Except, consider that, if we can MANUFACTURE the material, we can easily give it some sort of self-destruct mechanism. Heck, we might be able to design proteins that, in their normal stage, would be reflective, but when denatured (which we could do through some specific sort of radiation, or even some sort of otherwise harmless bacteria, or, idk... the possibilities are fairly diverse)
But anyway, that's my point. If we design the thing from scratch, we can come up with more convenient cleanup methods built in.
The additional threat of this system is that it suffers from all the sorts of security concerns present with traditional wireless v. wired transfer. Sure, data backup is important, but for a good many (if not most) companies, preserving the integrity of the data is even more critical.
Sure, encryption is possible, but heavy encryption may well defeat the point of the speed and ease of the data transfer and backup.
It's also not very convincing to say that, hey, we'll be safe because no one owns the hardware yet. Well, if WiMax is as great as TFA claims, then everyone will have it soon enough.
I'm not saying it's an unworkable idea, but it does have many flaws that have to be overcome before the technology can be completely viable in the mainstream.
There's more scientific evidence to be had than just that; if we can prove a strong statistical correlation between greenhouse gasses and global warming (which is really a moot point, because greenhouse gasses cause global warming by definion... but I digress) and we can prove a logical and scientific causation between greenhouse gas emission and global warming, that knowledge precludes the necessity of seeing if our actions have any effect. Still, a reasonable cost-benefit analysis is essential - if the costs of reducing emissions is larger than the probable effects of global warming, for example, you're right, it's not worth it.
To address your orignal question, even if global warming slows down after 30 years, that's still not even proof that reducing emissions helps. Only a statistical correlation and strong scientific theory backed up by the statistics can "prove" anything.
I was just ready to mod, but your comment caught my eye.
There are several things to this:
A) Reducing emissions doesn't mean an overall reduction in green house gasses - it just means a reduction in the rate of increase. So we're still increasing the amount of greenhouse gasses, just at a slower rate.
B) The environment doesn't turn around that fast; it probably takes longer than 30 or so years for our efforts to have a noticible effect.
C) Our measurement systems might not be precise enough to account for any differences, even if they did happen. AFAIK, a lot of the evidence comes from really old-school ice-core samples from a long time ago. Now, it's hard to prove a correlation (much less causation) with only 30 years of data, however precise. Climatologists are much more worried about (and, thus, I think, do more research about) trends spanning at least a century.
Eh, I wouldn't necessarily say that it would have some negative effect on chances of survival. Remember, it only has to do with living long enough to have lots of babies. After that, you don't really matter to evolution.
Also, keep in mind that we have plenty of former defense mechanisms (storing lots of excess energy as fat, anyone?) that aren't very useful to us now.
I have seen deep-freeze broken, personally, but the student who did it was brilliant. No one else in the lab could do it.
Deep freeze also isn't that bad in terms of being a resource whore; there are much worse programs that serve the same function and take up even more resources.
I would go with deep freeze if I were you - and remember to use a strong bios password.
That's all well and good, but it's not at all representative. It should be a diverse collection, sure, but it shouldn't be downright eclectic. Just to demonstrate a point, look at your "One for each kind of music, one for each kind of computer science, one for each kind of math... One for masonry, or automotive... [etc]"
Consider - It would sure be nice to have a bunch of different math textbooks, and music books ranging from baroque to early 20th century jazz, but if this collection is to be the most useful, texts should be liberated based on exactly that; their utility. Books on actual tradeskills or skills needed by most people would be the most useful.
I like your idea in theory, it just doesn't necessarily make sense to distribute the copyrights based along that distribution.
Look at how meticulously researched and accurate the article on the Citizendium is. Read the first sentence: "Citizendium, whose name is a portmanteau of citizen and compendium, is a project proposed by Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger on September 15, 2006, intended to begin as a "progressive or gradual fork" of the English Wikipedia.[1] The Citizendium project will be carried out under the auspices of the Citizendium Foundation.[2]"
Notice: A fancy french term, a nice quote, precocious diction, and TWO citations just in the intro.
This seems to be quite a little passive-agressive/bullying hint from the wikipedians.
I'm not saying that scientists are gods or something, but, breaking what you say point by point:
" - Experts on a subject in a large group tend to be minority, not majority - If you pick a group entirely of experts, thens til the best experts on a problem will be a minority - The "stupid" majority silences the "smart" minority - Groupthink without some totally innovative mechanism is this: random noise + averaging. Hardly making the end product smarter - Groupthink reduces the chances of factual errors (few agents discovering a factual error will correct it), but if you have too many agents, then there's a pressure to keep "status quo" and corrections might be dismissed. "
Well:
- Presumably everyone there is going to be an expert - Again, MIT can come up with the "best" experts - If the "stupid" majority knows that the "smart" minority may well be right, it's a different story; they all know what's going on. - I think it's more about harnessing the combined intelligence of these people, which works better than just random noise + averaging. Consider: if they can do it in such a way as to quickly dismiss any negative random noise, they'll benefit. - Again, if the pressure to keep the status quo is forcibly removed, there won't be such a problem.
This sort of technique, although fundamentally similar to the simple writing by committee, is different when every member of the group is educated, an expert, and knows the shortcomings of the standard committee system. The system here seems to be trying to make it work just like the thought experiment does without any of the real world limitations.
Obviously, there will be limitations. I just think that there will be fewer of them.
Just uh, btw, Picard = Patrick Stewart = Prof. X. Ian McKellan, who played Magneto, was (afaik) never in any star trek production.
# Picard's adventures spun off three new series, each longer than Kirk's run. Kirk only inspired a one-seasoned cartoon, and six movies. # Kirk's First Officer played some form of Vulcan harp, an instrument that makes the trombone look like just about the most macho thing this side of Kirk's toupee. # How many innocent yellow-shirted security officers have been killed by crazed aliens who had taken pot shots at them in the mistaken belief that they were actually shooting at Kirk? # Kirk commands his ship as if he's driving a tractor across an Iowa wheat field. # When Picard was 37, he was the Captain of the lowly Stargazer. Starfleet soon learned the value of "progressive experience" having witnessed the disastrous consequences of letting someone take charge of a real ship when their previous vehicular experience extended only as far as driving a tractor across an Iowa wheat field. # If Kirk had a doctor like Beverly Crusher, Starfleet would have to relocate the command chair in sickbay. # If Kirk was captain when Tasha Yar died, he would have tried to do her corpse. # Picard has more than one token black person on his crew. # Picard isn't afraid to go places without a security team. # Picard doesn't wear pansy sailor-boy markings on his cuffs. # Picard has shuttlecraft that can travel faster than Kirk's ship. # Picard would never have said "He's had too much LDS". # Picard never has to say stupid things like, "I...am a Gr'up!" in front of young teenage girls who fancy him. # Picard was actually in his own show's pilot episode. # Picard never visits planets that look suspiciously like a Californian desert, except for that time he met Kirk. # Picard won't spend his retirement writing science fiction books or making cameo appearances in Zemeckis & Zemeckis films. # Picard was never demoted to a lieutenant in the L.A. Police Department. # Picard is too slim to require a Kellogg's All Bran diet, and too dignified to turn up in an ad for such things. # Picard's doctor doesn't have to keep reminding him what her job is. # Picard doesn't have to operate his turbo lifts using hand pumps. # Picard's main viewer is a 200 inch hi-definition TV with Nicam and Pro-Logic surround-sound. # Picard's ego wouldn't demand $7 million for a 10 minute appearance in a movie. # Picard can spend more than 15 minutes on a planet before being shot at or locked up. # Picard's ship was never taken over by a door-to-door salesman. # If the Borg had assimilated Kirk, they wouldn't have learned anything. # Picard's First Officer eats the things that attack Kirk in alien forests. # Picard would never blow up his own ship. # Imagine you have to impose your authority: "This is Captain Jean Luc Picard of the Federation Starship Enterprise." Now introduce yourself as "James Tiberius Kirk, but you can call me Jim." See the difference? # If Q had met Kirk instead of Picard he would have destroyed humanity before Kirk got two words out. # Who ever heard of the Patrick Stewart foundation? # One word: Intelligence.
I recently took the new SAT I. I did well, and have no complaints about my score, particularly in writing. This is just to clarify that my critiques aren't from any personal feelings, but rather from logic and experience.
First of all, multitudes of people taking the SAT either lack the skillset required to complete the essay section sucessfully or aren't specifically prepared for the test.
It's not about being a good writer, or being prolific, or even conveying your thoughts. It's only about writing to the test.
Therefore, it's insane to make serious literary criticisms on these writers when they're doing no more than plugging in their personal experiences and bits from US Hisotry to answer the questions. Even the best writers don't necessarily do well; many of my friends, who are much better writers than I, didn't do anywhere near as well as I did. I'm the first to admit I'm not a particularly good writer. But it's not about writing. It's about plugging the test prompt into a preconcieved formula and outputting whatever gobblygook you have to based on the grading rubric. So there are basically a plethora of flaws here.
Looking at more criticism:
"What does this really demonstrate? It's hard to say. Probably, that students who do well on the SAT writing test will also do well writing college application essays. Also, I'll bet that the tactic of Essay #2 (and to a lesser extent #3) will serve as the template for all future test-prep classes, and SAT graders of the future will come to cherish the increasingly rare students following the lead of #4."
Going through the college application process myself, I can tell you that what the college admissions professionals look for is nowhere near the same as what the SAT people look for. The SAT graders are simply looking for compliance with a strict formula and a specific sort of writing. It doesn't delight them to have a new, insightful, or personal spin on things. These "creative" touches simply throw them off their schedule - the graders, even those that grade online, have a cue in the form of a stopsign that warns them if they're going too quickly or too slowly. And the graders themselves get penalized if they grade an essay too far away from the other graders (each essay is graded at least twice). Furthermore, the lowest scoring students (as alluded to in the NYT) just ramble on about themselves or their lives, without relating back to the topic. The graders see far to many of these ineffective essays, so it's both dangerous to write one and dangerous to say that the graders like it when they're written.
What this amounts to is a strict penalty for those essays that are either personal or creative, both qualities that college admissions officers laud.
As for predicting that future test-coaches will advise you to take the tact of essay #2, that is, providing a personal and a literary set of anecdotes, I can assure you that such a strategy HAS been in place for quite a long time. I formulated a basic outline before I even BEGAN studying for the SAT's, because the format on the test is the same as EVERY OTHER type of high school writing prompt in the world. I have taken writing tests in two different states - Florida and Virginia. The tests are indistinguisable from each other. These types of prompts have been around for a while, and are here to stay.
Slashdot Mirror
Except, consider that, if we can MANUFACTURE the material, we can easily give it some sort of self-destruct mechanism. Heck, we might be able to design proteins that, in their normal stage, would be reflective, but when denatured (which we could do through some specific sort of radiation, or even some sort of otherwise harmless bacteria, or, idk... the possibilities are fairly diverse)
But anyway, that's my point. If we design the thing from scratch, we can come up with more convenient cleanup methods built in.
I'm suspecting that many of us here on /. know all too well the concept of "null pointers."
Yea... seriously.
It's not like we can, what, I don't know, pre-freeze the water...
The additional threat of this system is that it suffers from all the sorts of security concerns present with traditional wireless v. wired transfer. Sure, data backup is important, but for a good many (if not most) companies, preserving the integrity of the data is even more critical.
Sure, encryption is possible, but heavy encryption may well defeat the point of the speed and ease of the data transfer and backup.
It's also not very convincing to say that, hey, we'll be safe because no one owns the hardware yet. Well, if WiMax is as great as TFA claims, then everyone will have it soon enough.
I'm not saying it's an unworkable idea, but it does have many flaws that have to be overcome before the technology can be completely viable in the mainstream.
I doubt that's true.
After all, who needs Santa when you have PONIES?!!!!!1111
This is /., you don't have a wife!
OTOH, if you're sleeping on other peoples' couches, you probably don't have TOO much money on you.
It depends on the situation, but this certainly looks like a viable alternative to hostels.
Indeed.
640K should be enough for anyone.
There's more scientific evidence to be had than just that; if we can prove a strong statistical correlation between greenhouse gasses and global warming (which is really a moot point, because greenhouse gasses cause global warming by definion... but I digress) and we can prove a logical and scientific causation between greenhouse gas emission and global warming, that knowledge precludes the necessity of seeing if our actions have any effect. Still, a reasonable cost-benefit analysis is essential - if the costs of reducing emissions is larger than the probable effects of global warming, for example, you're right, it's not worth it.
To address your orignal question, even if global warming slows down after 30 years, that's still not even proof that reducing emissions helps. Only a statistical correlation and strong scientific theory backed up by the statistics can "prove" anything.
I was just ready to mod, but your comment caught my eye.
There are several things to this:
A) Reducing emissions doesn't mean an overall reduction in green house gasses - it just means a reduction in the rate of increase. So we're still increasing the amount of greenhouse gasses, just at a slower rate.
B) The environment doesn't turn around that fast; it probably takes longer than 30 or so years for our efforts to have a noticible effect.
C) Our measurement systems might not be precise enough to account for any differences, even if they did happen. AFAIK, a lot of the evidence comes from really old-school ice-core samples from a long time ago. Now, it's hard to prove a correlation (much less causation) with only 30 years of data, however precise. Climatologists are much more worried about (and, thus, I think, do more research about) trends spanning at least a century.
Eh, I wouldn't necessarily say that it would have some negative effect on chances of survival. Remember, it only has to do with living long enough to have lots of babies. After that, you don't really matter to evolution.
Also, keep in mind that we have plenty of former defense mechanisms (storing lots of excess energy as fat, anyone?) that aren't very useful to us now.
The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
I have seen deep-freeze broken, personally, but the student who did it was brilliant. No one else in the lab could do it.
Deep freeze also isn't that bad in terms of being a resource whore; there are much worse programs that serve the same function and take up even more resources.
I would go with deep freeze if I were you - and remember to use a strong bios password.
That's all well and good, but it's not at all representative. It should be a diverse collection, sure, but it shouldn't be downright eclectic. Just to demonstrate a point, look at your "One for each kind of music, one for each kind of computer science, one for each kind of math... One for masonry, or automotive... [etc]"
Consider - It would sure be nice to have a bunch of different math textbooks, and music books ranging from baroque to early 20th century jazz, but if this collection is to be the most useful, texts should be liberated based on exactly that; their utility. Books on actual tradeskills or skills needed by most people would be the most useful.
I like your idea in theory, it just doesn't necessarily make sense to distribute the copyrights based along that distribution.
Yes and no... if you do that, you're just legitimizing their copyright claim, and they may just milk other things for more money later.
"BookLink Technologies pioneered [tabbed browsing] in its InternetWorks browser in 1994."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabbed_browsing
Viral marketing?
Look at how meticulously researched and accurate the article on the Citizendium is. Read the first sentence: "Citizendium, whose name is a portmanteau of citizen and compendium, is a project proposed by Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger on September 15, 2006, intended to begin as a "progressive or gradual fork" of the English Wikipedia.[1] The Citizendium project will be carried out under the auspices of the Citizendium Foundation.[2]"
Notice: A fancy french term, a nice quote, precocious diction, and TWO citations just in the intro.
This seems to be quite a little passive-agressive/bullying hint from the wikipedians.
I'm not saying that scientists are gods or something, but, breaking what you say point by point:
"
- Experts on a subject in a large group tend to be minority, not majority
- If you pick a group entirely of experts, thens til the best experts on a problem will be a minority
- The "stupid" majority silences the "smart" minority
- Groupthink without some totally innovative mechanism is this: random noise + averaging. Hardly making the end product smarter
- Groupthink reduces the chances of factual errors (few agents discovering a factual error will correct it), but if you have too many agents, then there's a pressure to keep "status quo" and corrections might be dismissed.
"
Well:
- Presumably everyone there is going to be an expert
- Again, MIT can come up with the "best" experts
- If the "stupid" majority knows that the "smart" minority may well be right, it's a different story; they all know what's going on.
- I think it's more about harnessing the combined intelligence of these people, which works better than just random noise + averaging. Consider: if they can do it in such a way as to quickly dismiss any negative random noise, they'll benefit.
- Again, if the pressure to keep the status quo is forcibly removed, there won't be such a problem.
This sort of technique, although fundamentally similar to the simple writing by committee, is different when every member of the group is educated, an expert, and knows the shortcomings of the standard committee system. The system here seems to be trying to make it work just like the thought experiment does without any of the real world limitations.
Obviously, there will be limitations. I just think that there will be fewer of them.
Burger flippers, AFAIK, don't do much from a recipe. I thought they just flipped burgers.
Since when do we do things because they're useful? It's just a cool fact, and that's sort of what /. is all about.
Quite right.
Just remember 355/133 (3.1415929...). It's the most accurate fraction possible with only a three-digit numerator and denominator. (WP)
Just uh, btw, Picard = Patrick Stewart = Prof. X. Ian McKellan, who played Magneto, was (afaik) never in any star trek production.
# Picard's adventures spun off three new series, each longer than Kirk's run. Kirk only inspired a one-seasoned cartoon, and six movies.
# Kirk's First Officer played some form of Vulcan harp, an instrument that makes the trombone look like just about the most macho thing this side of Kirk's toupee.
# How many innocent yellow-shirted security officers have been killed by crazed aliens who had taken pot shots at them in the mistaken belief that they were actually shooting at Kirk?
# Kirk commands his ship as if he's driving a tractor across an Iowa wheat field.
# When Picard was 37, he was the Captain of the lowly Stargazer. Starfleet soon learned the value of "progressive experience" having witnessed the disastrous consequences of letting someone take charge of a real ship when their previous vehicular experience extended only as far as driving a tractor across an Iowa wheat field.
# If Kirk had a doctor like Beverly Crusher, Starfleet would have to relocate the command chair in sickbay.
# If Kirk was captain when Tasha Yar died, he would have tried to do her corpse.
# Picard has more than one token black person on his crew.
# Picard isn't afraid to go places without a security team.
# Picard doesn't wear pansy sailor-boy markings on his cuffs.
# Picard has shuttlecraft that can travel faster than Kirk's ship.
# Picard would never have said "He's had too much LDS".
# Picard never has to say stupid things like, "I...am a Gr'up!" in front of young teenage girls who fancy him.
# Picard was actually in his own show's pilot episode.
# Picard never visits planets that look suspiciously like a Californian desert, except for that time he met Kirk.
# Picard won't spend his retirement writing science fiction books or making cameo appearances in Zemeckis & Zemeckis films.
# Picard was never demoted to a lieutenant in the L.A. Police Department.
# Picard is too slim to require a Kellogg's All Bran diet, and too dignified to turn up in an ad for such things.
# Picard's doctor doesn't have to keep reminding him what her job is.
# Picard doesn't have to operate his turbo lifts using hand pumps.
# Picard's main viewer is a 200 inch hi-definition TV with Nicam and Pro-Logic surround-sound.
# Picard's ego wouldn't demand $7 million for a 10 minute appearance in a movie.
# Picard can spend more than 15 minutes on a planet before being shot at or locked up.
# Picard's ship was never taken over by a door-to-door salesman.
# If the Borg had assimilated Kirk, they wouldn't have learned anything.
# Picard's First Officer eats the things that attack Kirk in alien forests.
# Picard would never blow up his own ship.
# Imagine you have to impose your authority: "This is Captain Jean Luc Picard of the Federation Starship Enterprise." Now introduce yourself as "James Tiberius Kirk, but you can call me Jim." See the difference?
# If Q had met Kirk instead of Picard he would have destroyed humanity before Kirk got two words out.
# Who ever heard of the Patrick Stewart foundation?
# One word: Intelligence.
I recently took the new SAT I. I did well, and have no complaints about my score, particularly in writing. This is just to clarify that my critiques aren't from any personal feelings, but rather from logic and experience.
First of all, multitudes of people taking the SAT either lack the skillset required to complete the essay section sucessfully or aren't specifically prepared for the test.
It's not about being a good writer, or being prolific, or even conveying your thoughts. It's only about writing to the test.
Therefore, it's insane to make serious literary criticisms on these writers when they're doing no more than plugging in their personal experiences and bits from US Hisotry to answer the questions. Even the best writers don't necessarily do well; many of my friends, who are much better writers than I, didn't do anywhere near as well as I did. I'm the first to admit I'm not a particularly good writer. But it's not about writing. It's about plugging the test prompt into a preconcieved formula and outputting whatever gobblygook you have to based on the grading rubric. So there are basically a plethora of flaws here.
Looking at more criticism:
"What does this really demonstrate? It's hard to say. Probably, that students who do well on the SAT writing test will also do well writing college application essays. Also, I'll bet that the tactic of Essay #2 (and to a lesser extent #3) will serve as the template for all future test-prep classes, and SAT graders of the future will come to cherish the increasingly rare students following the lead of #4."
Going through the college application process myself, I can tell you that what the college admissions professionals look for is nowhere near the same as what the SAT people look for. The SAT graders are simply looking for compliance with a strict formula and a specific sort of writing. It doesn't delight them to have a new, insightful, or personal spin on things. These "creative" touches simply throw them off their schedule - the graders, even those that grade online, have a cue in the form of a stopsign that warns them if they're going too quickly or too slowly. And the graders themselves get penalized if they grade an essay too far away from the other graders (each essay is graded at least twice). Furthermore, the lowest scoring students (as alluded to in the NYT) just ramble on about themselves or their lives, without relating back to the topic. The graders see far to many of these ineffective essays, so it's both dangerous to write one and dangerous to say that the graders like it when they're written.
What this amounts to is a strict penalty for those essays that are either personal or creative, both qualities that college admissions officers laud.
As for predicting that future test-coaches will advise you to take the tact of essay #2, that is, providing a personal and a literary set of anecdotes, I can assure you that such a strategy HAS been in place for quite a long time. I formulated a basic outline before I even BEGAN studying for the SAT's, because the format on the test is the same as EVERY OTHER type of high school writing prompt in the world. I have taken writing tests in two different states - Florida and Virginia. The tests are indistinguisable from each other. These types of prompts have been around for a while, and are here to stay.
~R