You don't even need to RTFS, you just need to read the title. It doesn't say the experiment failed; it said it ended in disappointment -- as in, they were disappointed that they can't reduce pesticide use by producing the pheromone. Yes, the experiment successfully answered their question, but as you yourself said, it was not the answer they had hoped for.
Terrible criticism of the summary. I would have expected better from AC than to say the summary was terrible.
What do you mean, no choice? Whenever I get one of those popups that says they want my cell phone number "for better security", I click the "no thanks, maybe later" option.
Of course, all that's for nothing if they can dig up phone numbers by any means necessary.
This. My first thought upon reading TFS was, how did this ever pass peer review and testing to get into the "stable" kernel? They do still perform peer review and unit testing, don't they?
In addition to your good point about experience, stability is also a key factor. I have been with my company nearly 25 years. In the past five years, I've seen some amazing kids come along who could do 2-4 times the work I do (and probably at half the price)... but as soon as they've buffed up their experience points and leveled up, they're gone.
My skillset may be largely obsolete, but I know the product inside and out from a user/business perspective, and although it takes me a bit longer to learn all this newfangled dot-net-this and agile-that, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to stay relevant and stay for the long haul.
Now if you'll excuse me I need to get back to studying up on this new language called HTML. <flash>Hello, world!</flash>
What's more, it shouldn't work. When people submit WtP petitions demanding that the federal government research this or spend more/less on that or provide some additional service or whatever, it's fairly harmless. Even if the petition somehow miraculously causes real action, it's just government spinning its wheels and spending money.
When you start using petitions to bypass due process in the judicial system, you open the door to mob rule. Don't like someone? Start a petition to have them prosecuted. With a population the size of the US, it won't take any effort at all to round up enough participants who share your dislike of that person, or just follow the crowd, or do it for the lulz.
I detest CoS and agree that they have abused their "religious" exemption in horrific ways. But I can't get behind any crowdsourced efforts to take them down.
Only allow reviews from people who have a logged purchase for the product, one review per purchase. That won't completely stop fake reviews ("Want to make easy money? Let us pay you to write reviews for products you buy!") but it will cut off 99.742% of them.
That "first errand" is pretty much how I handled parenting, without the involvement of school/police/whatever supervision. I would lurk in the background while my kids went on their quasi-independent journeys of discovery, gradually increasing the radius of their area of autonomy proportional to their age and ability.
The other determining factor was indeed specific location. In our quiet suburb north of Houston, I didn't have a problem with my daughter playing unattended near the house for short periods. In a neighborhood in north Dallas with a MUCH higher crime rate, greater population density, and nearby high-traffic roads... we didn't even let her go to the mailbox in front of the house without a parent within arm's reach, and by then she was 8.
A later move to Cheyenne, Wyoming gave them nearly unlimited freedom. Our son would walk a mile or two from our house to the nearest school playground by the time he was 10, and 13-year-old daughter had no problem walking a couple of miles through the middle of town to get from a friend's house to the library.
Last time we visited Dallas, our vehicle broke down and I had to walk to a convenience store to get transmission fluid. My son - by then 15 - came with me, and with his physical training from karate and football I was glad to have him along to protect me.
You know, I'm a bit right-of-center on gun issues (which means that in most conversations I manage to piss off both my more conservative and more liberal friends, often with the same statement). I have no problem with widespread gun ownership and use of guns for personal self-defense.
But this... holy mother of Charles Whitman, how can this not get into the wrong hands with tragic consequences? Random urban sniper sprees just got a whole lot worse.
I wish I could mod you beyond the +5 you already got; you summarized the problem perfectly.
It's called faith for a reason. Yes, I see God's work in everything from the dance of electrons (and smaller!) to the dance of galaxies, but I am quite aware that is a subjective interpretation of the same evidence that others see as obvious proof God does not exist.
"An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah."
I am always embarrassed when scientists who are Christians claim that this or that archaeological or biological feature proves the existence of God, or young-earth creation, or whatever. There's so much confirmation bias it's a wonder any actual science ever gets done. We would achieve more good if we stop indulging in flawed arguments and simply let folks see God in the way we behave (hint: all you need is love).
I'm a conservative [read: slightly on the conservative side of dead center, with the added bonus of holding views that piss off my friends on both sides of the aisle] evangelical Christian, and I didn't see anything at all offensive about his posts. I've forwarded a couple of them on to my Christian and non-Christian friends. Really, I think this whole thing is an attempt by both Tyson and folks who make a career out of hating him to get media attention.
That's my whole problem with the "hour of code": It's a symbolic gesture. At no point do the students ever actually write code; they just drag command blocks into place, all the while being told what to drag and where to place it. Even if they use the "View code" button, they only see the LOGO-like commands without any of the program structure around it. When my daughter was 10, she was writing graphic games of her own design in QuickBASIC. Kids are capable of so much more than this walled garden assumes.
I wouldn't object so much if this exercise were just the introductory step ("Now that you've seen how the command blocks create actual programming instructions, let's learn about conditional branching!")
Hearing a disturbance, the master programmer went into the novice's cubicle.
"Curse these personal computers!" cried the novice in anger, "To make them do anything I must use three or even four editing programs. Sometimes I get so confused that I erase entire files. This is truly intolerable!"
The master programmer stared at the novice. "And what would you do to remedy this state of affairs?" he asked.
The novice thought for a moment. "I will design a new editing program," he said, "a program that will replace all these others."
Suddenly the master struck the novice on the side of his head. It was not a heavy blow, but the novice was nonetheless surprised. "What did you do that for?" exclaimed the novice.
"I have no wish to learn another editing program," said the master.
Overall, I understand the point of the article and I agree with it... but there's still something faintly disturbing that it is even necessary to report that there is less genocide than there used to be.
Even allowing for the sake of argument the possibility that these SF authors masquerading as scientists are right, the existence of these superhuman robot overlords begs the question of what intelligent entity created them in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
That was my first reactification, too, but apparently that word has been verbed since at least the 19th century.
Let me guess, you're going to make Talley summon her own replacements from the netherworld and train them.
Is that even a thing? How do bits rot?
You don't even need to RTFS, you just need to read the title. It doesn't say the experiment failed; it said it ended in disappointment -- as in, they were disappointed that they can't reduce pesticide use by producing the pheromone. Yes, the experiment successfully answered their question, but as you yourself said, it was not the answer they had hoped for.
Terrible criticism of the summary. I would have expected better from AC than to say the summary was terrible.
I agree, those changes will make it slightly harder to game the system, except for this part:
"...and also reviews voted up by other customers."
Unless those "other customers" are also verified purchasers, there's your loophole. Bots and crowdsourcing can still beat the system.
What do you mean, no choice? Whenever I get one of those popups that says they want my cell phone number "for better security", I click the "no thanks, maybe later" option.
Of course, all that's for nothing if they can dig up phone numbers by any means necessary.
This. My first thought upon reading TFS was, how did this ever pass peer review and testing to get into the "stable" kernel? They do still perform peer review and unit testing, don't they?
In addition to your good point about experience, stability is also a key factor. I have been with my company nearly 25 years. In the past five years, I've seen some amazing kids come along who could do 2-4 times the work I do (and probably at half the price)... but as soon as they've buffed up their experience points and leveled up, they're gone.
My skillset may be largely obsolete, but I know the product inside and out from a user/business perspective, and although it takes me a bit longer to learn all this newfangled dot-net-this and agile-that, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to stay relevant and stay for the long haul.
Now if you'll excuse me I need to get back to studying up on this new language called HTML. <flash>Hello, world!</flash>
And $50 a month for dialup service? I didn't know that even existed anymore, like phone booths and 3-foot antennas on cars.
So Edison finally won the War of Currents and got Tesla to start using DC.
What's more, it shouldn't work. When people submit WtP petitions demanding that the federal government research this or spend more/less on that or provide some additional service or whatever, it's fairly harmless. Even if the petition somehow miraculously causes real action, it's just government spinning its wheels and spending money.
When you start using petitions to bypass due process in the judicial system, you open the door to mob rule. Don't like someone? Start a petition to have them prosecuted. With a population the size of the US, it won't take any effort at all to round up enough participants who share your dislike of that person, or just follow the crowd, or do it for the lulz.
I detest CoS and agree that they have abused their "religious" exemption in horrific ways. But I can't get behind any crowdsourced efforts to take them down.
First, they came for the Scientologists...
Only allow reviews from people who have a logged purchase for the product, one review per purchase. That won't completely stop fake reviews ("Want to make easy money? Let us pay you to write reviews for products you buy!") but it will cut off 99.742% of them.
The Burma Shave thing was funny, but the stats were really scary. I turn 52 next week!
At least it's not as bad as I feared from the title. When I hear "crossplay", I think of Sailor Bubba.
That sort of thing just doesn't happen in cyberspace.
That "first errand" is pretty much how I handled parenting, without the involvement of school/police/whatever supervision. I would lurk in the background while my kids went on their quasi-independent journeys of discovery, gradually increasing the radius of their area of autonomy proportional to their age and ability.
The other determining factor was indeed specific location. In our quiet suburb north of Houston, I didn't have a problem with my daughter playing unattended near the house for short periods. In a neighborhood in north Dallas with a MUCH higher crime rate, greater population density, and nearby high-traffic roads... we didn't even let her go to the mailbox in front of the house without a parent within arm's reach, and by then she was 8.
A later move to Cheyenne, Wyoming gave them nearly unlimited freedom. Our son would walk a mile or two from our house to the nearest school playground by the time he was 10, and 13-year-old daughter had no problem walking a couple of miles through the middle of town to get from a friend's house to the library.
Last time we visited Dallas, our vehicle broke down and I had to walk to a convenience store to get transmission fluid. My son - by then 15 - came with me, and with his physical training from karate and football I was glad to have him along to protect me.
No, a spellchecker will help you pass your finals at Hogwart's. A spelling checker will help you catch misspellings.</pedant>
You know, I'm a bit right-of-center on gun issues (which means that in most conversations I manage to piss off both my more conservative and more liberal friends, often with the same statement). I have no problem with widespread gun ownership and use of guns for personal self-defense.
But this... holy mother of Charles Whitman, how can this not get into the wrong hands with tragic consequences? Random urban sniper sprees just got a whole lot worse.
I wish I could mod you beyond the +5 you already got; you summarized the problem perfectly.
It's called faith for a reason. Yes, I see God's work in everything from the dance of electrons (and smaller!) to the dance of galaxies, but I am quite aware that is a subjective interpretation of the same evidence that others see as obvious proof God does not exist.
"An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah."
I am always embarrassed when scientists who are Christians claim that this or that archaeological or biological feature proves the existence of God, or young-earth creation, or whatever. There's so much confirmation bias it's a wonder any actual science ever gets done. We would achieve more good if we stop indulging in flawed arguments and simply let folks see God in the way we behave (hint: all you need is love).
I'm a conservative [read: slightly on the conservative side of dead center, with the added bonus of holding views that piss off my friends on both sides of the aisle] evangelical Christian, and I didn't see anything at all offensive about his posts. I've forwarded a couple of them on to my Christian and non-Christian friends. Really, I think this whole thing is an attempt by both Tyson and folks who make a career out of hating him to get media attention.
That's my whole problem with the "hour of code": It's a symbolic gesture. At no point do the students ever actually write code; they just drag command blocks into place, all the while being told what to drag and where to place it. Even if they use the "View code" button, they only see the LOGO-like commands without any of the program structure around it. When my daughter was 10, she was writing graphic games of her own design in QuickBASIC. Kids are capable of so much more than this walled garden assumes.
I wouldn't object so much if this exercise were just the introductory step ("Now that you've seen how the command blocks create actual programming instructions, let's learn about conditional branching!")
Hearing a disturbance, the master programmer went into the novice's cubicle.
"Curse these personal computers!" cried the novice in anger, "To make them do anything I must use three or even four editing programs. Sometimes I get so confused that I erase entire files. This is truly intolerable!"
The master programmer stared at the novice. "And what would you do to remedy this state of affairs?" he asked.
The novice thought for a moment. "I will design a new editing program," he said, "a program that will replace all these others."
Suddenly the master struck the novice on the side of his head. It was not a heavy blow, but the novice was nonetheless surprised. "What did you do that for?" exclaimed the novice.
"I have no wish to learn another editing program," said the master.
And suddenly the novice was enlightened.
This lesson from The Zen of Programming is as relevant today as it was 30 years ago.
Anyway, I'm sick of returning LED strings for that obvious tint.
#FirstWorldProblems
Overall, I understand the point of the article and I agree with it... but there's still something faintly disturbing that it is even necessary to report that there is less genocide than there used to be.
Even allowing for the sake of argument the possibility that these SF authors masquerading as scientists are right, the existence of these superhuman robot overlords begs the question of what intelligent entity created them in the first place.