one of the most competent engineers that I know is a home-schooled dyed-in-the-wool creationist, has a gaggle of kids, goes to Church on Sundays.
So what? I've worked with all sorts of people who were/are any or all of racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic and fascist. If someone can repair your toilet or drive your taxi, their personal beliefs can safely be ignored (at least in the short term), or else nothing would ever get done.
That doesn't mean you'd want them teaching your kids.
I love the arrogant presumption that my children are a public resource at the collective's disposal.
To a certain extent they are. You are not allowed to rape or murder them without receourse from "the collective" (or "society" as it is less dramatically known).
The last I checked, they were individuals entitled to pursue happiness in any way that suited them
We are talking about children with unformed minds and bodies who need to be protected from, for example, child abuse, exposure to hard drugs and stupid fucking religious indoctrination.
God is quite capable of using DNA and RNA and quantum mechanics and other theories which we have yet to learn about to make people and the world.
Yes, but if you can use DNA and RNA and quantum mechanics to explain how the world was made, why do you need a God at all?
If you have two dishes, one of tagliatelle, oil, garlic and black pepper, and the other of tagliatelle, oil, garlic, black pepper and God, and they taste the same, what is the point of adding God?
Yep, from what i hear a hand full of people can build an ark that weighs close to 9000 tons out of gopher wood in about a week's time and fill it with 100,000+ animals with food and shelter for all for over a year with only hand tools...
No, no, it's a metaphor or a parable or a mistranslation or a typo.
Any time there's some particularly egregious nonsense in the Bible, all the excuses come out.
"No, obviously God didn't create the Universe in six Earth days. When the original Hebrew says 'six days' it is a misinterpretation of a phrase meaning 'roughly six, but may be more, and possibly a lot more units of any time period whatsoever' and therefore clearly means 'fourteen billion years ago'. "
I see the EXACT same response from Democrats/liberals when I argue a 3-month-or-older human fetus should have the same right to life as a newborn/infant since they share similar traits. The left responds: "He's attacking our beliefs! Quick mod him down to - 1" The left-and-right are more alike in their kneejerk reactions than different.
I'd love to see your statistics on how many babies born SIX MONTHS prematurely are viable.
I'm not terribly bothered by Romney, personally. I don't particularly like him, and he is a silver-spooner, but he's also reasonably smart, and reasonably reasonable.
The right wing propaganda techniques are working.
Now, because he is not as mentally impaired as George W Bush, or as clearly deranged as Sarah Palin, Romney counts as reasonable.
This would all be quite amusing if it was Albania we were discussing, but as a non-US citizen I find it disturbing that someone like Romney could even be considered to be president of the most powerful coountry on earth. He's a fucking moron. He came here to the UK before the Olympics and managed to annoy even people like David Cameron, himself not exactly a rabid anti-US socialist.
How will it deal with passing a horse and rider on a narrow road? How will it deal with coming across another driver in a country lane at a place where there is no room to pass? How will it drive on a road with a shear drop off on one side and a cliff on another? If this is narrow with passing paces will it know to pull in so that it almost touches the cliff to give extra space to the vehicle near the drop-off? In busy commuter traffic will it adjust the "aggressiveness" of pulling out from a side-road to take into account that if you don't pull out quick and accelerate hard you could be waiting until the end of the rush? On a rutted farm track can it work out that you have to drive with one wheel on the centre of the road and the other on the edge to avoid the tractor ruts?
I see no reason why the car shouldn't be "intelligent" enough to recognise the problems in all these situatins.
As for aggressiveness, there is something wrong with your traffic system if anyone needs to drive aggressively just to keep moving. But presumably a load of rational non-human drivers wouldn't end up in that situation.
Additionally you likely broke the law doing what you did and if you caused an accident or ran over a pedestrian because of it you would have been 100% at fault
It is never breaking the law to act in self defence, and even if it was, then your own survival is far more important than the law.
I agree though that it would be morally wrong to kill an innocent bystander just to save your car from damage.
It's not about updating the virus scanner or patching leaks.
The rover had software loaded for landing, now it's getting software for exploring Mars.
It would be a waste of resource to have both loaded at once since they are never required simultaniously.
A 4Gb SD card at Best Buy may be cheap, but memory that can tolerate the temperatures, radiation and other hazards of space exploration for 3 years is a little pricier.
While the risk of losing communication with the rover is there, I'm pretty sure there is a fallback for when the update fails.
Yes, I'm sure the weight saving from only loading half the software at once was an important factor in this decision. Those bits don't have zero mass you know.
You are a moron. Any proper degree teaches you how to think for yourself, irrespective of subject. The idea that a university is just there to train people to get better paid jobs (and earn money for itself) is frankly juvenile.
If you're an English or Fine Art lecturer, you know that 99% of your students aren't going to get jobs having anything to do with English or Fine Art..But that's not the point.
It doesn't matter if you use it in practice. You'll learn to think critically to solve abstract problems. Don't buy into the hype that you don't need math.
It is not only mathematicians who can think critically. A lawyer, civil engineer or army officer has the same need for critical thinking to solve problems.
The other day I caught two programmers (who lacked mathematical backgrounds) attempting to use a binary solver to find a solution to a polynomial algorithm.
The dirty, DIRTY bastards. I bet they were foreign..
Dont forget, it is a changing world. You never know when calculus is going to become important. There is very often a paradigm shift, the more you are prepared for it, the better equipped you will be to handle it.
I think that by definition you can't prepare for a paradigm shift.
Taking away the obvious implication of "You don't program differential equations" the logic skills gained by math help greatly in programming. I don't use derivatives per-say in programming or IT work, however understanding how to simplify complex problems has been invaluable to my career.
The logic skills gained by a degree in philosophy, medieval French or biochemistry would also have helped you in understanding how to simplify complex problems.
The point of high-level math and physics classes is not because you "need" them in your job as a programmer. It's a way to limit how many CSE degrees are granted. I was told this straight-up by my college advisor when I asked What's the point of having 30 freshman engineering students if only 2 survived to the end?
Lots of college degrees are like this. The supply is higher then the demand for open jobs, so they give tough courses to limit the number of grads. (And degrees that don't weed-out students, like English, end up with a lot of degreed students working at Mickey D's.)
A university education ishould not just be the first stage on some continuous job interview. If you are good at and interested in Computer Science, or English, then that is what you will want to study. But the point is the fact that you are studying something, and learning how to think, not the fact that you are accumulating useful facts.
Many people study English or Philosophy or whatever and become programmers or finance analysts. Actual scientific or engineering disciplines are a bit different, as in order to become something like a Chartered Engineer you have to stick to a quite tightly defined education/career path.
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one of the most competent engineers that I know is a home-schooled dyed-in-the-wool creationist, has a gaggle of kids, goes to Church on Sundays.
So what? I've worked with all sorts of people who were/are any or all of racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic and fascist. If someone can repair your toilet or drive your taxi, their personal beliefs can safely be ignored (at least in the short term), or else nothing would ever get done.
That doesn't mean you'd want them teaching your kids.
I love the arrogant presumption that my children are a public resource at the collective's disposal.
To a certain extent they are. You are not allowed to rape or murder them without receourse from "the collective" (or "society" as it is less dramatically known).
The last I checked, they were individuals entitled to pursue happiness in any way that suited them
We are talking about children with unformed minds and bodies who need to be protected from, for example, child abuse, exposure to hard drugs and stupid fucking religious indoctrination.
Even the older people in my family think that dark skin is the "mark of cain" of a cursed people
Yes because obviously the Semitic peoples in the Bible were all blond-haired and blue-eyed (and spoke English).
God is quite capable of using DNA and RNA and quantum mechanics and other theories which we have yet to learn about to make people and the world.
Yes, but if you can use DNA and RNA and quantum mechanics to explain how the world was made, why do you need a God at all?
If you have two dishes, one of tagliatelle, oil, garlic and black pepper, and the other of tagliatelle, oil, garlic, black pepper and God, and they taste the same, what is the point of adding God?
Yep, from what i hear a hand full of people can build an ark that weighs close to 9000 tons out of gopher wood in about a week's time and fill it with 100,000+ animals with food and shelter for all for over a year with only hand tools...
No, no, it's a metaphor or a parable or a mistranslation or a typo.
Any time there's some particularly egregious nonsense in the Bible, all the excuses come out.
"No, obviously God didn't create the Universe in six Earth days. When the original Hebrew says 'six days' it is a misinterpretation of a phrase meaning 'roughly six, but may be more, and possibly a lot more units of any time period whatsoever' and therefore clearly means 'fourteen billion years ago'. "
I see the EXACT same response from Democrats/liberals when I argue a 3-month-or-older human fetus should have the same right to life as a newborn/infant since they share similar traits. The left responds: "He's attacking our beliefs! Quick mod him down to - 1" The left-and-right are more alike in their kneejerk reactions than different.
I'd love to see your statistics on how many babies born SIX MONTHS prematurely are viable.
Take the book as an allegory intended to impart moral lessons and it's easier to swallow
As the bishop said to the actress...
You can't reason with idiots... it is pointless to even try.
You can start by not letting them peddle their lies in schools.
The alternative of shooting them all is probably a bit harsh.
I'm not terribly bothered by Romney, personally. I don't particularly like him, and he is a silver-spooner, but he's also reasonably smart, and reasonably reasonable.
The right wing propaganda techniques are working.
Now, because he is not as mentally impaired as George W Bush, or as clearly deranged as Sarah Palin, Romney counts as reasonable.
This would all be quite amusing if it was Albania we were discussing, but as a non-US citizen I find it disturbing that someone like Romney could even be considered to be president of the most powerful coountry on earth. He's a fucking moron. He came here to the UK before the Olympics and managed to annoy even people like David Cameron, himself not exactly a rabid anti-US socialist.
common sense conservative / libertarian policies
Libertarian economic policies are "common sense" in the sense that Pol Pot's were.
the Democrats were the woolly thinking, misty-eyed fools would thought they could do such things as declare and win a War on Poverty
Just because you can't achieve 100% success in getting rid of something doesn't mean it's not worth trying at all.
Your militaristic metaphor is amusingly right wing and nonsensical.
How will it deal with passing a horse and rider on a narrow road? How will it deal with coming across another driver in a country lane at a place where there is no room to pass? How will it drive on a road with a shear drop off on one side and a cliff on another? If this is narrow with passing paces will it know to pull in so that it almost touches the cliff to give extra space to the vehicle near the drop-off? In busy commuter traffic will it adjust the "aggressiveness" of pulling out from a side-road to take into account that if you don't pull out quick and accelerate hard you could be waiting until the end of the rush? On a rutted farm track can it work out that you have to drive with one wheel on the centre of the road and the other on the edge to avoid the tractor ruts?
I see no reason why the car shouldn't be "intelligent" enough to recognise the problems in all these situatins.
As for aggressiveness, there is something wrong with your traffic system if anyone needs to drive aggressively just to keep moving. But presumably a load of rational non-human drivers wouldn't end up in that situation.
Additionally you likely broke the law doing what you did and if you caused an accident or ran over a pedestrian because of it you would have been 100% at fault
It is never breaking the law to act in self defence, and even if it was, then your own survival is far more important than the law.
I agree though that it would be morally wrong to kill an innocent bystander just to save your car from damage.
LOL you have a worryingly vivid imagination.
The spacecraft TRAVELLED 350 million miles to get there, but as of tonight, Mars is only about 157.5 million miles from Earth.
That's what happens when you rely on a cheap TomTom sat nav.
It's not about updating the virus scanner or patching leaks. The rover had software loaded for landing, now it's getting software for exploring Mars. It would be a waste of resource to have both loaded at once since they are never required simultaniously. A 4Gb SD card at Best Buy may be cheap, but memory that can tolerate the temperatures, radiation and other hazards of space exploration for 3 years is a little pricier. While the risk of losing communication with the rover is there, I'm pretty sure there is a fallback for when the update fails.
Yes, I'm sure the weight saving from only loading half the software at once was an important factor in this decision. Those bits don't have zero mass you know.
True. It's about revenue.
You are a moron. Any proper degree teaches you how to think for yourself, irrespective of subject. The idea that a university is just there to train people to get better paid jobs (and earn money for itself) is frankly juvenile.
If you're an English or Fine Art lecturer, you know that 99% of your students aren't going to get jobs having anything to do with English or Fine Art..But that's not the point.
It doesn't matter if you use it in practice. You'll learn to think critically to solve abstract problems. Don't buy into the hype that you don't need math.
It is not only mathematicians who can think critically. A lawyer, civil engineer or army officer has the same need for critical thinking to solve problems.
But certain fields (AI comes immediately to mind) require a significant math background.
I thought most AI research required a background in wishful thinking?
The other day I caught two programmers (who lacked mathematical backgrounds) attempting to use a binary solver to find a solution to a polynomial algorithm.
The dirty, DIRTY bastards. I bet they were foreign..
Dont forget, it is a changing world. You never know when calculus is going to become important. There is very often a paradigm shift, the more you are prepared for it, the better equipped you will be to handle it.
I think that by definition you can't prepare for a paradigm shift.
Taking away the obvious implication of "You don't program differential equations" the logic skills gained by math help greatly in programming. I don't use derivatives per-say in programming or IT work, however understanding how to simplify complex problems has been invaluable to my career.
The logic skills gained by a degree in philosophy, medieval French or biochemistry would also have helped you in understanding how to simplify complex problems.
They did not expect me to be a chemist but they did expect me to be scientifically and mathematically literate.
No, they expected you to be able to do your job.
The point of high-level math and physics classes is not because you "need" them in your job as a programmer. It's a way to limit how many CSE degrees are granted. I was told this straight-up by my college advisor when I asked What's the point of having 30 freshman engineering students if only 2 survived to the end?
Lots of college degrees are like this. The supply is higher then the demand for open jobs, so they give tough courses to limit the number of grads. (And degrees that don't weed-out students, like English, end up with a lot of degreed students working at Mickey D's.)
A university education ishould not just be the first stage on some continuous job interview. If you are good at and interested in Computer Science, or English, then that is what you will want to study. But the point is the fact that you are studying something, and learning how to think, not the fact that you are accumulating useful facts.
Many people study English or Philosophy or whatever and become programmers or finance analysts. Actual scientific or engineering disciplines are a bit different, as in order to become something like a Chartered Engineer you have to stick to a quite tightly defined education/career path.
. We've got a brilliant IIT grad who did our sparse matrix backwards Trapezoid interconnect delay simulator
That sounds awesome, even though I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.