It may be different than you think. I have a book called "The Asian Mind Game" by Chin-ning Chu that describes the different mindset that Chines (and Japanese and Koreans) start with when conducting their affairs. There is a distinct difference in cultural values, therefore there is a difference in cultural behavior. China's government is constantly in turmoil, and control is very important. Outside influences can undermine that control pretty quickly (and, in fact, has caused much change over the last 20 years).
Basically, the Chinese government doesn't care what we THINK about them as long as we ACT in ways that benefit their goals. The Chinese government is losing a long war against education; the populace is getting to smart and being exposed to too many new ideas. They have loosened up on the Command Economy, and are maintaining a fragile balance of control in other regards. So, IMO, the benefit to them is less turmoil from their own population.
A 2-week study at a Canadian University (McMasters?) suggested that 6 minutes of very intense exercise was better than 6 hours of moderate/regular exercise. It came froma small sample, but 8 people did 4 each of 30-second sprints, 3 times per week. In two weeks their Aerobic capacity and endurance showed marked increase, and their mitochondria count increased 35% (which is an indicator of the energy-burning capacity of the muscles).
Geriatrics (ages in their 70's and 80's) regained musculature equivalent to persons in their 30's in Florida after exercising for 13 weeks by supporting weights so heavy they could only hold them for 30-60 seconds. (Two programs, "Static Contraction Training" and "Max Contraction Training" resulted from this study.) In the first 13 weeks I used the Max Contraction training, my doctor and I figured out I lost 14 lbs of fat and gained 9 lbs of muscle. I do this program for about 14 minutes a week. (It takes about a week to allow your muscles to recover at this intensity, despite what so-called "Physical Trainers" say about exercising 3 times/wk.) I'm 60 years old and have some joint problems, so it helps that I don't have to move weights repetitiously through a great range of motion.
I walk 1 hour a day 4-5 days a week using a heart rate meter according to a program by Phillip Maffetone in his book,"The Maffetone Method". He trains bicycle racers and super-long-distance runners, so I suspect his program is pretty good. (It seems to work for me.) The end result: My doctor still wants me to lose another 50 lbs (I've lost 30 over the last two years), but my resting heart rate is less than 70, my blood pressure is 110/70, my total cholesterol is usually between 150-170 with real good ratios, blood sugar runs between 105 and 111 over the last two years, and I have lots of energy.
The biggest drain on my energy is carbs. I was on a low fat diet for four years and gained 10 lbs/year. As soon as I started moderating my carbs instead of my fat, my energy levels picked up and I started losing a moderate amount of weight. I've looked at a number of books on the market, and since I can't distinguish one set of superstitions from another, I've resigned myself to sort of following the guidelines in "Protein Power" by Eades and Eades. YMMV. It is important for me to bring healthy lunches to work, avoid the soda and snack machines, and limit the number lunches I go to with the other developers. (For me, the difference between wishing I was fit and getting fit is using some of the talent for focusing I developed for programming, and applying it towards habits that work for my physical success.)
I have my best success when I get into the pattern of exercising early in the morning. I don't do contract work anymore; the Electronic Sweatshop is detrimental to my health, even though the money is good. I take regular breaks from my desk, walk or do Tai Chi during my lunch breaks, and within a couple of weeks I will be biking to work instead of driving. Theoretically, I need to be active 90 minutes a day in order to lose the 50 lbs. When the joint problem gets corrected I will go back to doing martial arts 3 times per week or more, and that ought to do it.
Good luck, and I hope you find something that works for you.
I may have missed something, but in light of the article here: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/31/1633214, and the wealth of information being offered in this topic, if you are willing to re-make something like ffmpeg to take advantage of the processing capability of your video card you may achieve tremendous efficiency for your task. (My test blew up from mis-managing memory, but before it did it dynamically allocated 22 or 23 threads..the results were uncertain because the system crashed before logging the current status. This is just a concept-learning test written off the cuff in Java, so a real engineered system ahould be able to do something significant. I will probably get back to it when my current workload slows down.) I'm assuming that if you're doing video work you don't have a lame video card, but the video card should be mostly idle during the conversion process.
The next part is to make a teaching program so easy everyone can do it.
This reminds me of a device from back in the late '70's called the "Write-hander" which looked a little bit like a mouse with buttons under the fingers and some mode switches under the thumb. It was a pretty good solution for people limited to one hand typing (amputations, paralyis, etc..), but it lacked durability and was harder to learn than the conventional keyboard.
I hope something like this gets more useful over the years.
OK, when I saw the 1700 ft figure I suspected something was wrong. AFIK, it would take an unbelievable amount of energy to support a mountain of water that high. (Where's frink when I need it?) Even 100 ft indicates a huge amount of energy. It makes total sense if that amount of energy meeting the solidly-planted continental uprising would be re-directed in the direction of least resistance (in this case upslope) until it is dissipated.
The questions that come to mind are things like: How fast was it traveling? Over what area from the epicenter did it travel? What was the actual water level above ground as it rushed upslope? If I ws on the 5th story of a hotel in the water's path, would I have been able to safely watch? Would the hotel have be able to survive the shock if were made out of concrete? (or sticks? or straw?) How much salt was left behind? (The '64 earthquake dropped the level of Cook Inlet by about 40 feet in some places. [That would be 12.192 meters for those of you who are English-unit challenged.] This caused massive salt-water infusion that killed off vegetation for miles inland on parts of the Kenai Peninsula.) How would I model something like that?
I am offering another answer to your question because my earlier response may not have been useful.
Many people have suggested "Feynman", but I would like to be more specific and suggest you find a copy of "The Character of Physical Law", published by MIT Press. I especially recommend you read Chapter 2, "The Relation of Mathematics to Physics". If you grasp the essence of that chapter, it may illuminate the knowledge you already have in regard to your new choice of study.
Back in the "old days" (early 70's) I was taking a triple major in Math, Physics, and Computer Science at a nice University in Chicago, and I intended to be an Astrophysicist. As I got into upper-level classes I had to study a LOT of Geology, Geography and Geophysics. Since my earlier response I've checked with some of my friends, and they tell me that the great majority of their time is spent analyzing hypotheses at the quantum level. So, my earlier response is somewhat dated.
What you CAN learn from studying a good Geophysics text is the thinking processes and the way they differ from Mathematics.
As I said, many people will talk about the value of "The Feynman Lectures", but most of them won't have actually read them. (The same is true of Korzybski's, "Science and Sanity", Fuller's, "Synergetics", Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science", and De Toqueville's, "Democracy in America".) Information becomes dated, but the value of "The Feynman Lectures" may actually be in the way of thinking about Physics.
It could be I'm 'way out of date. I thought I was going to be an astrophysicist back in the early 70's, and was astounded at how much Geology and Geophysics I had to study. I also remember assisting in a beginning Astronomy course at a Junior College in 1975, and finding out that over half the materials in the current textbook had been added since I took my first Astronomy course in 1965.
In the long run, I doubt that simply learning just the concepts of Physics is what the poster needs; math and Physics are two different types of thinking (IMO). Whereas the greater portion of Math is derivable through axiomatic thinking within a domain of reason, graduate-level Astrophysics creates new knowledge though a rigorous discovery process (as do most Physics).
Don't forget; Astrophysics requires a solid grounding in geophysics. any good advanced books in Geology and Geophysics will help you cover the math for Astrophysics, too.
What's so special about this? The advertising agencies have been controlling your thoughts for years! They've even got it so that the subjects will voluntarily submit to acquiring new thoughts, unfiltered, and largely unaware.
And then, there was the girlfriend I had who could put the right thoughts in my head just by flashing certain parts of her anatomy...
The PI requirement has caused problems for me before this, most frequently in installing cameras and home automation elements that provide alarms, surveillance, or intrusion detection. Theoretically, in order to provide an Internet-capable camera system on a friend's ranch in West Texas (designed to alert him in Houston when certain events occurred 650 miles away) I needed a PI license. (Alarm installation requires a lower level than that required for real investigative work, but it's still onerous.) Since I've developed a couple of Neural Net hacks that improve the accuracy of the alerts, this requirement costs my customers in the form of extra money or diminished capability. The firms that are allowed to do this may only have one licensed PI in the company, but they are the official "supervisor" for these type projects. The technicians may be less qualified than my guys.
This type of licensing is a form of unionization. It restricts the number of persons in the field, and therefore drives up the cost of services, producing a government-subsidized profit to the complying provider. The underlying supposition is that "People Are No Good", the government needs to protect us, and, coincidentally, government cronies happen to be available who are qualified to perform the services. It sucks, doesn't it?
TFA misses an important point: Freecell and solitaire are something to do while you are waiting for downloads, program starts, file transfers, slow web pages, etc., etc. In the old days when 300 BAUD modems were the way we transferred files, we old-timers used to read books. (That's how some of us got educated.) Modern speeds, particularly on Windows, are too fast to make it worth while studying, but a whale of an annoyance if you have to wait. So, pop open the game of solitaire or freecell, and your mind is occupied for the 60 seconds or so that it takes for Windows to get ready to work.
On LINUX or UNIX systems I usually have multiple desktops open, and while a task is loading on one desktop I'm working on another, but this is not easily done with Windows.
I read a cool book, "Why Things Break" by Mark Eberhardt, in which he specifically mentions the Titanic disaster. The short version: Plates made for the Titanic in open-hearth furnaces in Scotland contained extra sulpher, which increases iron's brittleness. At the low temperatures of the North Atlantic the energy transferred in collision (which would have ruptured only a few feet and couple of watertight compartments in a warmer environment) was enough to make the rupture "run", thus causing a larger leak. Perhaps the same can be said for the rivets; they were not "substandard" by the standards of the day, but were not sufficient for the untested conditions they were exposed to. The books' entire section on embrittlement is fascinating.
As annoying as some commercials are, it might be good to remember that radio might not have developed beyond a government service if someone hadn't figured out that selling advertising time during the broadcast could pay for the service.
I occasionally watch tv shows on fox.com/fod, and I find the short interruptions of a single add to be more acceptable than dozens of ads during regular broadcast shows. A GOOD show might attract a high-bidding advertiser.
I may have mis-phrased that, but I will still stand by my assertion:
The Declaration of Independence established the united states of America as independent from Britain, and established the principles of God-given (creator-given, by-dint-of-being-born) rights as the foundation of our independence. These rights were deemed to be inherent rights and not granted through the largess of Government.
The first attempt at governing the States failed, and the Constitution was concocted to provide a specific process of governing the entire United States of America. (Note that this time it is capitalized.) By agreeing to federalize the States, the States gave up the right to enact interstate tariffs, create separate embassies and treaties, and more. In return, through the representation of their Representatives and Senators, the Federal Government would provide for the common national defense, administration of Justice to protect the rights of individuals under the principles laid out in the Declaration, and engage in Foreign Affairs on behalf of the States as a whole. The Constitution was immediately amended to include the first ten amendments (Bill of Rights) at the insistence of the Anti-Federalists, who feared that a Federal Government would impinge on the rights of individuals, and the rights of individuals to govern their own States as they wished. (Without this agreement to establish the Bill of Rights, the Constitution may never have been created and ratified.)
So, my short version is: The Declaration established the Country's principles; the Constitution established the mechanics of Government in accordance with those principles.
There is very little difference in the results for either party in the USA. Neither party is upholding the Constitution unless it's convenient. Both parties waste our money as if there was an unlimited supply. The majority of politicians buy votes and influence by spending money whether the problems they are throwing money at is real or not, and whether or not money is a solution. (When was the last time that a politician bought a solution that fixed the problem once and for all?) Sociologists have built models of legislative voting records and found them to be highly analogous to the diminished intelligence of crowds.
I have relatives in Sweden and Norway. These represent "Socialist" countries to me. The saying is that Sweden is a nice place to live, but it's no place to get rich. Even the Swedes seem to recognize that the social welfare State costs them a great deal in terms of production and living standards, but this has been a part of their culture for decades, and they are willing to put up with it.
The Clintons, on the other hand, were Communist fellow travelers in the 70's and I'm not sure they have changed. The countries of the world with the least government seizure of property and capital have developed into the most productive and highest innovation. The "Europeanization" of the USA has degraded our lives.
What dismays me the most about our elections is that most Americans are NOT QUALIFIED to select the person to fill the job of President. (Quick! Do you know what the job description of the President is? I didn't think so!) The President is supposed to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Over many years of asking, I've only met 2 people who knew the Constitution who weren't lawyers. And, since the Constitution is based on the Declaration Of Independence, a qualified citizen should have that memorized also. It is a pity that our selection of "executives" for the management of our country has devolved into a Red vs. Blue "Superbowl", bereft of any meaningful decision analysis on the part of the voters. At least the contestants on "American Idol" have to actually demonstrate a level of competency in order to make the finals.
Queuing theory has been around for ages. Even Robots traveling at a constant speed would not resolve the problem, since eventually, due to statistical fluctuations, there would be collisions. Robots programmed to stay a constant distance from each other would eventually start to slow down and speed up. (Again, due to statistical fluctuations.) Slowing down is more apparent in the corners (turns), but a "corner" may be as subtle as a lane change. In real life, a big contributor to the problem is that traffic tends to go slower than the speed limit, but is less likely to exceed the speed limit in order to make up for a previous slowdown fluctuation.
In Houston, the morning traffic is trying to diffuse into smaller capillaries such as streets and parking lots. Cross streets or cross traffic requires that the real average speed be much slower than the max posted speed. The traffic feeding into the city exceeds the capacity of the capillaries to diffuse the traffic to random destinations, and this causes backlogs that flow further "upstream" during incoming rush hour. Compressed-time photography actually verifies this effect. (There is a dynamic model somewhere, but I can't find it right now.)
Recently/. posted an article on aircraft boarding, which is a problem in the same category as traffic flow. A few years ago a friend of mine was a cameraman at a baseball "goodwill series" in Japan. He commented that there was no trash anywhere in the stadium. At the end of the game the spectators rose up and applauded the players of both teams. Then they sat down and exited the stadium row by row..and took their trash with them!
I imagine a city in the future where all traffic goes in one direction, say counter-clockwise, and roads and streets use a multiple spiral instead of cross streets. Emptying the city would require that citizens "queue up" for their slot in the flow, and fuzzy logic manages the merging problem.
Imagine designing an airport where the landings and takeoffs were spaced by a program such as "Boids" ( http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/ ) and all the traffic followed the same counter-clockwise spiral. True, terminal design might require elevators like an aircraft carrier has, and there would be some cross-over ramps and taxiways, but an open airport could accommodate a lot of aircraft more safely and could have a two- or three-hour "reset" each night to make up for the statistical variations.
If Microsoft made this announcement it would be condemned as "vaporware". The main site claims it is in beta and they are looking for commercial partners, so it apparently is not open source and no use to us at this time.
I appreciate the links and information in the discussion prompted by this article. Although I'm underwhelmed by the actual announcement, I've learned a lot from the links you folks have provided.
Actually, I do a lot of technical illustration and am very familiar with Photoshop. I have friends who are professional photographers (and I used to take pictures for the AP years ago), and I often help with the post-shooting production before doing adjunct technical illustration.
Until you know what you are doing in GIMP you will get the same lousy results you got when you were learning PS. GIMP might need a few more features, but I have no problems with it. (I have other rendering and graphics software. My LINUX and UNIX installations are far richer and more capable than Windows with Photoshop.) You can use GIMPshop to take you across the learning chasm. If you think GIMP is no substitute for Photoshop, you obviously don't use GIMP at the pro level.
OK, there are adequate substitutes for Windows, Photoshop, and MSOffice (especially OxygenOffice), but it is real hard to find good OSS substitutes for Visio, AutoCad and MSProject. A few years ago, AutoCad was listed as the second most used application in the World. The OSS substitute would have to be absolutely awesome to compete with AutoCad. This may be one of the best-designed apps in existence, the tech support is pretty good, the legacy is humongous, and everyone is educated in it.
Now my needs are bit modest, so I get by with SketchUp, and Alibre, (although my versions are not free, they do offer free versions), but a major Engineering company might have a rough time finding an easy-to-use substitute.
Hmmm. The junky responses I've seen here on/. seem to indicate that there is a lot of noise and useless response. If I was constructing this, I would disallow arguments that violated rhetorical soundness by containing any rhetorical fallacies. I would probably set a standard such as the 83 fallacies described in "Attacking Faulty Reasoning" by Damer. The standard is not so high as to exclude anyone but the best logicians, but is high enough to exclude most morons. I might also require anyone arguing to write in E-prime or otherwise avoid the syntactical deficiencies that Korzybski wrote about in "Science and Sanity".
I've noticed that many of the responses here on/. are concerned with constructing the counter-argument. (Most of these attempts seem to be trivial.) I would disqualify anyone who didn't understand or read the proposition.
Lastly, there is a format, used since the Ancient Greeks, for stating a proposition and deriving a conclusion. Starting with the "givens", the formal representation of classical argument avoids a lot of confusion. This format limits the domain of the argument to what is specifically relevant, but (unfortunately) excludes irrelevant arguments that would have a high value in another context. The author specifically states that he is looking for logical justification or refutation of the proposition that it is fair to exclude adult smokers from a smoking ban. This is an interesting exercise, but less useful than an exercise in "How to reduce the harm caused to people who smoke."
The article didn't mention whether the sanctions had any fines or reparations attached. Luckily the blogger was able to argue his case pro se, but this is not normally advisable and it is mostly unsuccessful. The original blog was apparently written in high temper, but the writer still managed to keep his cool. As a warning to other bloggers: Speak from verifiable experience (yours or others'), and speak the truth with precision. You may be entitled to your opinion, but you may have to defend it, so hyperbole and angry characterizations count against you.
Yeah, this whole thing about communicating effectively, even internally to yourself, can be a real mind boggler. I keep finding things that make me recycle through some of the seminal texts in order to integrate new information with the stuff that seems to have become spotty as I get older. I'm about to re-read Korzybsky, and, you know what?... I DREAD the task. I'll do it anyway 'cause I value the potential benefits.
I do believe that most science breakthroughs come from collaborative efforts and accumulated knowledge. I'm glad Wolfram didn't include a second books worth of citations, but I agree, some of the ideas could have been better attributed.
Good points, bad argumentation, but the links you included do most of the argumentation adequately for your claim. I strongly agree with the claims made in the article. How do you calibrate a tool without having something to assess for accuracy? Unlike the Turing machine proof, Mathematica is NOT a Universally applicable tool.
The two of you are closer than you may think. I was there when Behaviorism got a bad rap and bad rep, and basically, there was a revolt against "mindless conditioning" and "brainwashing". Ultimately, like any science, some of the useful parts are still used. I truly regret the passing of "programmed instruction, developed by Skinner and Crowder, because it was a very effective way to learn some knowledge and some skills.
One element leading to the failure of Behaviorism as a complete explanation, is the ability of humans to hold values, desires and beliefs. William James' dictum that "to be cheerful, one only has to act cheerful" implies that the person has a desire to be cheerful. Behavioral experiments proved that a person who didn't want to be cheerful would , over a cycle, end up less cheerful than when they started. Behavior modification works very well if the subject is induced to desire the end results.
Chomsky's structural analysis has stood the test of time (as a description of languages), but his theories of cause and effect have suffered major blows. Cognitive Science is the "new" art, but, like Newton's Physics in the light of Quantum Mechanics, there will still be a place for the useful portions of previous scientific thought.
Slashdot Mirror
It may be different than you think. I have a book called "The Asian Mind Game" by Chin-ning Chu that describes the different mindset that Chines (and Japanese and Koreans) start with when conducting their affairs. There is a distinct difference in cultural values, therefore there is a difference in cultural behavior. China's government is constantly in turmoil, and control is very important. Outside influences can undermine that control pretty quickly (and, in fact, has caused much change over the last 20 years).
Basically, the Chinese government doesn't care what we THINK about them as long as we ACT in ways that benefit their goals. The Chinese government is losing a long war against education; the populace is getting to smart and being exposed to too many new ideas. They have loosened up on the Command Economy, and are maintaining a fragile balance of control in other regards. So, IMO, the benefit to them is less turmoil from their own population.
A 2-week study at a Canadian University (McMasters?) suggested that 6 minutes of very intense exercise was better than 6 hours of moderate/regular exercise. It came froma small sample, but 8 people did 4 each of 30-second sprints, 3 times per week. In two weeks their Aerobic capacity and endurance showed marked increase, and their mitochondria count increased 35% (which is an indicator of the energy-burning capacity of the muscles).
Geriatrics (ages in their 70's and 80's) regained musculature equivalent to persons in their 30's in Florida after exercising for 13 weeks by supporting weights so heavy they could only hold them for 30-60 seconds. (Two programs, "Static Contraction Training" and "Max Contraction Training" resulted from this study.) In the first 13 weeks I used the Max Contraction training, my doctor and I figured out I lost 14 lbs of fat and gained 9 lbs of muscle. I do this program for about 14 minutes a week. (It takes about a week to allow your muscles to recover at this intensity, despite what so-called "Physical Trainers" say about exercising 3 times/wk.) I'm 60 years old and have some joint problems, so it helps that I don't have to move weights repetitiously through a great range of motion.
I walk 1 hour a day 4-5 days a week using a heart rate meter according to a program by Phillip Maffetone in his book,"The Maffetone Method". He trains bicycle racers and super-long-distance runners, so I suspect his program is pretty good. (It seems to work for me.) The end result: My doctor still wants me to lose another 50 lbs (I've lost 30 over the last two years), but my resting heart rate is less than 70, my blood pressure is 110/70, my total cholesterol is usually between 150-170 with real good ratios, blood sugar runs between 105 and 111 over the last two years, and I have lots of energy.
The biggest drain on my energy is carbs. I was on a low fat diet for four years and gained 10 lbs/year. As soon as I started moderating my carbs instead of my fat, my energy levels picked up and I started losing a moderate amount of weight. I've looked at a number of books on the market, and since I can't distinguish one set of superstitions from another, I've resigned myself to sort of following the guidelines in "Protein Power" by Eades and Eades. YMMV. It is important for me to bring healthy lunches to work, avoid the soda and snack machines, and limit the number lunches I go to with the other developers. (For me, the difference between wishing I was fit and getting fit is using some of the talent for focusing I developed for programming, and applying it towards habits that work for my physical success.)
I have my best success when I get into the pattern of exercising early in the morning. I don't do contract work anymore; the Electronic Sweatshop is detrimental to my health, even though the money is good. I take regular breaks from my desk, walk or do Tai Chi during my lunch breaks, and within a couple of weeks I will be biking to work instead of driving. Theoretically, I need to be active 90 minutes a day in order to lose the 50 lbs. When the joint problem gets corrected I will go back to doing martial arts 3 times per week or more, and that ought to do it.
Good luck, and I hope you find something that works for you.
I may have missed something, but in light of the article here: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/31/1633214, and the wealth of information being offered in this topic, if you are willing to re-make something like ffmpeg to take advantage of the processing capability of your video card you may achieve tremendous efficiency for your task. (My test blew up from mis-managing memory, but before it did it dynamically allocated 22 or 23 threads..the results were uncertain because the system crashed before logging the current status. This is just a concept-learning test written off the cuff in Java, so a real engineered system ahould be able to do something significant. I will probably get back to it when my current workload slows down.) I'm assuming that if you're doing video work you don't have a lame video card, but the video card should be mostly idle during the conversion process.
The next part is to make a teaching program so easy everyone can do it.
This reminds me of a device from back in the late '70's called the "Write-hander" which looked a little bit like a mouse with buttons under the fingers and some mode switches under the thumb. It was a pretty good solution for people limited to one hand typing (amputations, paralyis, etc..), but it lacked durability and was harder to learn than the conventional keyboard.
I hope something like this gets more useful over the years.
OK, when I saw the 1700 ft figure I suspected something was wrong. AFIK, it would take an unbelievable amount of energy to support a mountain of water that high. (Where's frink when I need it?) Even 100 ft indicates a huge amount of energy. It makes total sense if that amount of energy meeting the solidly-planted continental uprising would be re-directed in the direction of least resistance (in this case upslope) until it is dissipated.
The questions that come to mind are things like: How fast was it traveling? Over what area from the epicenter did it travel? What was the actual water level above ground as it rushed upslope? If I ws on the 5th story of a hotel in the water's path, would I have been able to safely watch? Would the hotel have be able to survive the shock if were made out of concrete? (or sticks? or straw?) How much salt was left behind? (The '64 earthquake dropped the level of Cook Inlet by about 40 feet in some places. [That would be 12.192 meters for those of you who are English-unit challenged.] This caused massive salt-water infusion that killed off vegetation for miles inland on parts of the Kenai Peninsula.) How would I model something like that?
I am offering another answer to your question because my earlier response may not have been useful.
Many people have suggested "Feynman", but I would like to be more specific and suggest you find a copy of "The Character of Physical Law", published by MIT Press. I especially recommend you read Chapter 2, "The Relation of Mathematics to Physics". If you grasp the essence of that chapter, it may illuminate the knowledge you already have in regard to your new choice of study.
Back in the "old days" (early 70's) I was taking a triple major in Math, Physics, and Computer Science at a nice University in Chicago, and I intended to be an Astrophysicist. As I got into upper-level classes I had to study a LOT of Geology, Geography and Geophysics. Since my earlier response I've checked with some of my friends, and they tell me that the great majority of their time is spent analyzing hypotheses at the quantum level. So, my earlier response is somewhat dated.
What you CAN learn from studying a good Geophysics text is the thinking processes and the way they differ from Mathematics.
As I said, many people will talk about the value of "The Feynman Lectures", but most of them won't have actually read them. (The same is true of Korzybski's, "Science and Sanity", Fuller's, "Synergetics", Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science", and De Toqueville's, "Democracy in America".) Information becomes dated, but the value of "The Feynman Lectures" may actually be in the way of thinking about Physics.
Good luck.
It could be I'm 'way out of date. I thought I was going to be an astrophysicist back in the early 70's, and was astounded at how much Geology and Geophysics I had to study. I also remember assisting in a beginning Astronomy course at a Junior College in 1975, and finding out that over half the materials in the current textbook had been added since I took my first Astronomy course in 1965.
In the long run, I doubt that simply learning just the concepts of Physics is what the poster needs; math and Physics are two different types of thinking (IMO). Whereas the greater portion of Math is derivable through axiomatic thinking within a domain of reason, graduate-level Astrophysics creates new knowledge though a rigorous discovery process (as do most Physics).
Don't forget; Astrophysics requires a solid grounding in geophysics. any good advanced books in Geology and Geophysics will help you cover the math for Astrophysics, too.
What's so special about this? The advertising agencies have been controlling your thoughts for years! They've even got it so that the subjects will voluntarily submit to acquiring new thoughts, unfiltered, and largely unaware.
And then, there was the girlfriend I had who could put the right thoughts in my head just by flashing certain parts of her anatomy...
The PI requirement has caused problems for me before this, most frequently in installing cameras and home automation elements that provide alarms, surveillance, or intrusion detection. Theoretically, in order to provide an Internet-capable camera system on a friend's ranch in West Texas (designed to alert him in Houston when certain events occurred 650 miles away) I needed a PI license. (Alarm installation requires a lower level than that required for real investigative work, but it's still onerous.) Since I've developed a couple of Neural Net hacks that improve the accuracy of the alerts, this requirement costs my customers in the form of extra money or diminished capability. The firms that are allowed to do this may only have one licensed PI in the company, but they are the official "supervisor" for these type projects. The technicians may be less qualified than my guys.
This type of licensing is a form of unionization. It restricts the number of persons in the field, and therefore drives up the cost of services, producing a government-subsidized profit to the complying provider. The underlying supposition is that "People Are No Good", the government needs to protect us, and, coincidentally, government cronies happen to be available who are qualified to perform the services. It sucks, doesn't it?
TFA misses an important point: Freecell and solitaire are something to do while you are waiting for downloads, program starts, file transfers, slow web pages, etc., etc. In the old days when 300 BAUD modems were the way we transferred files, we old-timers used to read books. (That's how some of us got educated.) Modern speeds, particularly on Windows, are too fast to make it worth while studying, but a whale of an annoyance if you have to wait. So, pop open the game of solitaire or freecell, and your mind is occupied for the 60 seconds or so that it takes for Windows to get ready to work.
On LINUX or UNIX systems I usually have multiple desktops open, and while a task is loading on one desktop I'm working on another, but this is not easily done with Windows.
I read a cool book, "Why Things Break" by Mark Eberhardt, in which he specifically mentions the Titanic disaster. The short version: Plates made for the Titanic in open-hearth furnaces in Scotland contained extra sulpher, which increases iron's brittleness. At the low temperatures of the North Atlantic the energy transferred in collision (which would have ruptured only a few feet and couple of watertight compartments in a warmer environment) was enough to make the rupture "run", thus causing a larger leak. Perhaps the same can be said for the rivets; they were not "substandard" by the standards of the day, but were not sufficient for the untested conditions they were exposed to. The books' entire section on embrittlement is fascinating.
As annoying as some commercials are, it might be good to remember that radio might not have developed beyond a government service if someone hadn't figured out that selling advertising time during the broadcast could pay for the service.
I occasionally watch tv shows on fox.com/fod, and I find the short interruptions of a single add to be more acceptable than dozens of ads during regular broadcast shows. A GOOD show might attract a high-bidding advertiser.
I may have mis-phrased that, but I will still stand by my assertion:
The Declaration of Independence established the united states of America as independent from Britain, and established the principles of God-given (creator-given, by-dint-of-being-born) rights as the foundation of our independence. These rights were deemed to be inherent rights and not granted through the largess of Government.
The first attempt at governing the States failed, and the Constitution was concocted to provide a specific process of governing the entire United States of America. (Note that this time it is capitalized.) By agreeing to federalize the States, the States gave up the right to enact interstate tariffs, create separate embassies and treaties, and more. In return, through the representation of their Representatives and Senators, the Federal Government would provide for the common national defense, administration of Justice to protect the rights of individuals under the principles laid out in the Declaration, and engage in Foreign Affairs on behalf of the States as a whole. The Constitution was immediately amended to include the first ten amendments (Bill of Rights) at the insistence of the Anti-Federalists, who feared that a Federal Government would impinge on the rights of individuals, and the rights of individuals to govern their own States as they wished. (Without this agreement to establish the Bill of Rights, the Constitution may never have been created and ratified.)
So, my short version is: The Declaration established the Country's principles; the Constitution established the mechanics of Government in accordance with those principles.
Who the heck modded this up to "informative"?
There is very little difference in the results for either party in the USA. Neither party is upholding the Constitution unless it's convenient. Both parties waste our money as if there was an unlimited supply. The majority of politicians buy votes and influence by spending money whether the problems they are throwing money at is real or not, and whether or not money is a solution. (When was the last time that a politician bought a solution that fixed the problem once and for all?) Sociologists have built models of legislative voting records and found them to be highly analogous to the diminished intelligence of crowds.
I have relatives in Sweden and Norway. These represent "Socialist" countries to me. The saying is that Sweden is a nice place to live, but it's no place to get rich. Even the Swedes seem to recognize that the social welfare State costs them a great deal in terms of production and living standards, but this has been a part of their culture for decades, and they are willing to put up with it.
The Clintons, on the other hand, were Communist fellow travelers in the 70's and I'm not sure they have changed. The countries of the world with the least government seizure of property and capital have developed into the most productive and highest innovation. The "Europeanization" of the USA has degraded our lives.
What dismays me the most about our elections is that most Americans are NOT QUALIFIED to select the person to fill the job of President. (Quick! Do you know what the job description of the President is? I didn't think so!) The President is supposed to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Over many years of asking, I've only met 2 people who knew the Constitution who weren't lawyers. And, since the Constitution is based on the Declaration Of Independence, a qualified citizen should have that memorized also. It is a pity that our selection of "executives" for the management of our country has devolved into a Red vs. Blue "Superbowl", bereft of any meaningful decision analysis on the part of the voters. At least the contestants on "American Idol" have to actually demonstrate a level of competency in order to make the finals.
Queuing theory has been around for ages. Even Robots traveling at a constant speed would not resolve the problem, since eventually, due to statistical fluctuations, there would be collisions. Robots programmed to stay a constant distance from each other would eventually start to slow down and speed up. (Again, due to statistical fluctuations.) Slowing down is more apparent in the corners (turns), but a "corner" may be as subtle as a lane change. In real life, a big contributor to the problem is that traffic tends to go slower than the speed limit, but is less likely to exceed the speed limit in order to make up for a previous slowdown fluctuation.
/. posted an article on aircraft boarding, which is a problem in the same category as traffic flow. A few years ago a friend of mine was a cameraman at a baseball "goodwill series" in Japan. He commented that there was no trash anywhere in the stadium. At the end of the game the spectators rose up and applauded the players of both teams. Then they sat down and exited the stadium row by row..and took their trash with them!
In Houston, the morning traffic is trying to diffuse into smaller capillaries such as streets and parking lots. Cross streets or cross traffic requires that the real average speed be much slower than the max posted speed. The traffic feeding into the city exceeds the capacity of the capillaries to diffuse the traffic to random destinations, and this causes backlogs that flow further "upstream" during incoming rush hour. Compressed-time photography actually verifies this effect. (There is a dynamic model somewhere, but I can't find it right now.)
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I imagine a city in the future where all traffic goes in one direction, say counter-clockwise, and roads and streets use a multiple spiral instead of cross streets. Emptying the city would require that citizens "queue up" for their slot in the flow, and fuzzy logic manages the merging problem.
Imagine designing an airport where the landings and takeoffs were spaced by a program such as "Boids" ( http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/ ) and all the traffic followed the same counter-clockwise spiral. True, terminal design might require elevators like an aircraft carrier has, and there would be some cross-over ramps and taxiways, but an open airport could accommodate a lot of aircraft more safely and could have a two- or three-hour "reset" each night to make up for the statistical variations.
Nice article, BTW.
If Microsoft made this announcement it would be condemned as "vaporware". The main site claims it is in beta and they are looking for commercial partners, so it apparently is not open source and no use to us at this time.
I appreciate the links and information in the discussion prompted by this article. Although I'm underwhelmed by the actual announcement, I've learned a lot from the links you folks have provided.
Actually, I do a lot of technical illustration and am very familiar with Photoshop. I have friends who are professional photographers (and I used to take pictures for the AP years ago), and I often help with the post-shooting production before doing adjunct technical illustration.
Until you know what you are doing in GIMP you will get the same lousy results you got when you were learning PS. GIMP might need a few more features, but I have no problems with it. (I have other rendering and graphics software. My LINUX and UNIX installations are far richer and more capable than Windows with Photoshop.) You can use GIMPshop to take you across the learning chasm. If you think GIMP is no substitute for Photoshop, you obviously don't use GIMP at the pro level.
I've used CATia and it works well, but it is not OSS. There is a free derivative out there that doesn't work worth a sh*t, but needs some more work.
OK, there are adequate substitutes for Windows, Photoshop, and MSOffice (especially OxygenOffice), but it is real hard to find good OSS substitutes for Visio, AutoCad and MSProject. A few years ago, AutoCad was listed as the second most used application in the World. The OSS substitute would have to be absolutely awesome to compete with AutoCad. This may be one of the best-designed apps in existence, the tech support is pretty good, the legacy is humongous, and everyone is educated in it.
Now my needs are bit modest, so I get by with SketchUp, and Alibre, (although my versions are not free, they do offer free versions), but a major Engineering company might have a rough time finding an easy-to-use substitute.
Hmmm. The junky responses I've seen here on /. seem to indicate that there is a lot of noise and useless response. If I was constructing this, I would disallow arguments that violated rhetorical soundness by containing any rhetorical fallacies. I would probably set a standard such as the 83 fallacies described in "Attacking Faulty Reasoning" by Damer. The standard is not so high as to exclude anyone but the best logicians, but is high enough to exclude most morons. I might also require anyone arguing to write in E-prime or otherwise avoid the syntactical deficiencies that Korzybski wrote about in "Science and Sanity".
/. are concerned with constructing the counter-argument. (Most of these attempts seem to be trivial.) I would disqualify anyone who didn't understand or read the proposition.
I've noticed that many of the responses here on
Lastly, there is a format, used since the Ancient Greeks, for stating a proposition and deriving a conclusion. Starting with the "givens", the formal representation of classical argument avoids a lot of confusion. This format limits the domain of the argument to what is specifically relevant, but (unfortunately) excludes irrelevant arguments that would have a high value in another context. The author specifically states that he is looking for logical justification or refutation of the proposition that it is fair to exclude adult smokers from a smoking ban. This is an interesting exercise, but less useful than an exercise in "How to reduce the harm caused to people who smoke."
The article didn't mention whether the sanctions had any fines or reparations attached. Luckily the blogger was able to argue his case pro se, but this is not normally advisable and it is mostly unsuccessful. The original blog was apparently written in high temper, but the writer still managed to keep his cool. As a warning to other bloggers: Speak from verifiable experience (yours or others'), and speak the truth with precision. You may be entitled to your opinion, but you may have to defend it, so hyperbole and angry characterizations count against you.
Yeah, this whole thing about communicating effectively, even internally to yourself, can be a real mind boggler. I keep finding things that make me recycle through some of the seminal texts in order to integrate new information with the stuff that seems to have become spotty as I get older. I'm about to re-read Korzybsky, and, you know what?... I DREAD the task. I'll do it anyway 'cause I value the potential benefits.
I do believe that most science breakthroughs come from collaborative efforts and accumulated knowledge. I'm glad Wolfram didn't include a second books worth of citations, but I agree, some of the ideas could have been better attributed.
Good points, bad argumentation, but the links you included do most of the argumentation adequately for your claim. I strongly agree with the claims made in the article. How do you calibrate a tool without having something to assess for accuracy? Unlike the Turing machine proof, Mathematica is NOT a Universally applicable tool.
The two of you are closer than you may think. I was there when Behaviorism got a bad rap and bad rep, and basically, there was a revolt against "mindless conditioning" and "brainwashing". Ultimately, like any science, some of the useful parts are still used. I truly regret the passing of "programmed instruction, developed by Skinner and Crowder, because it was a very effective way to learn some knowledge and some skills.
One element leading to the failure of Behaviorism as a complete explanation, is the ability of humans to hold values, desires and beliefs. William James' dictum that "to be cheerful, one only has to act cheerful" implies that the person has a desire to be cheerful. Behavioral experiments proved that a person who didn't want to be cheerful would , over a cycle, end up less cheerful than when they started. Behavior modification works very well if the subject is induced to desire the end results.
Chomsky's structural analysis has stood the test of time (as a description of languages), but his theories of cause and effect have suffered major blows. Cognitive Science is the "new" art, but, like Newton's Physics in the light of Quantum Mechanics, there will still be a place for the useful portions of previous scientific thought.