So yea, we should totally have Al Gore also win the Nobel Chemistry Prize, Grammy Award for Best Record and while we're at it, a Gold Glove for best first baseman. It's not a simple matter of semantics. The awards are there to mean something and people who win are supposed to actually fit the description of the award. It's ridiculous to award Gore with a PEACE award when what he's doing is more related to Pollution. If we had a Nobel Anti-Pollution Prize, that might be more appropriate. But to say that "he deserves this because he's done good things even if the name doesn't fit at all" is nonsense.
You obviously have a lot of anger against Republicans (I'm a Democrat) and you're really choosing the wrong thread to argue about US politics. My argument first and foremost is that he doesn't deserve THIS award. He's done some good things, he's done some bad things. But as far as doing things to promote PEACE? I don't think he's done all that much.
Seriously, stop preaching and use a little sense that you accuse your opponents of not having.
Um... did you notice that the award is called the Nobel Peace Prize? A "well-deserved honor" implies that he's done something to promote peace, aka stopping wars. Now, does stopping global warming stop wars? I suppose being on the religious left, you're bound to confuse words like "Peace" and "pollution".
No anonymous coward here, but something tells me "well-deserved" isn't exactly the right word. Everyone on the religious left blames global warming for everything, but blaming wars on global warming is going too far.
That'll work once but won't work the next time. Any market has its reputation system and if you're known to sell to both (an obvious thing since Microsoft will have patched it shortly), I'm sure people will bid less and less for your exploit.
Plus, do you really want to screw over black market customers? They're not your typical customers. I'm sure they'll do a lot worse than not shopping from you again if you screw them over (think identity theft or worse).
I think his point is that there's a lot of new technologies all the time that don't fulfill their hype. The V-2 is a good example in that during the war, it was thought as the magic weapon that would wipe out the enemy. It's not that there aren't technologies that do deserve the hype, but that the technologies that inevitably end up changing our lives aren't necessarily the ones that did. He also makes a point that innovation isn't necessarily unique. Basically, that had email not been invented, there might be something just as efficient that would have been made. Since this author believes that the same things get invented regardless (albeit with different parameters), attaching such importance to the innovation is therefore not as warranted.
Some examples of hyped technologies right now:
stem cells quantum computing nano-tech anything fusion related
Are any of these going to change our lives the way they're hyped to be? Perhaps, but there's a good chance that something else from left field will do much better at the same things these technologies promise to do.
Of course, speculating on such things is mostly futile since we can't know a world that would have been (at least without some weird quantum technology). We only know the world that is. Thus, I don't know if saying that innovation is important is unwarranted. However, this article does point out that our placing so much importance on innovation is also unwarranted.
We invent new technology, expect to use it, and expect that costs won't rise. Huh? We're expecting to get more for less. That only works for computer hardware. (in a socialist medicine system, quotas and delaying tactics are used to fight this problem)
To put another way, innovation is prized much more in medicine than optimization. All new machines have new functions and new innovations without much regard to cost. Cost improvement is almost never as much a concern. That's why MRI machines continue to cost so much. The reason computer hardware is so cheap is that there are literally hundreds of companies all over the place (mainly in Asia) that optimize the heck out of each thing produced. Competition and demand has led to cheaper hardware...
But MRI machines? Not so much. The laws of consumer electronics don't apply here. Hospitals and research facilities don't buy these machines based on cost (not that there are too many manufacturers anyway), they buy them on features.
The other thing that's not talked about very much is that the number of doctors in America is very limited. For every doctor there are literally hundreds that wanted to be doctors but were rejected by medical schools, who have a very strict quota on the number of students they accept. The number of specialists in each field is controlled by the specialists themselves. So the supply of doctors is very tightly controlled. When's the last time you heard of a doctor that left the profession because of a lack of money in it? Almost never. That's because each doctor always has enough work. If you increase the supply of doctors, it may not be as steady a job, but it'll certainly cause them to do business more efficiently.
Hey I was in academia. This is one of the many reasons I left it. Theoretical physics? I'll give you super-string theory. Go look it up and see how many results they have and the amount of money spent on it. I'd count that as an intellectual fad.
A google search for "research grant" is just soooo scientific. Stop wasting time insulting me and go look up grants.gov and search "aids" and see how many results you get. Now try "herpes". Again try "climate change", now try "peak oil".
On one hand, you have scientists paid to do research by the government and other public organizations, with no instructions on what they can and cannot publish. These scientists are not paid more if they find that global warming is anthropogenic than if they find that it's not. If you think otherwise, you're drinking the Crichton kool-aid, and are subscribing to the biggest conspiracy theory of them all.
You obviously don't work in academia. Academia works off of grants. Grants are given to study specific things. Two huge sources of grants are AIDS and global warming. So, for instance, if you wanted to research herpes (not that well funded), the easiest way to get that money would be to go after an AIDS grant and research how herpes spread has been affected by AIDS. Similarly, if you want to study elephants in Africa, you would try to get a grant from a climate change group to study how global warming has affected the migration patterns of elephants in Africa. Those organizations that actually give the grants get THEIR funding based on the research that comes back. So if a research paper comes back and says "global warming is not much of a problem", the organization that gave the grant might not have as large a budget next year. It's essentially chopping off the branch you're standing on. Now, if you come back and say "global warming is a huge problem", you'll get more press, the organization that funded you gets more money, you get even more grants to do your research.
Now about your point that oil companies fund the anti-global warming research. The number I've heard on the money oil companies have contributed is in the tens of millions (this from an environmentalist group, I forget which). The actual global warming research being performed from grants in gov't agencies and whatnot? Billions. Now is it a surprise that the scientists on each side of the issue is proportionate to the amount of funding on each side? Let's just say I'm a little skeptical.
That wouldn't work unless you have some sort of hex pattern. Bayer is based on a square pattern, so most likely, it's something like 1xRed, 1xGreen, 1xBlue, 1xClear per 4.
At least at my company, we started our web app in IE back in '99 when firefox wasn't around. The app has grown so huge that the development/QA costs to allow for firefox would be prohibitive. QA, in particular would be hardest hit since they'd have to double their test load (they already test everything under different versions of windows and IE, adding different versions of firefox would be a nightmare). Basically, it's a very large sunk cost into IE and the cost of switching just is too much.
That said, most of the developers at work prefer firefox, we have to live with IE for development/testing.
I switched about 8 years ago. Here are some observations:
1. Typing speed is essentially the same. For some people it improves drastically, but for me, it didn't. 2. I was comfortable typing dvorak in about 1 month. I can still type qwerty just fine, though mentally, there's a switch to be flipped. I liken it to learning a new language. You don't suddenly forget your old language. 3. I had carpal tunnel symptoms before (pins and needles on the wrists and such), and I made the drastic switch not only to dvorak but to the kinesis dvorak keyboard. In 8 years, I haven't had any more symptoms since. I can't say if it's because of dvorak or the keyboard (I had a normal one at home for a while, typing dvorak), but it certainly worked. 4. It is a great security device for your computer against non-dvorak typers. I almost always end up "driving" when people are congregated at my computer and most people get confused when trying to type on my keyboard and simply leave my computer alone. It's nice when you're particular about your settings.
Environmental groups fund all the researchers that do a lot of the research IPCC cites. IPCC becomes more powerful and rich the more they scare people. Taking a look at who funds whom doesn't help any. If anything the environmental groups fund things a lot more than the gas/oil/polluter companies. And do they ever fund anything that suggests global warming isn't true? not likely. But of course, nobody talks about that.
I don't know about you, but seeing wilder and wilder predictions over the years on global warming have gotten me more and more cynical. It seems to me the IPCC reports are more and more intent on making it look worse and worse. I've also been told that the summaries in the past have exaggerated the findings in the actual chapters. Anyone know about this report?
Totally agree with the above poster. Travel as light as you can. The biggest liabilities are the heavy things and though most hostels offer some sort of locker (bring a combination lock with you, it's very useful), it's a constant threat to be stolen and you're definitely not going to want to bring it with you for day trips.
The most useful things are digital cameras (most internet cafes have memory-card to CD burning services for $5 or so), mp3 player (a surprising amount of tourist places now have podcasts that you can use for touring the place) and possibly a gsm phone (for emergencies and for contacting friends). The annoying thing is what the above poster mentioned, which is the power adapter changing in every country. I'd just buy one at the first place and try to trade with someone at hostels for your next locale.
Another very useful thing to bring in case it rains is a bunch of stuff-it sacks. Not only can you use multiple ones to organize your clothes, etc, but you can also fit more stuff into your backpack (I'd get one that's NOT a top-loader) and it provides another layer of protection. Also, if you're going to go scuba dive, get a water-proof camera case. The pics are worth it.
Contextual Ads, my man. Think about it, you're in some city and are walking to meet a friend (stored on google calendar, of course). The gPhone GPS gives you a contextual ad showing that there's a new cafe about 2 blocks away with exact directions on how to get there. There's also a new movie playing at the movie theater you guys are going to anyway, and of course, you can order the tickets direct without having to stand in line. And by the way, the restaurant near by also would like your attention. Maybe you can even pay for the meal with your google checkout account and receive a $10 discount. The possibilities are endless. The thing that a phone gives google is the ability to be where the user is at.
Organizing information is their thing. It's much more useful if the information is there at your fingertips.
Sadly, this is really the state of education in America. I could name a lot of other examples like yours, and I went to a pretty good high school.
The fact of the matter is unions are great at protecting unskilled jobs. They should be there for the UPS driver or the auto-line worker. However, when you start having unions for skilled jobs, there's nothing short of disaster. Suddenly, people who are good at their jobs are treated exactly the same as the people who are poor at their jobs. Of course that only encourages people who are good to lower their quality and soon you only have people who are poor at their jobs.
That's exactly what's happened to education. People who are good at teaching get weeded out early or become quick converts to doing the minimum to keep their jobs. Why try when you don't have to? Or worse, when you're actively discouraged to?
The people I feel real sorry about are the kids. Thankfully, there are enough secondary means of education that they can educate themselves.
we're essentially talking about the primary source v. blockers of the primary source. i never understood why there wasn't too much discussion about the source side of this controversy.
Slashdot Mirror
And has been nominated for a Grammy for Best Opera Recording and an Industrial Design Excellence Award.
So yea, we should totally have Al Gore also win the Nobel Chemistry Prize, Grammy Award for Best Record and while we're at it, a Gold Glove for best first baseman. It's not a simple matter of semantics. The awards are there to mean something and people who win are supposed to actually fit the description of the award. It's ridiculous to award Gore with a PEACE award when what he's doing is more related to Pollution. If we had a Nobel Anti-Pollution Prize, that might be more appropriate. But to say that "he deserves this because he's done good things even if the name doesn't fit at all" is nonsense.
You obviously have a lot of anger against Republicans (I'm a Democrat) and you're really choosing the wrong thread to argue about US politics. My argument first and foremost is that he doesn't deserve THIS award. He's done some good things, he's done some bad things. But as far as doing things to promote PEACE? I don't think he's done all that much.
Seriously, stop preaching and use a little sense that you accuse your opponents of not having.
Oh, BTW, I'm a registered Democrat, just not a religious leftist.
Um... did you notice that the award is called the Nobel Peace Prize? A "well-deserved honor" implies that he's done something to promote peace, aka stopping wars. Now, does stopping global warming stop wars? I suppose being on the religious left, you're bound to confuse words like "Peace" and "pollution".
No anonymous coward here, but something tells me "well-deserved" isn't exactly the right word. Everyone on the religious left blames global warming for everything, but blaming wars on global warming is going too far.
yet another reason not to get this hyped up gadget. you can bet that no business person is going to buy this after this gets publicized.
That'll work once but won't work the next time. Any market has its reputation system and if you're known to sell to both (an obvious thing since Microsoft will have patched it shortly), I'm sure people will bid less and less for your exploit.
Plus, do you really want to screw over black market customers? They're not your typical customers. I'm sure they'll do a lot worse than not shopping from you again if you screw them over (think identity theft or worse).
The Republicans probably contracted out the making of their website... The Democrats probably had a nerd working for them that did it.
So the question is: are any of those promises being fulfilled?
somehow that doesn't seem satisfactory as the question to the answer to life.
Yea, but Peter took over the world while Ender only saved it.
I think his point is that there's a lot of new technologies all the time that don't fulfill their hype. The V-2 is a good example in that during the war, it was thought as the magic weapon that would wipe out the enemy. It's not that there aren't technologies that do deserve the hype, but that the technologies that inevitably end up changing our lives aren't necessarily the ones that did. He also makes a point that innovation isn't necessarily unique. Basically, that had email not been invented, there might be something just as efficient that would have been made. Since this author believes that the same things get invented regardless (albeit with different parameters), attaching such importance to the innovation is therefore not as warranted.
Some examples of hyped technologies right now:
stem cells
quantum computing
nano-tech
anything fusion related
Are any of these going to change our lives the way they're hyped to be? Perhaps, but there's a good chance that something else from left field will do much better at the same things these technologies promise to do.
Of course, speculating on such things is mostly futile since we can't know a world that would have been (at least without some weird quantum technology). We only know the world that is. Thus, I don't know if saying that innovation is important is unwarranted. However, this article does point out that our placing so much importance on innovation is also unwarranted.
We invent new technology, expect to use it, and expect that costs won't rise. Huh? We're expecting to get more for less. That only works for computer hardware. (in a socialist medicine system, quotas and delaying tactics are used to fight this problem)
To put another way, innovation is prized much more in medicine than optimization. All new machines have new functions and new innovations without much regard to cost. Cost improvement is almost never as much a concern. That's why MRI machines continue to cost so much. The reason computer hardware is so cheap is that there are literally hundreds of companies all over the place (mainly in Asia) that optimize the heck out of each thing produced. Competition and demand has led to cheaper hardware...
But MRI machines? Not so much. The laws of consumer electronics don't apply here. Hospitals and research facilities don't buy these machines based on cost (not that there are too many manufacturers anyway), they buy them on features.
The other thing that's not talked about very much is that the number of doctors in America is very limited. For every doctor there are literally hundreds that wanted to be doctors but were rejected by medical schools, who have a very strict quota on the number of students they accept. The number of specialists in each field is controlled by the specialists themselves. So the supply of doctors is very tightly controlled. When's the last time you heard of a doctor that left the profession because of a lack of money in it? Almost never. That's because each doctor always has enough work. If you increase the supply of doctors, it may not be as steady a job, but it'll certainly cause them to do business more efficiently.
Hey I was in academia. This is one of the many reasons I left it. Theoretical physics? I'll give you super-string theory. Go look it up and see how many results they have and the amount of money spent on it. I'd count that as an intellectual fad.
A google search for "research grant" is just soooo scientific. Stop wasting time insulting me and go look up grants.gov and search "aids" and see how many results you get. Now try "herpes". Again try "climate change", now try "peak oil".
I'll be waiting for your apology, thank you.
On one hand, you have scientists paid to do research by the government and other public organizations, with no instructions on what they can and cannot publish. These scientists are not paid more if they find that global warming is anthropogenic than if they find that it's not. If you think otherwise, you're drinking the Crichton kool-aid, and are subscribing to the biggest conspiracy theory of them all.
You obviously don't work in academia. Academia works off of grants. Grants are given to study specific things. Two huge sources of grants are AIDS and global warming. So, for instance, if you wanted to research herpes (not that well funded), the easiest way to get that money would be to go after an AIDS grant and research how herpes spread has been affected by AIDS. Similarly, if you want to study elephants in Africa, you would try to get a grant from a climate change group to study how global warming has affected the migration patterns of elephants in Africa. Those organizations that actually give the grants get THEIR funding based on the research that comes back. So if a research paper comes back and says "global warming is not much of a problem", the organization that gave the grant might not have as large a budget next year. It's essentially chopping off the branch you're standing on. Now, if you come back and say "global warming is a huge problem", you'll get more press, the organization that funded you gets more money, you get even more grants to do your research.
Now about your point that oil companies fund the anti-global warming research. The number I've heard on the money oil companies have contributed is in the tens of millions (this from an environmentalist group, I forget which). The actual global warming research being performed from grants in gov't agencies and whatnot? Billions. Now is it a surprise that the scientists on each side of the issue is proportionate to the amount of funding on each side? Let's just say I'm a little skeptical.
That wouldn't work unless you have some sort of hex pattern. Bayer is based on a square pattern, so most likely, it's something like 1xRed, 1xGreen, 1xBlue, 1xClear per 4.
At least at my company, we started our web app in IE back in '99 when firefox wasn't around. The app has grown so huge that the development/QA costs to allow for firefox would be prohibitive. QA, in particular would be hardest hit since they'd have to double their test load (they already test everything under different versions of windows and IE, adding different versions of firefox would be a nightmare). Basically, it's a very large sunk cost into IE and the cost of switching just is too much.
That said, most of the developers at work prefer firefox, we have to live with IE for development/testing.
I switched about 8 years ago. Here are some observations:
1. Typing speed is essentially the same. For some people it improves drastically, but for me, it didn't.
2. I was comfortable typing dvorak in about 1 month. I can still type qwerty just fine, though mentally, there's a switch to be flipped. I liken it to learning a new language. You don't suddenly forget your old language.
3. I had carpal tunnel symptoms before (pins and needles on the wrists and such), and I made the drastic switch not only to dvorak but to the kinesis dvorak keyboard. In 8 years, I haven't had any more symptoms since. I can't say if it's because of dvorak or the keyboard (I had a normal one at home for a while, typing dvorak), but it certainly worked.
4. It is a great security device for your computer against non-dvorak typers. I almost always end up "driving" when people are congregated at my computer and most people get confused when trying to type on my keyboard and simply leave my computer alone. It's nice when you're particular about your settings.
Environmental groups fund all the researchers that do a lot of the research IPCC cites. IPCC becomes more powerful and rich the more they scare people. Taking a look at who funds whom doesn't help any. If anything the environmental groups fund things a lot more than the gas/oil/polluter companies. And do they ever fund anything that suggests global warming isn't true? not likely. But of course, nobody talks about that.
i wish there was a mod called "sarcastic"
Let's see. Where can we find something about the size of earth around here....?
I don't know about you, but seeing wilder and wilder predictions over the years on global warming have gotten me more and more cynical. It seems to me the IPCC reports are more and more intent on making it look worse and worse. I've also been told that the summaries in the past have exaggerated the findings in the actual chapters. Anyone know about this report?
Totally agree with the above poster. Travel as light as you can. The biggest liabilities are the heavy things and though most hostels offer some sort of locker (bring a combination lock with you, it's very useful), it's a constant threat to be stolen and you're definitely not going to want to bring it with you for day trips.
The most useful things are digital cameras (most internet cafes have memory-card to CD burning services for $5 or so), mp3 player (a surprising amount of tourist places now have podcasts that you can use for touring the place) and possibly a gsm phone (for emergencies and for contacting friends). The annoying thing is what the above poster mentioned, which is the power adapter changing in every country. I'd just buy one at the first place and try to trade with someone at hostels for your next locale.
Another very useful thing to bring in case it rains is a bunch of stuff-it sacks. Not only can you use multiple ones to organize your clothes, etc, but you can also fit more stuff into your backpack (I'd get one that's NOT a top-loader) and it provides another layer of protection. Also, if you're going to go scuba dive, get a water-proof camera case. The pics are worth it.
Contextual Ads, my man. Think about it, you're in some city and are walking to meet a friend (stored on google calendar, of course). The gPhone GPS gives you a contextual ad showing that there's a new cafe about 2 blocks away with exact directions on how to get there. There's also a new movie playing at the movie theater you guys are going to anyway, and of course, you can order the tickets direct without having to stand in line. And by the way, the restaurant near by also would like your attention. Maybe you can even pay for the meal with your google checkout account and receive a $10 discount. The possibilities are endless. The thing that a phone gives google is the ability to be where the user is at.
Organizing information is their thing. It's much more useful if the information is there at your fingertips.
Sadly, this is really the state of education in America. I could name a lot of other examples like yours, and I went to a pretty good high school.
The fact of the matter is unions are great at protecting unskilled jobs. They should be there for the UPS driver or the auto-line worker. However, when you start having unions for skilled jobs, there's nothing short of disaster. Suddenly, people who are good at their jobs are treated exactly the same as the people who are poor at their jobs. Of course that only encourages people who are good to lower their quality and soon you only have people who are poor at their jobs.
That's exactly what's happened to education. People who are good at teaching get weeded out early or become quick converts to doing the minimum to keep their jobs. Why try when you don't have to? Or worse, when you're actively discouraged to?
The people I feel real sorry about are the kids. Thankfully, there are enough secondary means of education that they can educate themselves.
mod parent insightful.
we're essentially talking about the primary source v. blockers of the primary source. i never understood why there wasn't too much discussion about the source side of this controversy.