Supposedly, the Black Death came to Europe from the Crimea and/or further east near China. Look how well that worked out. It's interesting that while a lot of super scary viruses originated in sub-Saharan Africa, there are other origin places with radically different environmental conditions.
They've been brow-beating Americans to stop eating meat so those who were, in one way or another, influenced by that campaign turned to chicken when what PETA really wanted was for everyone to become a miserable vegan. I guess they missed the memo that explained that PETA stands for People Eating Tasty Animals.
I wonder how things would have been different if multiple identical R&D contracts were awarded to several companies so as to set up competition for the best technology. Basically, set aside R&D money to be given to a company so there is disincentive to risk their own money. I would also throw in there that R&D awards be given to startups rather than huge public companies.
It's supposed to teach things like Socratic method and sound methods to test hypotheses. But more to the point is that it's supposed to teach a person how to critique their own thinking rather than how to question someone else's beliefs with the assumption that one's own beliefs are correct. Unfortunately, the latter is what it's morphed into.
Most people don't. They think it gives them the right to tell other people that they're doing things "wrong" which really means that they aren't doing things the way THEY want. They think that because they're been "trained" as "critical thinkers" they know better than everyone else.
*facepalm* This guy is saying the painfully obvious without talking about how to make it happen. It's like saying "What the world needs is a Star Trek transporter that's as easy to use as a phone booth."
IMHO, there is FAR too much emphasis being placed on so-called "critical thinking" in education which leads to too many people thinking they are qualified to be critical of other peoples' (read: STEM peoples') real work. The vast majority of "critical thinkers" have never created anything practical in their lives. That aside, there is always a shortage of STEM workers with currently needed knowledge. I saw this back in college and grad engineering. The professors were teaching stuff that was useful for their generation and not for what was coming. This is where the real problem lies. Trouble is, the people who are qualified to teach upcoming marketable skills are too busy working in the real world to teach.
...And the horse they rode in on. Some of us are having enough trouble dating women what with being a geek and all. Now they go and poke us with pointed sticks. Thanks for nothing, morons!
Professional athletes get paid millions and they don't have to win every game. Actors get paid millions for crappy movies. Musicians get paid millions for churning out lousy music. What's worse is that actors and musicians get paid every time something they worked on get seen or heard even annoying commercials. Asshat directors such as Ang Lee bask in the money and fame while thinking VFX artists are getting paid too much. Lawyers, particularly trial lawyers such as the law ofices of James Suck-a-glove, get paid millions in class action judgements while the class members get coupons for discounts towards purchase of useless product accessories.
My point? If you're going to brow beat one group of people you think are being douchebags while giving another group of equally douchey people a pass, you're being small, petty, very jealous, and inconsistent in your thinking.
I'm sure it would come as a shock to many Americans that those Europeans, whose lifestyle they hold in such high regard, don't share the same rights as they do. Yet they keep insisting America should become more like Europe. Let me know how well that works out for you. Of course, Europeans have managed to figure out that loser-pays tort law is the way to go so it's not all bassackwards.
I often watch the original series for background entertainment. Sure, there is some really informative information in there such as how acolytes of people like Pythagoras, Aristotle, and Plato basically impede real science from moving forward. But then the guy spouts off on the theory of nuclear winter which turned out to be totally bogus and a fabrication of the KGB to deter NATO from placing nukes in western Europe. He just can't resist the opportunity to inject opinion knowing full well that he's A) got a captive audience by that point and B) there is no way opposing facts can be presented.
WTF, man. Hugh Pickens dot COM is the troll of flamebaiters. Everything subject is highly polarizing while simultaneously being largely irrelevant. Enough already.
I hate to burst your anti-corporate bubble but wherever there is money to be made, there will be douchebags willing to subvert the original intentions of punitive damages for their own personal gain. There is a long list of plaintiffs filing claims against BP who have no presence in the Gulf region. There is an even longer list of obnoxious law firms e.g. the law offices of James suck-a-glove who will be the real beneficiaries of civil suit awards. If you think corporations charge too much for their products and services, bear in mind that a lot of that supposed profit goes to insuring themselves against an inevitable future lawsuit. If you think that mean, evil, filthy rich corporations can afford it, remember that even a mom-and-pop business has to have liability insurance and that starts in the several thousand dollar range.
That does raise some big questions. Assuming that the DNC and the Obama campaign intentionally hired the most sophisticated data-gatherer/number-crunchers available, you would think that they understood what separates excellence from incompetence in technology. So why did they hire not just an incompetent company to handle Obamacare but a company with a history of incompetence? There are several possibilities. One, there was some old-boy networking going on and that company paid off key people to get the contract. Two, they're really not as savvy at picking tech companies and they merely think that all that analytics was what won the election when it may have been nothing more than a group of voters wanting to be part of history by voting for the first black president or even more basic as "I've had enough of Republicans" Or three, the thing was botched intentionally so as to have yet another excuse to push for single-payer health insurance.
There have been a few FOIA request lately that show the FAA is full of it. They're simply trying to intimidate people.
"The most significant misrepresentation is the repeated assertion that flying unmanned aircraft for commercial purposes is prohibited. The FAA repeatedly states that commercial operators are using UAS "without proper authorization" and are therefore "in violation of FAA guidance for UAS," or "in violation of FAA mandates for UAS," warns UAS operators that "operations of this kind may be in violation of the Federal Aviation Regulations and result in legal enforcement action," speaks of "devastating liability" in the event of an accident, and concludes with a command either requiring or "advising" the subject to cease UAS operations.
Each of these letters is premised on the notion that the FAA's 2007 Policy Notice creates a mandatory prohibition that is binding on the general public. However, by law a mere "policy notice" by a federal agency cannot create legally binding and enforceable obligations on the general public. Only "regulations," passed through the proper notice and comment procedures dictated by the Administrative Procedures Act, can be considered mandatory.
This is one of the central issues in the ongoing case regarding Raphael Pirker ("Trappy"). In fact, in a legal filing in that case, the FAA even admitted:
"To the extent that the Respondent is arguing that the information contained in the AC 9157 and
the 2007 Notice supersede the operational requirements contained in 14 CFR part 91 regulations, it
2 is clear that compliance with the regulations is mandatory, while the policies addressed in AC 91-57
and the 2007 Notice are not mandatory."
Despite this admission, the FAA continues to label failure to abide by the 2007 Policy Statement's prohibition on commercial use of unmanned aircraft as a "violation" which could subject operators to legal enforcement action. This begs the question, how can someone be penalized for failure to obey a non-mandatory policy? What regulation are they violating, and on what basis could the FAA initiate an enforcement action if compliance is not mandatory? The FAA has no answers to these questions, which is likely why they have never initiated an enforcement action against someone solely for operating a commercial UAS. Yet they continue to misrepresent the law and tell people such operation is illegal, despite having no legal basis for this claim."
The facts exist whether they are reported on or not. What you're really interested in when you read news online is a certain amount of analysis by the writers. Beyond that, people gravitate towards sites that color the analysis with opinion that more closely matches your own ideology. Commenting features aside, most news media is a one-way street with no room for debate. The author writes something and endeavors to spin it in such a way to make the reader think that their opinion is really fact and therefore indisputable. Having a popular person at the helm makes these opinions even more believable. Lots of outlets don't even bother to disguise their bias because they know they have a supportive audience that came there to find similar ideology. The author may be totally full of sh*t but there is usually a long list of commenters willing to defend the ideology until you get tired of the pissing contest and go away.
What's needed to make STEM pursuits attractive to kids is rock-star status that they see everywhere in entertainment and professional sports (technically entertainment too).
Slashdot Mirror
Supposedly, the Black Death came to Europe from the Crimea and/or further east near China. Look how well that worked out.
It's interesting that while a lot of super scary viruses originated in sub-Saharan Africa, there are other origin places with radically different environmental conditions.
They've been brow-beating Americans to stop eating meat so those who were, in one way or another, influenced by that campaign turned to chicken when what PETA really wanted was for everyone to become a miserable vegan. I guess they missed the memo that explained that PETA stands for People Eating Tasty Animals.
I wonder how things would have been different if multiple identical R&D contracts were awarded to several companies so as to set up competition for the best technology. Basically, set aside R&D money to be given to a company so there is disincentive to risk their own money. I would also throw in there that R&D awards be given to startups rather than huge public companies.
It's supposed to teach things like Socratic method and sound methods to test hypotheses. But more to the point is that it's supposed to teach a person how to critique their own thinking rather than how to question someone else's beliefs with the assumption that one's own beliefs are correct. Unfortunately, the latter is what it's morphed into.
Most people don't. They think it gives them the right to tell other people that they're doing things "wrong" which really means that they aren't doing things the way THEY want. They think that because they're been "trained" as "critical thinkers" they know better than everyone else.
*facepalm* This guy is saying the painfully obvious without talking about how to make it happen. It's like saying "What the world needs is a Star Trek transporter that's as easy to use as a phone booth."
IMHO, there is FAR too much emphasis being placed on so-called "critical thinking" in education which leads to too many people thinking they are qualified to be critical of other peoples' (read: STEM peoples') real work. The vast majority of "critical thinkers" have never created anything practical in their lives. That aside, there is always a shortage of STEM workers with currently needed knowledge. I saw this back in college and grad engineering. The professors were teaching stuff that was useful for their generation and not for what was coming. This is where the real problem lies. Trouble is, the people who are qualified to teach upcoming marketable skills are too busy working in the real world to teach.
And not just the data that was cherry-picked to support the hypothesis?
Clearly you misunderstand the nature of geekdom. ;-)
...And the horse they rode in on. Some of us are having enough trouble dating women what with being a geek and all. Now they go and poke us with pointed sticks. Thanks for nothing, morons!
Professional athletes get paid millions and they don't have to win every game. Actors get paid millions for crappy movies. Musicians get paid millions for churning out lousy music. What's worse is that actors and musicians get paid every time something they worked on get seen or heard even annoying commercials. Asshat directors such as Ang Lee bask in the money and fame while thinking VFX artists are getting paid too much. Lawyers, particularly trial lawyers such as the law ofices of James Suck-a-glove, get paid millions in class action judgements while the class members get coupons for discounts towards purchase of useless product accessories.
My point? If you're going to brow beat one group of people you think are being douchebags while giving another group of equally douchey people a pass, you're being small, petty, very jealous, and inconsistent in your thinking.
I'm sure it would come as a shock to many Americans that those Europeans, whose lifestyle they hold in such high regard, don't share the same rights as they do. Yet they keep insisting America should become more like Europe. Let me know how well that works out for you. Of course, Europeans have managed to figure out that loser-pays tort law is the way to go so it's not all bassackwards.
"Reuters Pose Biggest Security Threat To Home Networks"
If there's anything to this, then IMHO, the American press is its own worst enemy by placing ideology above objectivity.
I often watch the original series for background entertainment. Sure, there is some really informative information in there such as how acolytes of people like Pythagoras, Aristotle, and Plato basically impede real science from moving forward. But then the guy spouts off on the theory of nuclear winter which turned out to be totally bogus and a fabrication of the KGB to deter NATO from placing nukes in western Europe. He just can't resist the opportunity to inject opinion knowing full well that he's A) got a captive audience by that point and B) there is no way opposing facts can be presented.
WTF, man. Hugh Pickens dot COM is the troll of flamebaiters. Everything subject is highly polarizing while simultaneously being largely irrelevant. Enough already.
Cherry-picked data.
And in even more other news, a majority of young American adults get their news from the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Also blogs.
I mean, how do we know it's still there? It could have assploded yesterday and we won't know it for 6000 years.
I hate to burst your anti-corporate bubble but wherever there is money to be made, there will be douchebags willing to subvert the original intentions of punitive damages for their own personal gain. There is a long list of plaintiffs filing claims against BP who have no presence in the Gulf region. There is an even longer list of obnoxious law firms e.g. the law offices of James suck-a-glove who will be the real beneficiaries of civil suit awards. If you think corporations charge too much for their products and services, bear in mind that a lot of that supposed profit goes to insuring themselves against an inevitable future lawsuit. If you think that mean, evil, filthy rich corporations can afford it, remember that even a mom-and-pop business has to have liability insurance and that starts in the several thousand dollar range.
That does raise some big questions. Assuming that the DNC and the Obama campaign intentionally hired the most sophisticated data-gatherer/number-crunchers available, you would think that they understood what separates excellence from incompetence in technology. So why did they hire not just an incompetent company to handle Obamacare but a company with a history of incompetence? There are several possibilities. One, there was some old-boy networking going on and that company paid off key people to get the contract. Two, they're really not as savvy at picking tech companies and they merely think that all that analytics was what won the election when it may have been nothing more than a group of voters wanting to be part of history by voting for the first black president or even more basic as "I've had enough of Republicans" Or three, the thing was botched intentionally so as to have yet another excuse to push for single-payer health insurance.
There have been a few FOIA request lately that show the FAA is full of it. They're simply trying to intimidate people.
"The most significant misrepresentation is the repeated assertion that flying unmanned aircraft for commercial purposes is prohibited. The FAA repeatedly states that commercial operators are using UAS "without proper authorization" and are therefore "in violation of FAA guidance for UAS," or "in violation of FAA mandates for UAS," warns UAS operators that "operations of this kind may be in violation of the Federal Aviation Regulations and result in legal enforcement action," speaks of "devastating liability" in the event of an accident, and concludes with a command either requiring or "advising" the subject to cease UAS operations.
Each of these letters is premised on the notion that the FAA's 2007 Policy Notice creates a mandatory prohibition that is binding on the general public. However, by law a mere "policy notice" by a federal agency cannot create legally binding and enforceable obligations on the general public. Only "regulations," passed through the proper notice and comment procedures dictated by the Administrative Procedures Act, can be considered mandatory.
This is one of the central issues in the ongoing case regarding Raphael Pirker ("Trappy"). In fact, in a legal filing in that case, the FAA even admitted:
"To the extent that the Respondent is arguing that the information contained in the AC 9157 and
the 2007 Notice supersede the operational requirements contained in 14 CFR part 91 regulations, it
2 is clear that compliance with the regulations is mandatory, while the policies addressed in AC 91-57
and the 2007 Notice are not mandatory."
Despite this admission, the FAA continues to label failure to abide by the 2007 Policy Statement's prohibition on commercial use of unmanned aircraft as a "violation" which could subject operators to legal enforcement action. This begs the question, how can someone be penalized for failure to obey a non-mandatory policy? What regulation are they violating, and on what basis could the FAA initiate an enforcement action if compliance is not mandatory? The FAA has no answers to these questions, which is likely why they have never initiated an enforcement action against someone solely for operating a commercial UAS. Yet they continue to misrepresent the law and tell people such operation is illegal, despite having no legal basis for this claim."
There are a few who have achieved that sort of status e.g. Jobs, Gates, Woz, Macafee, Ellison.
The facts exist whether they are reported on or not. What you're really interested in when you read news online is a certain amount of analysis by the writers. Beyond that, people gravitate towards sites that color the analysis with opinion that more closely matches your own ideology. Commenting features aside, most news media is a one-way street with no room for debate. The author writes something and endeavors to spin it in such a way to make the reader think that their opinion is really fact and therefore indisputable. Having a popular person at the helm makes these opinions even more believable. Lots of outlets don't even bother to disguise their bias because they know they have a supportive audience that came there to find similar ideology. The author may be totally full of sh*t but there is usually a long list of commenters willing to defend the ideology until you get tired of the pissing contest and go away.
What's needed to make STEM pursuits attractive to kids is rock-star status that they see everywhere in entertainment and professional sports (technically entertainment too).