Calories in, calories out works in a lab environment where you can measure intake, consumption methods, and waste precisely. You cannot do that with humans. There are too many variables.
You don't know what your calories out are
You don't know what your calories in are
Which would be a great point if I was trying to determine exactly how much I should eat to lose 10.3 lbs in 35.7 days. However, I don't need anywhere near the precision you're talking about there. There aren't "too many variables." There's only one variable that matters: Calories. So I don't know exactly how many calories the broccoli I'm eating or the meat I'm eating has. However, those tests are pretty good estimates in telling me the calorie density of foods, and I can substitute more calorie dense foods (like chocolate cakes) with less calorie dense foods (like fruits) and know that I'm eating less calories. Then I can weigh myself and see if I'm losing weight. If I'm not, I can eat less and / or exercise more (use up more calories) until I do start losing weight. It will work. Guaranteed. Because the only thing that matters is that I eat less calories than I use up and I will lose weight. It doesn't matter what the exact numbers are.
And I lost 50 lbs recently by doing just that. And my roommate lost 100 lbs by doing that. And another friend lost about 40. I don't know anyone who actually stuck with said method and didn't lose weight. And if I did know someone, and verified it, I'd tell him to go claim James Randi's prize, because it would be a physics-defying supernatural event.
Now to be fair, it can be complicated, because of the psychological aspects of dieting. Dieting sucks, and if you don't stick with it, it won't work. I have cravings for chocolate cakes and I hate fruit. So any diet that gives you a little cheating room and is based on substituting calorie dense foods with less calorie dense foods is likely to be more successful then diets that give you extremely small portions of food and don't allow you to ever have days off, simply because I'm not likely to have the willpower to stick with that second diet. In addition, you need to make sure you're getting your proper nutrition from whatever diet you're at if you want to remain healthy.
So, there are diets that are better than others, but the losing weight equation just boils down to calories.
A trick one of my former Chief Engineers used to make it look like he was doing something when the so called problem / issue was a no brainer. He'd make it look like a big deal, set up a "Tiger Team", expended lots of resources, got more budget, manpower, lots of visability, etc. and became the "Hero that saved the project".
Well, how else would he maintain his reputation as a miracle worker? I assume he also multiplied his estimates to fix the problem by four.
If I can log into a website after the fact and display who I voted for, my boss can stand over my shoulder while I do so to make sure I voted the way he wants me to. Your voting DRM is just as vulnerable to the analog hole as music or videos.
Not necessarily. When you vote, a randomly generated number could be displayed at the screen, and you'd be responsible for memorizing it or writing it down if you want to double check later (you don't get a printed receipt with your number, but the machine would print a human readable ballot without any identification for paper trail purposes, that you'd deposit on the ballot box and not take with you). The webpage could contain all the votes and their associated numbers. You know your number. If your employer wants your number, you can look at the website, pick any one number that votes the way your boss wanted you to vote, and give that number to him. He can't verify the number is accurate, but YOU know what your number is.
They're especially bad with things that are supposed to be extremely cheap, like cables, but nothing is really cheap there. Actually, you can buy dvd's for decent prices at best buy. That's just about the only thing I buy there unless I'm in some type of hurry and can't wait for the mail delivery time.
Oh, and before I mess up this post as well, no, newegg isn't selling their hard drives as loss leaders for cables either. You can search their site for HDMI cables and see the 10' $6.99 one and 5' power cable for $3.49. I really like newegg, most of their prices are quite reasonable, and they ship things very quickly.
Some things, however, seem to be way overpriced. Go to bestbuy.com (for example)
Well, you picked a place that sells way overpriced stuff. Especially cables. People keep telling me how HDMI cables cost $100, and if you're trying to buy them at Best Buy, you do find them at that price (although, I'm now finding "cheaper" cables. $49.99 is the cheapest I've found there. It says it's an "xbox hdmi cable", I assume microsoft doesn't have a proprietary plug and that's just a regular hdmi cable. If it's not a regular hdmi cable, then the cheapest is a $79.99 4' cable instead. On the other hand, if you do a simple google search, you'll easily find 6' cables for $6.99. Same for most other cables.
The lesson...stuff is getting cheaper, but you need to shop around before you buy. These days, with the convenience of the 'net, you have no excuse not to.
For example, both a 13-yea-old driver and a 30-year-old driver may decide that it is safe to pass a truck on the right. Both made the same poor decision, but to claim that 13-year-olds should be allowed to drive because adults may make the same poor decisions is ludicrous.
Actually, that's pretty close to a very good argument. The only problem with it is that a single sample of each age group is not enough to draw a conclusion. If you can, however, prove that roughly the same proportion of 30-year-olds make poor driving decisions as 13-year-olds, then you have absolutely no basis to claim that 13-year-olds shouldn't be allowed to drive. In fact, you'd have to compare it to a pool of 30-year-olds that have just learned to drive, because years of driving experience is likely to have made them better drivers, and it has nothing to do with maturity.
Of course, that's a very difficult study to make without a large pool of 13-year-old drivers to draw from. The cost of such a study may be a bit too high if the 13-year-olds do turn out to make significantly more bad decisions of the type that are potentially fatal.
Anderson: Okay, here's the plan. We get the data and then hold the RIAA ransom for... 15 HUNDRED dollars!
Number Two: [clears throat] Sir, strictly speaking, fifteen hundred dollars will not go very far these days. My butler alone makes over fifteen hundred dollars a week.
Anderson: Really? Okay then... we hold the RIAA ransom for 15... THOUSAND dollars!
EXACTLY what I was thinking. He must be the worst negotiator ever.
MPAA: "We would give you a nice paying job, a house, a car, anything you needed..." Anderson: "I want $15,000" MPAA: "Ok!"
It's another name for the NYF, i.e., the Nasty Yellow Face that appears periodically in the Really Big Room. It's also called the "Burning Face", the "Great Yellow Disc", "Sol", "Masaka", or "Daystar".
apple doesn't just realizes that iTS helps sell iPods. The iTunes (Music) Store idea was conceived with that in mind from the very first time.
True enough, bad choice of words on my part.
Right, so people who think Apple dislikes DRM are idiots. Use ad hominem to support your argument.
I wasn't using it to support my argument, I was just giving my opinion of those people while stating my interpretation of why they finally went no drm after years of refusing to sell music from indie artists who wanted to sell no-drm music. My personal opinion is that anyone who thinks a company is either "evil" or "good" is an idiot. A company will always do what is most profitable for them and still allowed by the laws of where they operate. All you need to do is give me one example of why it would be financially better for apple to sell music without drm other than my theory that it was only so that they wouldn't have to open fairplay to competing companies, and I'll back off from that position.
When iTunes Music Store were unveiled, Apple's Terms of Use were the most liberal out there because Jobs convinced the label executives that stupid restrictions wouldn't work and that they'd have to compete with P2P downloads without DRMs.
I agree, but there's a reason for doing that which is just not compatible with the "absolutely no DRM's" model. They were trying to sell iPods, not music (the estimates at the time were that they were essentially breaking even with their iTunes sales between costs of operation and the label cut. I don't know if that's still the case). However, the more successful the music store, the bigger the incentive to get an iPod. Allowing people to burn their cd's was a good way of doing that (and not original. Rhapsody did the same for many of their cd's, but Apple did manage to negotiate their terms so that every song sold on iTunes would also be allowed to be burnt to a cd). At the same time, making sure that the mp3's would only work with iPod also guarantees that people won't switch to another mp3 player in the future. Would people really want to go through the hassle of burning their entire iTunes bought mp3 collection and re-ripping for another player? Even if they did, they'd end up with a lower quality mp3 due to the re-encoding process. And before you mention cracking fairplay without re-encoding, that wasn't exactly supported by Apple's ToS.
They don't have to go back and beg or agree to a worse deal. iTunes Store's contracts with the labels are self-renewing.
Actually, Universal had a three-year contract that expired last year, and they were on a temporary 1-year contract since, which was not self-renewing.
It's ridiculous to think that these prices are going to last, and that when the "correction" comes, that it will be anything but drastic. Giving Amazon a great deal of business, and thus, the big labels more leverage over operations that have fought for the end users, is detrimental to online music retailing as a whole.
It's ridiculous to think that these prices are not going to fall more, maybe even to a point that I will find reasonable. Universal essentially lost the war, and now they're just trying to pick up the pieces. This is how I interpreted the whole series of events:
Universal and others start telling Apple that they want higher prices
Apple realizes that the iTunes store helps sell iPods, so they want to keep the prices reasonable. In addition, since the iPod has a huge market share, they're fairly comfortable in just saying 'no'. Plus, it's good publicity for Apple, because everyone sees them as standing up against the big bad evil labels.
Labels decide to play that game to get the higher prices. They now want "tiered" pricing. They spin it by saying that some songs are worth more than others, so why should people have to pay $0.99 when they could be paying less for the less popular songs? In truth, most songs will actually cost more and, strangely enough, the public who usually buys this sort of BS didn't fall for it.
Universal tries to find other ways of making the extra money. Gets into a sweet deal with Microsoft for royalties on every Zune sold. Then tries to use that as leverage and claims Apple should do the same.
Nobody buys the Zune.
Universal tries the tiered pricing again. Threatens to not renew their contract if they don't get it.
Apple reminds them of the huge iPod market share
Universal and other labels who want a better deal start complaining that the iPod's DRM is closed, preventing people from buying music at other stores and playing them on the iPod. If they can bypass the iTunes music store, then the iPod's huge market share doesn't matter. They could buy their songs at any store and play them with their iPod, so the labels would feel alright about not renewing their contracts with Apple.
Apple knows that the labels do have a point, and that they are using drm as a method to maintain their monopoly. They know they can't win that one in the courts, so they start this whole campaign of, "we really don't want DRM at all, but they're forcing us to do it."
The idiot public thinks that Apple really does dislike DRM. What apple is betting on instead is that the labels will be unwilling to sell music without DRM, so it's not going to be an issue. They do need to sell their bluff though, so they hook up with MGM. "You wanted higher prices for your songs, right? Well, we'll give you the higher prices if you sell no-DRM songs with us." They believe this will accomplish two goals: The first is to show that they are serious about disliking DRM, the second is that with the higher prices, few people would get the no-drm / higher bitrate songs. Few people even know what drm is, they're just going to get the lower priced version of the song.
Universal is in a really tough spot. They can't just go begging back to Apple, or they're likely to get an even worse deal then they had before (more of the $0.99 going to Apple). The lack-of-interoperability argument doesn't work anymore because of the MGM songs. They really have only one of two options. Stay with the completely irrelevant DRM model and sell songs that won't play on the iPod, or enter deal with other companies to sell DRM-free songs, so that they WILL play on the iPod.
Microsoft won't consider that, of course. Doesn't give them any advantage in selling hardware.
Wal-Mart is all about it. It will give them an edge when they launch their music store. "It plays on the iPod." They also want to be highly competitive, so they negotiate to make their songs cheaper. "It pl
You characterize as "freaking out" wht in fact would be a very calculated desciion that I know would have a lot of negative consequences for myself, but a possible upside that was much greater.
When the "possible upside" only happens in a situation that is perhaps more unlikely than getting hit by lightning...yes, I do. I don't avoid going out in the rain because I fear getting hit by lightning, although that's certainly a possible scenario. I avoid going out in the rain because I don't like getting wet.
It's not just any sets of wires and lights, is something rigged in specific shapes and patterns that in my best judgement looked too questionable to ignore - I have done a fair amount of electronics work in the past and I would not be able to ignore what she was wearing as mere fancy or artistic expression.
I'm an EE, and I question your statement for a couple of reasons. First because, even though I don't know much about bombs, I'm pretty sure that the electronics aren't the part of the bomb that blow up. It's just there to spark the explosive. So, given that the exact same circuit that causes some led's to blink at a predefined time could be used to trigger an explosive at a predefined time, the obvious conclusion is that no amount of wires and lights can ever be suspicious. If you see the explosive, worry. If you see electronics, there's nothing to fear. You don't trust a terrorist's ability to hide the damn thing in a cell phone package? If you're worried about the electronics part of the bomb, why are you afraid of just the unprofessional-looking variety?
Another reason I question your statement, is that as an EE, back when I was a freshman in college, I had to make circuits like that for homework and take it in to class (actually mine had more chips along with the led's, so maybe you'd think it was even more ominous). I'd take the breadboard with me to fast food restaurants the day they were due, and would add the finishing touches while I ate. Nobody ever blinked an eye. Well, sometimes people would ask me, "that looks cool, what is it?" but nobody was ever afraid it was a freaking bomb. So how exactly do you, having done a "fair amount of electronics work in the past" would think it was one?
You really do not grasp the potential here? That well before any security checkpoint a bomber could just go in and hurt as many people as possible? Why should I let that evetuality come to pass if I am able to prevent it? Why should anyone?
Somebody else posted an incredibly insightful comment here about that. People have bags in airports. Any one of those could conceal a bomb. Before any security checkpoint, someone with a bomb inside their luggage could just go in and hurt as many people as possible. Why are you letting that happen? Why aren't you attacking everyone with a bag? Why should you let the eventuality of someone detonating a bomb hidden in their bag before the security checkpoint come to pass if you are able to prevent it? Why should anyone? Do you not grasp the potential here?
I don't think she should receive any punishment either, but it is absolutley correct to hold her until motives can be clearly established. What if instead of it being meaningless she had gone with the intent of causing panic even if she didn't have a real bomb on here? You simply cannot let someone go who has displayed that poor a level of judgement, without some examination.
If someone wears something to a crowded place with the intent of causing panic, I agree with you that's illegal. However what I'm criticizing here is a society that would panic because someone is wearing that. I can't fathom anyone seeing that and thinking it's suspicious. Ugly maybe, but dangerous?
Being situationally ignorant is not smart.
Like I said, I wouldn't have worn that stuff to an airport either, so I agree with you the student wasn't very
I've done a fair amount of electronics and if I had seen her wandering into the airport I would have thrown my carryon at her head and dived to the floor from a distance.
And if there's still some common sense in the world, you'd be arrested for assault immediately after that.
You should not freak out everytime you see something that looks unfamiliar. In the US, we live in a pretty safe society, and if you see a kid wearing wires and lights 9,999,999 out of 10,000,000 times you can be sure it's just a form of expression.
Now, I understand that the moment she would try to cross the security checkpoint that they would pull her aside and examine her. Make sure she's not actually carrying anything dangerous. They do that to everyone, right? I have to go through the metal detector, remove my laptop from my bag, etc. If you're carrying extra stuff glued to your clothing, you should expect to have that examined to if you're going through the security checkpoint.
I can also understand that the police would show up in force with the machine guns. They got a call from an idiot employee that somebody is wearing what looks like a bomb. They need to take that seriously. However, once they saw what it was, they should have let her go on her merry way and told everyone that it was a false alarm.
She's an idiot.
Yeah, in the sense that she wasn't smart enough to realize that there are way too many idiots out there who think terrorists show up wearing breadboard with led's bombs on their chests to airports. I certainly wouldn't show up to an airport dressed like that. However, being an idiot isn't a crime. If it is, they forgot to arrest the employee that called the police.
Is there something wrong with you or something? You are aware that the news is real right? If not, it is, and again, that moots your entire point.
The news is real. TV anchors are not real journalists. It's not the same medium as newspapers. When you read a newspaper you get articles written by many different people. They were each concentrating on one story. On TV, they get Dan Rather or Katie Couric not because they're good journalists, but because they believe they have a good tv personality. People like to watch them read you the news, and/or are interested in their opinions on the news that they didn't go out and get. A bunch of other journalists still concentrated on about one story each. The anchor reads them to you.
It's the equivalent of hiring Bob to read your newspaper for you. You don't blame him for the accuracy of the news, unless he made stuff up instead of actually reading you what was on the paper you gave him.
And when you're the public face of all those people, and your reputation is the main currency you trade on, then you're taking a major risk assuming the facts you get are accurate.
Yeah. When you go someplace with your verizon phone and discover you have no coverage, I'm sure you put your fists in the air and yell, "damn the verizon 'can-you-hear-me-now-guy'!!!!1!" After all, he's the public face, right? It's not that actor's job to maintain the network, and it's not the anchor's job to fact-check.
A TV anchor is like an actor. He gets a script every night and he reads it out loud, with a concerned expression. When they're irresponsible with the news you have all the right in the world to be angry, but by placing sole responsibility on the shoulders of that one guy, you're LETTING THE REST OF THEM OFF EASY, and it's exactly what they want. If all they have to do to placate the masses is replace the anchor, they have no incentive to start doing their due diligence.
It can if you count all the people that don't use the internet?
Damn! You've just stumbled upon the Amish plan to take over the world. By not being on the internet while the rest of us dumb down, we'll soon be completely dependent on their superior intelligence!
I know that the article says this affects Rockbox, but I'm unsure as to how? Rockbox replaces the iPod software with new software. It replaces the iPod song database with its own. The hash should be meaningless to it. Of course, Rockbox doesn't yet run on the new iPods, so the point is moot right now.
Encrypting of the database shouldn't directly affect rockbox, but they've been encrypting the firmware too, and the hardware will not run unencrypted firmware. It's not only the extremely new iPods that rockbox won't run on. I got a 2nd gen nano for free that I would love to install rockbox on, but the encryption thing appears to be one of the reasons they don't have a version for it yet.
So it's not that the encryption of the database directly prevents rockbox. The encryption of the database prevents users from using Linux with the Apple firmware, and since they've been encrypting the firmware for a while, installing rockbox isn't likely to be an option anytime soon.
Hey, don't blame me, when it comes to political correctness, I'm ready to take offense any time!;)
Personally, my stance is the exact opposite. Well, maybe not exact opposite, I don't take offense at political correctness. I do make a point to not do things based on political correctness alone, though.
Well, I'm sure he didn't MEAN anything bad by it, but does the casual acceptance of it by most people make it all right?
I think it should, yeah. If the comment is designed to be derogatory to a group, that makes me angry. When a term or expression grows beyond that, well it's not derogatory anymore. Language evolves. Hell, that very word has changed meaning recently. Who says, "I'm feeling pretty gay about that" when they mean they're happy these days?
...the more I thought about it later the angrier I got, and I thought about some great comebacks - "No, that's an inanimate object. I'M gay!".
Actually, I'm surprised you got angrier the more you thought about it. After all, your very comeback should have clued you in that she meant nothing by her comment. The computer is an inanimate object, so she definitely wasn't calling it homosexual. Plenty of words you use day to day were once similarly derogatory to a particular group of people, but their origin has been forgotten over time. Take "ham radio" for example. Back in the day "ham" was slang for incompetent, and thus "ham radio operators" was a way to call a telegraph operator incompetent. Since being an amateur often means you're incompetent until you learn the ropes, it slowly became the term for amateur radio operators. When you use the term today, you're not trying to insult anyone, are you?
Maybe. Depends on how you think religion got formed. I think it's the other way around. People believe certain things, and come up with an excuse to make others believe the same thing, so they form a group telling them that some deity will punish them for eternity if they don't have the same beliefs.
Morality is realized universally - Do I really need to provide you examples to prove this wrong?
I usually use that as an argument against a coded morality set. If it's not universal, what makes you think the particular set you follow is the right one?
Morality as defined by a religion, or as defined by anything that is immutable is way overrated. We'd all be better off just doing what is best for us. I don't steal from friends and families because I value those relationships, and I don't want to risk losing them. I don't steal from strangers because I don't want to be punished for that. We as a society agree to make a law that punishes thieves because we don't want to get things stolen from us. Yay. We just arrived at the moral code, "do not steal" from an entirely logical perspective. As a bonus, I act exactly like a religious moral person would, and I don't steal.
I saw you answer the prisoner's dilemma question in another post that, without iteration, the completely moral person would get screwed. There's another reason why morality from common sense works best. If I know that you'll abide by your morals no matter what, you're screwed, I will betray you. If I know that you'll do what's best for you, and you know I'll do the same, we both can arrive at the logical conclusion that we should cooperate. Now we both have acted as if we were both moral people.
it behooves a solitary person to cooperate with an established group, but it does not necessarily follow that one GROUP must cooperate with another GROUP in order to succeed, nor does it state that a GROUP must cooperate with an INDIVIDUAL to succeed.
Nor should it be any other way. Eventually some type of equilibrium will be arrived at.
People do not always act in a manner consistent with their best advantage.
Yeah, the world isn't perfect. It will never be perfect. People don't always follow their religiously-given morals either. Need examples of that?
B does presuppose the existence of the lady, because if she didn't exist you couldn't call to her. In a similar way, God must exist, or how can you pray to him?
Ah, I guess you were joking from the beginning and I missed it? People pray to God all the time. That is in no way, shape or form proof of the existence of God. It means that if He exists, He listens. If He does not exist, nobody is listening.
Presumably such aspects as what frequencies a person big enough to cover the moon can hear and how she might hear through a vacuum are covered at A level these days
I did cover those aspects with the assumptions I said were necessary for B to work in my original post. Here they are again:
said mechanism for the eclipse is feasible based on current evidence
old lady ALWAYS knows when someone is trying to steal coins
ONLY uses her cloak when someone tries to steal coins
ALWAYS uses her cloak when someone tries to coins
that the old lady can hear you when you announce that thieves are coming
that she believes you when you make that announcement
that you run the experiment multiple times
If you assume all of those are true, and nothing happens when you call out, then the only thing left is she doesn't exist. Your God example would also work if you assumed that:
God can listen to your prayers
God always answers your prayers
If you take those two assumptions to be true (the equivalent of the assumptions I made about the old lady), and you pray to God and He doesn't answer, then He doesn't exist. Of course, this doesn't work in real life, because nobody assumes God always answers your prayers. It's unfalsifiable by science, like the example of the old lady, unless you make all of the assumptions I described. It's why scientists never try to prove or disprove the existence of God.
Now for C, the lady covers the whole moon with her cloak, not just part of it. So if there were coins, they'd have to be everywhere. So it doesn't matter where you look.
What the hell? When you try to hide something, do you just put a towel over it? We'll assume the thieves are not the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal and that just because the coins can't see them, it doesn't mean they can't see the coins. Under such a ridiculous old lady theory, if you could cover the entire moon, you'd cover the entire moon, so as to not tell the thieves exactly where in the moon the coins are. Not finding evidence of something never supports or disproves a theory. It means you go nowhere.
But, as any fule kno, eclipses are caused by a dragon that eats the moon anyway.
I like it. I'm ready to lobby for equal time in Kansas schools teaching that theory of the eclipse.
Seriously, sometimes it's not so much a case of finding the right answer, but choosing the least wrong one - or the least laughably ludicrous in this case.
I'm not arguing with the fact that I got the wrong answer. I'm arguing with the fact that all of them are laughably ludicrous. If I were taking the test because I needed to pass it, then I'm sure I'd be trying to game the test. If I'm analyzing it for its ridiculousness, I'll point out why it's entirely ridiculous. The problem is that the students are learning the wrong thing if they're preparing to answer questions like that.
B presupposes the existence of the lady.
No. B presupposes that if the lady exists then all the assumptions I mentioned in my post would have to be true. The entire hypothesis is so silly that as much as it hurt my brain to consider this, I considered it at least to be the answer that isn't altogether wrong.
That leaves C whitch at least makes partial sense - if the probe finds no coins, then she can't be protecting them.
Wrong. If the probe finds no coins, the coins could still be there. The moon is pretty big, an exhaustive search for coins is impossible. If you can prove there are no coins on the moon, you're right, but you can't do it by sending a probe.
yup. I had a serious WTF moment at that question as well. Likewise for Q1 and Q2.
Yeah, but those were completely different WTF's. For Q1 and Q2 it was, "WTF? This is an exam for 16 year-olds?" At least the questions made sense, even if they were primary school level questions.
Q5 on the other hand...I know they're trying to test if students understand the scientific method with it, but it just doesn't work. I can obviously eliminate A because questioning what people believe in isn't evidence in favor of the theory. I can eliminate D because, well, first of all I don't know where they're getting fingerprints from. The supposed gigantic cloak? I thought that I could eliminate C because even if the probe finds the coins, that doesn't prove that the reason for the ecclipse is related. I decided that B works if I made the assumptions that the said mechanism for the ecclipse is feasible based on current evidence, old lady ALWAYS knows when someone is trying to steal coins, ONLY uses her cloak when someone tries to steal coins, ALWAYS uses her cloak when someone tries to coins, that the old lady can hear you when you announce that thieves are coming, and that she believes you when you make that announcement. And that you run the experiment multiple times. Then you have evidence that supports the theory.
Turns out that the answer is C. I guess you weren't supposed to think critically. You were supposed to think, "scientists send probes. After all, we think there might be water on the mars surface, so we send probes to try to find it." Well, if someone came up with the hypothesis that mars ceases to appear red because the ghost of Picasso paints it blue when someone tries to steal martian water, scientists wouldn't really test that by sending a probe to mars in an attempt to find water. The only hypothesis sending the probe tries to prove is whether or not there is water on mars. The only hypothesis answer C can prove is whether or not there are coins on mars. And you can't disprove the existence of said coins by sending the probe either, unless you can be relatively sure that the probe can cover the ENTIRE surface of the planet. Using the water on mars's surface example again, we have other reasons to believe that it might be possible. Finding it proves that it does exist. Not finding it proves nothing, and we keep looking. Finding conditions that indicate it would be impossible for liquid water to exist on the surface would prove it doesn't exist...
Basically, the people making the test don't understand the concepts they are trying to test.
5. Our moon seems to 'disappear' during an ecclipse. Some people say that this is because an old lady covers the Moon with her cloak. She does this so that thieves cannot steal the shiny coins on the surface. Which of these would help scientists to prove or disprove this idea?
A. Collect evidence from people who believe the lady sees the thieves
B. Shout to the lady that the thieves are coming
C. Send a probe to the Moon to search for coins
D. Look for fingerprints
As long as you're polite and make a point it can only help the adoption of Free software. Show these people that we're not zealots and offer them a way out of the WGA doldrums!
It sounds like your heart is in the right place, but I don't think the Windows users will see astroturfers in the WGA forums as non-zealots. You're actually making the Linux users sound like the guys who post things like, "I don't even own a TV, and now I my quality of life has improved 10-fold" in TV-related topics. That's all well and good, but it doesn't solve their problem. They want to use windows, and even though linux doesn't have to deal with the WGA bs, it's not windows. I think we really need to admit that regardless of how much we may like linux for whatever reasons, other people may not care about our reasons. Let them use what they want.
Best way of getting people into linux is one person at a time, with people that you actually know. Set up your desktop up with some nice compiz eye-candy (the majority of people like that stuff), and the people who see you use it will be interested. Then they will ask you about it and you can say, "it's linux. It's free, and you can have it too."
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Calories in, calories out works in a lab environment where you can measure intake, consumption methods, and waste precisely. You cannot do that with humans. There are too many variables.
You don't know what your calories out are
You don't know what your calories in are
Which would be a great point if I was trying to determine exactly how much I should eat to lose 10.3 lbs in 35.7 days. However, I don't need anywhere near the precision you're talking about there. There aren't "too many variables." There's only one variable that matters: Calories. So I don't know exactly how many calories the broccoli I'm eating or the meat I'm eating has. However, those tests are pretty good estimates in telling me the calorie density of foods, and I can substitute more calorie dense foods (like chocolate cakes) with less calorie dense foods (like fruits) and know that I'm eating less calories. Then I can weigh myself and see if I'm losing weight. If I'm not, I can eat less and / or exercise more (use up more calories) until I do start losing weight. It will work. Guaranteed. Because the only thing that matters is that I eat less calories than I use up and I will lose weight. It doesn't matter what the exact numbers are.
And I lost 50 lbs recently by doing just that. And my roommate lost 100 lbs by doing that. And another friend lost about 40. I don't know anyone who actually stuck with said method and didn't lose weight. And if I did know someone, and verified it, I'd tell him to go claim James Randi's prize, because it would be a physics-defying supernatural event.
Now to be fair, it can be complicated, because of the psychological aspects of dieting. Dieting sucks, and if you don't stick with it, it won't work. I have cravings for chocolate cakes and I hate fruit. So any diet that gives you a little cheating room and is based on substituting calorie dense foods with less calorie dense foods is likely to be more successful then diets that give you extremely small portions of food and don't allow you to ever have days off, simply because I'm not likely to have the willpower to stick with that second diet. In addition, you need to make sure you're getting your proper nutrition from whatever diet you're at if you want to remain healthy.
So, there are diets that are better than others, but the losing weight equation just boils down to calories.
Well, how else would he maintain his reputation as a miracle worker? I assume he also multiplied his estimates to fix the problem by four.
Not necessarily. When you vote, a randomly generated number could be displayed at the screen, and you'd be responsible for memorizing it or writing it down if you want to double check later (you don't get a printed receipt with your number, but the machine would print a human readable ballot without any identification for paper trail purposes, that you'd deposit on the ballot box and not take with you). The webpage could contain all the votes and their associated numbers. You know your number. If your employer wants your number, you can look at the website, pick any one number that votes the way your boss wanted you to vote, and give that number to him. He can't verify the number is accurate, but YOU know what your number is.
Sorry, I did understand your point, but got stuck on the cable thing and didn't finish the argument. My fault.
The point I was trying to make was that bestbuy just sells overpriced stuff. Period. They're not selling hard drives as loss leaders to get people to buy their other stuff. Their hard drives (cheapest internal 500gb $139.99) are also overpriced compared to other places ($99.99, same specs)
They're especially bad with things that are supposed to be extremely cheap, like cables, but nothing is really cheap there. Actually, you can buy dvd's for decent prices at best buy. That's just about the only thing I buy there unless I'm in some type of hurry and can't wait for the mail delivery time.
Oh, and before I mess up this post as well, no, newegg isn't selling their hard drives as loss leaders for cables either. You can search their site for HDMI cables and see the 10' $6.99 one and 5' power cable for $3.49. I really like newegg, most of their prices are quite reasonable, and they ship things very quickly.
Well, you picked a place that sells way overpriced stuff. Especially cables. People keep telling me how HDMI cables cost $100, and if you're trying to buy them at Best Buy, you do find them at that price (although, I'm now finding "cheaper" cables. $49.99 is the cheapest I've found there. It says it's an "xbox hdmi cable", I assume microsoft doesn't have a proprietary plug and that's just a regular hdmi cable. If it's not a regular hdmi cable, then the cheapest is a $79.99 4' cable instead. On the other hand, if you do a simple google search, you'll easily find 6' cables for $6.99. Same for most other cables.
The lesson...stuff is getting cheaper, but you need to shop around before you buy. These days, with the convenience of the 'net, you have no excuse not to.
Actually, that's pretty close to a very good argument. The only problem with it is that a single sample of each age group is not enough to draw a conclusion. If you can, however, prove that roughly the same proportion of 30-year-olds make poor driving decisions as 13-year-olds, then you have absolutely no basis to claim that 13-year-olds shouldn't be allowed to drive. In fact, you'd have to compare it to a pool of 30-year-olds that have just learned to drive, because years of driving experience is likely to have made them better drivers, and it has nothing to do with maturity.
Of course, that's a very difficult study to make without a large pool of 13-year-old drivers to draw from. The cost of such a study may be a bit too high if the 13-year-olds do turn out to make significantly more bad decisions of the type that are potentially fatal.
EXACTLY what I was thinking. He must be the worst negotiator ever.
MPAA: "We would give you a nice paying job, a house, a car, anything you needed..."
Anderson: "I want $15,000"
MPAA: "Ok!"
"Masaka". Thanks, you made a trekkie laugh.
True enough, bad choice of words on my part.
Right, so people who think Apple dislikes DRM are idiots. Use ad hominem to support your argument.I wasn't using it to support my argument, I was just giving my opinion of those people while stating my interpretation of why they finally went no drm after years of refusing to sell music from indie artists who wanted to sell no-drm music. My personal opinion is that anyone who thinks a company is either "evil" or "good" is an idiot. A company will always do what is most profitable for them and still allowed by the laws of where they operate. All you need to do is give me one example of why it would be financially better for apple to sell music without drm other than my theory that it was only so that they wouldn't have to open fairplay to competing companies, and I'll back off from that position.
When iTunes Music Store were unveiled, Apple's Terms of Use were the most liberal out there because Jobs convinced the label executives that stupid restrictions wouldn't work and that they'd have to compete with P2P downloads without DRMs.I agree, but there's a reason for doing that which is just not compatible with the "absolutely no DRM's" model. They were trying to sell iPods, not music (the estimates at the time were that they were essentially breaking even with their iTunes sales between costs of operation and the label cut. I don't know if that's still the case). However, the more successful the music store, the bigger the incentive to get an iPod. Allowing people to burn their cd's was a good way of doing that (and not original. Rhapsody did the same for many of their cd's, but Apple did manage to negotiate their terms so that every song sold on iTunes would also be allowed to be burnt to a cd). At the same time, making sure that the mp3's would only work with iPod also guarantees that people won't switch to another mp3 player in the future. Would people really want to go through the hassle of burning their entire iTunes bought mp3 collection and re-ripping for another player? Even if they did, they'd end up with a lower quality mp3 due to the re-encoding process. And before you mention cracking fairplay without re-encoding, that wasn't exactly supported by Apple's ToS.
They don't have to go back and beg or agree to a worse deal. iTunes Store's contracts with the labels are self-renewing.Actually, Universal had a three-year contract that expired last year, and they were on a temporary 1-year contract since, which was not self-renewing.
It's ridiculous to think that these prices are going to last, and that when the "correction" comes, that it will be anything but drastic. Giving Amazon a great deal of business, and thus, the big labels more leverage over operations that have fought for the end users, is detrimental to online music retailing as a whole.
It's ridiculous to think that these prices are not going to fall more, maybe even to a point that I will find reasonable. Universal essentially lost the war, and now they're just trying to pick up the pieces. This is how I interpreted the whole series of events:
Don't know if they're making a Thundercats movie, but you haven't seen the Get Smart trailer?
You characterize as "freaking out" wht in fact would be a very calculated desciion that I know would have a lot of negative consequences for myself, but a possible upside that was much greater.
When the "possible upside" only happens in a situation that is perhaps more unlikely than getting hit by lightning...yes, I do. I don't avoid going out in the rain because I fear getting hit by lightning, although that's certainly a possible scenario. I avoid going out in the rain because I don't like getting wet.
It's not just any sets of wires and lights, is something rigged in specific shapes and patterns that in my best judgement looked too questionable to ignore - I have done a fair amount of electronics work in the past and I would not be able to ignore what she was wearing as mere fancy or artistic expression.
I'm an EE, and I question your statement for a couple of reasons. First because, even though I don't know much about bombs, I'm pretty sure that the electronics aren't the part of the bomb that blow up. It's just there to spark the explosive. So, given that the exact same circuit that causes some led's to blink at a predefined time could be used to trigger an explosive at a predefined time, the obvious conclusion is that no amount of wires and lights can ever be suspicious. If you see the explosive, worry. If you see electronics, there's nothing to fear. You don't trust a terrorist's ability to hide the damn thing in a cell phone package? If you're worried about the electronics part of the bomb, why are you afraid of just the unprofessional-looking variety?
Another reason I question your statement, is that as an EE, back when I was a freshman in college, I had to make circuits like that for homework and take it in to class (actually mine had more chips along with the led's, so maybe you'd think it was even more ominous). I'd take the breadboard with me to fast food restaurants the day they were due, and would add the finishing touches while I ate. Nobody ever blinked an eye. Well, sometimes people would ask me, "that looks cool, what is it?" but nobody was ever afraid it was a freaking bomb. So how exactly do you, having done a "fair amount of electronics work in the past" would think it was one?
You really do not grasp the potential here? That well before any security checkpoint a bomber could just go in and hurt as many people as possible? Why should I let that evetuality come to pass if I am able to prevent it? Why should anyone?
Somebody else posted an incredibly insightful comment here about that. People have bags in airports. Any one of those could conceal a bomb. Before any security checkpoint, someone with a bomb inside their luggage could just go in and hurt as many people as possible. Why are you letting that happen? Why aren't you attacking everyone with a bag? Why should you let the eventuality of someone detonating a bomb hidden in their bag before the security checkpoint come to pass if you are able to prevent it? Why should anyone? Do you not grasp the potential here?
I don't think she should receive any punishment either, but it is absolutley correct to hold her until motives can be clearly established. What if instead of it being meaningless she had gone with the intent of causing panic even if she didn't have a real bomb on here? You simply cannot let someone go who has displayed that poor a level of judgement, without some examination.
If someone wears something to a crowded place with the intent of causing panic, I agree with you that's illegal. However what I'm criticizing here is a society that would panic because someone is wearing that. I can't fathom anyone seeing that and thinking it's suspicious. Ugly maybe, but dangerous?
Being situationally ignorant is not smart.
Like I said, I wouldn't have worn that stuff to an airport either, so I agree with you the student wasn't very
And if there's still some common sense in the world, you'd be arrested for assault immediately after that.
You should not freak out everytime you see something that looks unfamiliar. In the US, we live in a pretty safe society, and if you see a kid wearing wires and lights 9,999,999 out of 10,000,000 times you can be sure it's just a form of expression.
Now, I understand that the moment she would try to cross the security checkpoint that they would pull her aside and examine her. Make sure she's not actually carrying anything dangerous. They do that to everyone, right? I have to go through the metal detector, remove my laptop from my bag, etc. If you're carrying extra stuff glued to your clothing, you should expect to have that examined to if you're going through the security checkpoint.
I can also understand that the police would show up in force with the machine guns. They got a call from an idiot employee that somebody is wearing what looks like a bomb. They need to take that seriously. However, once they saw what it was, they should have let her go on her merry way and told everyone that it was a false alarm.
She's an idiot.Yeah, in the sense that she wasn't smart enough to realize that there are way too many idiots out there who think terrorists show up wearing breadboard with led's bombs on their chests to airports. I certainly wouldn't show up to an airport dressed like that. However, being an idiot isn't a crime. If it is, they forgot to arrest the employee that called the police.
The news is real. TV anchors are not real journalists. It's not the same medium as newspapers. When you read a newspaper you get articles written by many different people. They were each concentrating on one story. On TV, they get Dan Rather or Katie Couric not because they're good journalists, but because they believe they have a good tv personality. People like to watch them read you the news, and/or are interested in their opinions on the news that they didn't go out and get. A bunch of other journalists still concentrated on about one story each. The anchor reads them to you.
It's the equivalent of hiring Bob to read your newspaper for you. You don't blame him for the accuracy of the news, unless he made stuff up instead of actually reading you what was on the paper you gave him.
Yeah. When you go someplace with your verizon phone and discover you have no coverage, I'm sure you put your fists in the air and yell, "damn the verizon 'can-you-hear-me-now-guy'!!!!1!" After all, he's the public face, right? It's not that actor's job to maintain the network, and it's not the anchor's job to fact-check.
A TV anchor is like an actor. He gets a script every night and he reads it out loud, with a concerned expression. When they're irresponsible with the news you have all the right in the world to be angry, but by placing sole responsibility on the shoulders of that one guy, you're LETTING THE REST OF THEM OFF EASY, and it's exactly what they want. If all they have to do to placate the masses is replace the anchor, they have no incentive to start doing their due diligence.
Damn! You've just stumbled upon the Amish plan to take over the world. By not being on the internet while the rest of us dumb down, we'll soon be completely dependent on their superior intelligence!
Encrypting of the database shouldn't directly affect rockbox, but they've been encrypting the firmware too, and the hardware will not run unencrypted firmware. It's not only the extremely new iPods that rockbox won't run on. I got a 2nd gen nano for free that I would love to install rockbox on, but the encryption thing appears to be one of the reasons they don't have a version for it yet.
So it's not that the encryption of the database directly prevents rockbox. The encryption of the database prevents users from using Linux with the Apple firmware, and since they've been encrypting the firmware for a while, installing rockbox isn't likely to be an option anytime soon.
Personally, my stance is the exact opposite. Well, maybe not exact opposite, I don't take offense at political correctness. I do make a point to not do things based on political correctness alone, though.
Well, I'm sure he didn't MEAN anything bad by it, but does the casual acceptance of it by most people make it all right?I think it should, yeah. If the comment is designed to be derogatory to a group, that makes me angry. When a term or expression grows beyond that, well it's not derogatory anymore. Language evolves. Hell, that very word has changed meaning recently. Who says, "I'm feeling pretty gay about that" when they mean they're happy these days?
...the more I thought about it later the angrier I got, and I thought about some great comebacks - "No, that's an inanimate object. I'M gay!".Actually, I'm surprised you got angrier the more you thought about it. After all, your very comeback should have clued you in that she meant nothing by her comment. The computer is an inanimate object, so she definitely wasn't calling it homosexual. Plenty of words you use day to day were once similarly derogatory to a particular group of people, but their origin has been forgotten over time. Take "ham radio" for example. Back in the day "ham" was slang for incompetent, and thus "ham radio operators" was a way to call a telegraph operator incompetent. Since being an amateur often means you're incompetent until you learn the ropes, it slowly became the term for amateur radio operators. When you use the term today, you're not trying to insult anyone, are you?
To the non-Portuguese speaking among us, that'd be the Milky Way.
Maybe. Depends on how you think religion got formed. I think it's the other way around. People believe certain things, and come up with an excuse to make others believe the same thing, so they form a group telling them that some deity will punish them for eternity if they don't have the same beliefs.
Morality is realized universally - Do I really need to provide you examples to prove this wrong?I usually use that as an argument against a coded morality set. If it's not universal, what makes you think the particular set you follow is the right one?
Morality as defined by a religion, or as defined by anything that is immutable is way overrated. We'd all be better off just doing what is best for us. I don't steal from friends and families because I value those relationships, and I don't want to risk losing them. I don't steal from strangers because I don't want to be punished for that. We as a society agree to make a law that punishes thieves because we don't want to get things stolen from us. Yay. We just arrived at the moral code, "do not steal" from an entirely logical perspective. As a bonus, I act exactly like a religious moral person would, and I don't steal.
I saw you answer the prisoner's dilemma question in another post that, without iteration, the completely moral person would get screwed. There's another reason why morality from common sense works best. If I know that you'll abide by your morals no matter what, you're screwed, I will betray you. If I know that you'll do what's best for you, and you know I'll do the same, we both can arrive at the logical conclusion that we should cooperate. Now we both have acted as if we were both moral people.
it behooves a solitary person to cooperate with an established group, but it does not necessarily follow that one GROUP must cooperate with another GROUP in order to succeed, nor does it state that a GROUP must cooperate with an INDIVIDUAL to succeed.Nor should it be any other way. Eventually some type of equilibrium will be arrived at.
People do not always act in a manner consistent with their best advantage.Yeah, the world isn't perfect. It will never be perfect. People don't always follow their religiously-given morals either. Need examples of that?
Ah, I guess you were joking from the beginning and I missed it? People pray to God all the time. That is in no way, shape or form proof of the existence of God. It means that if He exists, He listens. If He does not exist, nobody is listening.
Presumably such aspects as what frequencies a person big enough to cover the moon can hear and how she might hear through a vacuum are covered at A level these daysI did cover those aspects with the assumptions I said were necessary for B to work in my original post. Here they are again:
If you assume all of those are true, and nothing happens when you call out, then the only thing left is she doesn't exist. Your God example would also work if you assumed that:
If you take those two assumptions to be true (the equivalent of the assumptions I made about the old lady), and you pray to God and He doesn't answer, then He doesn't exist. Of course, this doesn't work in real life, because nobody assumes God always answers your prayers. It's unfalsifiable by science, like the example of the old lady, unless you make all of the assumptions I described. It's why scientists never try to prove or disprove the existence of God.
Now for C, the lady covers the whole moon with her cloak, not just part of it. So if there were coins, they'd have to be everywhere. So it doesn't matter where you look.What the hell? When you try to hide something, do you just put a towel over it? We'll assume the thieves are not the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal and that just because the coins can't see them, it doesn't mean they can't see the coins. Under such a ridiculous old lady theory, if you could cover the entire moon, you'd cover the entire moon, so as to not tell the thieves exactly where in the moon the coins are. Not finding evidence of something never supports or disproves a theory. It means you go nowhere.
But, as any fule kno, eclipses are caused by a dragon that eats the moon anyway.I like it. I'm ready to lobby for equal time in Kansas schools teaching that theory of the eclipse.
I'm not arguing with the fact that I got the wrong answer. I'm arguing with the fact that all of them are laughably ludicrous. If I were taking the test because I needed to pass it, then I'm sure I'd be trying to game the test. If I'm analyzing it for its ridiculousness, I'll point out why it's entirely ridiculous. The problem is that the students are learning the wrong thing if they're preparing to answer questions like that.
B presupposes the existence of the lady.No. B presupposes that if the lady exists then all the assumptions I mentioned in my post would have to be true. The entire hypothesis is so silly that as much as it hurt my brain to consider this, I considered it at least to be the answer that isn't altogether wrong.
That leaves C whitch at least makes partial sense - if the probe finds no coins, then she can't be protecting them.Wrong. If the probe finds no coins, the coins could still be there. The moon is pretty big, an exhaustive search for coins is impossible. If you can prove there are no coins on the moon, you're right, but you can't do it by sending a probe.
Yeah, but those were completely different WTF's. For Q1 and Q2 it was, "WTF? This is an exam for 16 year-olds?" At least the questions made sense, even if they were primary school level questions.
Q5 on the other hand...I know they're trying to test if students understand the scientific method with it, but it just doesn't work. I can obviously eliminate A because questioning what people believe in isn't evidence in favor of the theory. I can eliminate D because, well, first of all I don't know where they're getting fingerprints from. The supposed gigantic cloak? I thought that I could eliminate C because even if the probe finds the coins, that doesn't prove that the reason for the ecclipse is related. I decided that B works if I made the assumptions that the said mechanism for the ecclipse is feasible based on current evidence, old lady ALWAYS knows when someone is trying to steal coins, ONLY uses her cloak when someone tries to steal coins, ALWAYS uses her cloak when someone tries to coins, that the old lady can hear you when you announce that thieves are coming, and that she believes you when you make that announcement. And that you run the experiment multiple times. Then you have evidence that supports the theory.
Turns out that the answer is C. I guess you weren't supposed to think critically. You were supposed to think, "scientists send probes. After all, we think there might be water on the mars surface, so we send probes to try to find it." Well, if someone came up with the hypothesis that mars ceases to appear red because the ghost of Picasso paints it blue when someone tries to steal martian water, scientists wouldn't really test that by sending a probe to mars in an attempt to find water. The only hypothesis sending the probe tries to prove is whether or not there is water on mars. The only hypothesis answer C can prove is whether or not there are coins on mars. And you can't disprove the existence of said coins by sending the probe either, unless you can be relatively sure that the probe can cover the ENTIRE surface of the planet. Using the water on mars's surface example again, we have other reasons to believe that it might be possible. Finding it proves that it does exist. Not finding it proves nothing, and we keep looking. Finding conditions that indicate it would be impossible for liquid water to exist on the surface would prove it doesn't exist...
Basically, the people making the test don't understand the concepts they are trying to test.
From the exam...
5. Our moon seems to 'disappear' during an ecclipse. Some people say that this is because an old lady covers the Moon with her cloak. She does this so that thieves cannot steal the shiny coins on the surface. Which of these would help scientists to prove or disprove this idea?
A. Collect evidence from people who believe the lady sees the thieves
B. Shout to the lady that the thieves are coming
C. Send a probe to the Moon to search for coins
D. Look for fingerprints
What...the...fuck?
It sounds like your heart is in the right place, but I don't think the Windows users will see astroturfers in the WGA forums as non-zealots. You're actually making the Linux users sound like the guys who post things like, "I don't even own a TV, and now I my quality of life has improved 10-fold" in TV-related topics. That's all well and good, but it doesn't solve their problem. They want to use windows, and even though linux doesn't have to deal with the WGA bs, it's not windows. I think we really need to admit that regardless of how much we may like linux for whatever reasons, other people may not care about our reasons. Let them use what they want.
Best way of getting people into linux is one person at a time, with people that you actually know. Set up your desktop up with some nice compiz eye-candy (the majority of people like that stuff), and the people who see you use it will be interested. Then they will ask you about it and you can say, "it's linux. It's free, and you can have it too."