Did you even read the article? Line One: Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker's productivity, physical wellbeing and competence.. Which part of that "isn't intended for use in a work environment"?
You say: "Everyone here trying to apply it to a regular 9 to 5 job setting is obviously going to get the wrong idea."
But then the article goes on (paragraph 3): Technology allowing constant monitoring of workers was previously limited to pilots, firefighters and Nasa astronauts. This is believed to be the first time a company has proposed developing such software for mainstream workplaces.
we are getting just the right idea... of what kind of a hellish place this kind of system would produce.
Everyone knows that a pencil when sharpened can be used to maim or injure! I mean you could loose an eye! Paperclips can be used to pick simple locks! They facilitate breakins! These deadly and criminal tools must be outlawed! Hurry! Arrest the employees of Office Depot and Staples for purveying these items, and enabling the criminal underclass!
According to yesterday's interview on CBC's As It Happens, its not the world's supply, but rather the North American supply. In the past when the reactor has been down, the company that supplies the isotopes (Atomic Energy Canada Ltd runs the place, but another company produces the isotopes) buys isotopes from reactors in australia, south africa or Europe (holand I think). Its just this time they decide to make it a big issue. (so they don't have to pay for the isotopes). The interview in question is, I think, in part two of the broadcast... see: http://www.cbc.ca/radioshows/AS_IT_HAPPENS/20071212.shtml The segment is: "ISOTOPES: KUPERMAN"
He saw it on Law And Order: SVU, so it must be true.
As must everything on Law And Order, Law And Order: Criminal Intent, Law And Order: NBC needs schedule filler, CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, and CSI: Bismark (North Dakota).
However the onus would be on someone to show a set of circumstances where it didn't work and therefore disprove it.
Which means that you are taking it on faith that the scientific method works. If you want to be able to say that its not faith, then you have to be able to provide a proof for it. (any axioms you had to stipulate for your proof would be things taken on faith).
logically and rationally the fact that something has worked every time up till now does not constitute proof that it will continue to do so. Consider a car. It starts every day for a long time. But if on any arbitrary day i the car starts, this is not a necessary and sufficient condition that on the next day (i + 1) the car will start. If it were... I would buy that car. [1]
Same thing with the scientific method. It maybe 'proven' in the colloquial sense but its not proven in the strict sense. Which means you're taking it on faith.
-locust
[1] I'm anticipating a counter argument regarding the complexity of the car relative to that of the ball. In which case we can talk about how many atoms the ball has, all the atomic and subatomic forces, etc. which make the two functionally equivalent for the purpose of this example.
Set aside my or your personal beliefs and validity or the merits of science or religion.
In order for you to understand something you must believe first that it can be understood. You can't prove that every arbitrary thing can be understood. You can show that a specific thing can be understood. But you can't (to my knowledge) generalize that. (Maybe logician somewhere has an inductive proof which would show me wrong.)
That being said, the scientific method is an approach to understanding the world. It has been shown repeatedly to work. That does not mean that it 'strictly' is proven to work in every case. So when you encounter a new problem you first have to believe that the process which has worked countless times before will continue to work... but you can't guarantee it will.
This is the way science works. It is based on evidence, not beliefs.
Science is fundamentally based on belief. Firstly, it is based on the belief that the world is intelligible. Secondly, that it can be understood by using the scientific method. If you don't believe this there is no point in doing science.
So, lets see... Battletech releases a new box set (with minis), the techmanual and starter guide, and an update to Total Warfare and all we get 'is its a good day for shadow run players'. Typical.
For the record, I should begin by saying that my sentiments on hybrids, and specifically the Prius are well summed up by Clarkson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOvp69lnZbA).
But the point here is not about hybrid's specifically, its about a perceived pathological obstinance to RD, technological advancement, and market change. You can't tell me that GM is just hemorrhaging cash and laying people off because of its pension liabilities. They have lost the car market. I've read about toyota's recent growing pains, and I'll stipulate that GM may now have the most advanced hybrid systems, but Toyota is still perceived as having embraced an change in the market place, while Detroit fights higher fuel economy standards, regulation of green house gases, etc.
You're right about the economic impact. Its the economic impact of continuing to sell giant SUVs while you're competitors are investing in greener and more fuel efficient cars. GM can argue all it wants about how hard it is to raise the CAFE standards while Toyota is putting it out of business.
The fact that slavery eventually ended is a small comfort to those who were slaves. Do you just say 'my bad' to the Japanese who were interned, or the people whom were destroyed by McCarthy?
But really, your argument implies that the public was against each of the things you mentioned and it was just those legislators who were wrong. As though if they had listened to the public it would have all been better. They were listening to the public. Thats how we got strange fruit hanging from the trees in the deep south. The role of the gov. in this respect is to protect the minority from the tyrany of the majority. The howling mob reacts blindly and when it goes after blacks, or japanese, or communists (real or imagined), or women, or arabs, or whomever, those people are shielded from its fury. It is the mark of the failure of government when we have to pay these people reparations for things we did to them that are/were clearly wrong.
The key word is should. Our schools don't really teach people people that though. People who think critically and analytically, are a problem. They can see straight through a line of bullshit and ask all sorts of questions the teacher does not have answers to. Usually, they learn very quickly to shutup.
Engineering school should be about exposing you enough to your craft so that you know where to begin to look in approaching a problem. But if you haven't learned deductive reasoning by the time you hit engineering school you are in for a long haul.
"We aren't here to teach you things - we are here to teach you how to think" & test[s] of endurance" are the best way that you can learn how to think like an engineer; how to analyze a problem and methodically develop a solution
By the time you hit engineering school you should have been taught critical and analytic thinking. That having been said, the tests of endurance are not the best way to teach you how to think like an engineer. They're the best way to teach you how to get past tests of endurance. For example: Usually there are enough stupid people in your class, that a few days before an assignemnt deadline, the TAs (inundated by questions) will basically give you the answer to the assignment. Here's another: most profs are too lazy to change the questions on the exam, hence to pass the final, you basically do questions on the old exams and that allows you to pass the next exam. It goes on all the way down to one classmate who apparently was sleeping with a T.A. But hey, whatever works for you.
Getting a quality degree means tells a potential employer that you have the ability to stick with a difficult task and succeed.
More crap. Getting a 'quality' degree. For the most part means that you were rich or lucky enough to go to a "reputable" school. In the past maybe it was a decent school, but since you've had to basically have had to have a degree to get into the workforce, they've all become degree mills. Now its like a club. If you got into the right club, it doesn't really matter what you know. Some clubs are more selective than others. But as long as colleges permit legacy admissions, all it is is a club.
Last week it was a new line of retail outlets. This week, they're openning up thier apis. Tommorrow they're going to learn that web commics are big, and so we'll see a commic dedicated to the adentures of 'Microsoft Bob and Clippy'. After that who knows?
When each shuttle costs billions, and each launch millions, is it any surprise that bean counters get in the way. One may as well be describing the process that is used to make a hollywood blockbuster. Everyone has to cover thier ass, so in the end we avoid risks like the plague. We don't just need people who understand the risks, we a cheaper launch vehicle, and people who understand, that the way to space will be snatched from tragedy and built on not a few lives.
anyone who thinks that we are today living in the world of 1984 is dillusional.
Of course you don't remeber that during the build up to 'War', certain protests (e.g. London) were not covered in the press in the US. Further, when people tried to buy air time to present a different point of view from the line being parrotted in the media, it was not for sale for fear of offending certain parties.
1984 does not have to be achived through technology. 1984 can be achieved adequately through fear. And control of a population and a set of ideas through fear was the objective equally the KGB and Joseph Mccarthy. In each case ideas that were considered dangerous to the state were suppressed through fear. In each case if you said or did the unapproved thing your life would be destroyed. What good is a freedom on paper?
But what does this have to do with many people in fear? This is the administration that suggested turning all mail carriers into informers for the department of homeland security. These are also the people who outed Valery Palme. Thinking that was anything but an intimidation tactic against someone who contradics the party line is naive at best. If thats the way that a distinguished diplomat is treated how do you think that joe average will be treated? And don't think that if they thought they could get away with it someone like Moore or Limbaugh (if he became inconvient) wouldn't be attacked in a similar fashion. Joe average does not have the protection of that level of celebrity, however.
You did just shoot your mouth off about your employer in a negative way!
So if I work for the government, I'm not allowed to participate in the political process? And heaven help you if you work for lockheed in San Jose, and you happened to have participated in one of the antiwar marches in San Fransico.
While I agree that not all people are in the political position to make all kinds of statements, I just wanted to point out the logic that comes from this kind of reasoning.
For people who come here from other countries fleeing persecution, the requests by the INS that they register (and the way they were treated in LA), the holding of people in guauntanamo (sp?) bay without charge or trial, the stripping of the rights of US citizens and treating them as enemy combatants, and the abduction of foreign nationals (the us government swears they are terrorists) and deportation to third countries where they may be interogated without the protections afforded them by US laws (read tortured) sound a lot like the places they came from. For them, its not a big hypothetical jump to what can happen, or what the worst case is.
Further, if it can happen to one person it can happen to anybody. All it takes is that someone with influence decides that they don't like you. In todays climate, as evidenced by the original parent post all it takes is that they call you a terrorist.
Finally, it amazes me that in a country with the history of the United States, where WWII (anyone remeber how Nazi Germany worked) and McCarthyism (Ronald Regan was investigated by the FBI to see if he was a Communist) are still in the living memory of people, this would tollerated at all. Maybe when considering the implications of the behavior of the Government vis-a-vis people who are identified as terrorists one should replace the work 'terrorist' with 'jew' or 'black' and see how palatable the action still is.
Listen to the sound track for GTA III: Vice City, specifically the mock adds for a vietnam war movie : Retaliator (think Rambo). Selected quotes include:
"Strap yourself in, get your self a body bag... and start making friends the american way!".
"This knife killed 25000 people in Cambodia, now so can you!" (Ok, so they're advertising the combat knife from the movie).
"Ho Chi! He would have been a fine American, I'll cry when I'm done killing" [1]
I'm sure that when they made it they thought they were being funny, they never figured it would describe Bush administration policy.
-locust
[1] Yeah. Ho Chi. I'm sure Vietnam vets are just giggling over this one.
If we followed your advice then third parties would not even have to break the code since we would be giving you the plaintext.
No, game mechanics like crypt algorithm should all be in the open. If a sword does 10 points of damage against fuzzy armor and 5 points against furry armor, everyone should know it. Just like everyone can know how AES works.
if we kept everything focussed on the story we would not be letting you know the mechanics.
Game mechanics model the world and define the posible actions that a player can take. So you can't have a game with out mechanics, even the simplest games where you only get to answer questsion (i.e. go left/go right) have them. You have to let the player know some part of the mechanics or else they can't play the game.
One way in which a massively multiplayer online rpg can use a story driven approach is to have some set of events which most characters find compelling and thus participate in, or are effected by. The players should be able to effect the outcome of the events and face the consequences of thier actions.
In general keeping game mechanics from the players is a bad idea. There is a certain set of people with undying curiosity who will go after and find your secret. In a population as large as the one which plays EQ, its in evitable. The problem then becomes that these people, some of whom inevitably use that knowledge, have a marked advantage when playing the game. This is exactly the same problem that happens in the pen&paper world. If you have one GM and a group of players, then as long as the GM can keep his mouth shut he may be ok on game mechanics he makes up. But I have yet to meet a gamer who hasn't read the "GM's only" section of a book, or didn't wonder in his off hours what the hell was up with the last game, or whats going to happen in the future in the game, or how the game world must work. The only way around this is to keep everything focused on the story. Otherwise games like this tend to boil down to who can do the most damage to whom, and in that case every player wants the biggest statisitcal advantage he can get. Game designers should take a page from the crypto world. I should be able to know all the game mechanics, yet still find the game engaging.
No the people at fault are the provincial government of Ontario, and the people of Ontario. The University of Waterloo is a government funded institution. Over the last 5 years the government has slashed education spending so that people in the suburbs (905) could get thier tax cuts, while balancing the budget. The people of ontario elected these people twice. Its gotten so bad in the school boards that auditors have recommended to the department of education that the province take over three (elected) boards (ottawa, toronto, and hamilton (? not sure about hamilton)) because the members of those boards refuse to implement any further province mandated budget cuts.
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Did you even read the article? Line One: Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker's productivity, physical wellbeing and competence.. Which part of that "isn't intended for use in a work environment"?
You say:
"Everyone here trying to apply it to a regular 9 to 5 job setting is obviously going to get the wrong idea."
But then the article goes on (paragraph 3):
Technology allowing constant monitoring of workers was previously limited to pilots, firefighters and Nasa astronauts. This is believed to be the first time a company has proposed developing such software for mainstream workplaces.
we are getting just the right idea... of what kind of a hellish place this kind of system would produce.
Everyone knows that a pencil when sharpened can be used to maim or injure! I mean you could loose an eye! Paperclips can be used to pick simple locks! They facilitate breakins! These deadly and criminal tools must be outlawed! Hurry! Arrest the employees of Office Depot and Staples for purveying these items, and enabling the criminal underclass!
According to yesterday's interview on CBC's As It Happens, its not the world's supply, but rather the North American supply. In the past when the reactor has been down, the company that supplies the isotopes (Atomic Energy Canada Ltd runs the place, but another company produces the isotopes) buys isotopes from reactors in australia, south africa or Europe (holand I think). Its just this time they decide to make it a big issue. (so they don't have to pay for the isotopes). The interview in question is, I think, in part two of the broadcast... see: http://www.cbc.ca/radioshows/AS_IT_HAPPENS/20071212.shtml The segment is: "ISOTOPES: KUPERMAN"
He saw it on Law And Order: SVU, so it must be true.
As must everything on Law And Order, Law And Order: Criminal Intent, Law And Order: NBC needs schedule filler, CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, and CSI: Bismark (North Dakota).
However the onus would be on someone to show a set of circumstances where it didn't work and therefore disprove it.
Which means that you are taking it on faith that the scientific method works. If you want to be able to say that its not faith, then you have to be able to provide a proof for it. (any axioms you had to stipulate for your proof would be things taken on faith).
logically and rationally the fact that something has worked every time up till now does not constitute proof that it will continue to do so. Consider a car. It starts every day for a long time. But if on any arbitrary day i the car starts, this is not a necessary and sufficient condition that on the next day (i + 1) the car will start. If it were... I would buy that car. [1]
Same thing with the scientific method. It maybe 'proven' in the colloquial sense but its not proven in the strict sense. Which means you're taking it on faith.
-locust
[1] I'm anticipating a counter argument regarding the complexity of the car relative to that of the ball. In which case we can talk about how many atoms the ball has, all the atomic and subatomic forces, etc. which make the two functionally equivalent for the purpose of this example.
Set aside my or your personal beliefs and validity or the merits of science or religion.
In order for you to understand something you must believe first that it can be understood. You can't prove that every arbitrary thing can be understood. You can show that a specific thing can be understood. But you can't (to my knowledge) generalize that. (Maybe logician somewhere has an inductive proof which would show me wrong.)
That being said, the scientific method is an approach to understanding the world. It has been shown repeatedly to work. That does not mean that it 'strictly' is proven to work in every case. So when you encounter a new problem you first have to believe that the process which has worked countless times before will continue to work... but you can't guarantee it will.
Science is fundamentally based on belief. Firstly, it is based on the belief that the world is intelligible. Secondly, that it can be understood by using the scientific method. If you don't believe this there is no point in doing science.
-locust
So, lets see... Battletech releases a new box set (with minis), the techmanual and starter guide, and an update to Total Warfare and all we get 'is its a good day for shadow run players'. Typical.
the jews. They had nothing to hide at all.
Try reading The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
For the record, I should begin by saying that my sentiments on hybrids, and specifically the Prius are well summed up by Clarkson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOvp69lnZbA).
But the point here is not about hybrid's specifically, its about a perceived pathological obstinance to RD, technological advancement, and market change. You can't tell me that GM is just hemorrhaging cash and laying people off because of its pension liabilities. They have lost the car market. I've read about toyota's recent growing pains, and I'll stipulate that GM may now have the most advanced hybrid systems, but Toyota is still perceived as having embraced an change in the market place, while Detroit fights higher fuel economy standards, regulation of green house gases, etc.
You're right about the economic impact. Its the economic impact of continuing to sell giant SUVs while you're competitors are investing in greener and more fuel efficient cars. GM can argue all it wants about how hard it is to raise the CAFE standards while Toyota is putting it out of business.
Yeah. Because it takes a canadian to save america from terrorism.
The fact that slavery eventually ended is a small comfort to those who were slaves. Do you just say 'my bad' to the Japanese who were interned, or the people whom were destroyed by McCarthy?
But really, your argument implies that the public was against each of the things you mentioned and it was just those legislators who were wrong. As though if they had listened to the public it would have all been better. They were listening to the public. Thats how we got strange fruit hanging from the trees in the deep south. The role of the gov. in this respect is to protect the minority from the tyrany of the majority. The howling mob reacts blindly and when it goes after blacks, or japanese, or communists (real or imagined), or women, or arabs, or whomever, those people are shielded from its fury. It is the mark of the failure of government when we have to pay these people reparations for things we did to them that are/were clearly wrong.
Engineering school should be about exposing you enough to your craft so that you know where to begin to look in approaching a problem. But if you haven't learned deductive reasoning by the time you hit engineering school you are in for a long haul.
test[s] of endurance" are the best way that you can learn how to think like an engineer; how to analyze a problem and methodically develop a solution
By the time you hit engineering school you should have been taught critical and analytic thinking.
That having been said, the tests of endurance are not the best way to teach you how to think like an engineer. They're the best way to teach you how to get past tests of endurance. For example: Usually there are enough stupid people in your class, that a few days before an assignemnt deadline, the TAs (inundated by questions) will basically give you the answer to the assignment. Here's another: most profs are too lazy to change the questions on the exam, hence to pass the final, you basically do questions on the old exams and that allows you to pass the next exam. It goes on all the way down to one classmate who apparently was sleeping with a T.A. But hey, whatever works for you.
Getting a quality degree means tells a potential employer that you have the ability to stick with a difficult task and succeed.
More crap. Getting a 'quality' degree. For the most part means that you were rich or lucky enough to go to a "reputable" school. In the past maybe it was a decent school, but since you've had to basically have had to have a degree to get into the workforce, they've all become degree mills. Now its like a club. If you got into the right club, it doesn't really matter what you know. Some clubs are more selective than others. But as long as colleges permit legacy admissions, all it is is a club.
Just a few thoughts...
--locust
Last week it was a new line of retail outlets. This week, they're openning up thier apis. Tommorrow they're going to learn that web commics are big, and so we'll see a commic dedicated to the adentures of 'Microsoft Bob and Clippy'. After that who knows?
When each shuttle costs billions, and each launch millions, is it any surprise that bean counters get in the way. One may as well be describing the process that is used to make a hollywood blockbuster. Everyone has to cover thier ass, so in the end we avoid risks like the plague. We don't just need people who understand the risks, we a cheaper launch vehicle, and people who understand, that the way to space will be snatched from tragedy and built on not a few lives.
Of course you don't remeber that during the build up to 'War', certain protests (e.g. London) were not covered in the press in the US. Further, when people tried to buy air time to present a different point of view from the line being parrotted in the media, it was not for sale for fear of offending certain parties.
1984 does not have to be achived through technology. 1984 can be achieved adequately through fear. And control of a population and a set of ideas through fear was the objective equally the KGB and Joseph Mccarthy. In each case ideas that were considered dangerous to the state were suppressed through fear. In each case if you said or did the unapproved thing your life would be destroyed. What good is a freedom on paper?
But what does this have to do with many people in fear? This is the administration that suggested turning all mail carriers into informers for the department of homeland security. These are also the people who outed Valery Palme. Thinking that was anything but an intimidation tactic against someone who contradics the party line is naive at best. If thats the way that a distinguished diplomat is treated how do you think that joe average will be treated? And don't think that if they thought they could get away with it someone like Moore or Limbaugh (if he became inconvient) wouldn't be attacked in a similar fashion. Joe average does not have the protection of that level of celebrity, however.
--locust
So if I work for the government, I'm not allowed to participate in the political process? And heaven help you if you work for lockheed in San Jose, and you happened to have participated in one of the antiwar marches in San Fransico.
While I agree that not all people are in the political position to make all kinds of statements, I just wanted to point out the logic that comes from this kind of reasoning.
--locust
Further, if it can happen to one person it can happen to anybody. All it takes is that someone with influence decides that they don't like you. In todays climate, as evidenced by the original parent post all it takes is that they call you a terrorist.
Finally, it amazes me that in a country with the history of the United States, where WWII (anyone remeber how Nazi Germany worked) and McCarthyism (Ronald Regan was investigated by the FBI to see if he was a Communist) are still in the living memory of people, this would tollerated at all. Maybe when considering the implications of the behavior of the Government vis-a-vis people who are identified as terrorists one should replace the work 'terrorist' with 'jew' or 'black' and see how palatable the action still is.
--locust
I'm sure that when they made it they thought they were being funny, they never figured it would describe Bush administration policy.
-locust
[1] Yeah. Ho Chi. I'm sure Vietnam vets are just giggling over this one.
No, game mechanics like crypt algorithm should all be in the open. If a sword does 10 points of damage against fuzzy armor and 5 points against furry armor, everyone should know it. Just like everyone can know how AES works.
if we kept everything focussed on the story we would not be letting you know the mechanics.
Game mechanics model the world and define the posible actions that a player can take. So you can't have a game with out mechanics, even the simplest games where you only get to answer questsion (i.e. go left/go right) have them. You have to let the player know some part of the mechanics or else they can't play the game.
One way in which a massively multiplayer online rpg can use a story driven approach is to have some set of events which most characters find compelling and thus participate in, or are effected by. The players should be able to effect the outcome of the events and face the consequences of thier actions.
--locust
In general keeping game mechanics from the players is a bad idea. There is a certain set of people with undying curiosity who will go after and find your secret. In a population as large as the one which plays EQ, its in evitable. The problem then becomes that these people, some of whom inevitably use that knowledge, have a marked advantage when playing the game. This is exactly the same problem that happens in the pen&paper world. If you have one GM and a group of players, then as long as the GM can keep his mouth shut he may be ok on game mechanics he makes up. But I have yet to meet a gamer who hasn't read the "GM's only" section of a book, or didn't wonder in his off hours what the hell was up with the last game, or whats going to happen in the future in the game, or how the game world must work. The only way around this is to keep everything focused on the story. Otherwise games like this tend to boil down to who can do the most damage to whom, and in that case every player wants the biggest statisitcal advantage he can get. Game designers should take a page from the crypto world. I should be able to know all the game mechanics, yet still find the game engaging.
--locust