"Generally speaking, it makes evolutionary sense to kill animals of your own species that aren't part of your immediate bloodline."
It makes sense for a species to kill it's members off? Sheesh only a human or a chimp would say that. (Granted a nest of ant's may protest with single minded determination).
The other animals you mention are either defending territory or display fighting for breeding rights, both serve to strengthen the species, neither aim to kill. Contrast that with a group of male chimps sytematiclly picking off another group of males one by one with by killing them. Not just a simple beating, they rip the victims genitals off and mutilate the head beyond recognition. Granted when they had killed them all the remaining females and young joined the other group but the victors had no shortage of females or territory to begin with. The two groups of males were closely related split from the larger group sometime before all this happened. - See: Jane. Goodall.
In other words humans and chimps practice war where as other animals don't. I would consider an ants nest a single mind since you need the whole nest to observe the more interesting parts of their behaviour. The ants may look like they are at war but it is really a battle between two "Borg" colonies without the "assimilation" part.
Both good points, I watched a doco once that showed how difficult it can be to pursuade kids to diverge from their parents instructions until they are around 7yo. However they do learn the meaning of "no" early and start using it frequently from the age of two.
The old saying goes something like "give me the new born boy for seven years and I will give you the man". Turns out it is hard to even recognise the common-sense we learn in the first seven years. It takes that mysterious flash of insight (or "out of culture" experience) to actually change what generations have had right under their noses but have failed to see because the common-sense they all learnt as a 5yo created a cultural blind spot.
Since chimps are known to have culture they probably have their own annonymous geniuses like the human geniuses who invented the wheel, writing, agriculture, firemaking...all the things that the rest of us spend our entire lives re-inventing within the confines of our common-sense rituals.
Humans and chimps are the only animals that group together to systematically kill the members of a competing group over an extended period of time, for no particular reason other that they can. This behaviour is what I would call violence as opposed to survival.
Maybe chimps are more violent than humans but we won't know for certain until we allow them the means to launch nukes with the push of a button.
"Also, the fact that humans are more likely to do unnecessary steps may indicate a greater willingness on the part of humans to experiment."
Not sure about "willingness to experiment" when it is the apes that are most willing to break the rules. However it could explain human ritual and dogma.
Australia implemented a nation wide flat rate sales tax (10% GST) about a decade ago. Essentials such as food, water, rent, electricty are exempt. It has no effect on a bussiness except bookeeping since you claim input GST and pay output GST. Personal income tax went down at the same time but the top rate is 40-something% and it kicks in just above the average weekly earnings. I don't think GST has made a big difference to peoples lives but it is certainly more transparent.
The fallacy is that large corporations pay tax like the rest of us. What happens is that they negotiate a payment with the tax office (usually translates to ~10%, the cost of your permenant team of accountants, lawyers and tax advisers is also tax deductable). People generally think this can be solved by adding more rules to the tax laws but alas that leads to expotential growth in loopholes and longer negotiation periods, during the negotiation the corporation pays nothing.
When our richest citizen was dragged in front of a senate enquiry a senator asked, "How is it that your ventures get away with paying 10% tax overall whilst ordinary Australians pay 3-4 times that rate?" Paraphrasing his reply, "I am paying according to the rules that you created. I make charitable donations towards all sorts of organisations, the government of the day is not one of them."
Arrrgggg, please no, not that, not the "where's my cheese" video again!!!
Re:Have you ever missed meals or been hungry?
on
The Year in Ideas
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· Score: 1
John 14,27 "I give you peace, the kind of peace that only I can give. It isn't like the peace that this world can give. So don't be worried or afraid."
Far be it from me to argue with the wisdom of the bible but context is everything. I belive that "peace" is found not given but I also agree John has brought "peace" to untold millions of souls by relating how HE found it in Christ's teachings.
The problem (as I see it) is that he also heavily implies Christ is the ONLY way. A couple of sentence's up the page, John quotes from Jesus. When put in this context John could be seen as justification for the "us/them, good/evil" demons that lurk in every human phyche. When seen from a "un-Christian" like point of view, it could be said that John has also triggered torment and destruction to untold millions of souls.
John 14,23 "If anyone loves me, they will obey me. Then my Father will love them, and we will come to them and live in them. 24But anyone who doesn't love me, won't obey me. What they have heard me say doesn't really come from me, but from the Father who sent me."
But hey, what do I know. My mum was a Sunday school teacher, his dad was God!
Re:Have you ever missed meals or been hungry?
on
The Year in Ideas
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Spot on, nobody understands what "it is all about" for anybody except themselves. Those that would force their beliefs on others through violent means are responsible for most of the carnage of human history including the carnage that is happening now. Accepting that "it" is unkowable gives the same sense of awe and liberation found in more conventional religions.
Yes, I have missed meals and been hungry.
Yes, I, my ex and two kids, were classed as "working-poor" for ~10yrs.
Yes, I get well above the average wage now.
Yes, I have "wasted" money I didn't have on "frivolus" things like a weekend in a 3 star hotel. I can only assume the posts that think this is a bad thing have a "religion" based on money.
"the pedantics here confuse the issue a bit more than necessary"
Yes, but I think the confusion comes from mesuring (de)acceleration in terms of "G".
"Frame of reference notwithstanding, "negative-g" is a real term to accurately describe a real phenomenon."
Yes except for the accurate part, for it to be accurate (pedantic) you must assume the ground is under the plane, that is why I called it simplistic, you can't ignore the frame of reference. Pilots have been know to crash and sailors have drowned because of confusion about up and down.
For example: If the passanger has no windows and the pilot performs a slow "wing roll" while in the "zero-G" stage, how do the passengers tell up from down? Even if they noticed the rotation how would they tell if it was the plane or thier body that was rotating? When they pull out of the curve upside down does that mean there is now a strong "negative-G" slaming the passenger into the ceiling, that's what the instrumentation says?
The frame of reference matters, the physicist in the plane thinks they are getting pulled upwards, the pilot knows the instrument is wrong because the plane is "upside down". The physicist on the ground does not measure any of the forces with a negative sign. She picks a convinient "fixed point" and observes initial positions and velocities then creates a vector for each of the forces involved. The directional part of the vector is orientated so that acceleration is always positive. The profound part (as opposed to pedantic) is there are no fixed points, everything is relative.
"Negative-G" is a simplistic way of describing the experience of moving within the frame of reference of the plane's interior. What they mean is "differential acceleration of plane and passanger in a given direction" using the arbritary choice that "gravitaional acceleration toward Earth" is +1G because it is constant for both plane and passenger. In level flight the plane has an upward acceleration of 1G so it is, in effect, "weightless", meanwile the passangers arse still feels 1G of downward acceleration on to the seat inside the plane (normal feeling of gravity).
It's all about frames of reference, there is no "fixed point" anywhere in the Universe, Physicist are therefore free to choose the most convienient one.
Mixing frames of reference can be conceptually difficult, it's easier for the vomit comet's stewardess to say...
"Negative-G is when turbulence accelerates the plane downward faster than the 9.8m/sec/sec of gravity"
.....silence....
"it makes you stick to the ceiling"
...knowing nods all round.
"Of course, the assumption that a child will maintain something because it's there is an idealistic idea brought to us by people who don't have and practical knowledge about kids."
Because it's their's (not just "there"). If you don't undrestand, talk to anyone who was a kid in Europe during WW2, ask them what toys they had.
"If this does become popular, whats stopping people from robbing the children?
What is stopping people from robbing children today? Why does a cow with a new born calf attack humans? Why do some poeple think living in poverty implies a lack of basic morals?
OTOH: If F-Secure have (knowingly or otherwise) sabotaged a major international criminal investigation they won't be making press releases for much longer. If (as is likely) the cops (via F-Secure) have known this information for a while then the timing of the press relaese is part of extracting as much as they can from a clue.
Either way, the public is a mushroom farm until they haul the toadstool into court.
Re:Virus writer is a Free Software fanatic
on
Sober Code Cracked
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· Score: 1
Everyone check under the bed tonight, it's those damn commies.
Relevant quote from above link:
"However, the capitalists, many of whom had up to then held Hitler at arms length, took fright at the upsurge in votes for the workers' parties. Consequently, on January 5 1933, Hitler was invited to address a meeting of industrialists and bankers organised by vice-president Baron von Papen, at the home of the aforementioned Baron von Schroeder. At the meeting, Hitler promised to bring an end to democracy in Germany and to smash the labour movement so the capitalists would be free to make their profits in peace. Within ten days, the financial problems of the Nazi party had disappeared."
"And that low-skill jobs aren't a career, but are a stepping stone toward better jobs. You're not going to stay a hamburger flipper, unless you have no ambition to move on... or your ambition is to own a hamburger joint!"
The whole thing is about IQ, low IQ people are quite often desperate to reach the level of "hamberger flipper". It rarely has anything to do with money, usually they want acceptance and TO BE USEFULL. A bussiness that gripes about the minimum wage is not worth working for, either for money or social reasons.
PS: As others have pointed out $3/hr is from a bygone era (like your attitude). Worse than that you are comparing $3p/h to a more up to date figure of $500 p/w for wages + govt. red tape. This implies that govt. red tape costs $380 pp/pw, utter bullshit!!
I paid $1700AU for a 5MP digital SLR about 2 years ago to "play with" long exposures, a comprable camera is now worth about $1000. They won't get much cheaper unless they use inferior optics. Considering the non-optical specs I'm guessing 5MP SLR's with good optics will disappear from the shelves (if they haven't already).
A co-worker of mine paid $1500AU for a 2x speed CD drive (including mounting kit and software) in the late 80's, about $3000-4000 in today's money.
I might be misunderstanding your post. It sounds like you claiming the "greed is good" era (80's) was similar to the "flower power" era (60's)? If so, were you actually alive to participate in either of them?
"Ever met a teenager?" - I kept two of them until they grew into adults, the last one without female assistance. I released them both into the wild at age 18-19. They both lead usefull lives and have been sucessfull in finding a mate. I am now waiting to see if they breed.
Throwing rocks is "free knowlage", war is simply sophisticated rock throwing, Linux is just another rock that happened to be handy. The problems is not the abudance of rocks, it's the frequency and velocity of the throw compounded by the random process of target selection.
Excellent example of the "real world", somebody in authority gives you an explicit requirement - "code something with as few lines as possible" - then (after the delivery) adds another requirement - "don't use goto".
When you point out that it was not part of the requirements you will be called unproffesional since "everybody knows" the second requirement is implicit in all projects.
Trying to anticipate all the possible implicit requirements will get you nowhere in fighting the "everybody knows" attitude. Your proffessor is an unreasonable customer. Unfortunately you just have to wear it because, (like many programmers in the "real world"), you don't have a boss with balls to set the customer straight.
Scope creep problems are akin to a builder being told the customer wanted an indoor swimming pool but neglected to say anything until after the building was finished. The builder will either prepare a quote for the new work or tell the customer to fuck off, why should software be any different?
Slashdot Mirror
"Generally speaking, it makes evolutionary sense to kill animals of your own species that aren't part of your immediate bloodline."
It makes sense for a species to kill it's members off? Sheesh only a human or a chimp would say that. (Granted a nest of ant's may protest with single minded determination).
The other animals you mention are either defending territory or display fighting for breeding rights, both serve to strengthen the species, neither aim to kill. Contrast that with a group of male chimps sytematiclly picking off another group of males one by one with by killing them. Not just a simple beating, they rip the victims genitals off and mutilate the head beyond recognition. Granted when they had killed them all the remaining females and young joined the other group but the victors had no shortage of females or territory to begin with. The two groups of males were closely related split from the larger group sometime before all this happened. - See: Jane. Goodall.
In other words humans and chimps practice war where as other animals don't. I would consider an ants nest a single mind since you need the whole nest to observe the more interesting parts of their behaviour. The ants may look like they are at war but it is really a battle between two "Borg" colonies without the "assimilation" part.
Both good points, I watched a doco once that showed how difficult it can be to pursuade kids to diverge from their parents instructions until they are around 7yo. However they do learn the meaning of "no" early and start using it frequently from the age of two.
The old saying goes something like "give me the new born boy for seven years and I will give you the man". Turns out it is hard to even recognise the common-sense we learn in the first seven years. It takes that mysterious flash of insight (or "out of culture" experience) to actually change what generations have had right under their noses but have failed to see because the common-sense they all learnt as a 5yo created a cultural blind spot.
Since chimps are known to have culture they probably have their own annonymous geniuses like the human geniuses who invented the wheel, writing, agriculture, firemaking...all the things that the rest of us spend our entire lives re-inventing within the confines of our common-sense rituals.
"The American idea of dividing the powers up and setting them at each other's throats was really clever."
Please stop claiming IP that does not belong to you.
Humans and chimps are the only animals that group together to systematically kill the members of a competing group over an extended period of time, for no particular reason other that they can. This behaviour is what I would call violence as opposed to survival.
Maybe chimps are more violent than humans but we won't know for certain until we allow them the means to launch nukes with the push of a button.
"Also, the fact that humans are more likely to do unnecessary steps may indicate a greater willingness on the part of humans to experiment."
Not sure about "willingness to experiment" when it is the apes that are most willing to break the rules. However it could explain human ritual and dogma.
Australia implemented a nation wide flat rate sales tax (10% GST) about a decade ago. Essentials such as food, water, rent, electricty are exempt. It has no effect on a bussiness except bookeeping since you claim input GST and pay output GST. Personal income tax went down at the same time but the top rate is 40-something% and it kicks in just above the average weekly earnings. I don't think GST has made a big difference to peoples lives but it is certainly more transparent.
The fallacy is that large corporations pay tax like the rest of us. What happens is that they negotiate a payment with the tax office (usually translates to ~10%, the cost of your permenant team of accountants, lawyers and tax advisers is also tax deductable). People generally think this can be solved by adding more rules to the tax laws but alas that leads to expotential growth in loopholes and longer negotiation periods, during the negotiation the corporation pays nothing.
When our richest citizen was dragged in front of a senate enquiry a senator asked, "How is it that your ventures get away with paying 10% tax overall whilst ordinary Australians pay 3-4 times that rate?" Paraphrasing his reply, "I am paying according to the rules that you created. I make charitable donations towards all sorts of organisations, the government of the day is not one of them."
Arrrgggg, please no, not that, not the "where's my cheese" video again!!!
John 14,27 "I give you peace, the kind of peace that only I can give. It isn't like the peace that this world can give. So don't be worried or afraid."
Far be it from me to argue with the wisdom of the bible but context is everything. I belive that "peace" is found not given but I also agree John has brought "peace" to untold millions of souls by relating how HE found it in Christ's teachings.
The problem (as I see it) is that he also heavily implies Christ is the ONLY way. A couple of sentence's up the page, John quotes from Jesus. When put in this context John could be seen as justification for the "us/them, good/evil" demons that lurk in every human phyche. When seen from a "un-Christian" like point of view, it could be said that John has also triggered torment and destruction to untold millions of souls.
John 14,23 "If anyone loves me, they will obey me. Then my Father will love them, and we will come to them and live in them. 24But anyone who doesn't love me, won't obey me. What they have heard me say doesn't really come from me, but from the Father who sent me."
But hey, what do I know. My mum was a Sunday school teacher, his dad was God!
Spot on, nobody understands what "it is all about" for anybody except themselves. Those that would force their beliefs on others through violent means are responsible for most of the carnage of human history including the carnage that is happening now. Accepting that "it" is unkowable gives the same sense of awe and liberation found in more conventional religions.
Yes, I have missed meals and been hungry.
Yes, I, my ex and two kids, were classed as "working-poor" for ~10yrs.
Yes, I get well above the average wage now.
Yes, I have "wasted" money I didn't have on "frivolus" things like a weekend in a 3 star hotel. I can only assume the posts that think this is a bad thing have a "religion" based on money.
"Marketing is a tool designed to increase the overall level of visibility of a given product or service."
No that is advertising. My partner teaches Marketing to undergrads, the first lesson is Marketing != advertising.
"the pedantics here confuse the issue a bit more than necessary"
Yes, but I think the confusion comes from mesuring (de)acceleration in terms of "G".
"Frame of reference notwithstanding, "negative-g" is a real term to accurately describe a real phenomenon."
Yes except for the accurate part, for it to be accurate (pedantic) you must assume the ground is under the plane, that is why I called it simplistic, you can't ignore the frame of reference. Pilots have been know to crash and sailors have drowned because of confusion about up and down.
For example: If the passanger has no windows and the pilot performs a slow "wing roll" while in the "zero-G" stage, how do the passengers tell up from down? Even if they noticed the rotation how would they tell if it was the plane or thier body that was rotating? When they pull out of the curve upside down does that mean there is now a strong "negative-G" slaming the passenger into the ceiling, that's what the instrumentation says?
The frame of reference matters, the physicist in the plane thinks they are getting pulled upwards, the pilot knows the instrument is wrong because the plane is "upside down". The physicist on the ground does not measure any of the forces with a negative sign. She picks a convinient "fixed point" and observes initial positions and velocities then creates a vector for each of the forces involved. The directional part of the vector is orientated so that acceleration is always positive. The profound part (as opposed to pedantic) is there are no fixed points, everything is relative.
"Negative-G" is a simplistic way of describing the experience of moving within the frame of reference of the plane's interior. What they mean is "differential acceleration of plane and passanger in a given direction" using the arbritary choice that "gravitaional acceleration toward Earth" is +1G because it is constant for both plane and passenger. In level flight the plane has an upward acceleration of 1G so it is, in effect, "weightless", meanwile the passangers arse still feels 1G of downward acceleration on to the seat inside the plane (normal feeling of gravity).
It's all about frames of reference, there is no "fixed point" anywhere in the Universe, Physicist are therefore free to choose the most convienient one.
Mixing frames of reference can be conceptually difficult, it's easier for the vomit comet's stewardess to say...
"Negative-G is when turbulence accelerates the plane downward faster than the 9.8m/sec/sec of gravity"
.....silence....
"it makes you stick to the ceiling"
...knowing nods all round.
"Of course, the assumption that a child will maintain something because it's there is an idealistic idea brought to us by people who don't have and practical knowledge about kids."
Because it's their's (not just "there"). If you don't undrestand, talk to anyone who was a kid in Europe during WW2, ask them what toys they had.
"If this does become popular, whats stopping people from robbing the children?
What is stopping people from robbing children today? Why does a cow with a new born calf attack humans? Why do some poeple think living in poverty implies a lack of basic morals?
OTOH: If F-Secure have (knowingly or otherwise) sabotaged a major international criminal investigation they won't be making press releases for much longer. If (as is likely) the cops (via F-Secure) have known this information for a while then the timing of the press relaese is part of extracting as much as they can from a clue.
Either way, the public is a mushroom farm until they haul the toadstool into court.
Everyone check under the bed tonight, it's those damn commies.
Relevant quote from above link:
"However, the capitalists, many of whom had up to then held Hitler at arms length, took fright at the upsurge in votes for the workers' parties. Consequently, on January 5 1933, Hitler was invited to address a meeting of industrialists and bankers organised by vice-president Baron von Papen, at the home of the aforementioned Baron von Schroeder. At the meeting, Hitler promised to bring an end to democracy in Germany and to smash the labour movement so the capitalists would be free to make their profits in peace. Within ten days, the financial problems of the Nazi party had disappeared."
Dr. Crichton, the US Senate would love to hear your views on the subject.
"And that low-skill jobs aren't a career, but are a stepping stone toward better jobs. You're not going to stay a hamburger flipper, unless you have no ambition to move on... or your ambition is to own a hamburger joint!"
The whole thing is about IQ, low IQ people are quite often desperate to reach the level of "hamberger flipper". It rarely has anything to do with money, usually they want acceptance and TO BE USEFULL. A bussiness that gripes about the minimum wage is not worth working for, either for money or social reasons.
PS: As others have pointed out $3/hr is from a bygone era (like your attitude). Worse than that you are comparing $3p/h to a more up to date figure of $500 p/w for wages + govt. red tape. This implies that govt. red tape costs $380 pp/pw, utter bullshit!!
I agree it can't replace the military mind. If you let the a "true AI" see the big picture it would tell the generals to put the guns down.
"Who buys a $2900 camera anyways?"
I paid $1700AU for a 5MP digital SLR about 2 years ago to "play with" long exposures, a comprable camera is now worth about $1000. They won't get much cheaper unless they use inferior optics. Considering the non-optical specs I'm guessing 5MP SLR's with good optics will disappear from the shelves (if they haven't already).
A co-worker of mine paid $1500AU for a 2x speed CD drive (including mounting kit and software) in the late 80's, about $3000-4000 in today's money.
"With modern technology, I think we'll do rather well."
If by modern technology you mean a star trek style gadget to make food from dust and/or ice then maybe the Homo genus has a chance.
"You DO know that the 80s, and thus the 60s..."
I might be misunderstanding your post. It sounds like you claiming the "greed is good" era (80's) was similar to the "flower power" era (60's)? If so, were you actually alive to participate in either of them?
"Ever met a teenager?" - I kept two of them until they grew into adults, the last one without female assistance. I released them both into the wild at age 18-19. They both lead usefull lives and have been sucessfull in finding a mate. I am now waiting to see if they breed.
Throwing rocks is "free knowlage", war is simply sophisticated rock throwing, Linux is just another rock that happened to be handy. The problems is not the abudance of rocks, it's the frequency and velocity of the throw compounded by the random process of target selection.
Flamebait??? Get a grip, the post and the title are seriously funny.
No sir, if it wasn't for the arm companies we would....be walking on four legs, like regular mammals.
Excellent example of the "real world", somebody in authority gives you an explicit requirement - "code something with as few lines as possible" - then (after the delivery) adds another requirement - "don't use goto".
When you point out that it was not part of the requirements you will be called unproffesional since "everybody knows" the second requirement is implicit in all projects.
Trying to anticipate all the possible implicit requirements will get you nowhere in fighting the "everybody knows" attitude. Your proffessor is an unreasonable customer. Unfortunately you just have to wear it because, (like many programmers in the "real world"), you don't have a boss with balls to set the customer straight.
Scope creep problems are akin to a builder being told the customer wanted an indoor swimming pool but neglected to say anything until after the building was finished. The builder will either prepare a quote for the new work or tell the customer to fuck off, why should software be any different?