Unfortunately, Climategate proved that, at least in the field of climate research, "peer review" is worthless; Mann et al were actively conspiring to ensure that only "friendly" eyes carried out the reviews; anyone thought to be showing signs of scepticism were blacklisted, whether individuals or publications.
To add to that, Glaciergate proved that much of what was claimed to be peer-reviewed was actually just regurgitated propaganda, often based on anecdotal evidence (reminisces of mountaineers published in a student rag? Puh-lease!)
So, appeals to authority ("oh but all this research has been peer reviewed") just don't hold any more. Not until all the data and all the methods used to arrive at the results are made available, and the results can be independently confirmed or denied, can we say whether the research was worth the weight of mouldy notebooks it was archived on.
The problem with the hockey stick was *not* the data, but the code. When the methods that Mann used to produce the code were eventually (and very reluctantly, I should add) made public, it was found that you could feed *any* data into the equations, even phone numbers taken from the phone directory, and you would get a hockey stick graph!
The point is that for the scientific method to really work and be trustworthy, both the data and the methods used to analyse that data *must* be made available. That means good archiving of data (and floppy disks are not good archival formats); Climategate proved that the CRU and others either didn't look after their raw data, or were willing to lose it rather than hand it over.
The result now is that most of the data that all computer modelling is being done from is based on homogenised data - in other words, the raw data has been fiddled with, in ways which are not documented. Now no-one can prove that this data being fed into models is even valid! (And trusting computer models is a fool's errand - see the fun and games modelling of volcanic ash dispersal has caused on world air travel in the past few weeks - those models just don't match what actual reality seems to be bearing out).
To summarise: reliable science depends on the original data and methods being made available, so that other scientists can reproduce the original results, to confirm or deny that those results are valid. Hiding either data or methods, or as in the case of Climategate, wilfully destroying or obstructing the release, of either, goes against the most basic principles of science.
Obama is a man to be respected for his accomplishments during the past year.
Which accomplishments would those be? Closing Gitmo? Nope, haven't done that yet. Health Care Reform? Nope, haven't done that yet, and it's not really "reform" anyway. Creating a transparent White House? Nope, we gave up on that one pretty early on.
Not to mention the fact that he actually "won" it back in February, when he had been in office for barely a month. Yeah, lots of time for "achievements" there, I doubt his staff had finished unpacking boxes by then.
So while there's Drake's Equation for working out how many star systems there are out there capable of supporting life, there also needs to be a Drake's equation for working out what proportion of those star systems actually contain intelligent life capable of radio transmissions. That should narrow it down, when you consider what proportion of species on the earth are capable of it...
It's a good thing the universe is infinite, but it certainly reduces the chances in *this* galaxy.
Don't forget that this is Slashdot, and therefore naturally biased against the spiritual. Luke 16:31, from the story of Lazarus and the rich man, shows us that some people will never believe, even if they see the dead resurrected. As the general thrust of this whole thread goes, proving the existence of God in a scientific way is essentially impossible, perhaps even harder than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of the heavens:-) For the spiritual, this is the point at which proof ends and faith begins. For the faithless, well, sorry, that's as far as you can go.
Hence the suggestion that you "hedge your bets"... After all, isn't it better to believe and be proved wrong when you die, then not to believe, and be proved wrong when you die?
Second that. ZDNet's Flash ads were causing Camino on my MacBook Pro to crash every other page. Oh, and the same in Safari as well - guess the OS X Flash plugin still needs a little work.
I thought all Europeans were supposed to be feeling guilt through inheritance for the empire days and all the slave trading that went with it? And that all men were supposed to be feeling guilt through inheritance for repressing women since time began? So are you saying we no longer have to have all these expressions of heart-on-our-sleeve sorrow and regret? It might actually be a relief not to have to listen to Tony Blair wringing his hands over something that happened >200 years ago.
I'm afraid that you'll find that people do like to visit the sins of the fathers on the children; and part of the real message of Christianity is that since it is such a human thing to do, it took someone extra-human to forgive even the direst of sins and failings.
I'd be inclined to disagree; a lot of Firefox's initial growth came from people who used it and really "got" it, recommending it to other friends. Web developers, who by nature have to keep an eye on the browser market, were one of these groups. Safari is not aimed at those developers, unless Apple is considering converting them into iPhone developers in the absence of a proper SDK.
Where I do see Safari gaining browser share is at the expense of IE. The reason for this is simple: Apple will undoubtedly bundle Safari with iTunes, and with a bit of decent marketing, should be able to convince a lot of people with iPods that maybe they should let it be the default browser. If Microsoft can turn an OS monopoly into Office sales, then there's no reason Apple can't turn an MP3-player monopoly into browser market share (and, they are no doubt hoping, into a few more Mac sales - if all you use your PC for are listening to music, Web surfing and email, then hey, Apple have most of your bases covered on Windows already - why not go the whole hog?).
Also take a look at Firebug, which adds some very good JavaScript debugging and HTTP request/response inspection into the mix (those two are fantastic for AJAX development). Sorry, Firefox is still the browser of choice for web developers; IE and Safari are just used for checking compatability, and it's the Web Developer Toolkit, Firebug, and decent (albeit imperfect) standards support that have made the difference. Safari may win over some IE users, mainly those who suddenly find it bundled into their iTunes download - how's that for leveraging (curse the marketing team who came up with that appalling and unnecessary replacement for the word "using") a monopoly? Ipods don't just sell Macs now, they sell browser market share!
Actually, they are complaining about it. RTFA and you'll see that the guy complained that both consoles have difficulties. The submitter's apparent anti-MS bias caused him to leave that part out, because "Xbox 360 sucks (implies PS3 is good)" is more attention grabbing than "Xbox 360 and PS3 both suck".
You hit the nail on the head there. This was an interview by Official Playstation Magazine, so the pro-PS3 bias is so unsubtle as to be laughable. I'd be interested to know what Rockstar thought were the PS3-specific problems, and an intellectually honest interviewer would have been too.
As you've mentioned, the presence of the hard drive should really be taken as an optional extra, otherwise you're into the painful realm of installing software. It shouldn't be anything a bit of clever programming wouldn't solve.
I'd hate to think how much stuff they're trying to shovel on to those BluRay discs.
It's not really practical to use a laptop on a plane, unless you're in business/first class; firstly due to the lack of space to actually get it out, and secondly, few airlines provide power to economy class seats.
...note that the date of Paul Thurott's article is August 2, 2005; to be fair, the Idealog article mentioned this as an update. One would hope that MS had come a little way in the past year with IE7, but from the analysis of CSS-compliance referred to in the Idealog article, which is much more up-to-date, it's not easy to be convinced of this. Very very disappointing that the company which delivered the original technology behind AJAX e'er so many years ago can't get a standard which has been around as long and is as important as CSS2 right, if that's the case.
Personally, I don't think that five years of little progress in the IE browser market is a bad thing. It has allowed a) companies to more or less catch up to the same position with regards to what they develop for, and b) it has allowed outfits such as Mozilla to catch up to them from the lamentable position that they were in when Netscape 4 deservedly bit the big one. Much as geeks love The Next Big Thing, some developers would like the programming target to stop moving, just once in a while, please?
The New Testament certainly encourages people to work. For instance, when Jesus is describing the rapture in Matthew 24:40-41, He says "At that time two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left."
These believers aren't sitting around reading Bibles and singing hymns and wishing televangelists would just disappear. They are out living a normal life, working to bring home money. Hopefully much of that money will be given to further the Lord's work, rather than buying a brand new HDTV plasma screen, but that's between the believer's conscience and the Lord:-)
Getting back to the original article, Revelation 18:11-13 also gives us a hint that the end times are drawing nigh : "And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargo anymore:... cargo of horses and chariots and slaves and souls of men". The most valuable thing that a non-believer has is their soul. Personally, I think it's quite clear that nowadays, people will quite happily sell their soul for something of little real value. Just see how morally bankrupt our politicians and "captains of industry" are!
Finally, I don't see what the problem should be for Christians, when it comes to avoiding the end of days. Sure, it'll be unpleasant for a while (unless they are the lucky few to get raptured during the first rapture), but that rather pales in comparison with eternity in the presence of God. So bring on the RFID tags!
Um yeah, Sony and Nintendo are notorious for announcing consoles and then never releasing them.
Well so far, all that Sony have given us is an empty case. Way to go with showing some actual product. Meanwhile, MS have now had four months to get hardware problems sorted, and have many months yet to go to get some decent titles out there.
I would go with option 2 (creating a third function, and having your IDE-created functions both call it). Yes, it involves creating another function, but as sure as eggs are eggs, you can bet that sooner or later you are going to have to make the buttons do subtly different things, while still preserving some of their commonality.
MP3 sucks the sweat from a dead man's balls when compared to WMA, especially bitrate-for-bitrate. You might not like what Microsoft do with the format (I don't want to schlurp down that DRM either), but you ought to take your blinkers off. The WMA forat has been under continual refinement now, and MS can afford lots of research to improve it. MP3 as a format hasn't really changed since it came out.
Having said that, my 4500 music files are all MP3 - I just rip at quite high settings, VBR @ 128-320kbps.
Minor bit of disingenuity on your part - Longhorn is not the next server release, it's the next desktop release. The Windows server line was refreshed only last year.
About the only valid point that the article makes is that while the setup costs of a Linux migration do tend to be low, due to the differences in licensing, it's the on-going support which drags your TCO back up towards Windows levels; moreso, if a decent Linux admin is hard to come, as other comments imply.
Just buy it on napster, burn it to cd, then rip it back to wma or mp3.
What does this do for the quality though? You're already downloading it in a lossy format, then you want to take that lossy format and apply yet another lossy conversion on top of that?
Some places I've been to in the UK (Warner Village in St Johns Wood) charge upwards of 10 a ticket (that's the best part of $20 the way exchange rates are going)...
Personally I feel quite insulted having ponied up all those readies, to be greeted by a message that,to me, basically says, "You should consider yourself lucky that we let you even watch this movie in the first place"
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Unfortunately, Climategate proved that, at least in the field of climate research, "peer review" is worthless; Mann et al were actively conspiring to ensure that only "friendly" eyes carried out the reviews; anyone thought to be showing signs of scepticism were blacklisted, whether individuals or publications.
To add to that, Glaciergate proved that much of what was claimed to be peer-reviewed was actually just regurgitated propaganda, often based on anecdotal evidence (reminisces of mountaineers published in a student rag? Puh-lease!)
So, appeals to authority ("oh but all this research has been peer reviewed") just don't hold any more. Not until all the data and all the methods used to arrive at the results are made available, and the results can be independently confirmed or denied, can we say whether the research was worth the weight of mouldy notebooks it was archived on.
The problem with the hockey stick was *not* the data, but the code. When the methods that Mann used to produce the code were eventually (and very reluctantly, I should add) made public, it was found that you could feed *any* data into the equations, even phone numbers taken from the phone directory, and you would get a hockey stick graph!
The point is that for the scientific method to really work and be trustworthy, both the data and the methods used to analyse that data *must* be made available. That means good archiving of data (and floppy disks are not good archival formats); Climategate proved that the CRU and others either didn't look after their raw data, or were willing to lose it rather than hand it over.
The result now is that most of the data that all computer modelling is being done from is based on homogenised data - in other words, the raw data has been fiddled with, in ways which are not documented. Now no-one can prove that this data being fed into models is even valid! (And trusting computer models is a fool's errand - see the fun and games modelling of volcanic ash dispersal has caused on world air travel in the past few weeks - those models just don't match what actual reality seems to be bearing out).
To summarise: reliable science depends on the original data and methods being made available, so that other scientists can reproduce the original results, to confirm or deny that those results are valid. Hiding either data or methods, or as in the case of Climategate, wilfully destroying or obstructing the release, of either, goes against the most basic principles of science.
This ruling is nothing but a good thing.
Obama is a man to be respected for his accomplishments during the past year.
Which accomplishments would those be? Closing Gitmo? Nope, haven't done that yet. Health Care Reform? Nope, haven't done that yet, and it's not really "reform" anyway. Creating a transparent White House? Nope, we gave up on that one pretty early on.
Not to mention the fact that he actually "won" it back in February, when he had been in office for barely a month. Yeah, lots of time for "achievements" there, I doubt his staff had finished unpacking boxes by then.
Perhaps a better analogy is auditing the use of the few lifeboats that the ship carried to find out why some were only half full?
So while there's Drake's Equation for working out how many star systems there are out there capable of supporting life, there also needs to be a Drake's equation for working out what proportion of those star systems actually contain intelligent life capable of radio transmissions. That should narrow it down, when you consider what proportion of species on the earth are capable of it...
It's a good thing the universe is infinite, but it certainly reduces the chances in *this* galaxy.
Don't forget that this is Slashdot, and therefore naturally biased against the spiritual. Luke 16:31, from the story of Lazarus and the rich man, shows us that some people will never believe, even if they see the dead resurrected. As the general thrust of this whole thread goes, proving the existence of God in a scientific way is essentially impossible, perhaps even harder than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of the heavens :-) For the spiritual, this is the point at which proof ends and faith begins. For the faithless, well, sorry, that's as far as you can go.
Hence the suggestion that you "hedge your bets"... After all, isn't it better to believe and be proved wrong when you die, then not to believe, and be proved wrong when you die?
Second that. ZDNet's Flash ads were causing Camino on my MacBook Pro to crash every other page. Oh, and the same in Safari as well - guess the OS X Flash plugin still needs a little work.
I thought all Europeans were supposed to be feeling guilt through inheritance for the empire days and all the slave trading that went with it? And that all men were supposed to be feeling guilt through inheritance for repressing women since time began? So are you saying we no longer have to have all these expressions of heart-on-our-sleeve sorrow and regret? It might actually be a relief not to have to listen to Tony Blair wringing his hands over something that happened >200 years ago.
I'm afraid that you'll find that people do like to visit the sins of the fathers on the children; and part of the real message of Christianity is that since it is such a human thing to do, it took someone extra-human to forgive even the direst of sins and failings.
"We Australians find American beer pretty much like making love in a canoe. It's f*cking close to water."
I'd be inclined to disagree; a lot of Firefox's initial growth came from people who used it and really "got" it, recommending it to other friends. Web developers, who by nature have to keep an eye on the browser market, were one of these groups. Safari is not aimed at those developers, unless Apple is considering converting them into iPhone developers in the absence of a proper SDK.
Where I do see Safari gaining browser share is at the expense of IE. The reason for this is simple: Apple will undoubtedly bundle Safari with iTunes, and with a bit of decent marketing, should be able to convince a lot of people with iPods that maybe they should let it be the default browser. If Microsoft can turn an OS monopoly into Office sales, then there's no reason Apple can't turn an MP3-player monopoly into browser market share (and, they are no doubt hoping, into a few more Mac sales - if all you use your PC for are listening to music, Web surfing and email, then hey, Apple have most of your bases covered on Windows already - why not go the whole hog?).
But taking market share from Firefox? Not likely.
Also take a look at Firebug, which adds some very good JavaScript debugging and HTTP request/response inspection into the mix (those two are fantastic for AJAX development). Sorry, Firefox is still the browser of choice for web developers; IE and Safari are just used for checking compatability, and it's the Web Developer Toolkit, Firebug, and decent (albeit imperfect) standards support that have made the difference. Safari may win over some IE users, mainly those who suddenly find it bundled into their iTunes download - how's that for leveraging (curse the marketing team who came up with that appalling and unnecessary replacement for the word "using") a monopoly? Ipods don't just sell Macs now, they sell browser market share!
You hit the nail on the head there. This was an interview by Official Playstation Magazine, so the pro-PS3 bias is so unsubtle as to be laughable. I'd be interested to know what Rockstar thought were the PS3-specific problems, and an intellectually honest interviewer would have been too.
As you've mentioned, the presence of the hard drive should really be taken as an optional extra, otherwise you're into the painful realm of installing software. It shouldn't be anything a bit of clever programming wouldn't solve.
I'd hate to think how much stuff they're trying to shovel on to those BluRay discs.
Don't think that Linux isn't above ripping off OS X as well : http://chris.pirillo.com/2006/09/06/vistas-ui-is-b etter-than-this/
And even then, Apple weren't the ones doing the original thinking : http://news.com.com/2100-1045_3-5250692.html
It's not really practical to use a laptop on a plane, unless you're in business/first class; firstly due to the lack of space to actually get it out, and secondly, few airlines provide power to economy class seats.
...note that the date of Paul Thurott's article is August 2, 2005; to be fair, the Idealog article mentioned this as an update. One would hope that MS had come a little way in the past year with IE7, but from the analysis of CSS-compliance referred to in the Idealog article, which is much more up-to-date, it's not easy to be convinced of this. Very very disappointing that the company which delivered the original technology behind AJAX e'er so many years ago can't get a standard which has been around as long and is as important as CSS2 right, if that's the case. Personally, I don't think that five years of little progress in the IE browser market is a bad thing. It has allowed a) companies to more or less catch up to the same position with regards to what they develop for, and b) it has allowed outfits such as Mozilla to catch up to them from the lamentable position that they were in when Netscape 4 deservedly bit the big one. Much as geeks love The Next Big Thing, some developers would like the programming target to stop moving, just once in a while, please?
I suppose it could be worse - it could be another Intelligent Design vs Evolution flame-fest. Guess it's all Slashdot is good for these days...
The New Testament certainly encourages people to work. For instance, when Jesus is describing the rapture in Matthew 24:40-41, He says "At that time two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left."
:-)
... cargo of horses and chariots and slaves and souls of men". The most valuable thing that a non-believer has is their soul. Personally, I think it's quite clear that nowadays, people will quite happily sell their soul for something of little real value. Just see how morally bankrupt our politicians and "captains of industry" are!
These believers aren't sitting around reading Bibles and singing hymns and wishing televangelists would just disappear. They are out living a normal life, working to bring home money. Hopefully much of that money will be given to further the Lord's work, rather than buying a brand new HDTV plasma screen, but that's between the believer's conscience and the Lord
Getting back to the original article, Revelation 18:11-13 also gives us a hint that the end times are drawing nigh : "And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargo anymore:
Finally, I don't see what the problem should be for Christians, when it comes to avoiding the end of days. Sure, it'll be unpleasant for a while (unless they are the lucky few to get raptured during the first rapture), but that rather pales in comparison with eternity in the presence of God. So bring on the RFID tags!
Well so far, all that Sony have given us is an empty case. Way to go with showing some actual product. Meanwhile, MS have now had four months to get hardware problems sorted, and have many months yet to go to get some decent titles out there.
I would go with option 2 (creating a third function, and having your IDE-created functions both call it). Yes, it involves creating another function, but as sure as eggs are eggs, you can bet that sooner or later you are going to have to make the buttons do subtly different things, while still preserving some of their commonality.
MP3 sucks the sweat from a dead man's balls when compared to WMA, especially bitrate-for-bitrate. You might not like what Microsoft do with the format (I don't want to schlurp down that DRM either), but you ought to take your blinkers off. The WMA forat has been under continual refinement now, and MS can afford lots of research to improve it. MP3 as a format hasn't really changed since it came out.
Having said that, my 4500 music files are all MP3 - I just rip at quite high settings, VBR @ 128-320kbps.
"Ah yes, Bernard. Responsiblity without power - the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages." - Sir Humphrey Appleby
Minor bit of disingenuity on your part - Longhorn is not the next server release, it's the next desktop release. The Windows server line was refreshed only last year.
About the only valid point that the article makes is that while the setup costs of a Linux migration do tend to be low, due to the differences in licensing, it's the on-going support which drags your TCO back up towards Windows levels; moreso, if a decent Linux admin is hard to come, as other comments imply.
Shame we can't mod this one up any higher, it's not every day someone posts something as good as this on Slashdot...
Some places I've been to in the UK (Warner Village in St Johns Wood) charge upwards of 10 a ticket (that's the best part of $20 the way exchange rates are going)...
,to me, basically says, "You should consider yourself lucky that we let you even watch this movie in the first place"
Personally I feel quite insulted having ponied up all those readies, to be greeted by a message that