No, you misunderstand. The question of God is inherently unfalseifiable- it can never, under any situation, be proved false.
The Great Snowflake question, however, can be proved false- as I said, simply provide two identical ones. Hell, it's even testable under lab conditions- set up a snowflake generator, a webcam and some pattern matching software - given enough time, that will produce a positive result. Besides, nothing in the Snowflake Theory says it's impossible for two identical ones to exist. What it says is the number of possible configurations of a snowflake is so massive and the number of snowflakes to have fallen on Earth such a small fraction of number, that there is a vanishingly small chance that any two have been identical. Of course, on a theoretical earth where every possible snowflake plus one exist, then of course there will be two identical ones. It's really just like the Monkeys on Typewriters problem- elementry probability theory.
What? That's trivialy falsifiable; simply provide two snowflakes that are identical, and it's been proven wrong. What people mean is it's extremely unlikely that two snowflakes have ever been the same, but by no means impossible.
if you have 100,000 to 1,000,000 people (although untrained) sifting through photos, and documents, don't you think that we'd start having a 'industrial revolution' all over again, for space?
Err no, actually I don't- I think you'd get a noise to signal ratio beyond belief. The sheer number of people required to shift through all the crackpots claiming that the new Orion cockpit angle should be 72' rather than 70' because this will deflect the cosmic rays better would be prohibitive. I think that spacetravel, much like medicine or nuclear physics is something I'm quite happy to leave to the professionals.
Because this is Slashdot, I'm going to use a car analogy; take a fairly popular car make. Say a 1994 Clio. (European here, I don't know what the American partner would be). Now I can buy a Haynes manual that tells me exactly how that car works. Where each wire goes, etc. I can buy a textbook that tells me how to construct a engine, exhaust etc. I can get classes to allow me to make a piece of sheet metal of a certain size. Does any of that make me a mechanical engineer? No, it doesn't, and I'd still be totally unqualified to design a car. People train for years to do this stuff, and it's only arrogance on your part that makes you think that by looking at a document or a photo you could spot a mistake that a team of engineers have been doing this for twenty years apiece have missed.
Not to mention that I'm over the moon that our North Korean partners have now ready made plans for a spacecraft reaching the moon and back; I wonder, what is the imact energy of a 25 tonne spacecraft traveling at orbital velocities?
What? What sort of bloody stupid comment is that then? Pretty much everyone qualified in the fields involved in getting people to mars already works for or with Nasa or the ESA, etc. Unless you think that Joe Sixpack has anything constructive to say on building a spaceship? I can assume that's a thinly veiled karma-whore attempt; if I'm wrong, please do elaborate.
Sorry, I wasn't talking about CS in particular but rather universities in general. I do disagree with your claim, however - a university that requires students to do so much work they can't even shower once a day [30 mins, tops?] would produce nothing but extremely burnt-out students who can study hard. I don't know about where you live, but employers around my neck of the woods are looking for people skills just as much as they are programming skills. Perhaps you and I disagree on what a 'good' univeristy is?
I must disagree. Having spent time with various groups of students around the UK, I always find that the students at the 'better' Universities [Oxford, Imperial, etc] invariably take much better care of themselves, and are generally more attractive to boot. This, of course, is only a general observation, but seems to hold true. There's also a class divide at play; the wealthy south [UK again] are generally a lot more healthy than the poorer north; and it's generally considered difficult to be attractive when you're morbidly obese:)
Probably quite an interesting study in why this should be, although it's rather outside the scope of my CS course to conduct it:)
They need someone that they can sue if something goes hugely wrong and they lose everything due to an operating system glitch
Erm - if they honestly believe they can sue Microsoft for loss of data or, indeed, anything at all, they are sorely mistaken. Have they read the EULA recently? Microsoft are NOT liable for anything that Windows does - their fault or not.
At least with IBM & Linux you have a support framework in place - unlike Windows, where support is patchy at best.
Ah, schoolboy error- I'm so used to using standard terms I assumed you were too (again, my fault, not yours) - I mean 3/ min per half km. (crusing).
(Also, don't piss about - you know as much as I do that 1:00/500 is impossible over water as it is over a ergo)
Allow me to clarify for those who are throughrly confused.
Over a short race, we (the univeristy team) can pull 1:20(min) per 500m - 500m is normally the standard measurement.(if anyone but a extremely fit sportsman can do this, I shake your hand. It's generally the finatics that do this.)
Over longer races, off-water ergo's don't really compare anymore - the most important factor is the resistant value of the individual ergo, but the wind factor and the timing of the crew all pay a factor in this. (even the cox!)
In British terms, 8500m per half hour is normal. (again, standard university training level.) With, this is, normal (if it can be said) ergo resitance factors.
"There's nothing that justifies the fact you'll give away your health for money."
I may disagree totally with the rest that comment, but I agree totally with that.
With your working hours, join a gym, work out. Join a club, join a amuteur sport.
Nothing, NOTHING, is worth more than you are. Join Mc' D's- as long as you, and your family, are happy - that's the main thing.
Fuck the cash, fuck the social advancement, make yourself happy. Nothing else matters.
Ah, my mistake.
No, I actually mean 6:45 over 2km - that's pretty much a standard over competative university rowing - if you can keep up with that without the university training, you're doing well.
(for you that haven't experienced the university rowing (In the U.K.), it's six days a week, several training sessions a day.)
I can honestly say that I've never heard of 'Concept II' - but It's very possible over actual water, let me assure you. (We are expected to attend this, and we're out of the team if we don't).
8 Min / km is shockingly bad. I can (and so can everyone everyone I know) keep that up almost all day - I'm not joking, 2 min / km is standard for cruising speed. (again, this is a very fit univsersity standard (19-23'yr old, male)(women are always much slower, it's a physical drawback)) But don't feel bad if you can't - I do have the advantage of youth, and a fanitcal training schedule.
Sorry, but I row for my university (British - Cardiff, in particular) and somone will be hard pressed to row for more than 2K (4-5 min, (even six, if a woman) ) unless they have trained very hard indeed.
30 mins requires a fuckload of fitness, as well as a hell of a lot of dedication - if they are doing it right, that is.
Personally, I'd say it was worth more joining a gym every day. A couple of quid every time - what could be worth more!?
Sorry, agree with most of your post except one point - and that's the "~2000 cal/day" bit. Your chance of getting diabetes has nothing to do with your calorie intake, it's all to do with the amount of sugar you eat - and men (yes, I'm assuming you're a man) are simply designed to take more in the region of 2500 calories a day intake. I agree totally that limitting your calorie intake will loose you weight - but it has nothing to do with diabetes.
Perhaps I'm behind the times, but aren't gravitational force-carrying particles simply conjecture at this point in time?
Yes, they're logical and fit nicely into our understanding of the three [four] fundamental forces, but they aren't scientific fact yet by any means of the term - perhaps at most a theory that makes sense, but we've found impossible to test.
But like I said, maybe I'm just behind the times.
Yeah, VOIP is big- but at the moment, let's face it, the name sucks.
I mean... VOIP? Try discussing that in a bar or in a non-technical environment. No, seriously, go try it: how do you even pronounce VOIP? I guarantee that you'll get laughed at, or stares at the very least.
Therefore, I suggest that we replace Voice Over IP with Talking Over The Internet, or TOTI. Think about it!
Instead of discussing VOIP down the pub, you can talk about the latest TOTI that you saw Samsung introduce. Or ask if your fellow geek has checked out the new TOTI down at the phone store. Or if you see a nice looking young lady (or man!) in town, you can whistle and challenge those around you to check out that TOTI.
You see? It's perfect. Sure, it isn't as descriptive as VOIP, but it gets across the main idea, kind of. I mean, yeah, there's going to be the odd pedant that will contest the change, but don't listen to them- they're probably a taxman in real life or something.
Yeah, vigilante justice is all very well and good; but this is slashdot, man.
What are we going to do, honestly? Camp outside their house and point our wi-fi's at them?
Well, saying that, the people who kompro... compromised their server were probably from the "geek" community too, so we'd stand a chance. Let the wardialing commence!
All three Lord of the Rings books, for some reason.
These are obviously useless, since if we consider that a picture tells a thousand words, and a NTSC/PAL video / DVD is around 40 FPS, and that the movies are around three hours long apiece...
That means that one film has ~ 432000 pictures in it;
If each of those is worth a thousand words, that means each book is going to have to be at least 432000000 words long, simply to match the quality of story told by the films!
Parents, heh. Who'd have em?
Oh, sure, because Microsoft never helped themselves to others code...
(For those that don't belive me; windows is non case specific. Windows has never been case specific. Yet there is a simple tool that is case specific; ping. Try it out yourself if you dont belive me. (It's actually been a while since I tested this myself, and all I can verify is that on my old 95 machine it was case specific.) So then children, which other OS do we know of that is case specific, and also publishes its code on the web?
Um... could it be that free one? The one beginning with the L? (:
I think he's refering to the number of colours the screen can display- instead of true colour or high colour (which those of you with microsoft windows will be familiar with), he's refering to the number of different shades of colour; 2^16, or 16 bit colour. (FYI: it's actually 65,536 colour, as that's the excact number of bits.)
Slashdot Mirror
The Great Snowflake question, however, can be proved false- as I said, simply provide two identical ones. Hell, it's even testable under lab conditions- set up a snowflake generator, a webcam and some pattern matching software - given enough time, that will produce a positive result. Besides, nothing in the Snowflake Theory says it's impossible for two identical ones to exist. What it says is the number of possible configurations of a snowflake is so massive and the number of snowflakes to have fallen on Earth such a small fraction of number, that there is a vanishingly small chance that any two have been identical. Of course, on a theoretical earth where every possible snowflake plus one exist, then of course there will be two identical ones. It's really just like the Monkeys on Typewriters problem- elementry probability theory.
What? That's trivialy falsifiable; simply provide two snowflakes that are identical, and it's been proven wrong. What people mean is it's extremely unlikely that two snowflakes have ever been the same, but by no means impossible.
Err no, actually I don't- I think you'd get a noise to signal ratio beyond belief. The sheer number of people required to shift through all the crackpots claiming that the new Orion cockpit angle should be 72' rather than 70' because this will deflect the cosmic rays better would be prohibitive. I think that spacetravel, much like medicine or nuclear physics is something I'm quite happy to leave to the professionals.
Because this is Slashdot, I'm going to use a car analogy; take a fairly popular car make. Say a 1994 Clio. (European here, I don't know what the American partner would be). Now I can buy a Haynes manual that tells me exactly how that car works. Where each wire goes, etc. I can buy a textbook that tells me how to construct a engine, exhaust etc. I can get classes to allow me to make a piece of sheet metal of a certain size. Does any of that make me a mechanical engineer? No, it doesn't, and I'd still be totally unqualified to design a car. People train for years to do this stuff, and it's only arrogance on your part that makes you think that by looking at a document or a photo you could spot a mistake that a team of engineers have been doing this for twenty years apiece have missed.
Not to mention that I'm over the moon that our North Korean partners have now ready made plans for a spacecraft reaching the moon and back; I wonder, what is the imact energy of a 25 tonne spacecraft traveling at orbital velocities?
What? What sort of bloody stupid comment is that then? Pretty much everyone qualified in the fields involved in getting people to mars already works for or with Nasa or the ESA, etc. Unless you think that Joe Sixpack has anything constructive to say on building a spaceship? I can assume that's a thinly veiled karma-whore attempt; if I'm wrong, please do elaborate.
Sorry, I wasn't talking about CS in particular but rather universities in general. I do disagree with your claim, however - a university that requires students to do so much work they can't even shower once a day [30 mins, tops?] would produce nothing but extremely burnt-out students who can study hard. I don't know about where you live, but employers around my neck of the woods are looking for people skills just as much as they are programming skills. Perhaps you and I disagree on what a 'good' univeristy is?
I must disagree. Having spent time with various groups of students around the UK, I always find that the students at the 'better' Universities [Oxford, Imperial, etc] invariably take much better care of themselves, and are generally more attractive to boot. This, of course, is only a general observation, but seems to hold true. There's also a class divide at play; the wealthy south [UK again] are generally a lot more healthy than the poorer north; and it's generally considered difficult to be attractive when you're morbidly obese :)
:)
Probably quite an interesting study in why this should be, although it's rather outside the scope of my CS course to conduct it
Well thats easy. A googol is 10^100, so a micro google is simply (10^100)^-3, or 10^97.
Easy when you know how!
Erm - if they honestly believe they can sue Microsoft for loss of data or, indeed, anything at all, they are sorely mistaken. Have they read the EULA recently? Microsoft are NOT liable for anything that Windows does - their fault or not.
At least with IBM & Linux you have a support framework in place - unlike Windows, where support is patchy at best.
(Also, don't piss about - you know as much as I do that 1:00/500 is impossible over water as it is over a ergo)
Allow me to clarify for those who are throughrly confused.
Over a short race, we (the univeristy team) can pull 1:20(min) per 500m - 500m is normally the standard measurement.(if anyone but a extremely fit sportsman can do this, I shake your hand. It's generally the finatics that do this.)
Over longer races, off-water ergo's don't really compare anymore - the most important factor is the resistant value of the individual ergo, but the wind factor and the timing of the crew all pay a factor in this. (even the cox!)
In British terms, 8500m per half hour is normal. (again, standard university training level.)
With, this is, normal (if it can be said) ergo resitance factors.
heh - yes, it is - but the actual cause of diabetes is sugar intake, i'm fairly sure - please, prove me wrong - go for it!!
"There's nothing that justifies the fact you'll give away your health for money." I may disagree totally with the rest that comment, but I agree totally with that. With your working hours, join a gym, work out. Join a club, join a amuteur sport. Nothing, NOTHING, is worth more than you are. Join Mc' D's- as long as you, and your family, are happy - that's the main thing. Fuck the cash, fuck the social advancement, make yourself happy. Nothing else matters.
Ah, my mistake. No, I actually mean 6:45 over 2km - that's pretty much a standard over competative university rowing - if you can keep up with that without the university training, you're doing well. (for you that haven't experienced the university rowing (In the U.K.), it's six days a week, several training sessions a day.) I can honestly say that I've never heard of 'Concept II' - but It's very possible over actual water, let me assure you. (We are expected to attend this, and we're out of the team if we don't). 8 Min / km is shockingly bad. I can (and so can everyone everyone I know) keep that up almost all day - I'm not joking, 2 min / km is standard for cruising speed. (again, this is a very fit univsersity standard (19-23'yr old, male)(women are always much slower, it's a physical drawback)) But don't feel bad if you can't - I do have the advantage of youth, and a fanitcal training schedule.
Sorry, but I row for my university (British - Cardiff, in particular) and somone will be hard pressed to row for more than 2K (4-5 min, (even six, if a woman) ) unless they have trained very hard indeed. 30 mins requires a fuckload of fitness, as well as a hell of a lot of dedication - if they are doing it right, that is. Personally, I'd say it was worth more joining a gym every day. A couple of quid every time - what could be worth more!?
Sorry, agree with most of your post except one point - and that's the "~2000 cal/day" bit. Your chance of getting diabetes has nothing to do with your calorie intake, it's all to do with the amount of sugar you eat - and men (yes, I'm assuming you're a man) are simply designed to take more in the region of 2500 calories a day intake. I agree totally that limitting your calorie intake will loose you weight - but it has nothing to do with diabetes.
Perhaps I'm behind the times, but aren't gravitational force-carrying particles simply conjecture at this point in time? Yes, they're logical and fit nicely into our understanding of the three [four] fundamental forces, but they aren't scientific fact yet by any means of the term - perhaps at most a theory that makes sense, but we've found impossible to test. But like I said, maybe I'm just behind the times.
Hmm, now I'm now expert, but didn't you miss out mkinitrd?
Maybe a nice RSS feed would do the trick, or even a low tech solution like a portable radio?
I mean... VOIP? Try discussing that in a bar or in a non-technical environment. No, seriously, go try it: how do you even pronounce VOIP? I guarantee that you'll get laughed at, or stares at the very least.
Therefore, I suggest that we replace Voice Over IP with Talking Over The Internet, or TOTI. Think about it!
Instead of discussing VOIP down the pub, you can talk about the latest TOTI that you saw Samsung introduce. Or ask if your fellow geek has checked out the new TOTI down at the phone store. Or if you see a nice looking young lady (or man!) in town, you can whistle and challenge those around you to check out that TOTI.
You see? It's perfect. Sure, it isn't as descriptive as VOIP, but it gets across the main idea, kind of. I mean, yeah, there's going to be the odd pedant that will contest the change, but don't listen to them- they're probably a taxman in real life or something.
Sorry.
Also, I wonder if we can request new weapons... want to erase that CD? Airstrike, BMF2k, anyone?
What are we going to do, honestly? Camp outside their house and point our wi-fi's at them?
Well, saying that, the people who kompro... compromised their server were probably from the "geek" community too, so we'd stand a chance. Let the wardialing commence!
All three Lord of the Rings books, for some reason. These are obviously useless, since if we consider that a picture tells a thousand words, and a NTSC/PAL video / DVD is around 40 FPS, and that the movies are around three hours long apiece... That means that one film has ~ 432000 pictures in it; If each of those is worth a thousand words, that means each book is going to have to be at least 432000000 words long, simply to match the quality of story told by the films! Parents, heh. Who'd have em?
Your right, of course, and I probably should have reread what I wrote. Boy, is my face red.
Oh, sure, because Microsoft never helped themselves to others code... (For those that don't belive me; windows is non case specific. Windows has never been case specific. Yet there is a simple tool that is case specific; ping. Try it out yourself if you dont belive me. (It's actually been a while since I tested this myself, and all I can verify is that on my old 95 machine it was case specific.) So then children, which other OS do we know of that is case specific, and also publishes its code on the web? Um... could it be that free one? The one beginning with the L? (:
I think he's refering to the number of colours the screen can display- instead of true colour or high colour (which those of you with microsoft windows will be familiar with), he's refering to the number of different shades of colour; 2^16, or 16 bit colour. (FYI: it's actually 65,536 colour, as that's the excact number of bits.)
Not bad at all for a held-hand device.