You're probably right about your aunt; being a successful poet puts her, mentally, far above most people. That doesn't really apply to the accountants and the fratboys of the world. And I think we both know if you were to pick up a computational neuroscience book, your physics knowledge would contribute enormously to your understanding of the material, both because of the tie-ins and because your knowledge of physics means you can think scientifically in general. If you couldn't, you wouldn't have your current understanding of physics.
Relative to simple response to stimulus, you're right, driving and shopping are marvelous achievements. But in relation to truly grasping the way things work, I tend to disagree with you. There is a large difference between people who can't figure out the surface area of a cube and, say, Murray Gell-Mann. In the case of scientific writing, though, it doesn't even matter, because it's the same problem - whether the reader is unintelligent or unintellectual, the result is they won't care about, read, or understand the paper.
within the mind of your average joe blow, you will find two shocking things:
1. amazing depths of stupidity
2. amazing heights of intellect
No, you don't. Sorry, I'm not trying to be elitist, I recognize that not everyone has to be an Alpha-Plus, but half the population is below average and all that jazz. The fact of the matter is, if you probe the mind of the average person in an industrialized nation today, you'll find an ASTOUNDING lack of caring about anything intellectual. Ignorance is bliss, and thinking makes people's heads hurt. Most people can get very far in life by responding to every situation with a few predetermined habits, and by and large they do. There's no need to consider carefully the workings of the world, so they don't.
therefore, you sell sophisticated information to joe blow in the only way possible: straightforward. no watering down, no soft pedaling. then watch as what you deem ungraspable (that's the elitism in you) getting grasped notheless
That's also not true. The problem isn't that Joe Blow can't grasp it, but that he won't. If you don't give him a reason to read the big words, he'll turn on the football game and grab a beer.
I know, I'm arguing from stereotypes. I don't care.
Re:If I could do it all over again...
on
MIT's SAT Math Error
·
· Score: 2, Informative
It sounds like you don't have a chemistry or nuclear physics degree.
That's true. I'm currently in my second year studying chemistry. I didn't necessarily mean the degrees wouldn't be useless professionally; I'm very aware that the world is not a meritocracy. I do think that a good education is its own reward, and you have to study a real subject in the arts/sciences for one of those.
By the way, I had been under the impression that engineering degrees were generally for people who wanted to make money (in a normal-ish job) after graduation, while sciences were for people who either wanted to be, or accepted the risk of being in academia for life. Is that not the case?
It could get a lot worse - they could stop being one of the most technically and quantitatively facile institutions on the planet.
Re:If I could do it all over again...
on
MIT's SAT Math Error
·
· Score: -1, Flamebait
You probably majored in Business or Marketing or Music or something like that, didn't you? Maybe you should have studied something real. I doubt a chemistry or a nuclear physics degree would be useless.
Right, that's the point. It's not possible now, not even close. But to say absolutely that it never will is absurd. Are you thinking it will never be possible to remotely detect the firing of an individual neuron? It'll never be possible to collect enough data on a particular brain and its input to correlate signals with thoughts? Ridiculous.
True, but - not only does indiscriminate killing create enemies who use terrorist tactics against you, but it makes you a terrorist. The Russian government is probably a much larger terrorist cell than any of the ones it destroyed.
Of course you can't fight terrorists with giant bombs. You'd also have a hard time being entertained by reality TV or by taking high doses of a CNS depressant, but America sure as hell tries.
I'm no expert, but it seems unlikely that you'd find something in a mile-long path from the landing site that you wouldn't find at the landing site. Life, as we know it at least, spreads wherever there are favorable conditions, so if there's life in one place it should also be in similar places nearby. Only way movement would make a big difference is in landing at boundaries between differing conditions (so you could check two dissimilar places) or difficult-to-land places like craters. Motion takes a lot of energy and a lot of space in the rover, so there's gotta be a compelling reason to use it.
No need for a fancy GUI unless you don't know what music you want to hear.
In which case there's still no need for a fancy GUI:
while [[ true ]]; do export CTR=0; for i in *; do if [[ "$(expr $RANDOM % $(ls -1 * | wc -l))" -eq "$CTR" ]]; then mplayer "$i"; fi; export CTR=$(expr $CTR + 1); done; done
You completely missed the point. GP was implying that the iPhone isn't a nice thing, not $600 worth of nice anyway. Even if it isn't a stretch for your budget you still shouldn't give that much money for such a product.
From the way he phrased it I assume his wife wanted to stay home with the kids. Despite what you hear from feminists and other stupid people, that's not sexist.
Re:Biggest myths of all have been around for ages.
on
Why Myths Persist
·
· Score: 1
You don't talk to many scientists or intellectuals, do you?
Re:Biggest myths of all have been around for ages.
on
Why Myths Persist
·
· Score: 1
No, that's incorrect. Common sense does not dictate spontaneous explosions of matter. What it DOES dictate is that, if you believe mathematics is a good and correct description of the numerical world, then you should not disregard the conclusions of mathematics when it describes something you can't immediately see with the naked eye.
What we really need, though, is for people like you to shut up. "Ooh! Those robots are so tyoot, we should treat them like little dressed-up dogs and make them go say hi to each other! It'd be so super sweet, and maybe they'd die trying to do it and it'd be so romantic and maybe we could make a movie about it! Awwww...." No. We need them to collect scientific data from Mars, which NASA spent almost a billion fucking dollars on them to do. You need to stop thinking with your anus, and go read a book or two.
By the way, dumbass, they're on opposite sides of the planet. You know how far Opportunity traveled on Aug. 21? 13 meters. Take a while for them to meet up at that pace.
Result: pirated drugs are everywhere. Nobody can tell the difference. Thousands of people have died. Lead paint in baby toys.
Secondary result: Police investigate deaths. Mass murderers arrested, given death penalty.
Result: child pornography becomes legalised.
Secondary result: Child abuse still illegal. Freely-traded child porn used as evidence to find and prosecute child abusers and rapists. Police no longer spend hours grabbing lists of child porn viewers so they can have "200 arrests" on their balance sheets without actually fighting child abuse.
Result: Enron. Inability to government finance short-term problems eg. post 9/11 bankruptcy of all airlines.
Concurrent result: Government no longer taxes the hell out of corporations. Airlines don't go bankrupt, because they didn't give the government billions of their dollars every year.
No restrictions on monopolies.
Nobody wants that.
Result: drugs become as common as sweeties. In fact, some manufacturers start adding morphine, heroin, etc. to sweets. Coca-cola reverts back to cocaine.
Secondary result: Parents actually teach their children the true dangers of certain drugs, instead of telling them touching a joint makes you incurably insane.
Slashdot Mirror
On slashdot? You bet your ass it counts for something, most posters haven't done half that!
You're probably right about your aunt; being a successful poet puts her, mentally, far above most people. That doesn't really apply to the accountants and the fratboys of the world. And I think we both know if you were to pick up a computational neuroscience book, your physics knowledge would contribute enormously to your understanding of the material, both because of the tie-ins and because your knowledge of physics means you can think scientifically in general. If you couldn't, you wouldn't have your current understanding of physics.
Relative to simple response to stimulus, you're right, driving and shopping are marvelous achievements. But in relation to truly grasping the way things work, I tend to disagree with you. There is a large difference between people who can't figure out the surface area of a cube and, say, Murray Gell-Mann. In the case of scientific writing, though, it doesn't even matter, because it's the same problem - whether the reader is unintelligent or unintellectual, the result is they won't care about, read, or understand the paper.
That's also not true. The problem isn't that Joe Blow can't grasp it, but that he won't. If you don't give him a reason to read the big words, he'll turn on the football game and grab a beer.
I know, I'm arguing from stereotypes. I don't care.
By the way, I had been under the impression that engineering degrees were generally for people who wanted to make money (in a normal-ish job) after graduation, while sciences were for people who either wanted to be, or accepted the risk of being in academia for life. Is that not the case?
It could get a lot worse - they could stop being one of the most technically and quantitatively facile institutions on the planet.
You probably majored in Business or Marketing or Music or something like that, didn't you? Maybe you should have studied something real. I doubt a chemistry or a nuclear physics degree would be useless.
Right, that's the point. It's not possible now, not even close. But to say absolutely that it never will is absurd. Are you thinking it will never be possible to remotely detect the firing of an individual neuron? It'll never be possible to collect enough data on a particular brain and its input to correlate signals with thoughts? Ridiculous.
Like FLAC?
True, but - not only does indiscriminate killing create enemies who use terrorist tactics against you, but it makes you a terrorist. The Russian government is probably a much larger terrorist cell than any of the ones it destroyed.
I don't doubt that, but it still won't fight terrorism - killing people creates more terrorists, not less.
Of course you can't fight terrorists with giant bombs. You'd also have a hard time being entertained by reality TV or by taking high doses of a CNS depressant, but America sure as hell tries.
I'm no expert, but it seems unlikely that you'd find something in a mile-long path from the landing site that you wouldn't find at the landing site. Life, as we know it at least, spreads wherever there are favorable conditions, so if there's life in one place it should also be in similar places nearby. Only way movement would make a big difference is in landing at boundaries between differing conditions (so you could check two dissimilar places) or difficult-to-land places like craters. Motion takes a lot of energy and a lot of space in the rover, so there's gotta be a compelling reason to use it.
You don't actually think humanity's going to grow up, do you?
while [[ true ]]; do export CTR=0; for i in *; do if [[ "$(expr $RANDOM % $(ls -1 * | wc -l))" -eq "$CTR" ]]; then mplayer "$i"; fi; export CTR=$(expr $CTR + 1); done; done
You completely missed the point. GP was implying that the iPhone isn't a nice thing, not $600 worth of nice anyway. Even if it isn't a stretch for your budget you still shouldn't give that much money for such a product.
From the way he phrased it I assume his wife wanted to stay home with the kids. Despite what you hear from feminists and other stupid people, that's not sexist.
You don't talk to many scientists or intellectuals, do you?
No, that's incorrect. Common sense does not dictate spontaneous explosions of matter. What it DOES dictate is that, if you believe mathematics is a good and correct description of the numerical world, then you should not disregard the conclusions of mathematics when it describes something you can't immediately see with the naked eye.
In an atomic orbital, yes. Spintronics doesn't use electrons in orbitals.
What we really need, though, is for people like you to shut up. "Ooh! Those robots are so tyoot, we should treat them like little dressed-up dogs and make them go say hi to each other! It'd be so super sweet, and maybe they'd die trying to do it and it'd be so romantic and maybe we could make a movie about it! Awwww...." No. We need them to collect scientific data from Mars, which NASA spent almost a billion fucking dollars on them to do. You need to stop thinking with your anus, and go read a book or two.
By the way, dumbass, they're on opposite sides of the planet. You know how far Opportunity traveled on Aug. 21? 13 meters. Take a while for them to meet up at that pace.
Too bad the panels couldn't move, changing their angle while being vibrated, huh?