bah, that's because you haven't found the rest of the quote! The quote refers to how many people approach data analysis (incorrectly)--the collect a bunch of data and then analyze it until they get the desired results--having very little idea of what the analysis really does, or why, or what it all means.
Some folks see p=.042, and think, "Hey, p is less than.05, great! This means that my results are important!" They don't understand that significant doesn't mean important in this context, or that sometimes a p of.062 is also significant. They don't know anything about multivariate statistics, power analysis or anything else. Many of them couldn't even run an ANOVA without the use of a computer (it isn't mathematically hard, but they don't know the procedure).
These are the same people that don't know that for most tests, t^2 is the same as F. They plug numbers into excel or SPSS, and end up with other numbers that they have a vaguely warm feeling about understanding (but lack true insight as to what it all means), and make decisions based on that. Their stats prof told them to do things this way, so they do it.
Data analysis is a VERY important part of psychology, and anyone who thinks otherwise is uninformed. There are many psychologists (clinicians to be specific) who fall within this category as well. I have no respect for this type of person--who will not take time to actually LEARN what they should be doing.
Oh well, I am so far OT by now it doesn't matter. The point is that psychologists do tend to know what they are doing. They have contributed more to your life than you realize, and will continue to do so. Have a nice day.
You sir, have no clue what you are talking about. There is a difference between psyciatrists and psychologists (that goes much deeper than medical training), and that you apparently don't know that leaves me in serious doubt about the rest of your comment.
That said, there are a good many medical doctors that would have done the same thing that the psychiatrists did.
I am glad you found help, but don't be so quick to judge the state of psychiatry/psychology as bunk. There are MANY things that psychologists do that you are probably not aware of just because it doesn't fit the "shrink" stereotype that most people have.
I tend to agree, but the problem is that many people take it for granted that taxes are the way to go, and that more taxes are inevitable, and I think that it is important that people take this in to account.
The question of how is important, but it should NEVER drive how much. Raising tax levels should not be necessary except in rare circumstances, but it has become accepted world-wide as the only way a gov't can stay afloat. Perhaps there are other ways to fund a gov't that have yet to be fully explored that do NOT place a burden on the taxpayer.
As a thought--Microsoft makes lots of money--maybe the gov't should start selling software! (In the US this wouldn't work (legal reasons), but other countries could do it in all likelihood.)
As far as I am concerned the gov't, in as much as it is possible, should let the citizens of the country KEEP THEIR MONEY. When you are talking about spending money wisely, you have already lost part of the battle--the one where you are only required to support the bare essentials of government, such as military and police (and a very few other programs, medicine being of debatable utility in the hands of gov't).
You are right though, when the gov't is spending money, it should only spend what is necessary to do the job and do it right. Occasionally this would require long-term investments, but overall, the gov't should be a quiet, non-intrusive entity that only is visible when there are problems, such as a break in at your house!
Yes, you are way off topic, but I have karma to burn, so whatever...
I wasn't sure about NASA being military, but I do think that is where it belongs...
As far as natinal defense contradicting a fairly weak fed, I disagree. The fed should be able to coordinate military operations, but should NOT have the power to use the military (or the FBI, etc) to infiltrate the homes of citizens. I think that (as far as the FBI is concerned) the purpose of national intelligence agencies should be to assist states in tracking cross-state crimes (and ONLY those crimes) and very little else. Things such as foreign intelligence should be handled by the military (or even be an official branch of the military), and subject to the generals of the military.
I don't have a complete concept of the "ideal" gov't, I must admit. Why not? Because I have never encountered one. The US got some things figured out fairly well, but other things have been changed so much that we can't even be sure if the constitution would work the way it was written.
Like you, I don't mind that there are some people who are richer than others. I do think however, that the concept of a national healthcare plan is dubious. I am skeptical because I have seen the way that anything run by a gov't seems to be bloated, slow to change/adopt, and run by pencil-pushers. An efficient healthcare system needs to be slim (with only the absolutely necessary number of admins), responsive to both customers/clients AND changing technology/medicine, and profitable.
Doctors would benefit greatly from a situation where they knew that treating xyz patient would pay amount abc. The problem with gov't mandated healthcare is that, like health insurance, certain procedures would have to be deemed as "optional", otherwise you have cosmetic enhancements, such as breast enlargements, being done at the public expense--not cool. Unfortunately, what procedures to allow and disallow is hardly a matter of common approval. I may think one thing should be covered, while another might not.
Then you get into really tricky areas, such as abortion. Should the gov't pay for that (assuming legality)? As a taxpayer, I may heavily disapprove of abortion, and even find it offensive that some of my tax dollars go to fund abortions. How do you handle that sort of stickiness?
It depends on how you define weak. I think a weak federal gov't is good in terms of police power, and direct dealings with the populace. There should be VERY few decisions made at the federal level that affect citizens. The fed should only be there to "provide for the national defense" and whatnot.
As for NASA, etc, these are operations that should be either private or military. If private, then the gov't should leave well enough alone, but if military, then they should be funded as necessary. Would we have gotten to the moon on a military strategy? Possibly not as quickly, but certainly it would have happened the moment anyone else anounced that they were headed to the
Le Guin's works are plot building--it's slow, and subtle, but it is there. She tells a story that is different from what many people expect (aka Harry Potter), but it DOES have depth. Le Guin is occasionally focused on sexual themes, and certainly has an unusually 'mystic' feel. It's real stuff, though.
Having just watched the first half last night (taped!), I have to say that I am dissappointed.
Let's leave alone the obvious deviations from the plot, and focus on more germaine aspects of the production.
First, acting. When you are producing something like this, having good actors is appropriate. The chick from Smallville (Kristin Kreuk) is good, as is the guy who plays Ged (Shawn Ashmore). Some of the others are decent, such as the Arch-Magus, the King (decent) and his whore(er.. preistess), Ogion (Danny Glover), High Priestess Thar (Isabella Rossellini) and even Vetch (Chris Gauthier). Ged's father? Terrible acting--wooden, poor delivery, obviously fake, and poorly written.
This (the father's acting) is TYPICAL of ALL the non-central characters. The sound is off too, but that could be a function of the tape I was watching it on.
The special effects are decent (the scene where Vetch is describing his island and using bits of sugar to represent them [the sugar turns into the islands breifly] is interesting), as is the scene where the Arch-Magus comes to talk to the king. But they are only decent. The fire shot out by the mages defending Roke? Pathetic. In fact, the entire seige of Roke is pathetic. They DO NOT tap into HOW difficult it is to find Roke, or the releationship between the king and his pet wizard.
Overall, I think it has been worth my time to watch the show, but I won't be keeping it on tape, nor will I be recommending it to anyone for viewing. This would be true EVEN IF I had never read Earthsea.
A final complaint--when Ogion and Ged meet, Ogion raises him, and then gives him his name. As I recall this was a much more lengthy and involved ritual than is shown. The whole treatment of names is done FAR too lightly from what I remember. This is characteristic of the show in general--there is NO real character or plot development.
No, it isn't. You can only get IE on Windows these days, and that means having to own windows (or haxor it). Microsoft, in good business fashion, is NOT in the habit of giving away anything for free that. Yes, you can download it without incurring additional fees, but that isn't the same as free.
Firefox is free, however. It costs NOTHING, and can be used on platforms with the same cost.
FWIW, I am aware that IE can be run via wine, and that once upon a time that there was a version for MAC OS, but the first is not by design, and the second was purely a product of the browser wars.
IE may not ask for your credit card #, but it does have associated costs. I don't think that Firefox does.
actually the argument for me is not in power savings, but in time savings. Additionally, I have heard (from an A+ certification manual) that there is a slight power spike when you first hit the power that can cause damage to the machine over time.
Thus, if my boot time were closer to 0, then I would be more willing to turn the computer off. If I could go from 0 power to 100% operational in UNDER 20 seconds, then I would be more than glad to do turn it off.
I wasn't saying that the prestige of the journal had anything to do with the medium, but that there is a lot of name recognition.
JSTOR varies in quality from journal to journal--some are actually okay, while others suck. I know that I have gotten pdf's from JSTOR, but I wonder if that is a function of JSTOR or the amount that a person/institution is paying for access.
Most journals that I have dealt with online where I had to pay (because the university wasn't a subscriber) wanted between $15 and $25 for a single article. This is a LOT of money, and sometimes (if you aren't in a hurry), it is easier to contact the author and ask for a reprint--they usually have them, and if they are like many researchers, they are glad to send you a copy, provided you explain what you are doing.
There is a trick to it--the current prestigious journals ARE NOT going to go to a low/no cost format for publishing online until there are one or two major competitors who are seen as valid (peer-review) and prestigious. The prestige factor is huge and rests largely on (as you mention) the peer review process AND who is publishing in the journal. Sorry, but Robert Sternberg doesn't generally publish in just any old journal--he has one or two that he will send a manuscript to, and go from there.
When my thesis advisor (who wrote two chapters for the Handbook of Research Methods in Industrial Psychology) publishes, he typically sends stuff first to the Journal of Occupational Behavior, not DarkSarin's Online Journal of Amateur Psychology or Commoderesloat's Journal of Human Weirdness. Why? Because no one has EVER heard of those journals, and if puts that on his vita, it won't make any difference to the next folks wanting to hire him for his research ability (not that he's going anywhere--he's a full professor).
But when the next university sees that he has published 10 articles in the Journal of Occupational Behavior (JOB), they say, "Hey, this guy is getting published in one of the top 10 journals in Behavioral Psychology, he's probably pretty good!" They will then probably hire him.
But when that same university interviews me, and I put down that I published 123 articles in DarkSarin's Journal of Computer Gaming Psychology, they are going say, "Wow, I've never heard of that journal--is it peer reviewed? Is it attached to a professional association (APA, MPA, SIOP, etc)? Has anybody here heard of it? Does anyone who's any good publish in that journal?" If you are REALLY lucky, they MIGHT take the time to look up the answers, but chances are slim if the position is getting very many applicants (and if it isn't, it probably isn't paying very well!).
The long and the short of it is that there is little, if any, financial pressure to offer content online for free, and that is unlikely to change without competition. There is unlikely to be much competition, because few young researchers are going to put their career on the line by publishing in any but the most prestigious journals that they can possibly get an article into. Older researchers are already in the habit of sending articles to certain journals, and so they aren't likely to change either.
There isn't a good, quick, easy solution to this, and anyone who says that there is needs to have their head checked. Sorry.
Yikes! Which journals are you looking at? I use Lexis Nexis on occasion for legal research, as well as PsychInfo (Ebsco host) for Psych research (frequently), and I can access full text of most articles that I need. I have more than 100 full text articles in various formats saved on my HDD (mostly.pdf and.txt) that I have acquired through these sources.
Some of the publishing companies are greedy, that I won't deny, but generally I have text access when I need it for newer articles. For older stuff, printed before electronic layout was the way to go, you ususally wind up with a pdf that's nothing more than a bunch of scanned images (worthless).
For what it's worth, however, I tend to print all my sources anyway (makes it easier to read on trips & such).
The concept of free online publishing is limited by a number of things--the very first one being prestige. Publishing an article in Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP) is considered to be difficult and therefore prestigious. Thus if you are trying for a high-paying faculty position, you want to have a lot of pubs in the more respected journals. This leads a lot of researchers to do so, and ignore the possibility of publishing in a more "user friendly" format.
I suspect this will remain the case until a number of VERY respected researchers (and this holds true across academic fields) start using the online tools to publish openly and freely. Then it can slowly become prestigious to publish online. It will take a SOLID method of peer review, access control, and whatnot to help it along, but it is possible. The trick, however, is getting the Cohen's, Danny Kahneman's (psychology researchers) and Steven Hawkings of the world to publish their research in these venues instead of whatever journal is most prestigious at the time. Good luck with that!
To the person who claims it is a poor choice for High Schoolers, I disagree, especially if statistics is of interest. It forces you to actually THINK about what you are doing with your models instead of being able to run, willy nilly, any old analysis on any old data (vis-a-vis SPSS).
It is also good because it is VERY robust in its data import capabilities (excel, spss, etc), and is very strong at doing correct analyses.
There are some caveats: Need to program Need to be willing to really learn Poor documentation Memory intensive for large datasets.
This last item needs some explanation: R, unlike other statistical packages, loads the entire data set into memory, and performs all analyses there, instead of accessing the disk more frequently. This results in large datasets taking some serious memory, especially once you start working on complex analyses. If you plan to be using 5,000+ observations (which isn't all that uncommon in some fields), you should plan on having a fairly beefy computer.
The upside is that it can provide much more information than spss could ever hope for. Now, if someone would just finish the plugin for kalc or gnumeric that would allow direct access, that would be awesome.
(For R afficianados who aren't aware, check out ESS-Emacs Speaks Statistics--it's great for unix coders, but unnecessary for win32 stats folks).
Meh, the military use part is EASY--most new tech (in the US) goes there first if it can possibly be used for such (with a few exceptions).
At some point, however, there will be a use for fusion reactors in a mobile setting. Most likely, that will be in a sub or other naval vessel. Possibly spacecraft, but most likely naval.
And you don't find Johnny Depp (ala pirates of the c.) to be just a shade creepy? Depp is a good choice, methinks, and I don't think that this is going to be a bad movie.
Will it live up to the high bar set in the 70's? Perhaps, but I think you (and everyone else) should compare it to the book, not the Gene Wilder starring flick that we all know and most of us love (I have a friend that won't watch movies with midgets--eg, willow, willy wonka, ewoks, etc).
I don't care if we weaken or strengthen immigration laws--I just want them to be enforced fairly.
This is the problem I have with amnesty--it encourages people to immigrate ILLEGALLY! Folks, if you are here, in my country, without permission, I want to know why.
Personally, the low-wage jobs can go to whomever is willing to do them (believe me, I've had my share of them, too, including mining granite for buildings), regardless of national origin. This will only help to equalize the status of individuals all over the world. EVENTUALLY, the standard of living will rise in those countries that currently export labor, and costs will come in line with more modern countries--as long as things are allowed to work.
Here's the deal-you go to another country to work, fine, you just have to pay all the taxes everyone else there pays, and contribute to society. The entire concept is that if you come here, you must contribute, or you have no right to use the public services. Want a license? PAY YOUR TAXES!*
That's about enough of that.
*Until the fair tax plan is implemented, at which time, everyone will pay taxes on goods, which SHOULD help bring in a number of people who currently skip taxation.
I agree that there are a good number of non-US citizens here. I think his point, however was that it appears that the majority of/.ers supported Kerry, based on comments from around election time, poll results, etc.
I agree with the grandparent (to this post), that Bush has done a fair bit to support these types of research, and is still painted as anti-environment/anti-progress.
I think the point of said post was that it is ironic that many people who seem to be liberal in their support for Kerry also seem to be supporting a position that has traditionally opposed to the pro-environment folks--that of nuclear power.
Here's my take--I honestly think that anyone who has taken the time to REALLY research the issues will see that despite all the froth, most scientists see nuclear power (fission or fusion) as a relatively safe method of producing electricity. It is less damaging to the environment, and CAN be cheaper. The only drawback to fission is the waste product, and I still maintain that we can safely store it in various locations until such a time as we learn how to decontaminate it/dispose of it.
In the mean time, we SHOULD be working on getting fusion to work. It is possible--all that remains to be seen is if the costs of the safeguards required to appease those who knee-jerk oppose it will be low enough to make it feasible.
Personally, I think that in the US this will first turn up as a new method of powering sub-marines or other naval vessels, where fission has been used for decades. It is VERY likely that this will turn up in military uses first, then specialized commercial settings, then finally as a method of powering electricity generators. Finally, we will get cars and other vehicles based on the technology.
Of course, the presumes that some nut-job out there doesn't get hold of a dirty bomb (or an honest to goodness nuke) and start a nuclear war before we can get all this working. I'd say we have about a 50% chance of getting fusion first.
Not the best solution, but have you looked into the memory stick version of those apps. There was a story here the other day regarding that. Then you would not be installing anything, just using it.
while some are not really board games (rather being card games), if you are into playing board games, you should try these.
These games are generally fast, fun and require more strategy than is readily apparent from the shipping package. I highly recommend Kill Dr. Lucky. It's fun. You are a guy who hates Dr. Lucky (a rich philanthropist), and you want to kill him while at his mansion for a dinner party. Only thing is, everyone else wants to kill him too, but you don't realize that. So you have to get him into a room by yourself and then try to kill him. It's amusing.
Another great game is Chrononauts, which is a card game with an interesting twist.
Honestly, I think that there are a lot of us in the exact same boat here. I write mostly PHP code. I *have* written c/c++, and some javascript (blech!). But I still prefer php due to familiarity.
I think most of my code is ugly and hackish, but I always test to make sure errors are not going to creep up and bite me, and that the code is fairly stable.
Would my code EVER meet the beauty standards that some people seem to have? I doubt it, but that's okay.
Re:There's a preventive vaccine already
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HIV Vaccine
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That's a possibility, and I'm willing to concede such, but I am not certain. Biology is not my strong point.
Actually, there are plenty of industries where individual production has a high variance, and yet have effective unions that do NOT enforce a flat rate.
Variance in production can be matched by variance in compensation by introducing a peice-rate (with a minimum pay) into the equation. Instead of x/hour, try x/hour with x/unit of production.
The problem is that peice-rate is fairly simple when working with uniform goods (wood-workers are a good example of this when they are doing fairly similar peices of work), but when complex, and highly variable goods or services are being produced, piece-rate is much more complicated to quantify (e.g., how much code is a unit?). That said, these problems are NOT insurmountable. It would be difficult, but not impossible.
The upshot of this concept is simple: the guy in cube 8 is an expert--the best in the company. In a typical day he writes 5x the code as the next best programmer, with only.5x the bugs. He's good. What will he get paid? Perhaps this would work: (bug-free code x $y) + {(hours x $u) || (base_salary)}. This could be applied to a certain period (such as daily or weekly), and the programmer would get the incentive cash based on code that passes QA.
There are assumptions that are lacking, such as the complexity of the code or project, but some of that would be handled by base salary, and tagging projects as being at a certain difficulty level.
A union, if set up correctly to benefit programmers according to ability, could easily handle this type of scenario. Remember, just because one union has done something, wouldn't mean that the next union would have to do the same thing.
Collective bargaining is perfect for this, however. The idea is that unless the company listens up, the persons in the union won't do any work. This would work for programmers as well. Remember, if they are VERY public about their intentions to form a union, the company will have a heck of a time firing them (you CANNOT legally fire someone for trying to initialize a union) without retribution.
Once a union has formed, firing anyone who strikes also is problematic, since many union activities are protected.
All that said, I am NOT a huge fan of unions. I suspect that if one company gets folks who are forming unions (such as EA), then other companies will shape up and treat folks right to avoid the complications of unions, and eventually the industry standard would be raised to a much higher level (or rather better) of worker treatment.
Just a few thoughts.
Re:There's a preventive vaccine already
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HIV Vaccine
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But that doesn't really say that much about being homosexual v. hetero.
It's fairly simple:
When you have a small population, promiscuity is going to have a greater effect on your probability to catch whatever disease is available. It's a percentages game, not raw numbers.
As the percentage of the population that you've slept with rises, then so does your probability of catching y disease. The trouble is that in the homosexual community (especially in the US), for every different person that you sleep with, that increases this percentage by a greater amount than it would for a heterosexual person.
Think about it this way. We have populations x & y. Population x has 100 persons, whereas population y only has 5 persons. Let us suppose that in both populations that there is exactly 1 person who has the AIDS virus.
Now if a person in population x sleeps with 3 different people the chances that one of those individuals is infected is about 3% (I think--I may be making some rather egregious errors, but the point is that it is a small number!). However, for a person in population y, sleeping with 3 different people (note that this is 3 out of 4 others in a population of 5), the chances of sleeping with someone who has aids is about 75%!
If both of these communities are heterosexual, there is a greater chance of those in population y to get AIDS--on the magnitude of 25 times as great! This doesn't change is one population is homosexual or heterosexual--the probabilities are based on the size of the population, not sexual orientation.
The result is that since there is a MUCH small homesexual population, they are more likely to end up sleeping with someone who has or is carrying the AIDS virus--even though they might sleep with the same number of partners as a heterosexual person. It is not a function of being homosexual, but of promiscuity combined with population size.
All this said, there are lots of other factors. Available population can be viewed as either the entire US (or even world), but really is more limited by geographical factors. You are much more likely to sleep with someone who lives near you, so in a city of 100,000, the chances of getting aids is a function of: the number of people who currently are infected, the number of people you sleep with, and the number of people that those with whom you slept sleep with (and so on), and the number of person of the same sexual orientation. If there are individuals who are bisexual, those muddy the equations.
I think I have demonstrated my point clearly enough. Now let me say this: I do not condone homosexuality. I am a conservative Christian in this matter. That said, I feel VERY strongly that what people do in their bedrooms (and with whom they do it) is their own business. I don't feel that those choices make a person worth any more or less.
Finally, I'll probably get flamed for all this anyway. Oh well...
the Devil is in the Details
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which is what this article lacks. Don't get me wrong--there is some cool information there, but I want to see screenies of the entire desktop--has that changed much or not?
I would also like more information about the core KDE, not just the peripheral stuff like Konq & KHTML.
All that said, the idea of a new version of KDE is fairly kool, but frankly, as an XFCE user (and occasionally Gnome), I find the KDE desktop & icons to be just a shade on the kludgy side. They don't look as clean or professional in my mind.
Slashdot Mirror
bah, that's because you haven't found the rest of the quote! The quote refers to how many people approach data analysis (incorrectly)--the collect a bunch of data and then analyze it until they get the desired results--having very little idea of what the analysis really does, or why, or what it all means.
.05, great! This means that my results are important!" They don't understand that significant doesn't mean important in this context, or that sometimes a p of .062 is also significant. They don't know anything about multivariate statistics, power analysis or anything else. Many of them couldn't even run an ANOVA without the use of a computer (it isn't mathematically hard, but they don't know the procedure).
Some folks see p=.042, and think, "Hey, p is less than
These are the same people that don't know that for most tests, t^2 is the same as F. They plug numbers into excel or SPSS, and end up with other numbers that they have a vaguely warm feeling about understanding (but lack true insight as to what it all means), and make decisions based on that. Their stats prof told them to do things this way, so they do it.
Data analysis is a VERY important part of psychology, and anyone who thinks otherwise is uninformed. There are many psychologists (clinicians to be specific) who fall within this category as well. I have no respect for this type of person--who will not take time to actually LEARN what they should be doing.
Oh well, I am so far OT by now it doesn't matter. The point is that psychologists do tend to know what they are doing. They have contributed more to your life than you realize, and will continue to do so. Have a nice day.
You sir, have no clue what you are talking about. There is a difference between psyciatrists and psychologists (that goes much deeper than medical training), and that you apparently don't know that leaves me in serious doubt about the rest of your comment.
That said, there are a good many medical doctors that would have done the same thing that the psychiatrists did.
I am glad you found help, but don't be so quick to judge the state of psychiatry/psychology as bunk. There are MANY things that psychologists do that you are probably not aware of just because it doesn't fit the "shrink" stereotype that most people have.
I tend to agree, but the problem is that many people take it for granted that taxes are the way to go, and that more taxes are inevitable, and I think that it is important that people take this in to account.
The question of how is important, but it should NEVER drive how much. Raising tax levels should not be necessary except in rare circumstances, but it has become accepted world-wide as the only way a gov't can stay afloat. Perhaps there are other ways to fund a gov't that have yet to be fully explored that do NOT place a burden on the taxpayer.
As a thought--Microsoft makes lots of money--maybe the gov't should start selling software! (In the US this wouldn't work (legal reasons), but other countries could do it in all likelihood.)
Just a few ideas.
Ah yes, spend the taxpayer's money! Great Idea.
As far as I am concerned the gov't, in as much as it is possible, should let the citizens of the country KEEP THEIR MONEY. When you are talking about spending money wisely, you have already lost part of the battle--the one where you are only required to support the bare essentials of government, such as military and police (and a very few other programs, medicine being of debatable utility in the hands of gov't).
You are right though, when the gov't is spending money, it should only spend what is necessary to do the job and do it right. Occasionally this would require long-term investments, but overall, the gov't should be a quiet, non-intrusive entity that only is visible when there are problems, such as a break in at your house!
Yes, you are way off topic, but I have karma to burn, so whatever...
I wasn't sure about NASA being military, but I do think that is where it belongs...
As far as natinal defense contradicting a fairly weak fed, I disagree. The fed should be able to coordinate military operations, but should NOT have the power to use the military (or the FBI, etc) to infiltrate the homes of citizens. I think that (as far as the FBI is concerned) the purpose of national intelligence agencies should be to assist states in tracking cross-state crimes (and ONLY those crimes) and very little else. Things such as foreign intelligence should be handled by the military (or even be an official branch of the military), and subject to the generals of the
military.
I don't have a complete concept of the "ideal" gov't, I must admit. Why not? Because I have never encountered one. The US got some things figured out fairly well, but other things have been changed so much that we can't even be sure if the constitution would work the way it was written.
Like you, I don't mind that there are some people who are richer than others. I do think however, that the concept of a national healthcare plan is dubious. I am skeptical because I have seen the way that anything run by a gov't seems to be bloated, slow to change/adopt, and run by pencil-pushers. An efficient healthcare system needs to be slim (with only the absolutely necessary number of admins), responsive to both customers/clients AND changing technology/medicine, and profitable.
Doctors would benefit greatly from a situation where they knew that treating xyz patient would pay amount abc. The problem with gov't mandated healthcare is that, like health insurance, certain procedures would have to be deemed as "optional", otherwise you have cosmetic enhancements, such as breast enlargements, being done at the public expense--not cool. Unfortunately, what procedures to allow and disallow is hardly a matter of common approval. I may think one thing should be covered, while another might not.
Then you get into really tricky areas, such as abortion. Should the gov't pay for that (assuming legality)? As a taxpayer, I may heavily disapprove of abortion, and even find it offensive that some of my tax dollars go to fund abortions. How do you handle that sort of stickiness?
Just some thoughts, and thanks for yours.
It depends on how you define weak. I think a weak federal gov't is good in terms of police power, and direct dealings with the populace. There should be VERY few decisions made at the federal level that affect citizens. The fed should only be there to "provide for the national defense" and whatnot.
As for NASA, etc, these are operations that should be either private or military. If private, then the gov't should leave well enough alone, but if military, then they should be funded as necessary. Would we have gotten to the moon on a military strategy? Possibly not as quickly, but certainly it would have happened the moment anyone else anounced that they were headed to the
have you actually read the books?
If so, then fine.
If not, you should refrain from commenting.
Le Guin's works are plot building--it's slow, and subtle, but it is there. She tells a story that is different from what many people expect (aka Harry Potter), but it DOES have depth. Le Guin is occasionally focused on sexual themes, and certainly has an unusually 'mystic' feel. It's real stuff, though.
Having just watched the first half last night (taped!), I have to say that I am dissappointed.
Let's leave alone the obvious deviations from the plot, and focus on more germaine aspects of the production.
First, acting. When you are producing something like this, having good actors is appropriate. The chick from Smallville (Kristin Kreuk) is good, as is the guy who plays Ged (Shawn Ashmore). Some of the others are decent, such as the Arch-Magus, the King (decent) and his whore(er.. preistess), Ogion (Danny Glover), High Priestess Thar (Isabella Rossellini) and even Vetch (Chris Gauthier). Ged's father? Terrible acting--wooden, poor delivery, obviously fake, and poorly written.
This (the father's acting) is TYPICAL of ALL the non-central characters. The sound is off too, but that could be a function of the tape I was watching it on.
The special effects are decent (the scene where Vetch is describing his island and using bits of sugar to represent them [the sugar turns into the islands breifly] is interesting), as is the scene where the Arch-Magus comes to talk to the king. But they are only decent. The fire shot out by the mages defending Roke? Pathetic. In fact, the entire seige of Roke is pathetic. They DO NOT tap into HOW difficult it is to find Roke, or the releationship between the king and his pet wizard.
Overall, I think it has been worth my time to watch the show, but I won't be keeping it on tape, nor will I be recommending it to anyone for viewing. This would be true EVEN IF I had never read Earthsea.
A final complaint--when Ogion and Ged meet, Ogion raises him, and then gives him his name. As I recall this was a much more lengthy and involved ritual than is shown. The whole treatment of names is done FAR too lightly from what I remember. This is characteristic of the show in general--there is NO real character or plot development.
No, it isn't. You can only get IE on Windows these days, and that means having to own windows (or haxor it). Microsoft, in good business fashion, is NOT in the habit of giving away anything for free that. Yes, you can download it without incurring additional fees, but that isn't the same as free.
Firefox is free, however. It costs NOTHING, and can be used on platforms with the same cost.
FWIW, I am aware that IE can be run via wine, and that once upon a time that there was a version for MAC OS, but the first is not by design, and the second was purely a product of the browser wars.
IE may not ask for your credit card #, but it does have associated costs. I don't think that Firefox does.
actually the argument for me is not in power savings, but in time savings. Additionally, I have heard (from an A+ certification manual) that there is a slight power spike when you first hit the power that can cause damage to the machine over time.
Thus, if my boot time were closer to 0, then I would be more willing to turn the computer off. If I could go from 0 power to 100% operational in UNDER 20 seconds, then I would be more than glad to do turn it off.
I wasn't saying that the prestige of the journal had anything to do with the medium, but that there is a lot of name recognition.
JSTOR varies in quality from journal to journal--some are actually okay, while others suck. I know that I have gotten pdf's from JSTOR, but I wonder if that is a function of JSTOR or the amount that a person/institution is paying for access.
Most journals that I have dealt with online where I had to pay (because the university wasn't a subscriber) wanted between $15 and $25 for a single article. This is a LOT of money, and sometimes (if you aren't in a hurry), it is easier to contact the author and ask for a reprint--they usually have them, and if they are like many researchers, they are glad to send you a copy, provided you explain what you are doing.
There is a trick to it--the current prestigious journals ARE NOT going to go to a low/no cost format for publishing online until there are one or two major competitors who are seen as valid (peer-review) and prestigious. The prestige factor is huge and rests largely on (as you mention) the peer review process AND who is publishing in the journal. Sorry, but Robert Sternberg doesn't generally publish in just any old journal--he has one or two that he will send a manuscript to, and go from there.
When my thesis advisor (who wrote two chapters for the Handbook of Research Methods in Industrial Psychology) publishes, he typically sends stuff first to the Journal of Occupational Behavior, not DarkSarin's Online Journal of Amateur Psychology or Commoderesloat's Journal of Human Weirdness. Why? Because no one has EVER heard of those journals, and if puts that on his vita, it won't make any difference to the next folks wanting to hire him for his research ability (not that he's going anywhere--he's a full professor).
But when the next university sees that he has published 10 articles in the Journal of Occupational Behavior (JOB), they say, "Hey, this guy is getting published in one of the top 10 journals in Behavioral Psychology, he's probably pretty good!" They will then probably hire him.
But when that same university interviews me, and I put down that I published 123 articles in DarkSarin's Journal of Computer Gaming Psychology, they are going say, "Wow, I've never heard of that journal--is it peer reviewed? Is it attached to a professional association (APA, MPA, SIOP, etc)? Has anybody here heard of it? Does anyone who's any good publish in that journal?" If you are REALLY lucky, they MIGHT take the time to look up the answers, but chances are slim if the position is getting very many applicants (and if it isn't, it probably isn't paying very well!).
The long and the short of it is that there is little, if any, financial pressure to offer content online for free, and that is unlikely to change without competition. There is unlikely to be much competition, because few young researchers are going to put their career on the line by publishing in any but the most prestigious journals that they can possibly get an article into. Older researchers are already in the habit of sending articles to certain journals, and so they aren't likely to change either.
There isn't a good, quick, easy solution to this, and anyone who says that there is needs to have their head checked. Sorry.
Yikes! Which journals are you looking at? I use Lexis Nexis on occasion for legal research, as well as PsychInfo (Ebsco host) for Psych research (frequently), and I can access full text of most articles that I need. I have more than 100 full text articles in various formats saved on my HDD (mostly .pdf and .txt) that I have acquired through these sources.
Some of the publishing companies are greedy, that I won't deny, but generally I have text access when I need it for newer articles. For older stuff, printed before electronic layout was the way to go, you ususally wind up with a pdf that's nothing more than a bunch of scanned images (worthless).
For what it's worth, however, I tend to print all my sources anyway (makes it easier to read on trips & such).
The concept of free online publishing is limited by a number of things--the very first one being prestige. Publishing an article in Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP) is considered to be difficult and therefore prestigious. Thus if you are trying for a high-paying faculty position, you want to have a lot of pubs in the more respected journals. This leads a lot of researchers to do so, and ignore the possibility of publishing in a more "user friendly" format.
I suspect this will remain the case until a number of VERY respected researchers (and this holds true across academic fields) start using the online tools to publish openly and freely. Then it can slowly become prestigious to publish online. It will take a SOLID method of peer review, access control, and whatnot to help it along, but it is possible. The trick, however, is getting the Cohen's, Danny Kahneman's (psychology researchers) and Steven Hawkings of the world to publish their research in these venues instead of whatever journal is most prestigious at the time. Good luck with that!
Dangit, you beat me to it!
I was going to suggest R.
To the person who claims it is a poor choice for High Schoolers, I disagree, especially if statistics is of interest. It forces you to actually THINK about what you are doing with your models instead of being able to run, willy nilly, any old analysis on any old data (vis-a-vis SPSS).
It is also good because it is VERY robust in its data import capabilities (excel, spss, etc), and is very strong at doing correct analyses.
There are some caveats:
Need to program
Need to be willing to really learn
Poor documentation
Memory intensive for large datasets.
This last item needs some explanation: R, unlike other statistical packages, loads the entire data set into memory, and performs all analyses there, instead of accessing the disk more frequently. This results in large datasets taking some serious memory, especially once you start working on complex analyses. If you plan to be using 5,000+ observations (which isn't all that uncommon in some fields), you should plan on having a fairly beefy computer.
The upside is that it can provide much more information than spss could ever hope for. Now, if someone would just finish the plugin for kalc or gnumeric that would allow direct access, that would be awesome.
(For R afficianados who aren't aware, check out ESS-Emacs Speaks Statistics--it's great for unix coders, but unnecessary for win32 stats folks).
that was not baiting any flames. That was just plain old regular flame.
/.--we can tag flamebait, but not flames!
Thus we see yet another crack in the system of
Ah, well, that's okay--I would also like to see a -1 trollbait and +6 "I spit my drink through my nose funny" options. Oh well.
Meh, the military use part is EASY--most new tech (in the US) goes there first if it can possibly be used for such (with a few exceptions).
At some point, however, there will be a use for fusion reactors in a mobile setting. Most likely, that will be in a sub or other naval vessel. Possibly spacecraft, but most likely naval.
And you don't find Johnny Depp (ala pirates of the c.) to be just a shade creepy? Depp is a good choice, methinks, and I don't think that this is going to be a bad movie.
Will it live up to the high bar set in the 70's? Perhaps, but I think you (and everyone else) should compare it to the book, not the Gene Wilder starring flick that we all know and most of us love (I have a friend that won't watch movies with midgets--eg, willow, willy wonka, ewoks, etc).
I don't care if we weaken or strengthen immigration laws--I just want them to be enforced fairly.
This is the problem I have with amnesty--it encourages people to immigrate ILLEGALLY! Folks, if you are here, in my country, without permission, I want to know why.
Personally, the low-wage jobs can go to whomever is willing to do them (believe me, I've had my share of them, too, including mining granite for buildings), regardless of national origin. This will only help to equalize the status of individuals all over the world. EVENTUALLY, the standard of living will rise in those countries that currently export labor, and costs will come in line with more modern countries--as long as things are allowed to work.
Here's the deal-you go to another country to work, fine, you just have to pay all the taxes everyone else there pays, and contribute to society. The entire concept is that if you come here, you must contribute, or you have no right to use the public services. Want a license? PAY YOUR TAXES!*
That's about enough of that.
*Until the fair tax plan is implemented, at which time, everyone will pay taxes on goods, which SHOULD help bring in a number of people who currently skip taxation.
I agree that there are a good number of non-US citizens here. I think his point, however was that it appears that the majority of /.ers supported Kerry, based on comments from around election time, poll results, etc.
I agree with the grandparent (to this post), that Bush has done a fair bit to support these types of research, and is still painted as anti-environment/anti-progress.
I think the point of said post was that it is ironic that many people who seem to be liberal in their support for Kerry also seem to be supporting a position that has traditionally opposed to the pro-environment folks--that of nuclear power.
Here's my take--I honestly think that anyone who has taken the time to REALLY research the issues will see that despite all the froth, most scientists see nuclear power (fission or fusion) as a relatively safe method of producing electricity. It is less damaging to the environment, and CAN be cheaper. The only drawback to fission is the waste product, and I still maintain that we can safely store it in various locations until such a time as we learn how to decontaminate it/dispose of it.
In the mean time, we SHOULD be working on getting fusion to work. It is possible--all that remains to be seen is if the costs of the safeguards required to appease those who knee-jerk oppose it will be low enough to make it feasible.
Personally, I think that in the US this will first turn up as a new method of powering sub-marines or other naval vessels, where fission has been used for decades. It is VERY likely that this will turn up in military uses first, then specialized commercial settings, then finally as a method of powering electricity generators. Finally, we will get cars and other vehicles based on the technology.
Of course, the presumes that some nut-job out there doesn't get hold of a dirty bomb (or an honest to goodness nuke) and start a nuclear war before we can get all this working. I'd say we have about a 50% chance of getting fusion first.
Not the best solution, but have you looked into the memory stick version of those apps. There was a story here the other day regarding that. Then you would not be installing anything, just using it.
while some are not really board games (rather being card games), if you are into playing board games, you should try these.
These games are generally fast, fun and require more strategy than is readily apparent from the shipping package. I highly recommend Kill Dr. Lucky. It's fun. You are a guy who hates Dr. Lucky (a rich philanthropist), and you want to kill him while at his mansion for a dinner party. Only thing is, everyone else wants to kill him too, but you don't realize that. So you have to get him into a room by yourself and then try to kill him. It's amusing.
Another great game is Chrononauts, which is a card game with an interesting twist.
Honestly, I think that there are a lot of us in the exact same boat here. I write mostly PHP code. I *have* written c/c++, and some javascript (blech!). But I still prefer php due to familiarity.
I think most of my code is ugly and hackish, but I always test to make sure errors are not going to creep up and bite me, and that the code is fairly stable.
Would my code EVER meet the beauty standards that some people seem to have? I doubt it, but that's okay.
That's a possibility, and I'm willing to concede such, but I am not certain. Biology is not my strong point.
Actually, there are plenty of industries where individual production has a high variance, and yet have effective unions that do NOT enforce a flat rate.
.5x the bugs. He's good. What will he get paid? Perhaps this would work: (bug-free code x $y) + {(hours x $u) || (base_salary)}. This could be applied to a certain period (such as daily or weekly), and the programmer would get the incentive cash based on code that passes QA.
Variance in production can be matched by variance in compensation by introducing a peice-rate (with a minimum pay) into the equation. Instead of x/hour, try x/hour with x/unit of production.
The problem is that peice-rate is fairly simple when working with uniform goods (wood-workers are a good example of this when they are doing fairly similar peices of work), but when complex, and highly variable goods or services are being produced, piece-rate is much more complicated to quantify (e.g., how much code is a unit?). That said, these problems are NOT insurmountable. It would be difficult, but not impossible.
The upshot of this concept is simple: the guy in cube 8 is an expert--the best in the company. In a typical day he writes 5x the code as the next best programmer, with only
There are assumptions that are lacking, such as the complexity of the code or project, but some of that would be handled by base salary, and tagging projects as being at a certain difficulty level.
A union, if set up correctly to benefit programmers according to ability, could easily handle this type of scenario. Remember, just because one union has done something, wouldn't mean that the next union would have to do the same thing.
Collective bargaining is perfect for this, however. The idea is that unless the company listens up, the persons in the union won't do any work. This would work for programmers as well. Remember, if they are VERY public about their intentions to form a union, the company will have a heck of a time firing them (you CANNOT legally fire someone for trying to initialize a union) without retribution.
Once a union has formed, firing anyone who strikes also is problematic, since many union activities are protected.
All that said, I am NOT a huge fan of unions. I suspect that if one company gets folks who are forming unions (such as EA), then other companies will shape up and treat folks right to avoid the complications of unions, and eventually the industry standard would be raised to a much higher level (or rather better) of worker treatment.
Just a few thoughts.
But that doesn't really say that much about being homosexual v. hetero.
It's fairly simple:
When you have a small population, promiscuity is going to have a greater effect on your probability to catch whatever disease is available. It's a percentages game, not raw numbers.
As the percentage of the population that you've slept with rises, then so does your probability of catching y disease. The trouble is that in the homosexual community (especially in the US), for every different person that you sleep with, that increases this percentage by a greater amount than it would for a heterosexual person.
Think about it this way. We have populations x & y. Population x has 100 persons, whereas population y only has 5 persons. Let us suppose that in both populations that there is exactly 1 person who has the AIDS virus.
Now if a person in population x sleeps with 3 different people the chances that one of those individuals is infected is about 3% (I think--I may be making some rather egregious errors, but the point is that it is a small number!). However, for a person in population y, sleeping with 3 different people (note that this is 3 out of 4 others in a population of 5), the chances of sleeping with someone who has aids is about 75%!
If both of these communities are heterosexual, there is a greater chance of those in population y to get AIDS--on the magnitude of 25 times as great! This doesn't change is one population is homosexual or heterosexual--the probabilities are based on the size of the population, not sexual orientation.
The result is that since there is a MUCH small homesexual population, they are more likely to end up sleeping with someone who has or is carrying the AIDS virus--even though they might sleep with the same number of partners as a heterosexual person. It is not a function of being homosexual, but of promiscuity combined with population size.
All this said, there are lots of other factors. Available population can be viewed as either the entire US (or even world), but really is more limited by geographical factors. You are much more likely to sleep with someone who lives near you, so in a city of 100,000, the chances of getting aids is a function of: the number of people who currently are infected, the number of people you sleep with, and the number of people that those with whom you slept sleep with (and so on), and the number of person of the same sexual orientation. If there are individuals who are bisexual, those muddy the equations.
I think I have demonstrated my point clearly enough. Now let me say this: I do not condone homosexuality. I am a conservative Christian in this matter. That said, I feel VERY strongly that what people do in their bedrooms (and with whom they do it) is their own business. I don't feel that those choices make a person worth any more or less.
Finally, I'll probably get flamed for all this anyway. Oh well...
which is what this article lacks. Don't get me wrong--there is some cool information there, but I want to see screenies of the entire desktop--has that changed much or not?
I would also like more information about the core KDE, not just the peripheral stuff like Konq & KHTML.
All that said, the idea of a new version of KDE is fairly kool, but frankly, as an XFCE user (and occasionally Gnome), I find the KDE desktop & icons to be just a shade on the kludgy side. They don't look as clean or professional in my mind.
But that's just one geek's opinion.