I don't buy this. Although trends are very important, human societies are often ruled by a relatively small number of people or are influenced by a small number. Individuals can make a difference at critical times.
Also the reality is that sometimes major events can turn on individual actions. Historical theory would like to make history some kind of scientific process but that is just not how it works.
"Hello son. How are you? The message is encoded in this transmission...."
Wonder how long they will look for a hidden message before they realise there is none? Of course this applies to everything. Don't just exchange encrypted emails, but plaintext emails with odd spelling and binary files created from/dev/urandom. Oh man. That is sooo tempting. Must... resist...
Ahh. So let me see. Do you believe winter will be colder than summer, or do you think that is too far ahead to predict? Just because you can't predict weather (short range behaviour) doesn't mean you don't know something about longer trends.
OK. So we've been following this saga for so long I can't even frakkin remember when it started. So much revealed via Groklaw. That is where the true value is. Groklaw diseminated valuable information gleaned from legal documents. Information that counteracted the FUD war, which was the whole purpose of the exercise. Anyone who followed the thing knows this, I think we have just forgotten a lot over the last few years of relative quiet.
Man. How do I celebrate this? I'm sure I can think of lots of ways over lots of time. Hmm.
Sadly the reality is that if you want to go to linux you have to check out what is compatible. Google it, you'll find plenty of info. When it comes to NICs... I've never struck a problem with Linux. Graphics cards are another matter though. My advice: if you are buying a pute and you see one with ATI, reject it immediately. I recently was out looking for a laptop. Looked around, settled on a Lenovo R61, because I knew it was well supported and used NVidia. Installed Ubuntu... no problems at all. Even got wine working to play Oblivion (sorta) and WoW. But really just interested to see if they would work.
A friend on the other hand wanted to install Linux on his laptop. Can't remember the make/model. But he had lots of problems. He also had an ATI card, which was sort of working.
In summary: before you go to linux google for 'linux hardware compatibility', and save yourself a lot of grief.
Yeah sure. Alumina, I've seen translucent objects made from alumina. And of course sapphires are made from alumina as well. I'm just talking about pure metals, or materials (like graphite) that conduct like metals.
Huh? Sorry I don't think you read what I said? Since when do photons penetrate metals? Non-conducting solids... of course, glass, silica, even water (ice), and even if it is somewhat conducting. But last I looked at a piece of steel it didn't seem very translucent. Skin depth of EM fields is classical electrodynamics... been around and used for more than a century. It is actually a pretty interesting part of EM theory in its own right.
When I watched Star Trek I interpreted Transparent Aluminium as... lightweight, strong plastic/ceramic suitable for construction. Not transparent version of aluminium.
If it is metallic then it can't be transparent. You know "sea of electrons" stuff. Electromagnetic fields wont penetrate it due to the skin depth of metallic solids. Unless the conduction is anisotropic, then it would be much more interesting that "transparent aluminium".
Very odd. The software industry must be different in the US. Here in Oz I work and have worked with many women programmers. Just recently we had a woman C programmer on our hardware interface team. Smart, creative, energetic... just spoke her mind a bit too much. Rocking the boat is never good. Good friend. Most of the female developers, but not all, have been Java, Oracle (thinking of one in particular... mmm) and.Nyet. A very good friend of mine is perl+C and she is very good.
OK, an unpopular comment. Karma to burn I guess. It is my experience that many people who espouse a skeptical viewpoint do so to assert their own power in a situation or to pander to their own beliefs (opposite to the target's). Now not every skeptical view falls in that category, and even the ones that do may have merit and deserve attention. But I think the attitude I see here that the non-skeptical are deluding themselves is often hypocritical.
True skeptics should also question their own skeptical attitudes from time to time. I found that when arguing against creationists I could get to such a dismissive state that I could no longer objectively evaluate new scientific ideas. And I see a lot of this on slashdot. Aside: if you argue with creationists long enough you become like them.
I used to like browsing through copies of Nature etc from early in the 20th century, even 19th century. Original papers. If an article gets published online today. What is the guarantee that it will be accessible in any form in 100 years. Old journal articles are still valuable to read, you would be amazed at how much is continually being re-discovered because someone hasn't read a past article.
Someone also mentioned peer review. I think that is not a difficult thing to do online, and is probably a lot easier. As I said my main concern is the longevity of the item.
Yeah. And UML is "unified", it was supposed to unify several approaches to the problem to simplify the process. More and more I notice it just getting overburdened. UML is very valuable as long as you don't try and swallow the whole lot. Just use what is necessary, and ignore the nazis (I hope this doesn't generate a Godwin Exception).
Architecture first, design next, get it doing what it is supposed to do. Optimise for speed. Maybe iterate over the design if a new algorithm is needed. And yeah there are sure to be exceptions. There is no algorithm for correct software implementation.
You still have no idea what I am talking about. Perhaps you should take a course in the Philosophy of Science to get rid of your fuzzy ideas.
Yes I know about isomorphisms. So what. They are similarities in structure mappable by a relation. You aren't going to try and tell me that there is a mathematical mapping onto the real world are you?
Bringing up String Theory... why? It is one of the worst examples of the scientific process... almost a joke unless they finally get a testable theory.
About Einstein: now did I talk about effects at high velocity? No. I talked about low velocity. Einstein's relativity is very well tested, still only tentative of course (falsifiability and all). But there are alternative ways of looking at relativity, more experiments can winnow them out as has been done. But it could all still be wrong because we used the wrong interpretation... there could be an alternative that works just as well or better.
"truths". No such thing. There is observation, hypothesis, experiment, prediction. 'Truth'? Leave that for people who believe in fairies etc.
It doesn't depend on the "universe" at all. Once you define a set of axioms then the structure of the mathematics flows from this logically. However, mathematics is constructed of theorems and lemmae. These are constructed by human beings, one mathematician may prove this one way another may do it another way. A great mathematician may do it with great elegance. So this looks like it is "invented", though the logical framework is inevitable and therefore the mathematicians should merely be discovering it. As you say a problem of definitions. What is mathematics? The set of all logical inferences that flow from a set of axioms? Or the set of theorems constructed by humans beings, usually with personal flair?
I think you may not understand exactly what the poster was getting at. The problem is we may conduct our little experiments etc, but we then have to interpret them. We interpret them via analogistic constructs... things we know and can relate to: waves, billiard balls, fields (which I'm sure we get from wind and ocean currents). Thing is we have an intuitive view of the world, not a mathematical one. And our intuition is demonstrably terrible at physics. So the universe we see is a subjective view, we can produce some commonality by a common language that produces some overlap in meaning. But it isn't exact. Science is about trying to do the best we can at coming to something consistent with measurements, but the 'something' will look different to different people and is still just tentative.
Problem is there is a big difference between the Qualitative nature of a solution compared to the Quantitative nature. Newtonian physics is almost the same as Einsteinian at normal velocities, but the ideas are vastly different. Then consider that there is a vast set of theories that is consistent with observation (hence Occam's Razor... which is only a guide), we pick the most pleasing theory. Hence a subjective view.
Where I work we have a mix of languages: C/C++, Delphi, Java, C#. Delphi exists because it is a nice language where UI dev is as easy as VB but with a nice programming language. When you see the compile time on Delphi... well, it makes a C++ programmer like me weep. Compile time for my stuff: around 15 minutes, on Delphi (serious apps) about the time it takes to press the compile key.
As a matter of interest the push is to go to C/C++, Java eventually and give the boot to C# and Delphi.
In one sense this is not new. Geneticists have argued for some time that humans went through a population "bottle-neck" (less that 10,000 people) about 70,000 years ago. At the same time there was a super volcano eruption in the Pacific.
The interesting thing about this is that there is now 'evidence', obviously there will be continuing discussion about it, that humans almost split into two populations, but later merged again about 40,000 years ago. Though this isn't mentioned much in the linked article but you can find it here.
Changes in ice sheets does affect volcanism. Due to isostatic rebound. But you have to remember the time scale. The effects wont be noticeable for thousands of years, and it wont be catastrophic.
Minor quibble: Arrhenius did his work in the late 19th century. But yes it is fascinating how the "GW is a hoax" loonies ignore the fact that Arrhenius predicted this 112 years ago:
Arrhenius estimated that halving of CO2 would decrease temperatures by 4 - 5 ÂC and a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature rise of 5 - 6 degrees Celsius [1]or 7 - 11 degrees Fahrenheit.
It is not hard to find pretty conclusive evidence that temperature is rising while we are pushing a known greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.
I think the anti-GW group is mostly an ideological thing, very little science involved in their arguments. And by science I mean peer-reviewed stuff.
Then you would be exempt. Since astronomers are one of the groups who are considered to have a legitimate use.
Myself, I wonder if the low power ones are really worth banning. Maybe an overreaction, I don't know since I'm not sure of the bean spread at distances of several km too long since I've done those calculations. But the high power ones: restrict them only to those with a specific need otherwise you'll get loonies who will use them to cause an accident.
No I don't care what the diary says. I am talking about how we treat the week psychologically. I have never seen it as starting on Sunday that is just a weird historical issue which I ignore and increasingly other people do as well.
When I have an organiser I configure it to have the week start on a Monday. If I am programming then yeah Sunday is day 0, but that is just a magic number.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't buy this. Although trends are very important, human societies are often ruled by a relatively small number of people or are influenced by a small number. Individuals can make a difference at critical times.
Also the reality is that sometimes major events can turn on individual actions. Historical theory would like to make history some kind of scientific process but that is just not how it works.
How do I encrypt a conversation with my family?
"Hello son. How are you? The message is encoded in this transmission. ..."
Wonder how long they will look for a hidden message before they realise there is none? Of course this applies to everything. Don't just exchange encrypted emails, but plaintext emails with odd spelling and binary files created from /dev/urandom. Oh man. That is sooo tempting. Must ... resist ...
Ahh. So let me see. Do you believe winter will be colder than summer, or do you think that is too far ahead to predict? Just because you can't predict weather (short range behaviour) doesn't mean you don't know something about longer trends.
... for a break from calm reasoned debate:
OK. So we've been following this saga for so long I can't even frakkin remember when it started. So much revealed via Groklaw. That is where the true value is. Groklaw diseminated valuable information gleaned from legal documents. Information that counteracted the FUD war, which was the whole purpose of the exercise. Anyone who followed the thing knows this, I think we have just forgotten a lot over the last few years of relative quiet.
Man. How do I celebrate this? I'm sure I can think of lots of ways over lots of time. Hmm.
Sadly the reality is that if you want to go to linux you have to check out what is compatible. Google it, you'll find plenty of info. When it comes to NICs ... I've never struck a problem with Linux. Graphics cards are another matter though. My advice: if you are buying a pute and you see one with ATI, reject it immediately. I recently was out looking for a laptop. Looked around, settled on a Lenovo R61, because I knew it was well supported and used NVidia. Installed Ubuntu ... no problems at all. Even got wine working to play Oblivion (sorta) and WoW. But really just interested to see if they would work.
A friend on the other hand wanted to install Linux on his laptop. Can't remember the make/model. But he had lots of problems. He also had an ATI card, which was sort of working.
In summary: before you go to linux google for 'linux hardware compatibility', and save yourself a lot of grief.
I think he might have been referring to The Abyss.
Yeah sure. Alumina, I've seen translucent objects made from alumina. And of course sapphires are made from alumina as well. I'm just talking about pure metals, or materials (like graphite) that conduct like metals.
Huh? Sorry I don't think you read what I said? Since when do photons penetrate metals? Non-conducting solids ... of course, glass, silica, even water (ice), and even if it is somewhat conducting. But last I looked at a piece of steel it didn't seem very translucent. Skin depth of EM fields is classical electrodynamics ... been around and used for more than a century. It is actually a pretty interesting part of EM theory in its own right.
When I watched Star Trek I interpreted Transparent Aluminium as ... lightweight, strong plastic/ceramic suitable for construction. Not transparent version of aluminium.
If it is metallic then it can't be transparent. You know "sea of electrons" stuff. Electromagnetic fields wont penetrate it due to the skin depth of metallic solids. Unless the conduction is anisotropic, then it would be much more interesting that "transparent aluminium".
Very odd. The software industry must be different in the US. Here in Oz I work and have worked with many women programmers. Just recently we had a woman C programmer on our hardware interface team. Smart, creative, energetic ... just spoke her mind a bit too much. Rocking the boat is never good. Good friend. Most of the female developers, but not all, have been Java, Oracle (thinking of one in particular ... mmm) and .Nyet. A very good friend of mine is perl+C and she is very good.
YMMV of course.
OK, an unpopular comment. Karma to burn I guess. It is my experience that many people who espouse a skeptical viewpoint do so to assert their own power in a situation or to pander to their own beliefs (opposite to the target's). Now not every skeptical view falls in that category, and even the ones that do may have merit and deserve attention. But I think the attitude I see here that the non-skeptical are deluding themselves is often hypocritical.
True skeptics should also question their own skeptical attitudes from time to time. I found that when arguing against creationists I could get to such a dismissive state that I could no longer objectively evaluate new scientific ideas. And I see a lot of this on slashdot. Aside: if you argue with creationists long enough you become like them.
I used to like browsing through copies of Nature etc from early in the 20th century, even 19th century. Original papers. If an article gets published online today. What is the guarantee that it will be accessible in any form in 100 years. Old journal articles are still valuable to read, you would be amazed at how much is continually being re-discovered because someone hasn't read a past article.
Someone also mentioned peer review. I think that is not a difficult thing to do online, and is probably a lot easier. As I said my main concern is the longevity of the item.
Yeah. And UML is "unified", it was supposed to unify several approaches to the problem to simplify the process. More and more I notice it just getting overburdened. UML is very valuable as long as you don't try and swallow the whole lot. Just use what is necessary, and ignore the nazis (I hope this doesn't generate a Godwin Exception).
My 2 cents.
Make it work. Make it Right. Make it Fast. In That order!
Architecture first, design next, get it doing what it is supposed to do. Optimise for speed. Maybe iterate over the design if a new algorithm is needed. And yeah there are sure to be exceptions. There is no algorithm for correct software implementation.
You still have no idea what I am talking about. Perhaps you should take a course in the Philosophy of Science to get rid of your fuzzy ideas.
Yes I know about isomorphisms. So what. They are similarities in structure mappable by a relation. You aren't going to try and tell me that there is a mathematical mapping onto the real world are you?
Bringing up String Theory ... why? It is one of the worst examples of the scientific process ... almost a joke unless they finally get a testable theory.
About Einstein: now did I talk about effects at high velocity? No. I talked about low velocity. Einstein's relativity is very well tested, still only tentative of course (falsifiability and all). But there are alternative ways of looking at relativity, more experiments can winnow them out as has been done. But it could all still be wrong because we used the wrong interpretation ... there could be an alternative that works just as well or better.
"truths". No such thing. There is observation, hypothesis, experiment, prediction. 'Truth'? Leave that for people who believe in fairies etc.
It doesn't depend on the "universe" at all. Once you define a set of axioms then the structure of the mathematics flows from this logically. However, mathematics is constructed of theorems and lemmae. These are constructed by human beings, one mathematician may prove this one way another may do it another way. A great mathematician may do it with great elegance. So this looks like it is "invented", though the logical framework is inevitable and therefore the mathematicians should merely be discovering it. As you say a problem of definitions. What is mathematics? The set of all logical inferences that flow from a set of axioms? Or the set of theorems constructed by humans beings, usually with personal flair?
It depends.
I think you may not understand exactly what the poster was getting at. The problem is we may conduct our little experiments etc, but we then have to interpret them. We interpret them via analogistic constructs ... things we know and can relate to: waves, billiard balls, fields (which I'm sure we get from wind and ocean currents). Thing is we have an intuitive view of the world, not a mathematical one. And our intuition is demonstrably terrible at physics. So the universe we see is a subjective view, we can produce some commonality by a common language that produces some overlap in meaning. But it isn't exact. Science is about trying to do the best we can at coming to something consistent with measurements, but the 'something' will look different to different people and is still just tentative.
Problem is there is a big difference between the Qualitative nature of a solution compared to the Quantitative nature. Newtonian physics is almost the same as Einsteinian at normal velocities, but the ideas are vastly different. Then consider that there is a vast set of theories that is consistent with observation (hence Occam's Razor ... which is only a guide), we pick the most pleasing theory. Hence a subjective view.
Where I work we have a mix of languages: C/C++, Delphi, Java, C#. Delphi exists because it is a nice language where UI dev is as easy as VB but with a nice programming language. When you see the compile time on Delphi ... well, it makes a C++ programmer like me weep. Compile time for my stuff: around 15 minutes, on Delphi (serious apps) about the time it takes to press the compile key.
As a matter of interest the push is to go to C/C++, Java eventually and give the boot to C# and Delphi.
In one sense this is not new. Geneticists have argued for some time that humans went through a population "bottle-neck" (less that 10,000 people) about 70,000 years ago. At the same time there was a super volcano eruption in the Pacific.
The interesting thing about this is that there is now 'evidence', obviously there will be continuing discussion about it, that humans almost split into two populations, but later merged again about 40,000 years ago. Though this isn't mentioned much in the linked article but you can find it here.
Changes in ice sheets does affect volcanism. Due to isostatic rebound. But you have to remember the time scale. The effects wont be noticeable for thousands of years, and it wont be catastrophic.
Minor quibble: Arrhenius did his work in the late 19th century. But yes it is fascinating how the "GW is a hoax" loonies ignore the fact that Arrhenius predicted this 112 years ago:
It is not hard to find pretty conclusive evidence that temperature is rising while we are pushing a known greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.
I think the anti-GW group is mostly an ideological thing, very little science involved in their arguments. And by science I mean peer-reviewed stuff.
You're new here aren't you?
Then you would be exempt. Since astronomers are one of the groups who are considered to have a legitimate use.
Myself, I wonder if the low power ones are really worth banning. Maybe an overreaction, I don't know since I'm not sure of the bean spread at distances of several km too long since I've done those calculations. But the high power ones: restrict them only to those with a specific need otherwise you'll get loonies who will use them to cause an accident.
No I don't care what the diary says. I am talking about how we treat the week psychologically. I have never seen it as starting on Sunday that is just a weird historical issue which I ignore and increasingly other people do as well.
When I have an organiser I configure it to have the week start on a Monday. If I am programming then yeah Sunday is day 0, but that is just a magic number.