Some of the things I've taken comfort in as I age are:
With all the apparent medical research findings cranked out each year, maybe somethings that hit our parents (arthritis, heart disease, cognitive decline, lower energy, cancer, etc.) will be eased or cured for our generaly, or at worst or childrens' generation.
Our children have a good shot at being better off than we are.
But if the fundamental indicator of that progress: publisued scientific results, contains a potentially large and unknown degree of misinformation, then my hopes are called into question.
I mean, obviously some progress is being made. We see that in the life expectancy statistics, in cancer survival rates, etc. But how much potential are we missing due to bogus publications?
Seriously - I've only really liked a handful of games over the past decade+: StarCraft1, Diablo2, Civ III, UT2004. But I'm really looking forward to Diablo III. I think it will definitely enter my small personal Pantheon of beloved, replayable games.
Weather simulations are very useful. Doesn't that doom this effort to producing a very useful result?
Not necessarily. My basic concern is that weather is chaotic, and probably something dependent upon the weather has its own intrinisic chaotic properties even if the speicied weather were accurately forecast. So I'm thinking that the overall simulated system would have a composite degree of chaos much greater than that of just the global weather system.
Weather is a chaotic system, and weather affects living things in very significant ways. I'm sure there are plenty of other chaotic non-linearities in what they're trying to simulate as well.
Doesn't such instability doom any world simulator to crappy fidelity?
My high school science teachers taught us how to be past, not future, scientists. We badly repeated experiments with known outcomes to confirm models about which we didn't care. I would not say it was very inspirational.
There just might be something to this future scienist idea.
I wonder if this is a traditional quorum-sensing problem?
None of us can be bothered to march on Washington to demonstrate because each of us feels only a handful of others would show up. When in fact, none of us really knows for sure how many like-minded citizens would join us.
If the FBI did this without a court order, wouldn't they have been in breech of laws regarding attempted wiretapping and/or unauthorized computer access?
If so, have we just accepted that the FBI, CIA, and NSA break laws with impunity, and that there's nothing we can do about it?
It seems to me that if they cleared 1400+ bugs between Beta 7 and Beta 8, then there's a whole lot of significant bugs that still need to be fixed. That doesn't sound like what I'd call "Beta".
... they go there to have their preconceptions re-enforced.
I suspect this is a problem for all persons regardless of political persuasion.
Anyone know if there's a good study that looks into how conservatives, liberals, etc. differ in their openness to changing their belief about non-metaphysical matters when presented with contradictory evidence?
Are you claiming that news shows giving both sides of a story is a _bad_ thing?
Yes, if one of the sides is clearly false. Ignorance is not a point of view.
Clear to whom?
I think most of us have a certain bad tendancy: When we're super-sure of something we believe, we assume that people holding contary views are stupid and/or evil. And this happens to members of all sides of a contentious issue.
So if we followed your advice, the only views that would get news coverage are those espoused by whoever's in power at the time. And there may be a very weak correlation between who's in power and who's correct (consider the George W. Bush years).
Overall I wouldn't recommend adopting your policy.
I was under the impression that flu was also spread by a carrier touching a surface, then someone else touching it, then touching his eyes or mouth. And if people aren't sneezing/coughing like crazy, I would expect this shared-surfaces issue to be the dominant way the flu is spread.
If I'm right, wouldn't their approach have a serious problem getting data on these shared-surface transmissions?
It seems like the dominant trend in U.S. legislation is that if favors rich corporiations and individuals, at the cost of what seem like basic freedoms of common citizens.
Does anyone know, historically, whether all countries have this trend? And if so, historically, what things (if any) have lead to the reversa of these trends? I.e., does it require a reboot (i.e., full-blown revoluion), or is even that never enough?
"but who cares if Keanu Reeves is fighting a raptor on top of a truck that's racing around the deck off a cruise liner that's going to explode if it goes below the speed of sound"
Sir, I do think I'd pay to see that.
I don't care if I see it or not, but I'd definitely pay to have Keanu put into that situation.
1. A bill is written by the lobbyists working the House of Repersentatives.
2. A related bill is written by lobbyists working the Senate.
3. The House and Senate congressmen meet and work out their lobbyists' differences. This process is called Reconciliation.
4. The Representatives and Senators consult with their lobbyists one more time and then vote on the reconciled legislation.
5. The bill now heads to the President for ratification. If he's a Democrate, he confirms that the bill is completely at odds with his campaign promises. If he's a Republican, he confirms that it's completely consistent with all of his campaign promises except those about smaller and limited government. Then he signs it.
Slashdot Mirror
Some of the things I've taken comfort in as I age are:
But if the fundamental indicator of that progress: publisued scientific results, contains a potentially large and unknown degree of misinformation, then my hopes are called into question.
I mean, obviously some progress is being made. We see that in the life expectancy statistics, in cancer survival rates, etc. But how much potential are we missing due to bogus publications?
Diablo III
Seriously - I've only really liked a handful of games over the past decade+: StarCraft1, Diablo2, Civ III, UT2004. But I'm really looking forward to Diablo III. I think it will definitely enter my small personal Pantheon of beloved, replayable games.
Not necessarily. My basic concern is that weather is chaotic, and probably something dependent upon the weather has its own intrinisic chaotic properties even if the speicied weather were accurately forecast. So I'm thinking that the overall simulated system would have a composite degree of chaos much greater than that of just the global weather system.
But if the system converges to a fixpoint, the infinite recursion can be avoided, right?
Not that it seems likely to actually convege to a fixpoint. I'm just thinking aloud.
Weather is a chaotic system, and weather affects living things in very significant ways. I'm sure there are plenty of other chaotic non-linearities in what they're trying to simulate as well.
Doesn't such instability doom any world simulator to crappy fidelity?
My high school science teachers taught us how to be past, not future, scientists. We badly repeated experiments with known outcomes to confirm models about which we didn't care. I would not say it was very inspirational.
There just might be something to this future scienist idea.
If you mean literally, absolutely!
This has the smell of something that's so moronic that (for real) it will never get very far.
That, and I'm sure makers of non-Windows devices will be exercising the EU court system like it's going out of style.
Maybe the football game is playing on 5chan as well?
I wonder if this is a traditional quorum-sensing problem?
None of us can be bothered to march on Washington to demonstrate because each of us feels only a handful of others would show up. When in fact, none of us really knows for sure how many like-minded citizens would join us.
If the FBI did this without a court order, wouldn't they have been in breech of laws regarding attempted wiretapping and/or unauthorized computer access?
If so, have we just accepted that the FBI, CIA, and NSA break laws with impunity, and that there's nothing we can do about it?
It seems to me that if they cleared 1400+ bugs between Beta 7 and Beta 8, then there's a whole lot of significant bugs that still need to be fixed. That doesn't sound like what I'd call "Beta".
Any chance that such cooperation between companies meets the legal definition of collusion or trust?
Because if the top melted first, there would be hot, salty, stick fluid running down the hard pillar?
I can see why they'd be troubled.
That's it, I'm keeping my i on you...
I suspect this is a problem for all persons regardless of political persuasion.
Anyone know if there's a good study that looks into how conservatives, liberals, etc. differ in their openness to changing their belief about non-metaphysical matters when presented with contradictory evidence?
Clear to whom?
I think most of us have a certain bad tendancy: When we're super-sure of something we believe, we assume that people holding contary views are stupid and/or evil. And this happens to members of all sides of a contentious issue.
So if we followed your advice, the only views that would get news coverage are those espoused by whoever's in power at the time. And there may be a very weak correlation between who's in power and who's correct (consider the George W. Bush years).
Overall I wouldn't recommend adopting your policy.
There goes that "Liberté" thing you fought for. Better luck next time.
Look it didn't even take me three minutes to crack his account.
"Anonymous Coward"? Thanks hoser, now the Airforce is going to block access to Slashdot!
I was under the impression that flu was also spread by a carrier touching a surface, then someone else touching it, then touching his eyes or mouth. And if people aren't sneezing/coughing like crazy, I would expect this shared-surfaces issue to be the dominant way the flu is spread.
If I'm right, wouldn't their approach have a serious problem getting data on these shared-surface transmissions?
So its results are unquestionably incorrect and/or irrelevant?
It seems like the dominant trend in U.S. legislation is that if favors rich corporiations and individuals, at the cost of what seem like basic freedoms of common citizens.
Does anyone know, historically, whether all countries have this trend? And if so, historically, what things (if any) have lead to the reversa of these trends? I.e., does it require a reboot (i.e., full-blown revoluion), or is even that never enough?
I don't care if I see it or not, but I'd definitely pay to have Keanu put into that situation.
I still do! These days I expect to see drivers texting.
1. A bill is written by the lobbyists working the House of Repersentatives.
2. A related bill is written by lobbyists working the Senate.
3. The House and Senate congressmen meet and work out their lobbyists' differences. This process is called Reconciliation.
4. The Representatives and Senators consult with their lobbyists one more time and then vote on the reconciled legislation.
5. The bill now heads to the President for ratification. If he's a Democrate, he confirms that the bill is completely at odds with his campaign promises. If he's a Republican, he confirms that it's completely consistent with all of his campaign promises except those about smaller and limited government. Then he signs it.