\It was mostly about metrology: "How could we have gotten this wrong?" They never raised the idea that Relativity might be wrong. The original paper was very clear and cautious about it.
What disturbs me is not that the lay media got the wrong message about the OPERA paper, but that the Slashdot writeup got it blatantly wrong. News for nerds, indeed.
A ritual is a practice, but the converse is not necessarily true. Salat (the five daily prayers of Islam) is a ritual, or possibly five rituals, but wearing a hijab isn't.
What's wrong with it?
There's nothing wrong with it. I'm one of them. I was brought up in a fairly liberal Christian denomination (third largest denomination in Australia, no less) which was perfectly fine with science and didn't care which party you voted for (though of course they took an interest in specific policies which impacted social justice) and all the trimmings.
Had I been brought up in a fundy church, I'd probably call myself an atheist today. In my parents' church, there wasn't anything objectionable to object to. I don't go, but I retain the identity.
You're certainly right about Jesus (and, I suppose, Paul). I probably don't need to tell you this, but for the benefit of anyone reading along: Christianity started off as a very personal religion. It was the first religion in history designed not to be tied to a state or single ethnic group (Buddhism did jump the fence first, but it wasn't designed with that in mind). In the Bible itself, we start off with a tribal deity religion which changes into a more philosophical one. Then Christianity starts off as a reform movement within Judaism, and is subsequently adapted to incorporate Greek philosophy.
What is sad, is that it doesn't matter what people that believe in temples think about those that do not, or people that believe they are Christians because of cultural or inheritance traits. What matters is solely if you understand the teachings, and your behavior resembles the teachings.
That's more or less the "shame" point that I was trying to make. It was originally part of a longer paragraph which was edited down.
The gist was this: The purpose of any religion worth following is to make you a better person and possibly to encourage you to work with others towards constructive common goals. All of the beliefs and practices of a religion should have that as the ultimate end. It's a shame that it is effectively about cultural identity. There's nothing wrong with culture. I appreciate Bach masses, Persian calligraphy, and Khmer statuary as much as the next person. But if that's all it is, then that's a waste of a perfectly good religion.
I didn't respond to the rest of your post because it's all too true, and all too depressing.
As a somewhat informed atheist, I must slightly disagree with this. For (almost) all Christian sects, God is three-in-one: the father, the son, and the holy ghost.
I think you may have missed the point. Christians who speak Arabic do refer to and address their deity as "Allah", and Muslims who speak English do call their deity "God". The same is, incidentally, true of Hindus.
Hopefully NASA relies more on physics and mathematics than it does on evolution.
NASA does research into exobiology, as well as areas of science which depend on the Earth/Solar System/Universe being old, such as cosmology, geology, geophysics, climate change and so on. Everything in science informs every other thing in science, which is why evolution-deniers are sometimes-to-often deniers of other areas of science.
Oh stop using the word terrorism unless you're talking about a non-government group using terror in order to achieve a political objective.
No. It's a perfectly legitimate use of the word. In fact, it's arguably a more correct use of the word. The political use of the word "terror" first arose in the context of the "reign of terror" carried out by the French First Republic, and was subsequently applied to any revolutionary movement which threatened European monarchies. At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, Hitler and Mussolini's state-sponsored thugs were known as "street terrorists". Stalin's show trial system was called the "Great Terror". You get the idea; most terror has historically been carried out by governments.
The use of the word "terrorism" to refer exclusively to non-state actors only arose after WW2 (in the context of nationalist movements opposing European colonists, later applied by despotic regimes in Africa and Asia to militant groups who opposed them). Today, there is no definition of "terrorism" anywhere in international criminal law. There's certainly nothing official to say that it's more correct to apply the term only to non-state actors.
Religion is culture (though, of course, the converse is not true). The biggest and fastest-growing religious group in the English-speaking world is people who self-identify as some kind of Christian but don't regularly attend a place of worship. This would come as a surprise to people who think that religion is fundamentally about beliefs and practices. To most people, it's fundamentally about cultural and ethnic identity.
I find the implication that some group of people are getting rich off organ transplants bizarre. Like the CEO of Organs R Us is waiting around for the next motorbike accident because yacht wax and monocle polish doesn't pay for itself.
Like space travel, organ transplantation is routine, but it's also still quite hard. Apart from the US (where the price of anything medical is artificially inflated by the health insurance cartel), nobody is getting rich off organ transplants.
That's a stark reminder of how bad the problem of corporate influence on the public has become.
By the way, you should remember this, and shout it loud, next time someone seriously suggests that banning burqas is a good idea. Remind them that "mainstream" society doesn't exactly occupy the moral high ground when it comes to pressuring girls and women to look a certain way.
So the power consumption comes from using two lasers. So it makes me wonder, can you cut down the power requirements by using an LED with a monochromatic wavelength filter? Sure it won't be very efficient in getting a single wavelength, but perhaps you don't need that much optical energy?
My experience is that it's beyond confusing when you need to use a mathematical ring (say), but its implementation uses operators other than * and + to implement the ring operations.
My further experience is that using your own operators is a great idea, and works extremely well right up until the point where you use a second third-party library which defines its own set of (sometimes clashing) operators. I also happen to know that no language has yet managed a sane syntax for namespace-qualifying an operator, which suggests that it may be impossible.
Just to be clear: We don't yet know how many of these academics are in Science. I can easily see how this rule might catch a historian who chose to write a book instead of publishing several papers in some year.
Or people who actually understand what Unix is. Unix (that is, the Single UNIX Specification; note capitalisation) has two things which a compliant implementation must provide:
System Interfaces and Headers - The required header files which must be backed by system calls or library functions.
Shell and Utilities - The userland tools which must be present.
Linux only provides part of the first bit, and GNU provides the rest. It is fairly accurate to say that Linux by itself does not implement Unix, but GNU + Linux does.
(I say "more or less" because there's a little bit of non-GNU in the standard userland, such as some BSD. Most of it is GNU, though.)
For the record, I'm agnostic about "Linux" vs "GNU/Linux", because SUS frankly isn't that important for the kind of users that Linux is trying to attract. Mac OS X is SUS compliant, but only a small proportion of Mac end users know this, or understand what it means, or give a crap. It's only important for developers like us, though for us it's very important. Nonetheless, it's technically correct to call GNU/Linux the base OS.
Were the BSD XCU suite ported to Linux, I'd be just as happy to call that base OS BSD/Linux or something.
You're right about harmony. I will make one claim, though: Mozart was one of the best orchestrators in history.
Orchestration is an under-appreciated problem. You have to deal with multiple constraints. Harmony, voice leading and colour/texture are the obvious ones. You also have to think about where the instruments physically sit relative to the audience. You have to balance harmonics (e.g. if a timpani's note has a minor third harmonic in some octave, it sounds extremely wrong if some other instrument is playing the major third of the chord in the same octave). Mozart managed all this, and also seemed to know in intimate detail how every instrument in the orchestra of the day was played.
No matter what your instrument is, a piece by Mozart fits under your hands as if it was written by someone who had played that instrument all their life.
The same could be said for 11th's and 13th's, too.
Part of classical music training in the European tradition is writing four-part chorales in the style of Bach using only pencil and paper, no instrument available. A standard part of this is knowing how to use a dominant discord up to the 13th. They teach this stuff to 16-year-olds. (At least, that's how old I was.)
Incidentally, most of the pre-Romantic composers didn't learn music theory same way that we learn it today. Today, we learn harmony first, and from that, we learn voice leading and counterpoint. They did it the opposite way: voice leading first, and then learn harmony from that. So while Palestrina came up with some voice combinations that today we would analyse as sophisticated chords, he probably thought of them as prepared suspensions. Bach could probably hold both interpretations in his head simultaneously, which is why he was a genius.
If you are logically minded, you know that from false premises, one can prove anything.
Anyone who actually paid attention in logic classes knows that this is only true in classical logic. Most logics do not have this property, most notably intuitionistic logics and paraconsistent logics.
Exactly. Jonas Brothers albums are typically listened to through small earbuds or while driving in a car. There's no point spending lots on production quality.
Oddly enough, when I read the headline, I assumed "Alan Parsons Rips Jonas Brothers" meant he was using samples of them.
I even started imagining the result. Let's all sing along, now...
There are pyramids in my head There's one underneath my bed And my lady's getting cranky. (I can't get your smile outta my mind.) Every possible location Has a simple explanation And it isn't hanky panky. (Modesty is just so hard to find.)
Slashdot Mirror
\It was mostly about metrology: "How could we have gotten this wrong?" They never raised the idea that Relativity might be wrong. The original paper was very clear and cautious about it.
What disturbs me is not that the lay media got the wrong message about the OPERA paper, but that the Slashdot writeup got it blatantly wrong. News for nerds, indeed.
Likely, you meant belief and rituals.
A ritual is a practice, but the converse is not necessarily true. Salat (the five daily prayers of Islam) is a ritual, or possibly five rituals, but wearing a hijab isn't.
What's wrong with it?
There's nothing wrong with it. I'm one of them. I was brought up in a fairly liberal Christian denomination (third largest denomination in Australia, no less) which was perfectly fine with science and didn't care which party you voted for (though of course they took an interest in specific policies which impacted social justice) and all the trimmings.
Had I been brought up in a fundy church, I'd probably call myself an atheist today. In my parents' church, there wasn't anything objectionable to object to. I don't go, but I retain the identity.
You're certainly right about Jesus (and, I suppose, Paul). I probably don't need to tell you this, but for the benefit of anyone reading along: Christianity started off as a very personal religion. It was the first religion in history designed not to be tied to a state or single ethnic group (Buddhism did jump the fence first, but it wasn't designed with that in mind). In the Bible itself, we start off with a tribal deity religion which changes into a more philosophical one. Then Christianity starts off as a reform movement within Judaism, and is subsequently adapted to incorporate Greek philosophy.
What is sad, is that it doesn't matter what people that believe in temples think about those that do not, or people that believe they are Christians because of cultural or inheritance traits. What matters is solely if you understand the teachings, and your behavior resembles the teachings.
That's more or less the "shame" point that I was trying to make. It was originally part of a longer paragraph which was edited down.
The gist was this: The purpose of any religion worth following is to make you a better person and possibly to encourage you to work with others towards constructive common goals. All of the beliefs and practices of a religion should have that as the ultimate end. It's a shame that it is effectively about cultural identity. There's nothing wrong with culture. I appreciate Bach masses, Persian calligraphy, and Khmer statuary as much as the next person. But if that's all it is, then that's a waste of a perfectly good religion.
I didn't respond to the rest of your post because it's all too true, and all too depressing.
You mean Wheatley doesn't accuse Chell of coming the raw prawn with him in your version? I'm shocked.
I'm still waiting for Duke Nukem Forever. After all, if it's still in development, there's hope for the world.
Usage defines definition, not etymology.
Correct. However, usage of the word "terrorism" amongst people who study geopolitics is inconsistent at best.
Ask 100 people whether the government is a terrorist organisation and the vast majority will say "no".
Ask 100 governments whether the government is a terrorist organisation and they will probably all say "no" too.
As a somewhat informed atheist, I must slightly disagree with this. For (almost) all Christian sects, God is three-in-one: the father, the son, and the holy ghost.
I think you may have missed the point. Christians who speak Arabic do refer to and address their deity as "Allah", and Muslims who speak English do call their deity "God". The same is, incidentally, true of Hindus.
Hopefully NASA relies more on physics and mathematics than it does on evolution.
NASA does research into exobiology, as well as areas of science which depend on the Earth/Solar System/Universe being old, such as cosmology, geology, geophysics, climate change and so on. Everything in science informs every other thing in science, which is why evolution-deniers are sometimes-to-often deniers of other areas of science.
No. This has nothing to do with "doctrine" whatsoever.
Oh stop using the word terrorism unless you're talking about a non-government group using terror in order to achieve a political objective.
No. It's a perfectly legitimate use of the word. In fact, it's arguably a more correct use of the word. The political use of the word "terror" first arose in the context of the "reign of terror" carried out by the French First Republic, and was subsequently applied to any revolutionary movement which threatened European monarchies. At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, Hitler and Mussolini's state-sponsored thugs were known as "street terrorists". Stalin's show trial system was called the "Great Terror". You get the idea; most terror has historically been carried out by governments.
The use of the word "terrorism" to refer exclusively to non-state actors only arose after WW2 (in the context of nationalist movements opposing European colonists, later applied by despotic regimes in Africa and Asia to militant groups who opposed them). Today, there is no definition of "terrorism" anywhere in international criminal law. There's certainly nothing official to say that it's more correct to apply the term only to non-state actors.
Religion is culture (though, of course, the converse is not true). The biggest and fastest-growing religious group in the English-speaking world is people who self-identify as some kind of Christian but don't regularly attend a place of worship. This would come as a surprise to people who think that religion is fundamentally about beliefs and practices. To most people, it's fundamentally about cultural and ethnic identity.
It's unfortunate, but that's reality for you.
I find the implication that some group of people are getting rich off organ transplants bizarre. Like the CEO of Organs R Us is waiting around for the next motorbike accident because yacht wax and monocle polish doesn't pay for itself.
Like space travel, organ transplantation is routine, but it's also still quite hard. Apart from the US (where the price of anything medical is artificially inflated by the health insurance cartel), nobody is getting rich off organ transplants.
That's a stark reminder of how bad the problem of corporate influence on the public has become.
By the way, you should remember this, and shout it loud, next time someone seriously suggests that banning burqas is a good idea. Remind them that "mainstream" society doesn't exactly occupy the moral high ground when it comes to pressuring girls and women to look a certain way.
I was going to suggest Megaupload.
So the power consumption comes from using two lasers. So it makes me wonder, can you cut down the power requirements by using an LED with a monochromatic wavelength filter? Sure it won't be very efficient in getting a single wavelength, but perhaps you don't need that much optical energy?
LED + feedback cavity = laser diode
But that's just my experience - you may differ.
My experience is that it's beyond confusing when you need to use a mathematical ring (say), but its implementation uses operators other than * and + to implement the ring operations.
My further experience is that using your own operators is a great idea, and works extremely well right up until the point where you use a second third-party library which defines its own set of (sometimes clashing) operators. I also happen to know that no language has yet managed a sane syntax for namespace-qualifying an operator, which suggests that it may be impossible.
In word length and effort, yes. In number of research outputs, no.
My point is just that a book requires more time and effort than a typical paper.
Just to be clear: We don't yet know how many of these academics are in Science. I can easily see how this rule might catch a historian who chose to write a book instead of publishing several papers in some year.
Or people who actually understand what Unix is. Unix (that is, the Single UNIX Specification; note capitalisation) has two things which a compliant implementation must provide:
Linux only provides part of the first bit, and GNU provides the rest. It is fairly accurate to say that Linux by itself does not implement Unix, but GNU + Linux does.
(I say "more or less" because there's a little bit of non-GNU in the standard userland, such as some BSD. Most of it is GNU, though.)
For the record, I'm agnostic about "Linux" vs "GNU/Linux", because SUS frankly isn't that important for the kind of users that Linux is trying to attract. Mac OS X is SUS compliant, but only a small proportion of Mac end users know this, or understand what it means, or give a crap. It's only important for developers like us, though for us it's very important. Nonetheless, it's technically correct to call GNU/Linux the base OS.
Were the BSD XCU suite ported to Linux, I'd be just as happy to call that base OS BSD/Linux or something.
You're right about harmony. I will make one claim, though: Mozart was one of the best orchestrators in history.
Orchestration is an under-appreciated problem. You have to deal with multiple constraints. Harmony, voice leading and colour/texture are the obvious ones. You also have to think about where the instruments physically sit relative to the audience. You have to balance harmonics (e.g. if a timpani's note has a minor third harmonic in some octave, it sounds extremely wrong if some other instrument is playing the major third of the chord in the same octave). Mozart managed all this, and also seemed to know in intimate detail how every instrument in the orchestra of the day was played.
No matter what your instrument is, a piece by Mozart fits under your hands as if it was written by someone who had played that instrument all their life.
But Mozart, by and large, wrote utter rubbish -- really talented guy, shame about the musical immaturity.
To be fair, most of his later stuff is impressive.
The same could be said for 11th's and 13th's, too.
Part of classical music training in the European tradition is writing four-part chorales in the style of Bach using only pencil and paper, no instrument available. A standard part of this is knowing how to use a dominant discord up to the 13th. They teach this stuff to 16-year-olds. (At least, that's how old I was.)
Incidentally, most of the pre-Romantic composers didn't learn music theory same way that we learn it today. Today, we learn harmony first, and from that, we learn voice leading and counterpoint. They did it the opposite way: voice leading first, and then learn harmony from that. So while Palestrina came up with some voice combinations that today we would analyse as sophisticated chords, he probably thought of them as prepared suspensions. Bach could probably hold both interpretations in his head simultaneously, which is why he was a genius.
Anyone who actually paid attention in logic classes knows that this is only true in classical logic. Most logics do not have this property, most notably intuitionistic logics and paraconsistent logics.
Exactly. Jonas Brothers albums are typically listened to through small earbuds or while driving in a car. There's no point spending lots on production quality.
Oddly enough, when I read the headline, I assumed "Alan Parsons Rips Jonas Brothers" meant he was using samples of them.
I even started imagining the result. Let's all sing along, now...
There are pyramids in my head
There's one underneath my bed
And my lady's getting cranky.
(I can't get your smile outta my mind.)
Every possible location
Has a simple explanation
And it isn't hanky panky.
(Modesty is just so hard to find.)