You do not have organized neuron firings until well into the 2nd trimester. Given that we have no reason to think the more or less random firings before that mean anything, I generally think late 2nd trimester or later abortions should be avoided unless there is a serious health risk.
This handily covers the vast majority of abortions that do occur.
From what I understand, having old people learn ANY new task will help their brains keep working well.
I know the speech therapist my grandmother sees uses a lot of computer games for this purpose.
This isn't to say exercise isn't important too, but you need to do something regularly with your brain. New things are better than well-honed tasks.
Things evolve into higher life forms not to find better ways of story energy, but to out-compete other life forms. Evolution is a war between various forms of life..well, various strands of DNA really, each vying to continue to exist. There are also limits as to what is biological possible, or at least limits to what has evolved on Earth. You can see this just by comparing life to technology -- gunpowder and other high explosives never evolves, nor did a lot of other things.
Agreed. It almost undoubtedly IS psychosomatic. Note he has don't any controlled study on himself (easy to do at least a single blind with a friend). Very likely he has some OTHER problem and is just blaming his cell phone. A classic case of how the human brain tries to find order in absolute chaos. He's zeroed in on his cell phone use and decided that's it, and his brain finds hits and ignores misses.
Cell Phone Energy really is ridiculously weak. Several orders of magnitude lower than the random fluctuations in the energy of your molecules or the strength of even the ionic bonds in your body. The idea it could cause any harm is laughable. It's kind of like saying you could cook food with a 1 watt microwave.
If you do the math, cell phone radiation is several orders of magnitude lower than what is needed to mess with an ionic bond. The photons just have way, way, way too little energy. Heck, when you compare the energy of the photons to the random motion of the particles, it is still orders of magnitude below their kinetic energy.
The idea that Cell Phone radiation could interfere with the human body is really quite ridiculous. It is physically impossible it could cause cancer or really do anything else. Blue Light, on the other hand, is potentially dangerous (massively more energetic photons there) -- well, all light is much more energetic, but blue light actually is at the low end of having enough energy to start messing with some weak bonds, potentially.
Excuse me, but you say that Slashdot has a "liberal bias", for its multinational/multicultural readership that make this up are more liberal than mainstream America.
Then you say that the news that this populace cares about, that this populace would say "matters", is somehow innappropriate? I say it is the right venue because, at least according to you, most of the people on slashdot want to actually hear about things like this. You are the one in the minority, and only because you disagree with the message. It isn't as though non-technology news is a recent phenomenon on slashdot. We've had things like this for years. "Stuff that matters" doesn't just mean technology and science, but other very important issues of the day. Hence something like this pops up now and then, and that's how it should be.
Pardon me, but I think your take is 180 degrees off.
Your enjoyment of Katamari has EVERYTHING to do with the controller; in particular the control scheme. The reason why you, as a very busy individual, could sit down and enjoy it was because the interface was simple and intuitive. The number of games and the breadth of design for them allowed by controllers like the Dual Shock is extremely limited though, which is why there aren't a ton of games out there like Katamari.
Nintendo is doing their best to make a control so that the vast majority of games have a simple and intuitive interface. Instead of worrying about what button does what and such matter, you can just sit down and enjoy any game with this sort of interface. So you'll be able to sit down, play Zelda for a half hour or so and have fun. You won't have to fret over complicated and unnatural control schemes.
A new controller can make a huge number of genres become intuitive to play. Compare that to other controllers with 10 buttons and counting, multiple analog sticks, and so forth and you somehow think the controller isn't playing a role?
-Drachasor
PS. And if the controller requires the tiniest modicrum of real physical exersion to use, then it will probably help you live longer and be healthier, while you are having fun. Really though, I don't it is going to be anything that could wear out anyone except those who are severely out of shape.
I think his concern was carpel tunnel syndrome. Hence his comment on curbing the use of his hands. Your analysis is accurate otherwise; one should use hands if one can. At least for regular things.
Hmm, as for coding it does make one think a bit. I think you might see this sort of thing eventually for coding, but you'd need a special compiler (and perhaps language) that had a bit of AI in it to avoid silly mistakes with commenting, commands, variables, that sort of thing. It could work potentially though.
Hmm, that just brings to mind how our ability to speak math completely stinks. We have no good way to talk about mathematic outloud. This would hurt any attempt to give anything mathematical a voice interface.
Seriously, is there any real research that actually shows DRM to improve sales, customer relations, the economy, or anything save corporate egos? Contrast this to the numerous studies you can find via a simple google search that show "piracy", if anything, increases overall sales; those who pirate more, buy more than they would otherwise.
Also, take Stardock's recent example in the videogame industry. Galactic Civilizations II is a number one seller, and it has no DRM at all. You don't even need a CD in the computer to play the game. It seems that DRM is largely ineffective or, if effective, violates fair use and pisses people off.
I don't know about the other people on slashdot, but basically everyone I know that has ever pirated understand they have to buy good products. Afterall, if you don't then you aren't likely to see similar products in the future, and people understand this. Sure, you get some freeloaders with piracy, but in my (admittedly anecdotal) experience they are rare and research seems to support this.
So, is there any real point to DRM? It seems far more harmful than good; it risks making products of today innaccessible in the future; it angers customers; it makes it much harder to transfer your information from an old computer to a new; it usually gets circumvented by crackers sooner or later anyhow; and all implementations seem to give an almost scary amount of control to content providers/makers. It just looks like a bad way to go. I think (and hope) this whole forray into DRM is a temporary insanity.
A lot of the "devil's advocates" here seem to be forgetting some pertinent facts.
One of the most important of which is that study after study has shown that people that download music illegally also buy more music because of this. So the industry has likely already made a larger profit off her than if she didn't download anything.
The whole piracy thing is a red herring, and the problem is blown totally out of proportion. Heck, it is hardly worth being called a problem at all--the only part that is arguably a problem is that some studies show that bigger music groups with loads of cash make a little bit less than they would otherwise, whereas the poorer blokes make more. Is anything really wrong with that though?
So, to reference an earlier post by someone on here, the situation is really similar to jaywalking. It is almost completely harmless. To demand she give up her college education because of it....that's not just ridiculous, but grossly inhumane. I suspect it is a lack of relevent knowledge that causes some people to put up with that level of immorality from the RIAA.
Huh...and I thought patenting genes (including ones the appear in MY body) was the real example of biopiracy.
What Google is planning certainly isn't going to stifle innovation like gene patents will--for if lack of patents ever harmed research governments can and would supply funds for researchers.
The issue is more complex than you give it credit. There was no ideal choice, so Google made a sensible compromise. They chose the path that gives Chinese searchers access to as much information as possible. Not doing this would only harm the Chinese citizen (by restricting their access to information to an even greater degree).
Change in China will eventually come, but it will come quicker if outside entities exploit every means of access to the Chinese that is available. That way future generations of Chinese leaders are more likely to be exposed to ideas such as freedom of information and the like.
You might not like the decision Goggle made, but it is grossly unfair to call it evil. Hmm, perhaps the real problem here is that Goggle clearly is trying to use a Utilitarian ethic, and this upsets people who don't like that moral system. The objectors do seem to prefer hard and uncompromising moral rules, rather than ones that bend and flex to fit the situation.
Anyhow Google isn't being evil, they are just trying to do the most good for the Chinese citizens as they can (as far as information access goes). It required that they do something a bit unsavory, but I for one agree that it is better than the alternatives they had to choose from. It isn't like they were giving them the Google searches we enjoy before; the Chinese Government was already interfering and wrecking that service.
I'm fairly knowledgeable about dealing with Windows, and it is my opinion that you might as well log on as an administrator. This is true, at least, if you are the only one using the computer. I've had a number of Windows machines over the years and I have only ever had a virus once. Suspicious email is easy to spot, and it isn't hard to get programs to avoid automatically opening/running files that might be suspicious. Once you have that taken care of then you have 99% of the problem solved (IMHO). Windows doesn't have easy ways to wreck your own system by accident. In this instance, its underpowered command-line and "yes-yes-yes-I-really-want-this-done-you-stupid-ma chine" interface is a strength of sorts. As long as you don't do anything supremely stupid (and take standard precautions such as a firewall, anti-virus software, etc), then you are quite safe running as an admin on Windows.
In short, if you are smart enough to administer a Windows machine, then you certainly can just run as admin when you use it. (To be fair, there are many windows users that are extremely stupid/ignorant/gullible when it comes to potential viruses and the like, and if one of them will be using a machine then more stringent precautions are necessary).
In fact, I'd say you don't even need to be capable of being an admin for a Windows machine to run as an admin. The potential mistakes to make (vs. Unixes) are much harder to make. Generally a few simple rules will do you well, such as: 1. Don't run any program you get via email/IM/etc unless you were both expecting it and the message it is part of seems completely normal; 2. Only get downloadable programs from trusted sites -- such as one's university's website, a known business's site, etc; 3. Never have your browser set to automatically run.com,.exe, and other executable files.
There are maybe a few other guidelines against doing something stupid, but even if you don't spot something before it happens (a rare thing), then once you make such a mistake you won't make it again.
...write a program that turns your code into something unmaintainable? Perhaps one that converts between an "unmaintainable" format and back? That or you could keep the good source and make it seem like the bad source is what you wrote.
With this you can be the wunderkind who can somehow easily maintain this monsterous code when anyone else can't. Now that's job security.
Pretending like 40 billion dollars for a renewable, non-polluting, cheap energy source is a lot is silly. The fact is that we (America, at least) hardly put any money into fusion research. Annually we spend 13 billion dollars on oil subsidies and research, several billion on coal, but not even 1 billion on fusion power. This is one reason why fusion is alway so far off (and the other being that early predictions on how far off it was were overly optimistic). If we only diverted 3 billion from oil funding to fusion, we'd massively increase our research into fusion. As it is now we might see fusion reactors in 40 years or so, but if we spent a lot more funding on it we could probably cut that down to 20--considering the threat of global warming and other such concerns sooner is much, much better than later.
Sad to say we are a small contributor to the international fusion effort too. Hopefully the next administration will be more forward-thinking.
Oops, forgot to hit "plain old text"..here's a more readable post:
I agree that we are adaptable creatures, and as such you would not expect extremely large differences between men and women. Indeed, there aren't extremely large differences, but there are significant differences.
However, saying that you'd expect men to be useless at social interaction and women useless as spatial reasoning is making a strawman (and a very ridiculous one at that). You'd expect men to be worse at navigating social difficulties, and women to be worse at dealing with spatially based problems. Indeed, as numerous studies confirm this is indeed the case. There's an overlap in the bell curves of such abilities, of course, but the average capability of a man and a women do differ in these areas. As for time spent gathering resources, in hunter-gatherer societies, especially without spears, most of the time would be spent gathering resources, because it takes a dang long time to get the necessary food to survive.
Additionally, such a group could more easily afford to lose a male than lose a female. Afterall, a male can be lost without losing much ability to procreate, but if you lose a female then it's become much more difficult for the next generation to have the people it needs to survive. Given that and the fact that men can run better than women, and men have much more muscular development than women (given proper physical exertion and such, which these people are getting), it simply doesn't make much sense for women to go hunting with the men; they'd slow the group down.
These differences exist, and they are significant, even if they don't agree with your "men would be brainless, musclebound oafs, and women bodi-less caretakers incapable of physical activity)" (paraphrased, of course). The fact is that there is some overlap in needed abilities between the hunting end of things and the gathering end of things. Hunters do need to work together and need to interact with people when they get back with their kill. That requires some level of social interaction (but it isn't as complex as what's on the gatherer end). Gatherers need to have a level of strength to protect the young, get food, etc. So you'd expect to see a little specialization in terms of muscle development, spatial reasoning, multitasking (hunters don't need this much), social ability, and other things.
When you look at people, one does indeed find this specialization exists. If jobs were split evenly, then women would tend to be just as large and as strong as men. To be fair to the human race though, we are much less specialized than many of our primate brethren. Gorillas, for instance, have males twice as large as the females, and we have nothing close to that disparity--but we do have a disparity.
I agree that we are adaptable creatures, and as such you would not expect extremely large differences between men and women. Indeed, there aren't extremely large differences, but there are significant differences.
However, saying that you'd expect men to be useless at social interaction and women useless as spatial reasoning is making a strawman (and a very ridiculous one at that). You'd expect men to be worse at navigating social difficulties, and women to be worse at dealing with spatially based problems. Indeed, as numerous studies confirm this is indeed the case. There's an overlap in the bell curves of such abilities, of course, but the average capability of a man and a women do differ in these areas.
As for time spent gathering resources, in hunter-gatherer societies, especially without spears, most of the time would be spent gathering resources, because it takes a dang long time to get the necessary food to survive.
Additionally, such a group could more easily afford to lose a male than lose a female. Afterall, a male can be lost without losing much ability to procreate, but if you lose a female then it's become much more difficult for the next generation to have the people it needs to survive. Given that and the fact that men can run better than women, and men have much more muscular development than women (given proper physical exertion and such, which these people are getting), it simply doesn't make much sense for women to go hunting with the men; they'd slow the group down.
These differences exist, and they are significant, even if they don't agree with your "men would be brainless, musclebound oafs, and women bodi-less caretakers incapable of physical activity)" (paraphrased, of course). The fact is that there is some overlap in needed abilities between the hunting end of things and the gathering end of things. Hunters do need to work together and need to interact with people when they get back with their kill. That requires some level of social interaction (but it isn't as complex as what's on the gatherer end). Gatherers need to have a level of strength to protect the young, get food, etc. So you'd expect to see a little specialization in terms of muscle development, spatial reasoning, multitasking (hunters don't need this much), social ability, and other things. When you look at people, one does indeed find this specialization exists. If jobs were split evenly, then women would tend to be just as large and as strong as men. To be fair to the human race though, we are much less specialized than many of our primate brethren. Gorillas, for instance, have males twice as large as the females, and we have nothing close to that disparity--but we do have a disparity.
Your dismissal of the importance and difficulty in properly caring for and raising children is really quite disturbing. In many ways navigating the complex social structure in any society is more difficult than hunting. If you somehow think that the hunters would up and leave because the situation wasn't "fair", then keep in mind that all such peoples would die out and have no decendents.
I'd also add that he did bring up evidence, such as certain physical characteristics; only women can feed babies and men have a pelvis better suited for running--hence better suited for hunting.
It's a fact that the average male is better at spatial reasoning the the average female. It's also a fact that the average female is better at multi-tasking than the average male. Both of these come from our evolutionary origins. There are other differences between males and females as well (obviously). While many differences between men and women are negligible or non-existent, that doesn't mean all differences are so.
In any case, you need to rething your view on the care, protection, and feeding of children, and on organizing social groups to do these tasks. You hopelessly simplify evolutionary psychology (and the article we are talking about) when you pretend that all women did was "pick berries".
So, Vivendi doesn't want KQ9 to be made. I can understand that. I might disagree, but I can see their corporate view. (Even though the popularity such a game generated might help Vivendi sell an official KQ game in the future).
What amazes me is how vile a tactic Vivendi used. KQ9 was in development since 2000. 2000! That's 5 or 6 years of work done by 40-odd people. After all this work, when the group is almost finished, Vivendi then decides to tell them they can't release it. Thus essentially turning 5+ years of work into a waste of time. This just seems evil and cruel.
For those that don't care about the immorality of this, it also is horrible from a marketing viewpoint.
I didn't even know this project existed a day ago, but I'm going to avoid Vivendi products in the future after this.
Sounds like he is overcooking his vegetables and hence destroying a good amount of nutritional content they contain.
It's also quite possible he isn't getting all the protein he needs, and perhaps he is coming up short on B12--which should either be gotten from meat or from vegetables/food that have it artifically added in. (While it is true that Soy and some other vegetables contain B12 it is highly questionable wether or not humans can get it out of those sources). Of course if he has milk, cheese, or other animal products to a sufficient degree, then he should be getting enough B12.
How many people that own SUVs actually use their off-road capabilities? Now compare that to how many people buy SUVs because of the off-road capability they will probably never use.
A feature can entice people to buy a product even if that feature is never used.
I think you are missing the point. Look at Sega, was its innovation successful? Repeated failures to innovate successfully don't help the innovator.
Nintendo not only innovates, but they succeed with their innovations. Sure, they have the rare failure, but they recognize it quickly and pull the plug on it. That is how you innovate properly, and it is a far more successful business strategy than sticking to your "innovations" until your are bankrupt.
Nintendo knows the time and place for innovations more often than not.
-Drachasor
Slashdot Mirror
You do not have organized neuron firings until well into the 2nd trimester. Given that we have no reason to think the more or less random firings before that mean anything, I generally think late 2nd trimester or later abortions should be avoided unless there is a serious health risk. This handily covers the vast majority of abortions that do occur.
From what I understand, having old people learn ANY new task will help their brains keep working well. I know the speech therapist my grandmother sees uses a lot of computer games for this purpose. This isn't to say exercise isn't important too, but you need to do something regularly with your brain. New things are better than well-honed tasks.
Things evolve into higher life forms not to find better ways of story energy, but to out-compete other life forms. Evolution is a war between various forms of life..well, various strands of DNA really, each vying to continue to exist. There are also limits as to what is biological possible, or at least limits to what has evolved on Earth. You can see this just by comparing life to technology -- gunpowder and other high explosives never evolves, nor did a lot of other things.
Agreed. It almost undoubtedly IS psychosomatic. Note he has don't any controlled study on himself (easy to do at least a single blind with a friend). Very likely he has some OTHER problem and is just blaming his cell phone. A classic case of how the human brain tries to find order in absolute chaos. He's zeroed in on his cell phone use and decided that's it, and his brain finds hits and ignores misses. Cell Phone Energy really is ridiculously weak. Several orders of magnitude lower than the random fluctuations in the energy of your molecules or the strength of even the ionic bonds in your body. The idea it could cause any harm is laughable. It's kind of like saying you could cook food with a 1 watt microwave.
If you do the math, cell phone radiation is several orders of magnitude lower than what is needed to mess with an ionic bond. The photons just have way, way, way too little energy. Heck, when you compare the energy of the photons to the random motion of the particles, it is still orders of magnitude below their kinetic energy. The idea that Cell Phone radiation could interfere with the human body is really quite ridiculous. It is physically impossible it could cause cancer or really do anything else. Blue Light, on the other hand, is potentially dangerous (massively more energetic photons there) -- well, all light is much more energetic, but blue light actually is at the low end of having enough energy to start messing with some weak bonds, potentially.
Excuse me, but you say that Slashdot has a "liberal bias", for its multinational/multicultural readership that make this up are more liberal than mainstream America.
Then you say that the news that this populace cares about, that this populace would say "matters", is somehow innappropriate? I say it is the right venue because, at least according to you, most of the people on slashdot want to actually hear about things like this. You are the one in the minority, and only because you disagree with the message. It isn't as though non-technology news is a recent phenomenon on slashdot. We've had things like this for years. "Stuff that matters" doesn't just mean technology and science, but other very important issues of the day. Hence something like this pops up now and then, and that's how it should be.
Pardon me, but I think your take is 180 degrees off.
Your enjoyment of Katamari has EVERYTHING to do with the controller; in particular the control scheme. The reason why you, as a very busy individual, could sit down and enjoy it was because the interface was simple and intuitive. The number of games and the breadth of design for them allowed by controllers like the Dual Shock is extremely limited though, which is why there aren't a ton of games out there like Katamari.
Nintendo is doing their best to make a control so that the vast majority of games have a simple and intuitive interface. Instead of worrying about what button does what and such matter, you can just sit down and enjoy any game with this sort of interface. So you'll be able to sit down, play Zelda for a half hour or so and have fun. You won't have to fret over complicated and unnatural control schemes.
A new controller can make a huge number of genres become intuitive to play. Compare that to other controllers with 10 buttons and counting, multiple analog sticks, and so forth and you somehow think the controller isn't playing a role?
-Drachasor
PS. And if the controller requires the tiniest modicrum of real physical exersion to use, then it will probably help you live longer and be healthier, while you are having fun. Really though, I don't it is going to be anything that could wear out anyone except those who are severely out of shape.
I think his concern was carpel tunnel syndrome. Hence his comment on curbing the use of his hands. Your analysis is accurate otherwise; one should use hands if one can. At least for regular things.
Hmm, as for coding it does make one think a bit. I think you might see this sort of thing eventually for coding, but you'd need a special compiler (and perhaps language) that had a bit of AI in it to avoid silly mistakes with commenting, commands, variables, that sort of thing. It could work potentially though.
Hmm, that just brings to mind how our ability to speak math completely stinks. We have no good way to talk about mathematic outloud. This would hurt any attempt to give anything mathematical a voice interface.
Seriously, is there any real research that actually shows DRM to improve sales, customer relations, the economy, or anything save corporate egos? Contrast this to the numerous studies you can find via a simple google search that show "piracy", if anything, increases overall sales; those who pirate more, buy more than they would otherwise. Also, take Stardock's recent example in the videogame industry. Galactic Civilizations II is a number one seller, and it has no DRM at all. You don't even need a CD in the computer to play the game. It seems that DRM is largely ineffective or, if effective, violates fair use and pisses people off. I don't know about the other people on slashdot, but basically everyone I know that has ever pirated understand they have to buy good products. Afterall, if you don't then you aren't likely to see similar products in the future, and people understand this. Sure, you get some freeloaders with piracy, but in my (admittedly anecdotal) experience they are rare and research seems to support this. So, is there any real point to DRM? It seems far more harmful than good; it risks making products of today innaccessible in the future; it angers customers; it makes it much harder to transfer your information from an old computer to a new; it usually gets circumvented by crackers sooner or later anyhow; and all implementations seem to give an almost scary amount of control to content providers/makers. It just looks like a bad way to go. I think (and hope) this whole forray into DRM is a temporary insanity.
A lot of the "devil's advocates" here seem to be forgetting some pertinent facts.
One of the most important of which is that study after study has shown that people that download music illegally also buy more music because of this. So the industry has likely already made a larger profit off her than if she didn't download anything.
The whole piracy thing is a red herring, and the problem is blown totally out of proportion. Heck, it is hardly worth being called a problem at all--the only part that is arguably a problem is that some studies show that bigger music groups with loads of cash make a little bit less than they would otherwise, whereas the poorer blokes make more. Is anything really wrong with that though?
So, to reference an earlier post by someone on here, the situation is really similar to jaywalking. It is almost completely harmless. To demand she give up her college education because of it....that's not just ridiculous, but grossly inhumane. I suspect it is a lack of relevent knowledge that causes some people to put up with that level of immorality from the RIAA.
Huh...and I thought patenting genes (including ones the appear in MY body) was the real example of biopiracy.
What Google is planning certainly isn't going to stifle innovation like gene patents will--for if lack of patents ever harmed research governments can and would supply funds for researchers.
So I can get this to run all the vaporware I want? Then it's worth its weight in gold!
The issue is more complex than you give it credit. There was no ideal choice, so Google made a sensible compromise. They chose the path that gives Chinese searchers access to as much information as possible. Not doing this would only harm the Chinese citizen (by restricting their access to information to an even greater degree).
Change in China will eventually come, but it will come quicker if outside entities exploit every means of access to the Chinese that is available. That way future generations of Chinese leaders are more likely to be exposed to ideas such as freedom of information and the like.
You might not like the decision Goggle made, but it is grossly unfair to call it evil. Hmm, perhaps the real problem here is that Goggle clearly is trying to use a Utilitarian ethic, and this upsets people who don't like that moral system. The objectors do seem to prefer hard and uncompromising moral rules, rather than ones that bend and flex to fit the situation.
Anyhow Google isn't being evil, they are just trying to do the most good for the Chinese citizens as they can (as far as information access goes). It required that they do something a bit unsavory, but I for one agree that it is better than the alternatives they had to choose from. It isn't like they were giving them the Google searches we enjoy before; the Chinese Government was already interfering and wrecking that service.
-Drachasor
I'm fairly knowledgeable about dealing with Windows, and it is my opinion that you might as well log on as an administrator. This is true, at least, if you are the only one using the computer. I've had a number of Windows machines over the years and I have only ever had a virus once. Suspicious email is easy to spot, and it isn't hard to get programs to avoid automatically opening/running files that might be suspicious. Once you have that taken care of then you have 99% of the problem solved (IMHO). Windows doesn't have easy ways to wreck your own system by accident. In this instance, its underpowered command-line and "yes-yes-yes-I-really-want-this-done-you-stupid-ma chine" interface is a strength of sorts. As long as you don't do anything supremely stupid (and take standard precautions such as a firewall, anti-virus software, etc), then you are quite safe running as an admin on Windows.
.com, .exe, and other executable files.
In short, if you are smart enough to administer a Windows machine, then you certainly can just run as admin when you use it. (To be fair, there are many windows users that are extremely stupid/ignorant/gullible when it comes to potential viruses and the like, and if one of them will be using a machine then more stringent precautions are necessary).
In fact, I'd say you don't even need to be capable of being an admin for a Windows machine to run as an admin. The potential mistakes to make (vs. Unixes) are much harder to make. Generally a few simple rules will do you well, such as: 1. Don't run any program you get via email/IM/etc unless you were both expecting it and the message it is part of seems completely normal; 2. Only get downloadable programs from trusted sites -- such as one's university's website, a known business's site, etc; 3. Never have your browser set to automatically run
There are maybe a few other guidelines against doing something stupid, but even if you don't spot something before it happens (a rare thing), then once you make such a mistake you won't make it again.
-Drachasor
...write a program that turns your code into something unmaintainable? Perhaps one that converts between an "unmaintainable" format and back? That or you could keep the good source and make it seem like the bad source is what you wrote.
With this you can be the wunderkind who can somehow easily maintain this monsterous code when anyone else can't. Now that's job security.
Pretending like 40 billion dollars for a renewable, non-polluting, cheap energy source is a lot is silly. The fact is that we (America, at least) hardly put any money into fusion research. Annually we spend 13 billion dollars on oil subsidies and research, several billion on coal, but not even 1 billion on fusion power. This is one reason why fusion is alway so far off (and the other being that early predictions on how far off it was were overly optimistic). If we only diverted 3 billion from oil funding to fusion, we'd massively increase our research into fusion. As it is now we might see fusion reactors in 40 years or so, but if we spent a lot more funding on it we could probably cut that down to 20--considering the threat of global warming and other such concerns sooner is much, much better than later.
Sad to say we are a small contributor to the international fusion effort too. Hopefully the next administration will be more forward-thinking.
Oops, forgot to hit "plain old text"..here's a more readable post:
I agree that we are adaptable creatures, and as such you would not expect extremely large differences between men and women. Indeed, there aren't extremely large differences, but there are significant differences.
However, saying that you'd expect men to be useless at social interaction and women useless as spatial reasoning is making a strawman (and a very ridiculous one at that). You'd expect men to be worse at navigating social difficulties, and women to be worse at dealing with spatially based problems. Indeed, as numerous studies confirm this is indeed the case. There's an overlap in the bell curves of such abilities, of course, but the average capability of a man and a women do differ in these areas. As for time spent gathering resources, in hunter-gatherer societies, especially without spears, most of the time would be spent gathering resources, because it takes a dang long time to get the necessary food to survive.
Additionally, such a group could more easily afford to lose a male than lose a female. Afterall, a male can be lost without losing much ability to procreate, but if you lose a female then it's become much more difficult for the next generation to have the people it needs to survive. Given that and the fact that men can run better than women, and men have much more muscular development than women (given proper physical exertion and such, which these people are getting), it simply doesn't make much sense for women to go hunting with the men; they'd slow the group down.
These differences exist, and they are significant, even if they don't agree with your "men would be brainless, musclebound oafs, and women bodi-less caretakers incapable of physical activity)" (paraphrased, of course). The fact is that there is some overlap in needed abilities between the hunting end of things and the gathering end of things. Hunters do need to work together and need to interact with people when they get back with their kill. That requires some level of social interaction (but it isn't as complex as what's on the gatherer end). Gatherers need to have a level of strength to protect the young, get food, etc. So you'd expect to see a little specialization in terms of muscle development, spatial reasoning, multitasking (hunters don't need this much), social ability, and other things.
When you look at people, one does indeed find this specialization exists. If jobs were split evenly, then women would tend to be just as large and as strong as men. To be fair to the human race though, we are much less specialized than many of our primate brethren. Gorillas, for instance, have males twice as large as the females, and we have nothing close to that disparity--but we do have a disparity.
I agree that we are adaptable creatures, and as such you would not expect extremely large differences between men and women. Indeed, there aren't extremely large differences, but there are significant differences. However, saying that you'd expect men to be useless at social interaction and women useless as spatial reasoning is making a strawman (and a very ridiculous one at that). You'd expect men to be worse at navigating social difficulties, and women to be worse at dealing with spatially based problems. Indeed, as numerous studies confirm this is indeed the case. There's an overlap in the bell curves of such abilities, of course, but the average capability of a man and a women do differ in these areas. As for time spent gathering resources, in hunter-gatherer societies, especially without spears, most of the time would be spent gathering resources, because it takes a dang long time to get the necessary food to survive. Additionally, such a group could more easily afford to lose a male than lose a female. Afterall, a male can be lost without losing much ability to procreate, but if you lose a female then it's become much more difficult for the next generation to have the people it needs to survive. Given that and the fact that men can run better than women, and men have much more muscular development than women (given proper physical exertion and such, which these people are getting), it simply doesn't make much sense for women to go hunting with the men; they'd slow the group down. These differences exist, and they are significant, even if they don't agree with your "men would be brainless, musclebound oafs, and women bodi-less caretakers incapable of physical activity)" (paraphrased, of course). The fact is that there is some overlap in needed abilities between the hunting end of things and the gathering end of things. Hunters do need to work together and need to interact with people when they get back with their kill. That requires some level of social interaction (but it isn't as complex as what's on the gatherer end). Gatherers need to have a level of strength to protect the young, get food, etc. So you'd expect to see a little specialization in terms of muscle development, spatial reasoning, multitasking (hunters don't need this much), social ability, and other things. When you look at people, one does indeed find this specialization exists. If jobs were split evenly, then women would tend to be just as large and as strong as men. To be fair to the human race though, we are much less specialized than many of our primate brethren. Gorillas, for instance, have males twice as large as the females, and we have nothing close to that disparity--but we do have a disparity.
Your dismissal of the importance and difficulty in properly caring for and raising children is really quite disturbing. In many ways navigating the complex social structure in any society is more difficult than hunting. If you somehow think that the hunters would up and leave because the situation wasn't "fair", then keep in mind that all such peoples would die out and have no decendents.
I'd also add that he did bring up evidence, such as certain physical characteristics; only women can feed babies and men have a pelvis better suited for running--hence better suited for hunting.
It's a fact that the average male is better at spatial reasoning the the average female. It's also a fact that the average female is better at multi-tasking than the average male. Both of these come from our evolutionary origins. There are other differences between males and females as well (obviously). While many differences between men and women are negligible or non-existent, that doesn't mean all differences are so.
In any case, you need to rething your view on the care, protection, and feeding of children, and on organizing social groups to do these tasks. You hopelessly simplify evolutionary psychology (and the article we are talking about) when you pretend that all women did was "pick berries".
-Drachasor
I thought it was common knowledge that this administration isn't capable of functioning day-to-day. So this seems consistent to me.
Does that help clear up your confusion?
So, Vivendi doesn't want KQ9 to be made. I can understand that. I might disagree, but I can see their corporate view. (Even though the popularity such a game generated might help Vivendi sell an official KQ game in the future).
What amazes me is how vile a tactic Vivendi used. KQ9 was in development since 2000. 2000! That's 5 or 6 years of work done by 40-odd people. After all this work, when the group is almost finished, Vivendi then decides to tell them they can't release it. Thus essentially turning 5+ years of work into a waste of time. This just seems evil and cruel.
For those that don't care about the immorality of this, it also is horrible from a marketing viewpoint.
I didn't even know this project existed a day ago, but I'm going to avoid Vivendi products in the future after this.
-Drachasor
Sounds like he is overcooking his vegetables and hence destroying a good amount of nutritional content they contain.
It's also quite possible he isn't getting all the protein he needs, and perhaps he is coming up short on B12--which should either be gotten from meat or from vegetables/food that have it artifically added in. (While it is true that Soy and some other vegetables contain B12 it is highly questionable wether or not humans can get it out of those sources). Of course if he has milk, cheese, or other animal products to a sufficient degree, then he should be getting enough B12.
How many people that own SUVs actually use their off-road capabilities? Now compare that to how many people buy SUVs because of the off-road capability they will probably never use.
A feature can entice people to buy a product even if that feature is never used.
Good call. It was indeed on before March of the Penguins last night.
I think you are missing the point. Look at Sega, was its innovation successful? Repeated failures to innovate successfully don't help the innovator. Nintendo not only innovates, but they succeed with their innovations. Sure, they have the rare failure, but they recognize it quickly and pull the plug on it. That is how you innovate properly, and it is a far more successful business strategy than sticking to your "innovations" until your are bankrupt. Nintendo knows the time and place for innovations more often than not. -Drachasor