The point of the scientific method is that we have to accept any theory that works just as well as gravity. If I could make scientific predictions based on the idea that invisible faeries pull things toward the ground then it would be just as acceptable a theory as gravity. I certainly don't take it on faith that there is such a thing as gravity. I only accept that it is the most plausible explanation for the physical phenomenon of things falling to the floor. Same with the atom and the Rutherford experiment.
I've never seen an atom either, but I've seen enough experiments that should only pan out the way they do because there are atoms to convince me.
Take a class on data collection and uncertainty and you will see exactly what I mean by "describes our experimental data to within an acceptable margin." What I'm saying is that our model fits our data within the data's uncertainty.
Actually, you're wrong about having faith in atoms. We know that there are atoms because the model of the atom describes our experimental data to within an acceptable margin. Without any evidence to support there being atoms, a good scientist could never ever assume that there are atoms. A good scientist takes *nothing* on faith. We also weren't positive about any of the fundamental building blocks of the universe.
I'm offended at the implication that faith is involved in science in any way, shape, or form. It's a little insulting to me that you assume science is just another kind of faith. Maybe you should take a deeper look at what you're talking about.
Let's assume that the universe is vast enough to be considered approximately infinite in size. Then let's assume that the probability of our existance is very small, such that it's infinitesimal. Then, by the Law of Large Numbers a sufficiently large sample of planets(the universe, it's infinite remember?) should contain at least one with us on it.
You're assuming that giving their attacks against us credence above any other criminal activity does not lend them any legitimacy. On the contrary, giving terrorism a special status above a normal criminal legitimizes their activities in ways that simply trying them and jailing them does not. Fighting a war against them instead of policing them suggests that they are a legitimate governmental organization. Policing merely implies that they are criminals, murdering people. Do you see the difference? Instead of fighting them, we should be policing them.
You could try planning for where you're going to put that paragraph while writing on the board, or using individual sheets of paper and rearranging them so that it works for you or any number of different things. Why not be creative with the materials you should have on hand? Also, the whole reason you double-space while writing is so that you can make huge corrections like inserting a paragraph somewhere. Back before paper was mass-produced people used to take each other's handwritten letters, write a reply between the lines, and return the letter. So take a page from history and write your insertion between the lines of the existing paragraph, then when you write a final draft you have everything you need already written.
And typing to record information versus writing to record information passes the information through different areas of the brain respectively. It's easier to retain information if you write it because of this. That's one of the reasons classrooms still emphasize taking handwritten notes, besides the obvious advantage that people can actually afford paper.
It's like that for him because there are too many Physics graduates and not enough work to go around. Unless he wants to teach at the High School level in which case it's a totally different story.
Wait, secure access agent which is similar to Trusted Computing? Why don't we just repurpose TC to its original purpose which was to allow the user hardware-level control over what is and isn't allowed to run on their computer?
When you increase something's mass there's a corresponding increase in its momentum. This means that you have to apply a larger impulse to it in order to change its momentum. So yeah, you're right.
The real problem is that we can't possibly know how it feels to feel in another species. That alone makes it anthropomorphism since they could be displaying what appears to us to be a fear reaction but could be any one of a number of other emotions.
Your comments are exactly the reason I dislike D&D. You spend almost 3 hours min/maxing the crap out of your character and in the end you're still just a level 1 peon who can barely swing a sword without cutting yourself.
If you want a social experience, play a game designed around socializing like Exalted or WOD revised from White Wolf. The introduction says it all by suggesting it's just a way for people to get together and tell a story. The philosophy isn't about the numbers, it's about spending time with your friends(Even if you're spending 2 hours playing a 7 minute combat.). In D&D you start the game by determining what you want your character to be good at, then develop everything around that. In every White Wolf game I've played you start out by determining who your character is, then develop everything around that. It lends a bit more character to characters.
I hope they don't get replaced by blogs. 90% of the blog articles I've seen posted to slashdot exist only to generate traffic. Not only that, it seems like none of the blog authors can do any form of research outside of reading articles from real newspapers. What, exactly, is the point of disseminating a paraphrase of exactly what a newspaper said, only with the omission of 1/4 of the information? If you're going to do stuff like that you might as well just copy and paste the entire article onto your website.
Every blog opinion piece I've read makes me feel dumber for having read it. I can count the number of informative blogs I've seen on one hand, while I can go past my toes on uninformative blogs. This is just from Slashdot links.
Sir, I work for the department of redundancy department, and I'm going to have to tell you that I have to ask you that you need to walk over here and come with me to talk about my questions about your damaged nerve endings that have been damaged.
Yeah, because educating our children is the least important job anyone could have, right down there with making sure we have roads and aren't getting robbed wherever we go.Thank god teachers aren't that important, we don't need to read or do math anyway.
Linux is easy to set up. I pop in the Ubuntu CD, it boots, I double-click on the setup button, and if I accept the defaults it goes on to install everything. Hell, with the vast majority of systems all your hardware works out of the box which is more than I can say about Windows.
Thank you for your lack of insight into our tribe. Otherwise, you're pretty right about Windows.
He who controls the past controls the future, and he who controls the present controls the past. In a world where all information can be changed at the flick of a switch the only thing you can ever be sure of is that which you witness with your own eyes. Everything outside of yourself can and frequently is rewritten to the whims of whatever regime happens to be in power at the time.
Slashdot Mirror
The point of the scientific method is that we have to accept any theory that works just as well as gravity. If I could make scientific predictions based on the idea that invisible faeries pull things toward the ground then it would be just as acceptable a theory as gravity. I certainly don't take it on faith that there is such a thing as gravity. I only accept that it is the most plausible explanation for the physical phenomenon of things falling to the floor. Same with the atom and the Rutherford experiment.
I've never seen an atom either, but I've seen enough experiments that should only pan out the way they do because there are atoms to convince me.
Take a class on data collection and uncertainty and you will see exactly what I mean by "describes our experimental data to within an acceptable margin." What I'm saying is that our model fits our data within the data's uncertainty.
Actually, you're wrong about having faith in atoms. We know that there are atoms because the model of the atom describes our experimental data to within an acceptable margin. Without any evidence to support there being atoms, a good scientist could never ever assume that there are atoms. A good scientist takes *nothing* on faith. We also weren't positive about any of the fundamental building blocks of the universe.
I'm offended at the implication that faith is involved in science in any way, shape, or form. It's a little insulting to me that you assume science is just another kind of faith. Maybe you should take a deeper look at what you're talking about.
Let's assume that the universe is vast enough to be considered approximately infinite in size. Then let's assume that the probability of our existance is very small, such that it's infinitesimal. Then, by the Law of Large Numbers a sufficiently large sample of planets(the universe, it's infinite remember?) should contain at least one with us on it.
This proof relegates god to the role of the die.
You're assuming that giving their attacks against us credence above any other criminal activity does not lend them any legitimacy. On the contrary, giving terrorism a special status above a normal criminal legitimizes their activities in ways that simply trying them and jailing them does not. Fighting a war against them instead of policing them suggests that they are a legitimate governmental organization. Policing merely implies that they are criminals, murdering people. Do you see the difference? Instead of fighting them, we should be policing them.
You could try planning for where you're going to put that paragraph while writing on the board, or using individual sheets of paper and rearranging them so that it works for you or any number of different things. Why not be creative with the materials you should have on hand? Also, the whole reason you double-space while writing is so that you can make huge corrections like inserting a paragraph somewhere. Back before paper was mass-produced people used to take each other's handwritten letters, write a reply between the lines, and return the letter. So take a page from history and write your insertion between the lines of the existing paragraph, then when you write a final draft you have everything you need already written.
And typing to record information versus writing to record information passes the information through different areas of the brain respectively. It's easier to retain information if you write it because of this. That's one of the reasons classrooms still emphasize taking handwritten notes, besides the obvious advantage that people can actually afford paper.
My god, we could watch girls sunbathing topless from space!
It's like that for him because there are too many Physics graduates and not enough work to go around. Unless he wants to teach at the High School level in which case it's a totally different story.
Publishing something on the internet does not make it public domain.
You must be joking.
The only real reason I need a glove box is for my registration, insurance card, and manual. Everything else goes in the trunk.
Wait, secure access agent which is similar to Trusted Computing? Why don't we just repurpose TC to its original purpose which was to allow the user hardware-level control over what is and isn't allowed to run on their computer?
If you're running Windows, just use DeepFreeze. Reimages your hard drive every login.
Musicians, and one mathematician for me. I'm not a particularly good musician, either.
When you increase something's mass there's a corresponding increase in its momentum. This means that you have to apply a larger impulse to it in order to change its momentum. So yeah, you're right.
The real problem is that we can't possibly know how it feels to feel in another species. That alone makes it anthropomorphism since they could be displaying what appears to us to be a fear reaction but could be any one of a number of other emotions.
Your comments are exactly the reason I dislike D&D. You spend almost 3 hours min/maxing the crap out of your character and in the end you're still just a level 1 peon who can barely swing a sword without cutting yourself.
If you want a social experience, play a game designed around socializing like Exalted or WOD revised from White Wolf. The introduction says it all by suggesting it's just a way for people to get together and tell a story. The philosophy isn't about the numbers, it's about spending time with your friends(Even if you're spending 2 hours playing a 7 minute combat.). In D&D you start the game by determining what you want your character to be good at, then develop everything around that. In every White Wolf game I've played you start out by determining who your character is, then develop everything around that. It lends a bit more character to characters.
I miss roleplaying. Stupid college and its utter lack of roleplayers.
I hope they don't get replaced by blogs. 90% of the blog articles I've seen posted to slashdot exist only to generate traffic. Not only that, it seems like none of the blog authors can do any form of research outside of reading articles from real newspapers. What, exactly, is the point of disseminating a paraphrase of exactly what a newspaper said, only with the omission of 1/4 of the information? If you're going to do stuff like that you might as well just copy and paste the entire article onto your website.
Every blog opinion piece I've read makes me feel dumber for having read it. I can count the number of informative blogs I've seen on one hand, while I can go past my toes on uninformative blogs. This is just from Slashdot links.
Sir, I work for the department of redundancy department, and I'm going to have to tell you that I have to ask you that you need to walk over here and come with me to talk about my questions about your damaged nerve endings that have been damaged.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
I like to think of it as an electron-positron pair meeting for the first time. Soon they will annihilate in a beautiful pair of gamma rays.
Yeah, because educating our children is the least important job anyone could have, right down there with making sure we have roads and aren't getting robbed wherever we go.Thank god teachers aren't that important, we don't need to read or do math anyway.
No misconceptions there.
Linux is easy to set up. I pop in the Ubuntu CD, it boots, I double-click on the setup button, and if I accept the defaults it goes on to install everything. Hell, with the vast majority of systems all your hardware works out of the box which is more than I can say about Windows.
Thank you for your lack of insight into our tribe. Otherwise, you're pretty right about Windows.
He who controls the past controls the future, and he who controls the present controls the past. In a world where all information can be changed at the flick of a switch the only thing you can ever be sure of is that which you witness with your own eyes. Everything outside of yourself can and frequently is rewritten to the whims of whatever regime happens to be in power at the time.