No, scientists don't assume that. Read the calibration section of wikipedia's article on carbon dating. Carbon dating is calibrated to match other dating methods.
I'm so glad there are people out there that are willing to protect you by killing the life you were too ignorant to keep from creating and now to irresponsible to bear.
After all, it's more of a matter of convenience to you than killing innocent people.
I don't think anybody chooses an abortion easily. Whether a fetus is human life or not, any potential mother who considers abortion knows the choice she's making is affecting a potential human life.
And yet there are many situations where a mother does choose to abort the fetus. Sometimes it's because a condom broke, but other times it's no fault of the parents. Pregnancy can cause a host of unexpected health problems for the mother. A 14-year-old who was raped, I think, should not be responsible for carrying a baby that her body isn't ready for. Then there are a number of gray areas, like what if the baby is braindead or severely handicapped.
I think that in most cases, pro-life and pro-choice people share the belief that abortion is wrong. It's just that pro-choice people trust that the mother will make the right decision.
Although having a commodity-backed currency sounds like a good idea, it doesn't necessarily work out. Back in the 19th century (and part of the 20th) many countries were on the gold standard, where currency is backed by gold. Although this does some cool things, like controlling inflation, etc., it also leads to some painful depressions. The gold standard was abandoned because it's not fully compatible with a modern economy.
Not that Libertarians' ideas are all bad, but a lot of their lassiez-faire economic ideas used to be the norm 100 years ago. These policies were abandoned for good reasons. A certain amount of governmental intervention has been proven to be needed to keep a complicated modern economy stable.
IAA math major. Parent is right--this paper makes a mistake trying to prove convergence. Heck, it's so hard to read and unrigorous I'm not sure if it works at all past the second equation.
Nope, grandparent was right. You can't just divide and expect convergence to suddenly occur. I believe the leading coefficient is assumed to be 1 for the result he's using. IAA math major.
Really it was just designed to keep the typewriter from jamming... that means slowing down a lot of things and spreading letters out. It's absolutely untrue that QWERTY was designed to speed people up. Well, unless you count typewriter jamming time, in which case you're correct. It's unbalanced between the hands; I don't remember the exact numbers but the left hand does more typing than the right. Hey, you've got EARST all under your left fingers! And look at how many valid letter cominations are awkwardly typed with the same finger: ce, de, ju, fr, gr, ik, lo, un, hu, sw, etc. Also difficult to type is sa, as, and pl (consecutive weak fingers). Dvorak avoids all of those tricky things other than ik, and only adds "up" and "uy" (QWERTY it would be "fr" and "ft")
I type on both QWERTY and Dvorak and I can honestly say it's worth the switch, provided that you can spare some weeks to practice and you don't have to use other people's QWERTY keyboards often. I went from ~60 to ~80 wpm, but the biggest difference is that the Dvorak keyboard is way less fatiguing. You don't need to have RSI to appreciate comfortable keystrokes. The home row is aoeuidhtns, so your fingers don't have to move much.
Yeah, universities are not the real world. In many parts of the south and midwest, you'll never see a homeless person, an openly gay person, an Asian person, a Jew, an interracial couple, or an atheist. It's hardly surprising that people living in shielded areas like this have conservative viewpoints.
First of all, typing is a necessity in a world full of IM and e-mail. Voice recognition is cool, but put more than a few people in the room and suddenly it's not so great.
I'd also like to take a moment to plug the Dvorak keyboard layout. It's 10x easier than QWERTY (the home row is aoeuidhtns, compared to asdfghjkl;) and up to twice as fast. If it would get taught in school typing classes (perhaps along with QWERTY--it's not too hard to learn both) maybe it would be more popular and save a few people from RSI.
Hmm, yeah that's a good point. If you think of the car or horse as "equipment" there might be some argument that the physical skills of the operator are important. But I think what you said is about how I feel, they're partially sports. At least they have a physical aspect to them and they are interesting for spectators.
I guess any attempt to define sports is going to leave out something... but I think any decent definition is probably going to leave out math and other strictly academic activities.
I did math at the Olympiad level in high school, although I didn't quite make it to the IMO. I've also played a variety of real sports. I would never want to call math a sport. First of all, olympiad-level math is about the most boring imaginable spectator sport. It's 4.5 hours for three problems! A lot of contestants spend a large portion of the time just thinking, not even writing. How can it be a sport if no one is willing to watch, not even mathletes themselves? About the only excitement at the IMO is waiting for scores to be posted. (admittedly this can be very exciting) Not only that, but the difficulty of the problems makes them virtually impossible to understand by 99% of the population.
Frankly, I would like to see the math olympiads (along with the other science olympiads) getting more public attention, because the students that compete in these contests are nothing short of remarkable. But since the contest is so out of reach from the mainstream, I doubt math or other strictly academic activities will obtain a following necessary to make it a legitimate sport.
Another thing that truly separates math from sports is that sports require some sort of physical skill. Nothing more than the ability to write legibly is required for a math test. It's true that all sports have a critical mental aspect (after all, your brain controls your body), but it's the physical aspect that makes an activity a sport rather than simply a game or contest.
Have you seen a psychiatrist? Sleeping disorders (both sleeping too little and sleeping too much) are often caused by depression, even just mild depression. A small dose of something like Prozac can fix your brain chemistry and make you sleep better at night and wake up with more energy.
Give it time. Once computers are consistently beating the greatest human
players, the same clever people who worked so hard on building computer
chess players will find new problems to spend their time on. Go will certainly
be on of them.
I sort of doubt computers will play Go at the sort of level humans do for many years to come. Go plays particularly well to human's strengths. A large fraction of our brain is devoted to processing visual information. In Go (unlike in chess), this pattern recognition gives us a huge advantage over computers, which lack the hardware to recognize patterns in the same way.
Some major progress in AI as well as computer will most likely be required before computers can stand up to Go masters in the same way they currently match chess masters.
Crafty managed to draw Shredder, one of the big-name computer programs, in the first round. That makes it tied with a bunch of other programs in the middle of the pack.
Personally, I'm always excited to hear about the progress that has been made by chess engines. Nowadays, the top programs can compete with all of the top humans, without requiring a supercomputer.
I hate to reply to my own message, but I just thought of a way of interpreting the meaning of this study. Incidentally, it's related to CS, in particular information theory.
A non-uniform distribution of notes implies low entropy, a measure of the amount of information a signal contains. Bach and Mozart had low entropy, meaning that each note contains a smaller amount of information.
A uniform distribution (in particular, if there are no patterns to the notes) means the signal has a high level of entropy. In other words, each note of Schoenberg contains a larger amount of information.
Music with high entropy, such as Schoenberg's, would be harder to comprehend because there is more information contained in it.
While I wouldn't eliminate the possibility that music and language are intimately connected, I think that the conclusions of this study are flawed.
He only chose 4 pieces--one by each Bach, Mozart, Debussy, and Schoenberg. Since the Bach, Mozart, and Debussy have tonal centers, most notes are going to come from the tonic scale, giving the statistical distribution. Schoenberg's works were written precisely to avoid any sort of tonal center--i.e. to avoid a non-uniform distribution of notes! All he discovered was that Schoenberg's piece statistically did not have a tonal center.
However, there are a lot of pieces that rotate tonal centers but are not atonal! This is sort of analagous to changing languages in the middle of a story. The distribution could be nearly equal in this case.
On the other hand, take Scriabin, whose later works are highly dissonant and atonal. Nevertheless, many are centered around certain notes. (In particular, Scriabin used a recurring "mystic chord" in many pieces) In this case, one could discover a similar non-uniform distribution of notes, despite the fact that the piece is extremely hard to comprehend.
To find a true analogy between music and language will require looking at a lot more than four pieces and a lot more than just notes.
If you agree with what he says you are unlikely to vote Bush regardless and Bush supporters will most likely view it as fabricated propaganda regardless of its accuracy or failings.
I agree 100% with this. However, what's important, I think, is its effect on the vast number of ignorant or apathetic potential voters out there.
Even if I didn't think Moore was a big, fat, pathetic loser who takes out his own depression on everyone around him with his non-stop torrent of hate speech
What else could explain that he so detests the very country where someone like him could become so rich and famous?
Moore consistently says that he loves America, a country where he can make a film that aims to get the current president out of office. Just because he doesn't think the US is perfect doesn't mean he detests the country.
There is no doubt in my mind that he is using his "satire" and "mockumentaries" to blur the lines between truth and his warped anti-American political views in order to to sway the ignorant, or more commonly these days, people too angry to bother with facts or reason.
Anti-Bush != Anti-American. Liberals can be patriotic, too. Furthermore, I think this movie is great for the ignorant. It exposes them to a wide variety of political issues they may not be aware of. The press (both positive and negative) that the movie has been getting, I believe, is one step towards curing America's political apathy and ignorance.
I have one suggestion to Bush's critics: If Bush is so bad, what would you do better?
Well, I think the critics generally say what they think would be a better option. From the movie, for example, not going to war with Iraq, not taking record amounts of vacation time, not distorting facts about Iraq's WMD, etc.
This is a typical trick of the left. when they know they are lieing or twisting facts to an extreme they launch a preemptive "I'm a victim" or "I'm going to sue anyone who claims I am lieing" process
I wouldn't say the left is 100% truthful, but the right is no better (worse, in my opinion). They have Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, for example.
Anyway, if someone says you are lying and you're not, it's libel and you have every right to sue. I think Moore mentions his willingness to sue because he wants to mitigate the illegitimate attacks on his work, which he knows is highly controversial.
Sorry, but if anyone believes the tripe that is in this film needs to have their heads examined. Some very well know liberals and Bush haters think very little of this film.
Who? If they're so well known, maybe you have some names? Most of the liberals I know thought this film was anywhere from entertaining to amazing.
The best article on SLATE
http://politics.slate.msn.com/id/2102723/
So this guy definitely has a good vocabulary (or thesaurus). And he raises some good points; clearly the movie doesn't cover both sides equally. But for the most part, I fail to see anything of great significance in the article. Some of the previous repliers pointed out the rebuttal http://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/feature.php?feat ure=1150
He has to go out of his way to make the President look like a bufoon to make it stick. When his story gets really stupid he just goes faster hoping no one pays enough attention.
Yeah, he goes out of his way to make the movie entertaining. But there seems to be plenty of footage of Bush making a fool of himself
Sway voters? No, he will put off more voters than he gains. You do not gain voters by spewing ludicrous hate like MM.
I disagree. I think that this film will motivate those who already are against Bush, sway some who are indifferent or ignorant, and enrage loyal Bush supporters.
A lot of historically based strategy games make great educational tools. Civilization and Age of Empires come to mind as games that have a decent amount of history in them. What better way is there to learn history than to play through William Wallace and Joan of Arc campaigns yourself?
For science, I personally really enjoyed The Incredible Machine. While this game was a bit cartoony, a more realistic version could be a great introduction to physics.
Slashdot Mirror
No, scientists don't assume that. Read the calibration section of wikipedia's article on carbon dating. Carbon dating is calibrated to match other dating methods.
After all, it's more of a matter of convenience to you than killing innocent people.
I don't think anybody chooses an abortion easily. Whether a fetus is human life or not, any potential mother who considers abortion knows the choice she's making is affecting a potential human life.
And yet there are many situations where a mother does choose to abort the fetus. Sometimes it's because a condom broke, but other times it's no fault of the parents. Pregnancy can cause a host of unexpected health problems for the mother. A 14-year-old who was raped, I think, should not be responsible for carrying a baby that her body isn't ready for. Then there are a number of gray areas, like what if the baby is braindead or severely handicapped.
I think that in most cases, pro-life and pro-choice people share the belief that abortion is wrong. It's just that pro-choice people trust that the mother will make the right decision.
Not that Libertarians' ideas are all bad, but a lot of their lassiez-faire economic ideas used to be the norm 100 years ago. These policies were abandoned for good reasons. A certain amount of governmental intervention has been proven to be needed to keep a complicated modern economy stable.
Yikes... that would put him just around the level of the Yale football team.
IAA math major. Parent is right--this paper makes a mistake trying to prove convergence. Heck, it's so hard to read and unrigorous I'm not sure if it works at all past the second equation.
Nope, grandparent was right. You can't just divide and expect convergence to suddenly occur. I believe the leading coefficient is assumed to be 1 for the result he's using. IAA math major.
I type on both QWERTY and Dvorak and I can honestly say it's worth the switch, provided that you can spare some weeks to practice and you don't have to use other people's QWERTY keyboards often. I went from ~60 to ~80 wpm, but the biggest difference is that the Dvorak keyboard is way less fatiguing. You don't need to have RSI to appreciate comfortable keystrokes. The home row is aoeuidhtns, so your fingers don't have to move much.
Yeah, universities are not the real world. In many parts of the south and midwest, you'll never see a homeless person, an openly gay person, an Asian person, a Jew, an interracial couple, or an atheist. It's hardly surprising that people living in shielded areas like this have conservative viewpoints.
WTF? Go to any top university--it's overwhelmingly liberal, students and professors.
I'd also like to take a moment to plug the Dvorak keyboard layout. It's 10x easier than QWERTY (the home row is aoeuidhtns, compared to asdfghjkl;) and up to twice as fast. If it would get taught in school typing classes (perhaps along with QWERTY--it's not too hard to learn both) maybe it would be more popular and save a few people from RSI.
I'm surprised no one mentioned this yet. Hold the button
But will it run Longhorn?
I guess any attempt to define sports is going to leave out something... but I think any decent definition is probably going to leave out math and other strictly academic activities.
Frankly, I would like to see the math olympiads (along with the other science olympiads) getting more public attention, because the students that compete in these contests are nothing short of remarkable. But since the contest is so out of reach from the mainstream, I doubt math or other strictly academic activities will obtain a following necessary to make it a legitimate sport.
Another thing that truly separates math from sports is that sports require some sort of physical skill. Nothing more than the ability to write legibly is required for a math test. It's true that all sports have a critical mental aspect (after all, your brain controls your body), but it's the physical aspect that makes an activity a sport rather than simply a game or contest.
Have you seen a psychiatrist? Sleeping disorders (both sleeping too little and sleeping too much) are often caused by depression, even just mild depression. A small dose of something like Prozac can fix your brain chemistry and make you sleep better at night and wake up with more energy.
He fought in Vietnam but protested the war. He was loyal to the country despite disagreeing with it.
Bush, on the other hand, started a war.
I sort of doubt computers will play Go at the sort of level humans do for many years to come. Go plays particularly well to human's strengths. A large fraction of our brain is devoted to processing visual information. In Go (unlike in chess), this pattern recognition gives us a huge advantage over computers, which lack the hardware to recognize patterns in the same way.
Some major progress in AI as well as computer will most likely be required before computers can stand up to Go masters in the same way they currently match chess masters.
Crafty managed to draw Shredder, one of the big-name computer programs, in the first round. That makes it tied with a bunch of other programs in the middle of the pack.
Personally, I'm always excited to hear about the progress that has been made by chess engines. Nowadays, the top programs can compete with all of the top humans, without requiring a supercomputer.
A non-uniform distribution of notes implies low entropy, a measure of the amount of information a signal contains. Bach and Mozart had low entropy, meaning that each note contains a smaller amount of information.
A uniform distribution (in particular, if there are no patterns to the notes) means the signal has a high level of entropy. In other words, each note of Schoenberg contains a larger amount of information.
Music with high entropy, such as Schoenberg's, would be harder to comprehend because there is more information contained in it.
He only chose 4 pieces--one by each Bach, Mozart, Debussy, and Schoenberg. Since the Bach, Mozart, and Debussy have tonal centers, most notes are going to come from the tonic scale, giving the statistical distribution. Schoenberg's works were written precisely to avoid any sort of tonal center--i.e. to avoid a non-uniform distribution of notes! All he discovered was that Schoenberg's piece statistically did not have a tonal center.
However, there are a lot of pieces that rotate tonal centers but are not atonal! This is sort of analagous to changing languages in the middle of a story. The distribution could be nearly equal in this case.
On the other hand, take Scriabin, whose later works are highly dissonant and atonal. Nevertheless, many are centered around certain notes. (In particular, Scriabin used a recurring "mystic chord" in many pieces) In this case, one could discover a similar non-uniform distribution of notes, despite the fact that the piece is extremely hard to comprehend.
To find a true analogy between music and language will require looking at a lot more than four pieces and a lot more than just notes.
Actually this time around, Moore seems to want to defend his argument. He claims his movie is factual and has lawyers to back him up.
I agree 100% with this. However, what's important, I think, is its effect on the vast number of ignorant or apathetic potential voters out there.
How is this hate speech? It's free speech.
What else could explain that he so detests the very country where someone like him could become so rich and famous?
Moore consistently says that he loves America, a country where he can make a film that aims to get the current president out of office. Just because he doesn't think the US is perfect doesn't mean he detests the country.
There is no doubt in my mind that he is using his "satire" and "mockumentaries" to blur the lines between truth and his warped anti-American political views in order to to sway the ignorant, or more commonly these days, people too angry to bother with facts or reason.
Anti-Bush != Anti-American. Liberals can be patriotic, too. Furthermore, I think this movie is great for the ignorant. It exposes them to a wide variety of political issues they may not be aware of. The press (both positive and negative) that the movie has been getting, I believe, is one step towards curing America's political apathy and ignorance.
I have one suggestion to Bush's critics: If Bush is so bad, what would you do better?
Well, I think the critics generally say what they think would be a better option. From the movie, for example, not going to war with Iraq, not taking record amounts of vacation time, not distorting facts about Iraq's WMD, etc.
I wouldn't say the left is 100% truthful, but the right is no better (worse, in my opinion). They have Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, for example.
Anyway, if someone says you are lying and you're not, it's libel and you have every right to sue. I think Moore mentions his willingness to sue because he wants to mitigate the illegitimate attacks on his work, which he knows is highly controversial.
Sorry, but if anyone believes the tripe that is in this film needs to have their heads examined. Some very well know liberals and Bush haters think very little of this film.
Who? If they're so well known, maybe you have some names? Most of the liberals I know thought this film was anywhere from entertaining to amazing.
The best article on SLATE http://politics.slate.msn.com/id/2102723/
So this guy definitely has a good vocabulary (or thesaurus). And he raises some good points; clearly the movie doesn't cover both sides equally. But for the most part, I fail to see anything of great significance in the article. Some of the previous repliers pointed out the rebuttal http://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/feature.php?feat ure=1150
He has to go out of his way to make the President look like a bufoon to make it stick. When his story gets really stupid he just goes faster hoping no one pays enough attention.
Yeah, he goes out of his way to make the movie entertaining. But there seems to be plenty of footage of Bush making a fool of himself
Sway voters? No, he will put off more voters than he gains. You do not gain voters by spewing ludicrous hate like MM.
I disagree. I think that this film will motivate those who already are against Bush, sway some who are indifferent or ignorant, and enrage loyal Bush supporters.
For science, I personally really enjoyed The Incredible Machine. While this game was a bit cartoony, a more realistic version could be a great introduction to physics.