As has been shown in the past, Britannica is chock full of errors, about as many as Wikipedia for the articles that were compared. And, who knows about the neutrality of Britannica's articles? They have "50 levels of fact checking" and yet they still leave glaring omissions and outright falsehoods; nobody has even begun to examine the neutrality of Britannica's articles.
Yes, you understand the buzz words. Now take a course or two for a real understanding:) (and no, a generic wishy-washy book with pretty pictures for the layman doesn't count)
"We aren't able to make observations from several million or billion years ago so we cannot tell whether or not these constants change or at what rate."
Look out at the stars. You're seeing them as they appeared several million or billion years ago. The light that you now see from the sun is 8 minutes old, for comparison. All the data we collect from outer space is historical information--how the universe was in the past.
It appears that I was wrong about the prank, although I place the blame on the person from whom I heard it second-hand; I clearly recall him saying it was in Rock 301, and that it was a class of Krauss's, and that those exact words were written on the board. It was inappropriate for me to jump to this conclusion without more evidence.
As for the Hawking lecture, I was there, and whether it was intentional or not, I remember thinking immediately that Krauss had "swiped" the award from Hundert to present to Hawking.
As for the dark matter quote in the school paper, it sounded much more exaggerated than reality, and I recall several students in the dept saying the statement was ridiculous; I myself have not looked at Krauss's published papers. It was inappropriate for me to jump to this conclusion without more evidence.
As for the secretary, I only assumed that it had something to do with Krauss, since I had seen him go into the office, and I didn't see any evidence that she was physically hurt; regardless, I found that whole event quite appalling, and it stuck with me. It was inappropriate for me to jump to this conclusion without more evidence.
So, in the end, it's obvious I'm quite bitter, more about the entire school than just the physics dept, and I apologize for jumping to conclusions, and trusting hearsay.
"1. The prank you mentioned was an April Fool's joke carried out on another very popular professor, and had nothing to do with Prof. Krauss at all... there was nothing written on any blackboard... just had the chairs turned around in advance of a big undergrad class before a test."
I heard it second-hand. I can't help if you say I heard it wrong, although yours is hearsay just as much as mine. At least I am logged in. You could be anybody.
"Prof. Krauss chaired the Michelson-Morley Prize committee that gave the prize to Hawking, and Prof. Krauss brought him to Case for a meeting he had organized, and the award event was coordinated to coincide with that meeting. The President was invited to present the award to Hawking, which he did, along with a Trustee of the University."
Nope, you are wrong. I was at the event, very close to the stage. While the President did indeed hold the award as he talked about presenting it, it was ultimately Krauss who took the award and presented it. I don't care how involved he was in planning the day. It was clear that the President was going to give the award to Hawking, and Krauss decided he should be the one to do it, and kindly swiped the award from the President.
Krauss is always pulling stunts like this. I was a physics undergrad in his dept., and recall hearing about a huge prank that was pulled on a class he taught:
In Rockefeller 301, the main lecture room, there are maybe a hundred old uncomfortable desks bolted to the floor. One night, some students from his class came in, unbolted all the desks, turned them around, then bolted them back down. One of them wrote on the chalkboard in big letters, "Krauss's big head turns students away!" They had to cancel several classes early the next day, as maintenance rushed in to turn all the desks back around. The funny thing is that the comment remained on the chalkboard for a week or so after the incident--apparently everyone was in agreement about it.
Another interesting incident... at the Stephen Hawking lecture a few years ago, when the school randomly decided to give him the Michelson Morley award (basically because they would never get another person so esteemed to talk at the school), the interim president (Hundert) of the school was giving a lecture, holding the award, and getting ready to present it. As he was about to bring the award over to Hawking, Krauss does some sort of stunt in grabbing the award away from Hundert without looking weird, and takes it over to Hawking. He then gets his photo opportunity with Hawking.
I also recall earlier that day, during Krauss's lecture, and later quoted in the school paper, him mentioning that he was one of the key figures behind dark matter research, which is total nonsense.
One final example that I remember way back as a freshman: I was sitting outside the professors' offices waiting for someone, and heard some yelling, then saw Krauss's secretary run out in a total fit, tears streaming from her eyes, face bright red. She's still around today though, so they must be paying her a lot. I don't think anyone could handle him on a daily basis for less than $60k a year.
"If he diverges far enough from what his constituents want, he will likely not get re-elected, but that's an entirely different matter."
As I already said, you're assuming that his constituents will pay enough attention to everything he does to realize when he is not looking out for their interests. More than likely, he can simply win them over with one key polarizing issue, as I already said.
"As such, donating to a candidate that thinks the way you do is the best way to show support for them, not buying their vote on key issues."
I would have thought that the best and fairest way to show support for a candidate who you agree with would be to vote for him. Anything more is like saying that your vote counts for more than others, and in the case of campaign donations, only the largest donors really count for anything.
"Now of course it doesn't always work that way, but my point is that donating money doesn't automatically mean you're buying a vote, it could simply mean "I like how you think and I want to help you get (re)elected so you will continue to support these interests which we both agree on"."
More often than not, I think, it does mean you're buying into your interests, regardless of whether they're the interests of his constituents. A large donor doesn't even have to reside in the district/state of the campaign official's constituents.
And, you ignored what I said. The congressman is supposed to have the interests of his constituents first, not the interests of whoever signs the largest check. Unfortunately, his main job as congressman is to get himself reelected, and that only happens if the money keeps flowing, allowing him to mount a successful election campaign, in which he can present himself to his constituents in whatever manner is most agreeable to them, whether or not its based in reality.
"Because reporting something you believe is suspicious to the police is a bad thing right?"
Not by itself, no. If the government begins telling people to actively watch for certain activity, and encourages their reporting those persons to the police, who in turn begin holding people based on simple allegations, then we've got a big problem.
"Question, would you prefer the police mostly act on their own hunches or on the reports of citizens?"
What's the difference between citizens' hunches and police hunches?
Yes. Read up on it. You can always find abuses that came about because of any right or freedom, but those individuals are a small fraction of the total population. Making wide-sweeping changes to laws because of Columbine is like a philanthropist giving all his money to cure a disease that affects 0.00001% of the population, simply because he saw a dramatic made-for-TV movie about someone with the disease.
"An alert employee thought there was something wrong and reported the photos to the police."
Quite the responsible Citizen he was. You too can make the country a safer place by giving up your freedoms and the freedoms of others to save your own asses. Because there's nothing better than the squirt of dopamine you get for doing the Right Thing®.
"If people contribute to legislators that support their position, the legislators aren't bound to the contributors: they will put pro-contributor positions forth as a consequence of their already existing motivations."
It sounds like someone is living in an idealized fantasy world. Come back to reality! The main goal of a congressman is to simply keep getting reelected; they can't do that if they lose their financial backers, which is what would happen if they didn't actively promote the desires of those backers--NOT the desires of the public that the legislators are supposed to represent. And don't try to pull any nonsense about a congressman's already-existing motivations; most of their motivation is to keep getting reelected. This is why a polarizing issue comes to the forefront everytime a year ends in an even number. It's not that the congressman actually care about the issue (although I'm sure some have convinced themselves they do), it's that they know this is the best way to get people to vote, and to get them voting how they please; and they don't care that they are needlessly wasting time and money on issues that matter little in the big picture.
"The best thing to do is to require full disclosure."
No, the best thing to do would be for the government to allow any given candidate at a specific level of government to have X number of TV advertisements, Y number of newspaper ads, etc, and for the government to pay their bills in full. We should keep the business interests of rich individuals separate from the interests of the general public.
"Voters could then make their decision based on their knowledge of the candidate's stated intentions as well as their opinion about the intentions of the candidate's contributors."
You're assuming that most or all of the topics that are actually important to the general public will be accurately represented by a few large donations from random companies. You're also assuming that the general public will bother to inform themselves.
"Further, why shouldn't someone contribute to those legislators that agree with your position"
Because then the politician places the interests of his contributors above the interests of the people he represents. This is why campaigns should be government funded--to remove the incentive to misuse your position (of course, some will still misuse it). Are there any members of Congress who actually represent their constituents anymore?
There was nothing incorrect in my reply. While we may be able to predict that hurricanes will be stronger in a future season, we can't say where/when the early stages of a hurricane or tropical storm will appear, and thus we won't be able to predict the number of hurricanes.
"Let me guess, you heard a butterfly can cause a hurricaine due to chaos theory right?:rolleyes"
No, I've read a couple books on chaos, and did experiments with chaotic pendulums and water drop formation back in undergrad senior physics lab. The equations underlying weather prevent one from ever accurately predicting the condition in a specific location the further you go into the future, and that "distance" into the future is not going to increase as our technology increases. It's going to remain short.
Just looking at this superficially, it seems unlikely that we will ever accurately predict these events. Chaos has already doomed weather forcasters, who will never be able to predict the formation, maximum strength, or path of a tropical storm well in advance (well, unless they placed sensors on ever single particle on Earth, and then placed sensors on those sensors). The same is probably true of solar events.
If by "a ways off", you mean "absolutely impossible", then I agree. Or, do you believe there is a way to shrink atoms down to a fraction of their size?
Slashdot Mirror
As has been shown in the past, Britannica is chock full of errors, about as many as Wikipedia for the articles that were compared. And, who knows about the neutrality of Britannica's articles? They have "50 levels of fact checking" and yet they still leave glaring omissions and outright falsehoods; nobody has even begun to examine the neutrality of Britannica's articles.
Yes, you understand the buzz words. Now take a course or two for a real understanding :) (and no, a generic wishy-washy book with pretty pictures for the layman doesn't count)
"We aren't able to make observations from several million or billion years ago so we cannot tell whether or not these constants change or at what rate."
Look out at the stars. You're seeing them as they appeared several million or billion years ago. The light that you now see from the sun is 8 minutes old, for comparison. All the data we collect from outer space is historical information--how the universe was in the past.
It appears that I was wrong about the prank, although I place the blame on the person from whom I heard it second-hand; I clearly recall him saying it was in Rock 301, and that it was a class of Krauss's, and that those exact words were written on the board. It was inappropriate for me to jump to this conclusion without more evidence.
As for the Hawking lecture, I was there, and whether it was intentional or not, I remember thinking immediately that Krauss had "swiped" the award from Hundert to present to Hawking.
As for the dark matter quote in the school paper, it sounded much more exaggerated than reality, and I recall several students in the dept saying the statement was ridiculous; I myself have not looked at Krauss's published papers. It was inappropriate for me to jump to this conclusion without more evidence.
As for the secretary, I only assumed that it had something to do with Krauss, since I had seen him go into the office, and I didn't see any evidence that she was physically hurt; regardless, I found that whole event quite appalling, and it stuck with me. It was inappropriate for me to jump to this conclusion without more evidence.
So, in the end, it's obvious I'm quite bitter, more about the entire school than just the physics dept, and I apologize for jumping to conclusions, and trusting hearsay.
You know what I meant...
"It stinks!"
Jon Lovitz??? Is that you?!
"1. The prank you mentioned was an April Fool's joke carried out on another very popular professor, and had nothing to do with Prof. Krauss at all... there was nothing written on any blackboard... just had the chairs turned around in advance of a big undergrad class before a test."
:P
I heard it second-hand. I can't help if you say I heard it wrong, although yours is hearsay just as much as mine. At least I am logged in. You could be anybody.
"Prof. Krauss chaired the Michelson-Morley Prize committee that gave the prize to Hawking, and Prof. Krauss brought him to Case for a meeting he had organized, and the award event was coordinated to coincide with that meeting. The President was invited to present the award to Hawking, which he did, along with a Trustee of the University."
Nope, you are wrong. I was at the event, very close to the stage. While the President did indeed hold the award as he talked about presenting it, it was ultimately Krauss who took the award and presented it. I don't care how involved he was in planning the day. It was clear that the President was going to give the award to Hawking, and Krauss decided he should be the one to do it, and kindly swiped the award from the President.
"etc etc.."
I can't rebut these comments
"Clearly, your shit smells better than than of most people..."
And clearly I need to use Preview in the future.
"wtf? I wouldn't get out of bed for $60k a year. But I guess at triple that I should stop reading /. and get back to work."
Clearly, your shit smells better than than of most people...
"(b) you cannot seem to get any fact correct."
What, you think the desks were comfortable?
Krauss is always pulling stunts like this. I was a physics undergrad in his dept., and recall hearing about a huge prank that was pulled on a class he taught:
In Rockefeller 301, the main lecture room, there are maybe a hundred old uncomfortable desks bolted to the floor. One night, some students from his class came in, unbolted all the desks, turned them around, then bolted them back down. One of them wrote on the chalkboard in big letters, "Krauss's big head turns students away!" They had to cancel several classes early the next day, as maintenance rushed in to turn all the desks back around. The funny thing is that the comment remained on the chalkboard for a week or so after the incident--apparently everyone was in agreement about it.
Another interesting incident... at the Stephen Hawking lecture a few years ago, when the school randomly decided to give him the Michelson Morley award (basically because they would never get another person so esteemed to talk at the school), the interim president (Hundert) of the school was giving a lecture, holding the award, and getting ready to present it. As he was about to bring the award over to Hawking, Krauss does some sort of stunt in grabbing the award away from Hundert without looking weird, and takes it over to Hawking. He then gets his photo opportunity with Hawking.
I also recall earlier that day, during Krauss's lecture, and later quoted in the school paper, him mentioning that he was one of the key figures behind dark matter research, which is total nonsense.
One final example that I remember way back as a freshman: I was sitting outside the professors' offices waiting for someone, and heard some yelling, then saw Krauss's secretary run out in a total fit, tears streaming from her eyes, face bright red. She's still around today though, so they must be paying her a lot. I don't think anyone could handle him on a daily basis for less than $60k a year.
"Write Senator Stevens a short message expressing your concerns about his lack of expertise on the subject."
But, if everyone on slashdot does this, his tubes will be clogged till next Thursday!
"If he diverges far enough from what his constituents want, he will likely not get re-elected, but that's an entirely different matter."
As I already said, you're assuming that his constituents will pay enough attention to everything he does to realize when he is not looking out for their interests. More than likely, he can simply win them over with one key polarizing issue, as I already said.
"As such, donating to a candidate that thinks the way you do is the best way to show support for them, not buying their vote on key issues."
I would have thought that the best and fairest way to show support for a candidate who you agree with would be to vote for him. Anything more is like saying that your vote counts for more than others, and in the case of campaign donations, only the largest donors really count for anything.
"Now of course it doesn't always work that way, but my point is that donating money doesn't automatically mean you're buying a vote, it could simply mean "I like how you think and I want to help you get (re)elected so you will continue to support these interests which we both agree on"."
More often than not, I think, it does mean you're buying into your interests, regardless of whether they're the interests of his constituents. A large donor doesn't even have to reside in the district/state of the campaign official's constituents.
You're just making this up as you go along... Enjoy.
And, you ignored what I said. The congressman is supposed to have the interests of his constituents first, not the interests of whoever signs the largest check. Unfortunately, his main job as congressman is to get himself reelected, and that only happens if the money keeps flowing, allowing him to mount a successful election campaign, in which he can present himself to his constituents in whatever manner is most agreeable to them, whether or not its based in reality.
"Because reporting something you believe is suspicious to the police is a bad thing right?"
Not by itself, no. If the government begins telling people to actively watch for certain activity, and encourages their reporting those persons to the police, who in turn begin holding people based on simple allegations, then we've got a big problem.
"Question, would you prefer the police mostly act on their own hunches or on the reports of citizens?"
What's the difference between citizens' hunches and police hunches?
"Free speech?"
Yes. Read up on it. You can always find abuses that came about because of any right or freedom, but those individuals are a small fraction of the total population. Making wide-sweeping changes to laws because of Columbine is like a philanthropist giving all his money to cure a disease that affects 0.00001% of the population, simply because he saw a dramatic made-for-TV movie about someone with the disease.
"An alert employee thought there was something wrong and reported the photos to the police."
Quite the responsible Citizen he was. You too can make the country a safer place by giving up your freedoms and the freedoms of others to save your own asses. Because there's nothing better than the squirt of dopamine you get for doing the Right Thing®.
"If people contribute to legislators that support their position, the legislators aren't bound to the contributors: they will put pro-contributor positions forth as a consequence of their already existing motivations."
It sounds like someone is living in an idealized fantasy world. Come back to reality! The main goal of a congressman is to simply keep getting reelected; they can't do that if they lose their financial backers, which is what would happen if they didn't actively promote the desires of those backers--NOT the desires of the public that the legislators are supposed to represent. And don't try to pull any nonsense about a congressman's already-existing motivations; most of their motivation is to keep getting reelected. This is why a polarizing issue comes to the forefront everytime a year ends in an even number. It's not that the congressman actually care about the issue (although I'm sure some have convinced themselves they do), it's that they know this is the best way to get people to vote, and to get them voting how they please; and they don't care that they are needlessly wasting time and money on issues that matter little in the big picture.
"The best thing to do is to require full disclosure."
No, the best thing to do would be for the government to allow any given candidate at a specific level of government to have X number of TV advertisements, Y number of newspaper ads, etc, and for the government to pay their bills in full. We should keep the business interests of rich individuals separate from the interests of the general public.
"Voters could then make their decision based on their knowledge of the candidate's stated intentions as well as their opinion about the intentions of the candidate's contributors."
You're assuming that most or all of the topics that are actually important to the general public will be accurately represented by a few large donations from random companies. You're also assuming that the general public will bother to inform themselves.
"Further, why shouldn't someone contribute to those legislators that agree with your position"
Because then the politician places the interests of his contributors above the interests of the people he represents. This is why campaigns should be government funded--to remove the incentive to misuse your position (of course, some will still misuse it). Are there any members of Congress who actually represent their constituents anymore?
There was nothing incorrect in my reply. While we may be able to predict that hurricanes will be stronger in a future season, we can't say where/when the early stages of a hurricane or tropical storm will appear, and thus we won't be able to predict the number of hurricanes.
"Let me guess, you heard a butterfly can cause a hurricaine due to chaos theory right? :rolleyes"
No, I've read a couple books on chaos, and did experiments with chaotic pendulums and water drop formation back in undergrad senior physics lab. The equations underlying weather prevent one from ever accurately predicting the condition in a specific location the further you go into the future, and that "distance" into the future is not going to increase as our technology increases. It's going to remain short.
Just looking at this superficially, it seems unlikely that we will ever accurately predict these events. Chaos has already doomed weather forcasters, who will never be able to predict the formation, maximum strength, or path of a tropical storm well in advance (well, unless they placed sensors on ever single particle on Earth, and then placed sensors on those sensors). The same is probably true of solar events.
If by "a ways off", you mean "absolutely impossible", then I agree. Or, do you believe there is a way to shrink atoms down to a fraction of their size?
"The question is, is there a way to please environmentalists and animal rights activists?"
That's easy. Take your pick:
A. Kill off the entire human species.
B. All of the above.
Note to self: only make jokes on /. that are blindingly obvious, or face immediate death by moderation.