is the best thing we have for understanding the natural world, the problem is the humans that perform it and politicians who contort it. In the "hard sciences" few get away with deliberately rigged experiments, and those that do don't last for very long. OTOH: A politician or corporate sponsor can silence or dismiss science itself when it does not fit the worldview they portray.
The idea that a bunch of scientists simultaneously invent problems to increase funding comes from politics (machevelian). It is in the interests of politicians and corporate captains to push this message onto the general poulation in order to portray the notion that scientific method as "just another opinion".
...so the fish is dead, right? :)
"But your so-called "evidence" is lacking in foundation a bit"
It has a much firmer foundation than the bloggers "bizzare emails" from an anonymous company.
And what the pigs don't eat the goats will finish off.
And thank you, that's the funniest reply to any of my ~1800 posts.
The GP's post looked familiar to me (the odd spelling of Jupiter), so I checked and sure enough the format of his cut and paste spam is getting better but the content is still just as silly. I think alot of the crap he quotes was originally generated by the psuedo-scientific "electic universe theory".
IMHO, the remnants of the anti-AGW crowd have now evolved into a run of the mill anti-science crowd. In the past I have found this mythbusting search an excellent resource, but I doubt this guy's skeptisim is motivated by science, logic or even common sense.
"practical and common example"
I never said it was a common need, nor do I deny that SQL would benifit from a concat function that would replace nulls with a given string, in fact I think you will find that the treatment of NULL's by concatenation in many RDBMS's can be set programmatically. I am simply arguing NULL's are there for a reason, I am not defending how any particular implementation of SQL treats them.
As to an uncommon example, merging multiple databases with varying degrees of completeness into one big 'clean' database where the difference between say "no middle intial" and "unknown" is important.
Besides, I don't think any RDBMS vendors will drop well understood functionality that it implemented by all their major competitors but if you nag them they might be inspired to make it simpler to ignore.
"Theory does not necessarily always translate into practical benefits."
Agreed, and string theory is a prime example (pun intended).
Agreed, this type of political stunt is the real obsenity.
"I would think that open-minded people would want choices to compare and evaluate."
Agreed, but EU has already been compared and evaluated, in the early 60's it was found to be hoplessly inadequate compared to the currently accepted theories. Black holes and CBR were predicted by current theory and found by observation, EU theory tacked on a bit to explain them after they were discovered, see the difference yet?
I first met you because of a comment about global warming and you may have noticed I pay scant attention to the details of your theories. However I am genuinely curious, exactly what is it that makes you think you are right and just about every scientist on the planet is wrong about everything from gravity to glaciers?
All credit for trying, I was simply warning you (and others) that this guy seems like a lost cause. As Albert once said to a journalist, "How can I tell you about baking a cake when you know nothing of butter, milk and flour."