Invent an entire agency with a specific task, while having various other more or less capable agencies given parts or all of the same task. It'll work terribly at first because they'll only be learning how to do what they do in the context and restraints forced on them. Then to become more effective, they'll share information and then participate in tasks with these other agencies. Later when the government(s) attempt to get these agencies to merge, if not act together as a single task force, inter-agency rivalry that had already been decried by the people in the agencies and probably brought to light in the media when tasks failed because of it, then the administration will insist on an overseer agency to make them work together. This agency will fail in its task as well as others given it, but it will continue to operate so that people know that their Government is trying to look out for them. As the new agency fails to function effectively and the interdepartmental agency frequentely fails in effectiveness, efficiency and in general spectacularly in public, people will be reminded of its necessity (and its Osama FUD Laden alternative), putting everyone in the path of the agency's progress into the line of fire of the agency's mandated tools of its trade.
This is not a prediction. This is historical recounting. Non-US agencies find themselves acting the same way or else they don't get fed Uncle Sam's infomoney teat and counted among the potential bad naughties on the list the US draws up based on the subordinate reports but only with approval from the administrative, security/defense, and state departments of all the payers in this game.
This is not a new game. The first successful application in which its strategy and tactics outperformed those of the gun toting grunts involved was 230 years ago. The true hero of the action was Poland. It gave its all (ie. national solvency and so ability to defend) depending on Washington et al. to come up with a way to return the favor (an army to protect it, or at least money to pay it). Another national leaders himself led a 600 miles march of unarmed people to carry supplies to Washington, which Washington himself said saved him, his army and the war. They carried corn. The leader was Chief Shenendoah. Having won the war with their assistance, Washington oversaw the creation of the war department, tasked with getting things arranged, but credited for arranging them.
Nothings' changed here in 230 years. Considering the influence we have elsewhere, figure the odds they'll go a different route, or at least, for very long.
And its' one, two, three, Who are we voting for? Don't ask me I don't give a damn, gimme Iraq or Afghanistan. Well its' five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates. 72 vigins can't be wrong, Let have more cops to help make them strong.
"We found that in reading the book task, the visual cortex -- the part of the brain that controls reading and language -- was activated," Small said."
The visual cortex, which is the occipital cortex, at the back of the head, processes vision from the very basic perception through combining perceptual elements into a whole visual picture. It puts together the images of the letters into words and words into phrases (visual "chunks" per George Miller). It does not "read".
Scanning the phrases/chunks requires the superior frontal lobes (Brodmann area 8), which control eye movement. The scanned material is fed to Wernicke's area (Brodmann 22, the posterior section of the superior temporal gyrus, encircling the auditory cortex, on the Sylvian fissure), drawing on the parietal association cortices which in turn are receiving the visual material from the occipital primary and secondary visual systems. making sense of it requires use of Broca's area (Brodmann 44 and 45; the opercular and triangular sections of the inferior frontal gyrus of the frontal lobe), which produces spoken words by controlling the necesssary motor functions, and interestingly controls comprehension in reading. This is why reading causes subvocalization (movement of speech creating anatomy despite reading silently).
TFA saw "activity" in the visual area. If they didn't see it in all the above, they weren't seeing reading. This is what happens when people who don't fully comprehend either the target or the technology point the technology at the target. Small is a geriatric psychologist. He's not a neural anatomy and physiology specialist. Most importantly, just as with the vast majority of people reporting fMRI results, he doesn't grasp what he's measuring.
MRI measures relative levels of oxyhemoglobin and carboxyhemoglobin. fMRI measures it during different tasks (ie. reading vs. not reading). It is fairly well supported that the more difference between them, the more oxygen is being used and so the more the brain is working in that area. This is not necessarily the case, as more oxygenation without subsequent metabolism as well as the inverse, can cause identical results. In any case, the implied metabolism probably represents neurons working. 85% of the brain is excitatory and operates constantly, although changing some with demand. 15% of the brain is inhibitory, and carves out the important stuff from the vast array of what's taken in. fMRI is only measuring implied neural metabolism. It cannot possibly differentiate between excitatory and inhibitory activity, and in fact measures both without being able to tell them apart.
He saw that cells in the visual cortex were using more blood looking at stuff in people who look at stuff more. That's all he can say. Everything else is pure conjecture. And if he didn't see the other areas activating at the same time, he damn sure can't say he was seeing reading happening.
"gentle currents from a fluctuating magnetic field"
TMS is not gentle. Even the latest, most focused but least powerful, ones cause such a mechanical strain on the mechanism when they fire, that they sound like a firecracker.
There is still a maximum amount allowed because too much causes headaches, then convulsions. TMS is a gentle ball peen hammer.
..... who were in the clinical tests for Preparation A through G?
Please let us know what company it is that things we're all such idiots that we don't pay attention to these things, and believe we simply must have missed the prior versions, so we can avoid them. We will even if you don't tell us.
If the game isn't good enough to release as v.1, it's not good enough to release. Their tactic will trick some people into buying it, they'll figure this out, and never buy another.
The software version/revision number means nothing if you put a number 1 in the title instead. It implies sequels. People like games that will be continued-on-next-disk. Try telling this nice thing to the suits. If that doesn't work, tell them the bad ones. Tell them either way they're stupid, but can either act like it or not.
You do, however, need a working and publishing scientist, myself among many here, to be able to tell you TFA is wrong in that it's not right enough, and confusing in that it's a ridiculous metaphor being used where facts would suffice. Furthermore, there are more problems in the process than they don't even touch on. One that comes to mind, and certainly should have to an economics viewpoint on the subject, is the effect of research grants on the production of and bias created in science, the effect of prior publications on getting those grants, and the effect of possible future grants to be gained by producing and publishing certain things in certain ways and places.
Another point that fails due to faulty assumption is that science shouldn't be incorrect and should always be correct, this assumption being used to specify in which cases they feel this most likely to occur. We know full well it's not correct. It never is. If it were we'd have had the Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious Truths. Science runs on statistics, with chances of false positives and negatives calculated and presented. Independent replications are required to narrow those margins but can never close them. We produce the best supported educated guesses and then argue over them until we come up with better ideas and tests, ad infinitum. Economics as considered in TFA would assume the same mistaken model that results in the inevitable end point of monopoly when the best possible product is created. No scientist who understands the process would ever try to present themselves as having done so. We operate under the model as presented by John Nash* wherein the best collection of choices are all sub-optimal because this produces the best aggregate result. We do not do so in order to achieve that result, we achieve that result because we know science to be imperfect and thus sub-optimal.
Finally, this appears in a medical journal, where economics is much more a driving force than most other fields. The model presented comes from bias within that field and so is not very generalizable. Other fields would produce equally valid and equally invalid/biased results based on their own models.
Taken out of the economic context, the points raised are well known to the philosophy of science (where from Ph.D. is supposed to be derived), and have been explicated far more deeply and with better generalization throughout the history of the scientific method. These errors are merely compounded and made more relevant to economics when the present publication models are given their present level of import.
* John Nash's writings and conclusions are fairly astounding in their revelations, but are fairly dense. The presentation of his major discovery regarding best aggregate results coming from individually sub-optimal results are very well presented in "A Beautiful Mind" where he tells his friends that the best way for them to all get laid is for none of them to go for the blond, and all go for the brunettes. This is one of the most insightful translations of science to popular media that I've ever seen.
If the conclusion that "people" prefer X holds, then either everyone thinks like Austrians, or else Austria is the most culture-neutral group of people on the planet. Far be it from me to suggest that say, Americans and Japanese might evaluate cars differently because they evaluate and relate to faces differently, when we have Austria as a global baseline.
Also, everyone evaluates cars as faces, rather than as machines or butts. The former would make too much sense to be interesting(!), and the latter would make it impossible to conclude that anger was the most important characteristic, because after all, how can you tell when a butt is angry?
What a great example of forced results. If the results had been real, by now cars would have evolved to have faces painted on them rivaling the toothy grin on the Curtis P-40s of the Flying Tigers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_tigers
"So maybe gene therapy will finally have a real purpose."
If you take a look at advertising, sales and profit margins, as well as how fast a drug can go from one prescribed use, through clinical testing to an entirely different use which used to be a side effect, and then on to over-the-counter sales (higher profit margins, due to no insurance discounts), you can only come to one conclusion: the most important pharmaceutical developments are directed towards boners and baldness.
Both the NYT and Sipser should be ashamed for hyping such well worn material as though it were news. The only thing surprising here is that someone had the guts to publish it. Not only have we in the US known this for a long time, so have other countries and they've let us know repeatedly that they know. If I write an article that says it's possible to send voice over a wire like a talking telegraph, can I get into NYT too?
"I'm not sure the end-users really appreciated that trade-off.'"
I'm pretty sure Ballmer fails appreciate how little end users appreciate what he thinks they should. If Ballmer appreciated the fact that end users appreciate what they damn well want to in spite of the best efforts at mind control^H^H^H^H marketing hype ^H^H^H^H standardization, we might end up with a Windows that's not unpleasant to use.
OK, I just reread that last line. I had no idea I was on drugs.
"Can't get her to stop" pretty much covers (not) having the guts to "tell her to stop". Do you read what you write? I can't imagine a lesser level of trying to get her to stop than telling her. I can imagine more, but not less. Do you think telling you not to make yourself look so oblivious will work, or do we need to try more drastic measures? At least let the disagree mail speak for itself. Your editorializing is backfiring.
No this isn't flamebait. If it were I'd have said "your petty sniping while hiding behind the/. logo ought to get you bitchslapped" rather than "Your editorializing is backfiring."
Much of the winning research this year and previously was serious work on topics many find silly. This is what AIR is about (makes you laugh, then think). Most of the recipients take the award with good humor and, as a sign that science is actually making progress as a human social activity, they are not chastised by their colleagues. The title sucks. It came from the Telegraph, but it got passed along without being made less ridiculous.
"Lot's of people knowing about you doesn't equal well known?"
Popular == well liked. Popularity for music is measured by requests to radio stations, early sales primarily by fans of the genre, and listener ratings. It is usually a small subset of the population that accounts for such response. This is where Billboard gets its numbers. Popular has a positive connotation that's not applicable to things well known but not held in positive esteem. We have the word "infamous" for the extreme example.
Well known == easily recognized by many. When people who aren't fans of the genre will recognize the song despite not particularly liking the song, it's well known. Queen's "We Will Rock You" at sporting events is an example. This is way past Billboard's figuring.
No, they're not the same.
"Another One Rides The Bus" is a good counter example to the usual delay. The Beverly Hillbillies theme to Dire Straights music is a better example of what I mean. One was very old, the other only old.
As for permission, he usually does at least try. But I'm pretty sure he never asked Mark (Devo) Mothersbaugh's permission for "Dare To Be Stupid" and I know for certain he never asked Ivan Stang's permission to use the J.R. "Bob" Dobbs-like character in that video. He apparently knew enough to know Mark was a SubGenius preacher.
"Can anyone suggest some good (and cheap/easy to make) visual aids?"
Fourth graders and a stack of index cards.
Assign kids to be a router, lines, client machines, etc. Give them cards to represent information for processing. Have them hand off the cards to each other under your instruction. After they get into it, stop and tell them "In my job, a computer tells all the other computers and things what to do. But I'm the one that makes sure that computer makes everything go."
When giving the instructions, make sure to be enjoying yourself and they will enjoy themselves, and you'll get a good response.
Then when it comes time for questions, expect entirely irrelevant ones: "You're old. How old are you?" "How'd you get so fat?" "What happened to your hair?" and so on. Be ready with good questions and answers of your own.
I guess now by doing this he can have a parody in the hands of his fans while the original version of the song is still popular. If you're trying to lampoon popular culture, releasing an album at a time means that you will always be a good deal behind the times.
That's not as good an idea as you might imagine. I do the same thing -- parody songs. Popular != well known. Older means more people have become familiar with it, particularly those who don't keep current on the genre the song is from. If fewer people recognize it, the act falls flat. I'll bet Weird Al is aware of this since he typically runs years behind a "hit" despite producing things in the interim. Plus, if he seeks permission (he used to sometimes) it'd be easier to get when something's no longer hot. Very new, and they won't want it made fun of. Older, and the parody can bring the original back up the chart.
The flight will last 2 hours including boosting and reentry/landing. Weightlessness will last 5 to 15 minutes. Hardly enough time for much more than the money shot, and then you've got to worry about stuff (!) floating around and getting into things (other than the intended docking port).
Add to that the fact that it'll be very difficult for a ground pounder to learn and carry out docking procedures, it's likely the result would be so clumsy as to be comedic. Of course the client in this case doesn't care if the result sucks, they just want to be able to slap "Made In Orbit" on the box to make money.
I forgot: Training them to deliver drugs is comparatively trivial compared to the other training necessary -- making them able to avoid detection by the immune system and not to react with hostility when it does. A bacterium that usually doesn't trigger the body's defenses can trigger it after being altered. Altered bug == not the same bug.
They're called Hebbian cellular assemblies because many cells work together. This is an entirely different concept than a single celled organism alone adapting physiologically to stimuli. That effect is well known. It has been examined in terms of altering DNA to change the organism's reactions with that altered DNA being transfered to others, as well as in chemical/mRNA learning and communication as outlined by James McConnell (Worm Runner's Digest) and many others. The only thing nearly unique in TFA is the specific task proposed. If it's worth publication, so is every other potential result of this well established effect. There was no reason to bring up Hebb. TFA would have been better (though not necessarily much good) had he been left out.
"The operating system, which will likely have a different name," is actually WINDOWS VISTA! Doesn't Vista sound cool NOW? Clouds? Right here in the screen saver! Doesn't Vista look COOL? Isn't it AWESOME? You can tell from how it looks how great it is! See? LOOK at it. No, don't touch, that's what this specially trained Windows Operative is for. He touches things so you don't have to! You can JUST LOOK!
Stallman was right. It's hype. It's cool because it's new and not many people understand it. Ballmer offers proof. If it's still cool (if and) when this Windows critter emerges, it will cease to be at that time. My money says MS will never release this because people will fall out of love with it before that.
You have 4GB RAM and want to know how much more RAM you need. Cost comparisons would figure in if we were comparing, but we're not. Take a look to see how much of your RAM is used during various tasks. If you're running out of RAM, you need more. Can your machine handle it? If not, you need another alternative. Now, can you afford it? Ditto.
If anything's using up your RAM, find out what, and figure out if more RAM makes sense in that context. A question for clarifying things should be "need more RAM/swap space for WHAT?" If specific apps make the suggestion, it may be worth listening. If the OS makes the demand before the software is even installed, I'd ignore it. If the OS asks for swap space based on load, as Windows does under "let Windows decide" it may not be accurate, but it's thinking along reasonable lines.
In addition to RAM load, take a look at RAM fragmentation. Some apps and OS pieces are very bad neighbors and your RAM ends up bogging down. These don't need more RAM, they need defragging or better RAM clearing built in, or you need it as a utility.
I'll apply Occam's Razor and ask which is more likely.
Are we in an unusual zone so we get unusual results?
Is there some unknown and mysterious matter that screws up our results?
Quite frankly I find both solutions rather silly, they sound a little too much like deus ex machina to me. I suspect the truth is still out there and when we understand it will change our view of the universe. It's happened before, it will happen again.
Two thoughts come to mind:
1. Deus ex machina is a term that can be applied to anything which conforms to Clark's Law ("any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"). Any spacetime/matter phenomenon that can be understood has the possibility of being controlled and therefore to become a technology, therefore Clarke's Law can be applied.
2. "Willam of Ockham had a beard," which is to say he was not an authority in the field and the rule associated with his name fails. It is sufficiently common that data proves a more complex hypothesis true that reality invalidates use of this axiom even in pre-result situations. Acceptance of parsimony (same concept as the razor) without cause is mental laziness as well as the logical error of acceptance of (perceived) authority. Nature doesn't care about how easily our tiny meat computers can process a given data set.
Those said, I may disagree with your supporting statements, but I agree wholeheartedly with your assertion that "the truth is still out there". Call it the first corollary (inclusion of "still") to Mulder's Law.
Ignorance is OK. Not reading the article before posting is... Slashdot.
Here, let me help you:
The high speed electrons used in the electron microscope <nah nah nah> making it difficult to get accurate results and impossible to repeat tests.
This begs the question as to how they intend to accelerate the helium. If by charge, they're working with ions, and they're effectively bombarding the target with alpha particles instead of beta particles. Hardly an improvement.
If by pressure, they've got neutral Helium to work with, but they'll need some serious Discworldesque mojo going on to suppress turbulence from the output as well as from the mirror. A neutral atom detector of sufficient resolution and a workable neutral atom focusing mechanism that prevents interference (within localized high pressure) would require similar mojo.
The forms of mojo even remotely possible for neutral atoms (ie. not charge) using foreseeable technology are spin and inertia/mass. The latter solution would be easier if they could decouple inertia and mass. If they did, they'd have invented inertialess acceleration. I hope I'm missing some fundamental part of their design, because my limited knowledge presents me with about 0.5 Milliways (3 impossible things before breakfast). Simply having an object that allows 2/3 of a Helium stream to bounce off of it (and no word on maintaining collimation) solves nothing.
This is not about "your rights". This is about lawyers making sure they and their counterparts are assured the driver's seat on this particular gravy train. There are plenty of other DVD copying programs out there being soundly ignored by MPAA and Real is already more reputable (in terms MPAA would accept) than the others. The only way the MPAA would be ready to reply same day with their own announcement is if they were already planning on doing so, and that requires knowing Real's intentions prior to their announcement. Much as I enjoy MPAA getting tweaked, I'm not going to credit Real with altruism when this amounts to nothing more than self-serving PR and income enhancement via docket padding.
But you're wrong. We're recreating big band like conditions.
Boogie woogie daddy, 8 branes to D bar. One wrong Bosenova and there ain't no there where you are. You may think it strange, but it's got its own charm. The galaxy would still swing with one less arm.
Wail on that sassy brass, Satchmo. Play it cool right down to 0 K. Let's make everything one big Quantum Event. Who needs this planet anyway?
Slashdot Mirror
Invent an entire agency with a specific task, while having various other more or less capable agencies given parts or all of the same task. It'll work terribly at first because they'll only be learning how to do what they do in the context and restraints forced on them. Then to become more effective, they'll share information and then participate in tasks with these other agencies. Later when the government(s) attempt to get these agencies to merge, if not act together as a single task force, inter-agency rivalry that had already been decried by the people in the agencies and probably brought to light in the media when tasks failed because of it, then the administration will insist on an overseer agency to make them work together. This agency will fail in its task as well as others given it, but it will continue to operate so that people know that their Government is trying to look out for them. As the new agency fails to function effectively and the interdepartmental agency frequentely fails in effectiveness, efficiency and in general spectacularly in public, people will be reminded of its necessity (and its Osama FUD Laden alternative), putting everyone in the path of the agency's progress into the line of fire of the agency's mandated tools of its trade.
This is not a prediction. This is historical recounting. Non-US agencies find themselves acting the same way or else they don't get fed Uncle Sam's infomoney teat and counted among the potential bad naughties on the list the US draws up based on the subordinate reports but only with approval from the administrative, security/defense, and state departments of all the payers in this game.
This is not a new game. The first successful application in which its strategy and tactics outperformed those of the gun toting grunts involved was 230 years ago. The true hero of the action was Poland. It gave its all (ie. national solvency and so ability to defend) depending on Washington et al. to come up with a way to return the favor (an army to protect it, or at least money to pay it). Another national leaders himself led a 600 miles march of unarmed people to carry supplies to Washington, which Washington himself said saved him, his army and the war. They carried corn. The leader was Chief Shenendoah. Having won the war with their assistance, Washington oversaw the creation of the war department, tasked with getting things arranged, but credited for arranging them.
Nothings' changed here in 230 years. Considering the influence we have elsewhere, figure the odds they'll go a different route, or at least, for very long.
And its' one, two, three,
Who are we voting for?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn,
gimme Iraq or Afghanistan.
Well its' five, six, seven,
open up the pearly gates.
72 vigins can't be wrong,
Let have more cops to help make them strong.
"We found that in reading the book task, the visual cortex -- the part of the brain that controls reading and language -- was activated," Small said."
The visual cortex, which is the occipital cortex, at the back of the head, processes vision from the very basic perception through combining perceptual elements into a whole visual picture. It puts together the images of the letters into words and words into phrases (visual "chunks" per George Miller). It does not "read".
Scanning the phrases/chunks requires the superior frontal lobes (Brodmann area 8), which control eye movement. The scanned material is fed to Wernicke's area (Brodmann 22, the posterior section of the superior temporal gyrus, encircling the auditory cortex, on the Sylvian fissure), drawing on the parietal association cortices which in turn are receiving the visual material from the occipital primary and secondary visual systems. making sense of it requires use of Broca's area (Brodmann 44 and 45; the opercular and triangular sections of the inferior frontal gyrus of the frontal lobe), which produces spoken words by controlling the necesssary motor functions, and interestingly controls comprehension in reading. This is why reading causes subvocalization (movement of speech creating anatomy despite reading silently).
TFA saw "activity" in the visual area. If they didn't see it in all the above, they weren't seeing reading. This is what happens when people who don't fully comprehend either the target or the technology point the technology at the target. Small is a geriatric psychologist. He's not a neural anatomy and physiology specialist. Most importantly, just as with the vast majority of people reporting fMRI results, he doesn't grasp what he's measuring.
MRI measures relative levels of oxyhemoglobin and carboxyhemoglobin. fMRI measures it during different tasks (ie. reading vs. not reading). It is fairly well supported that the more difference between them, the more oxygen is being used and so the more the brain is working in that area. This is not necessarily the case, as more oxygenation without subsequent metabolism as well as the inverse, can cause identical results. In any case, the implied metabolism probably represents neurons working. 85% of the brain is excitatory and operates constantly, although changing some with demand. 15% of the brain is inhibitory, and carves out the important stuff from the vast array of what's taken in. fMRI is only measuring implied neural metabolism. It cannot possibly differentiate between excitatory and inhibitory activity, and in fact measures both without being able to tell them apart.
He saw that cells in the visual cortex were using more blood looking at stuff in people who look at stuff more. That's all he can say. Everything else is pure conjecture. And if he didn't see the other areas activating at the same time, he damn sure can't say he was seeing reading happening.
"gentle currents from a fluctuating magnetic field"
TMS is not gentle. Even the latest, most focused but least powerful, ones cause such a mechanical strain on the mechanism when they fire, that they sound like a firecracker.
There is still a maximum amount allowed because too much causes headaches, then convulsions. TMS is a gentle ball peen hammer.
..... who were in the clinical tests for Preparation A through G?
Please let us know what company it is that things we're all such idiots that we don't pay attention to these things, and believe we simply must have missed the prior versions, so we can avoid them. We will even if you don't tell us.
If the game isn't good enough to release as v.1, it's not good enough to release. Their tactic will trick some people into buying it, they'll figure this out, and never buy another.
The software version/revision number means nothing if you put a number 1 in the title instead. It implies sequels. People like games that will be continued-on-next-disk. Try telling this nice thing to the suits. If that doesn't work, tell them the bad ones. Tell them either way they're stupid, but can either act like it or not.
... to know which way the wind blows.
You do, however, need a working and publishing scientist, myself among many here, to be able to tell you TFA is wrong in that it's not right enough, and confusing in that it's a ridiculous metaphor being used where facts would suffice. Furthermore, there are more problems in the process than they don't even touch on. One that comes to mind, and certainly should have to an economics viewpoint on the subject, is the effect of research grants on the production of and bias created in science, the effect of prior publications on getting those grants, and the effect of possible future grants to be gained by producing and publishing certain things in certain ways and places.
Another point that fails due to faulty assumption is that science shouldn't be incorrect and should always be correct, this assumption being used to specify in which cases they feel this most likely to occur. We know full well it's not correct. It never is. If it were we'd have had the Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious Truths. Science runs on statistics, with chances of false positives and negatives calculated and presented. Independent replications are required to narrow those margins but can never close them. We produce the best supported educated guesses and then argue over them until we come up with better ideas and tests, ad infinitum. Economics as considered in TFA would assume the same mistaken model that results in the inevitable end point of monopoly when the best possible product is created. No scientist who understands the process would ever try to present themselves as having done so. We operate under the model as presented by John Nash* wherein the best collection of choices are all sub-optimal because this produces the best aggregate result. We do not do so in order to achieve that result, we achieve that result because we know science to be imperfect and thus sub-optimal.
Finally, this appears in a medical journal, where economics is much more a driving force than most other fields. The model presented comes from bias within that field and so is not very generalizable. Other fields would produce equally valid and equally invalid/biased results based on their own models.
Taken out of the economic context, the points raised are well known to the philosophy of science (where from Ph.D. is supposed to be derived), and have been explicated far more deeply and with better generalization throughout the history of the scientific method. These errors are merely compounded and made more relevant to economics when the present publication models are given their present level of import.
* John Nash's writings and conclusions are fairly astounding in their revelations, but are fairly dense. The presentation of his major discovery regarding best aggregate results coming from individually sub-optimal results are very well presented in "A Beautiful Mind" where he tells his friends that the best way for them to all get laid is for none of them to go for the blond, and all go for the brunettes. This is one of the most insightful translations of science to popular media that I've ever seen.
If the conclusion that "people" prefer X holds, then either everyone thinks like Austrians, or else Austria is the most culture-neutral group of people on the planet. Far be it from me to suggest that say, Americans and Japanese might evaluate cars differently because they evaluate and relate to faces differently, when we have Austria as a global baseline.
Also, everyone evaluates cars as faces, rather than as machines or butts. The former would make too much sense to be interesting(!), and the latter would make it impossible to conclude that anger was the most important characteristic, because after all, how can you tell when a butt is angry?
What a great example of forced results. If the results had been real, by now cars would have evolved to have faces painted on them rivaling the toothy grin on the Curtis P-40s of the Flying Tigers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_tigers
"So maybe gene therapy will finally have a real purpose."
If you take a look at advertising, sales and profit margins, as well as how fast a drug can go from one prescribed use, through clinical testing to an entirely different use which used to be a side effect, and then on to over-the-counter sales (higher profit margins, due to no insurance discounts), you can only come to one conclusion: the most important pharmaceutical developments are directed towards boners and baldness.
And people say women are vain.....
Both the NYT and Sipser should be ashamed for hyping such well worn material as though it were news. The only thing surprising here is that someone had the guts to publish it. Not only have we in the US known this for a long time, so have other countries and they've let us know repeatedly that they know. If I write an article that says it's possible to send voice over a wire like a talking telegraph, can I get into NYT too?
Clearly, the email blorf and the conference itself are one in the same -- a cry for help from Verizon.
"I'm not sure the end-users really appreciated that trade-off.'"
I'm pretty sure Ballmer fails appreciate how little end users appreciate what he thinks they should. If Ballmer appreciated the fact that end users appreciate what they damn well want to in spite of the best efforts at mind control^H^H^H^H marketing hype ^H^H^H^H standardization, we might end up with a Windows that's not unpleasant to use.
OK, I just reread that last line. I had no idea I was on drugs.
"Can't get her to stop" pretty much covers (not) having the guts to "tell her to stop". Do you read what you write? I can't imagine a lesser level of trying to get her to stop than telling her. I can imagine more, but not less. Do you think telling you not to make yourself look so oblivious will work, or do we need to try more drastic measures? At least let the disagree mail speak for itself. Your editorializing is backfiring.
No this isn't flamebait. If it were I'd have said "your petty sniping while hiding behind the /. logo ought to get you bitchslapped" rather than "Your editorializing is backfiring."
Much of the winning research this year and previously was serious work on topics many find silly. This is what AIR is about (makes you laugh, then think). Most of the recipients take the award with good humor and, as a sign that science is actually making progress as a human social activity, they are not chastised by their colleagues. The title sucks. It came from the Telegraph, but it got passed along without being made less ridiculous.
"Lot's of people knowing about you doesn't equal well known?"
Popular == well liked. Popularity for music is measured by requests to radio stations, early sales primarily by fans of the genre, and listener ratings. It is usually a small subset of the population that accounts for such response. This is where Billboard gets its numbers. Popular has a positive connotation that's not applicable to things well known but not held in positive esteem. We have the word "infamous" for the extreme example.
Well known == easily recognized by many. When people who aren't fans of the genre will recognize the song despite not particularly liking the song, it's well known. Queen's "We Will Rock You" at sporting events is an example. This is way past Billboard's figuring.
No, they're not the same.
"Another One Rides The Bus" is a good counter example to the usual delay. The Beverly Hillbillies theme to Dire Straights music is a better example of what I mean. One was very old, the other only old.
As for permission, he usually does at least try. But I'm pretty sure he never asked Mark (Devo) Mothersbaugh's permission for "Dare To Be Stupid" and I know for certain he never asked Ivan Stang's permission to use the J.R. "Bob" Dobbs-like character in that video. He apparently knew enough to know Mark was a SubGenius preacher.
"Can anyone suggest some good (and cheap/easy to make) visual aids?"
Fourth graders and a stack of index cards.
Assign kids to be a router, lines, client machines, etc. Give them cards to represent information for processing. Have them hand off the cards to each other under your instruction. After they get into it, stop and tell them "In my job, a computer tells all the other computers and things what to do. But I'm the one that makes sure that computer makes everything go."
When giving the instructions, make sure to be enjoying yourself and they will enjoy themselves, and you'll get a good response.
Then when it comes time for questions, expect entirely irrelevant ones: "You're old. How old are you?" "How'd you get so fat?" "What happened to your hair?" and so on. Be ready with good questions and answers of your own.
I guess now by doing this he can have a parody in the hands of his fans while the original version of the song is still popular. If you're trying to lampoon popular culture, releasing an album at a time means that you will always be a good deal behind the times.
That's not as good an idea as you might imagine. I do the same thing -- parody songs. Popular != well known. Older means more people have become familiar with it, particularly those who don't keep current on the genre the song is from. If fewer people recognize it, the act falls flat. I'll bet Weird Al is aware of this since he typically runs years behind a "hit" despite producing things in the interim. Plus, if he seeks permission (he used to sometimes) it'd be easier to get when something's no longer hot. Very new, and they won't want it made fun of. Older, and the parody can bring the original back up the chart.
The flight will last 2 hours including boosting and reentry/landing. Weightlessness will last 5 to 15 minutes. Hardly enough time for much more than the money shot, and then you've got to worry about stuff (!) floating around and getting into things (other than the intended docking port).
Add to that the fact that it'll be very difficult for a ground pounder to learn and carry out docking procedures, it's likely the result would be so clumsy as to be comedic. Of course the client in this case doesn't care if the result sucks, they just want to be able to slap "Made In Orbit" on the box to make money.
I forgot: Training them to deliver drugs is comparatively trivial compared to the other training necessary -- making them able to avoid detection by the immune system and not to react with hostility when it does. A bacterium that usually doesn't trigger the body's defenses can trigger it after being altered. Altered bug == not the same bug.
They're called Hebbian cellular assemblies because many cells work together. This is an entirely different concept than a single celled organism alone adapting physiologically to stimuli. That effect is well known. It has been examined in terms of altering DNA to change the organism's reactions with that altered DNA being transfered to others, as well as in chemical/mRNA learning and communication as outlined by James McConnell (Worm Runner's Digest) and many others. The only thing nearly unique in TFA is the specific task proposed. If it's worth publication, so is every other potential result of this well established effect. There was no reason to bring up Hebb. TFA would have been better (though not necessarily much good) had he been left out.
"The operating system, which will likely have a different name," is actually WINDOWS VISTA! Doesn't Vista sound cool NOW? Clouds? Right here in the screen saver! Doesn't Vista look COOL? Isn't it AWESOME? You can tell from how it looks how great it is! See? LOOK at it. No, don't touch, that's what this specially trained Windows Operative is for. He touches things so you don't have to! You can JUST LOOK!
Stallman was right. It's hype. It's cool because it's new and not many people understand it. Ballmer offers proof. If it's still cool (if and) when this Windows critter emerges, it will cease to be at that time. My money says MS will never release this because people will fall out of love with it before that.
Turn it around and look at it:
You have 4GB RAM and want to know how much more RAM you need. Cost comparisons would figure in if we were comparing, but we're not. Take a look to see how much of your RAM is used during various tasks. If you're running out of RAM, you need more. Can your machine handle it? If not, you need another alternative. Now, can you afford it? Ditto.
If anything's using up your RAM, find out what, and figure out if more RAM makes sense in that context. A question for clarifying things should be "need more RAM/swap space for WHAT?" If specific apps make the suggestion, it may be worth listening. If the OS makes the demand before the software is even installed, I'd ignore it. If the OS asks for swap space based on load, as Windows does under "let Windows decide" it may not be accurate, but it's thinking along reasonable lines.
In addition to RAM load, take a look at RAM fragmentation. Some apps and OS pieces are very bad neighbors and your RAM ends up bogging down. These don't need more RAM, they need defragging or better RAM clearing built in, or you need it as a utility.
I'll apply Occam's Razor and ask which is more likely.
Quite frankly I find both solutions rather silly, they sound a little too much like deus ex machina to me. I suspect the truth is still out there and when we understand it will change our view of the universe. It's happened before, it will happen again.
Two thoughts come to mind:
1. Deus ex machina is a term that can be applied to anything which conforms to Clark's Law ("any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"). Any spacetime/matter phenomenon that can be understood has the possibility of being controlled and therefore to become a technology, therefore Clarke's Law can be applied.
2. "Willam of Ockham had a beard," which is to say he was not an authority in the field and the rule associated with his name fails. It is sufficiently common that data proves a more complex hypothesis true that reality invalidates use of this axiom even in pre-result situations. Acceptance of parsimony (same concept as the razor) without cause is mental laziness as well as the logical error of acceptance of (perceived) authority. Nature doesn't care about how easily our tiny meat computers can process a given data set.
Those said, I may disagree with your supporting statements, but I agree wholeheartedly with your assertion that "the truth is still out there". Call it the first corollary (inclusion of "still") to Mulder's Law.
Ignorance is OK. Not reading the article before posting is ... Slashdot.
Here, let me help you:
The high speed electrons used in the electron microscope <nah nah nah> making it difficult to get accurate results and impossible to repeat tests.
This begs the question as to how they intend to accelerate the helium. If by charge, they're working with ions, and they're effectively bombarding the target with alpha particles instead of beta particles. Hardly an improvement.
If by pressure, they've got neutral Helium to work with, but they'll need some serious Discworldesque mojo going on to suppress turbulence from the output as well as from the mirror. A neutral atom detector of sufficient resolution and a workable neutral atom focusing mechanism that prevents interference (within localized high pressure) would require similar mojo.
The forms of mojo even remotely possible for neutral atoms (ie. not charge) using foreseeable technology are spin and inertia/mass. The latter solution would be easier if they could decouple inertia and mass. If they did, they'd have invented inertialess acceleration. I hope I'm missing some fundamental part of their design, because my limited knowledge presents me with about 0.5 Milliways (3 impossible things before breakfast). Simply having an object that allows 2/3 of a Helium stream to bounce off of it (and no word on maintaining collimation) solves nothing.
"So why don't the cops do anything?"
Good one. And why didn't the US authorities do anything about the SubSeven author or several others I'm certain they knew about?
I don't have an answer. Neither do they.
This is not about "your rights". This is about lawyers making sure they and their counterparts are assured the driver's seat on this particular gravy train. There are plenty of other DVD copying programs out there being soundly ignored by MPAA and Real is already more reputable (in terms MPAA would accept) than the others. The only way the MPAA would be ready to reply same day with their own announcement is if they were already planning on doing so, and that requires knowing Real's intentions prior to their announcement. Much as I enjoy MPAA getting tweaked, I'm not going to credit Real with altruism when this amounts to nothing more than self-serving PR and income enhancement via docket padding.
But you're wrong. We're recreating big band like conditions.
Boogie woogie daddy, 8 branes to D bar.
One wrong Bosenova and there ain't no there where you are.
You may think it strange, but it's got its own charm.
The galaxy would still swing with one less arm.
Wail on that sassy brass, Satchmo.
Play it cool right down to 0 K.
Let's make everything one big Quantum Event.
Who needs this planet anyway?