There's a nice roundup
here of Washington quotes concerning religion. One I like from the treaty of Tripoli (negotiated under Washington, signed by Adams):
"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
Though this trip was planned months in advance, it's still true that I'm leaving for Canada tomorrow, looking for a job!
...to even _try_ to make a whole new game, the entry barrier is huge. You have to work your way past that huge barrier before you're even allowed to _try_....
What I dream of, is some tool where you can do away with most of that. I don't know if it's possible. But it certainly would be nice to lower the entry barrier to the point where everyone is able to just start scripting.
With new facts come new ideas. It won't take long before you have a list of the things the robot can't do, so you have to build a new robot, and send it up.... Really slows things down, doesn't it?
Hmm, my Hubble can't see very well. I'll have to put glasses on it. What good is having humans in place for that?
As Steven Weinberg points out in his excellent article The Wrong Stuff, if we hadn't wasted money on the useless shuttle program, we could instead have simply replaced the Hubble telescope seven times.
Thanks to unmanned space observatories, we now know e.g. that the universe is not "10-20 billion years old", but 13.5-13.9 billion years. With seven Hubbles, could we now have e.g. found extraterrestrial life? Is that worth giving up so that humans can find out what it's like to play
a saxophone in space?
An opposite sort of test to this -- increasing risk, rather than supposedly decreasing it -- occurred in Sweden sometime in the 1960s, when they switched from the left side to the right side of the road. (I believe that the common story, about the Parliament member suggesting that such an important change be performed gradually, is apocryphal.)
The effect was that the accident rate went down for a few months. But as you say, people don't actually want the accident rate to be zero, merely acceptable, and it resumed its previous level.
(It's hard to believe, but it seems that noone in this thread has yet welcomed our new car overlords!)
Might the study simply be showing that "younger people have better eye-hand coordination than older people?"
For things requiring speed, sure. For complicated motions that one practice over decades, no way. IANAD nor a resident; the personal experience I'm basing this on comes from attending juggling conventions, where it is quite manifest that "numbers juggling" is a young person's game, but the Vegas jugglers showing off the act they've practiced most of their lives are REALLY amazing.
Might not residents who have only performed 2 actual surgeries be more likely to risk going faster, unlike experienced physicians who, with many more actual surgeries under their belt, might be more inclined towards caution? Do I really want the speed demon operating on me, or the guy who goes "slow and steady"?
How long would you like to be put under? Seriously though, I don't believe this for a minute. I have to imagine that the inexperienced ones are the ones going to be sweating bullets and going slow to learn all they can, whereas the old hands will be bored, no wasted moves, let's-get-this-show-on-the-road.
Conversesly, I hope you can tell that I completely agree that a study that doesn't adjust for experience is nearly useless.
"William Fisher... an alternative compensation system that would enable the entertainment industry to restructure its business model... a modified version of the system that artists' advocacy groups currently use to make sure that composers are paid when their music is performed or recorded."
Right, that's how radio works now. What I found amazing is that the radio stations are not asked to keep track (or at least weren't several years ago, when I heard the following story) of what they play, so instead ASCAP & BMI send vans around the country to record radio stations and obtain a representative sample. Then all these tapes are brought home for the Name That Tune Experts to listen to on fast-forward.
Note that "composers" are the ones paid, not performers. So the experts (in rap, country, deathmetal, trucker, etc.) have to be able to recognize a song no matter how egregiously a cover band has re-envisioned it! The experts have a file of Mysteries, organized by first three notes, that someday may be identified.
I wonder if it's a fun job.
Anyway, I just wanted to get across the point that the system described in the article is not a dream, it's already in place (if just in radio), and people were willing to put it in place even though the logistical aspects were quite daunting. Once you have a website counting downloads, there's so much less excuse to hold it up.
Slashdot Mirror
Meaning, it gained rather than lost a few minutes each day?
If the superintendent is around, you can simply ask him the height of the building -- and if he won't tell you, threaten him with the barometer.
There's a nice roundup here of Washington quotes concerning religion. One I like from the treaty of Tripoli (negotiated under Washington, signed by Adams):
"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
Though this trip was planned months in advance, it's still true that I'm leaving for Canada tomorrow, looking for a job!
Have you played any of the winners of the Interactive Fiction contests?
Or, if you must have pictures, the highly rated adventures designed for Neverwinter Nights?
Probably there are many other examples of low-barrier-to-entry games but these were the first to occur to me. (Both run under Linux, too!)
As Steven Weinberg points out in his excellent article The Wrong Stuff, if we hadn't wasted money on the useless shuttle program, we could instead have simply replaced the Hubble telescope seven times.
Thanks to unmanned space observatories, we now know e.g. that the universe is not "10-20 billion years old", but 13.5-13.9 billion years. With seven Hubbles, could we now have e.g. found extraterrestrial life? Is that worth giving up so that humans can find out what it's like to play a saxophone in space?
The effect was that the accident rate went down for a few months. But as you say, people don't actually want the accident rate to be zero, merely acceptable, and it resumed its previous level.
(It's hard to believe, but it seems that noone in this thread has yet welcomed our new car overlords!)
For things requiring speed, sure. For complicated motions that one practice over decades, no way. IANAD nor a resident; the personal experience I'm basing this on comes from attending juggling conventions, where it is quite manifest that "numbers juggling" is a young person's game, but the Vegas jugglers showing off the act they've practiced most of their lives are REALLY amazing.
Might not residents who have only performed 2 actual surgeries be more likely to risk going faster, unlike experienced physicians who, with many more actual surgeries under their belt, might be more inclined towards caution? Do I really want the speed demon operating on me, or the guy who goes "slow and steady"?
How long would you like to be put under? Seriously though, I don't believe this for a minute. I have to imagine that the inexperienced ones are the ones going to be sweating bullets and going slow to learn all they can, whereas the old hands will be bored, no wasted moves, let's-get-this-show-on-the-road.
Conversesly, I hope you can tell that I completely agree that a study that doesn't adjust for experience is nearly useless.
Right, that's how radio works now. What I found amazing is that the radio stations are not asked to keep track (or at least weren't several years ago, when I heard the following story) of what they play, so instead ASCAP & BMI send vans around the country to record radio stations and obtain a representative sample. Then all these tapes are brought home for the Name That Tune Experts to listen to on fast-forward.
Note that "composers" are the ones paid, not performers. So the experts (in rap, country, deathmetal, trucker, etc.) have to be able to recognize a song no matter how egregiously a cover band has re-envisioned it! The experts have a file of Mysteries, organized by first three notes, that someday may be identified. I wonder if it's a fun job.
Anyway, I just wanted to get across the point that the system described in the article is not a dream, it's already in place (if just in radio), and people were willing to put it in place even though the logistical aspects were quite daunting. Once you have a website counting downloads, there's so much less excuse to hold it up.