Indeed. And you raise a very interesting question.
Shrub probably ain't gay, but given that he graudated in 1964 from an all boy's school (Andover wasn't coed until the '70s), you gotta wonder just who's crotch he was holding.
... and extrapolating (which, I'll admit, is, somewhat dubious) on to five million years of Elephantidae would suggest that one trillion elephants ever lived and and that the article was off by a factor of 25,000.
Absolutely right. The article's estimate is way low.
In fact:
The 100,000 elephants is low even for today. And as recently as 1970 there were an estimated
1.5 million wild elephants in Africa alone.
Fifty years isn't a bad guess for generations. this article puts life-span at 60 years... but, ater factoring in early mortality, historical average life was probably much, much lower.
Continuing back-of-the-envelope calculations:
Let's say that an average historical elephant population was two million...
... and average life-span was twenty years...
... and assuming an historical period of, say, ten thousand years...
... suggests that two billion elephants ever lived.
Well you know, normally I'd be glad to support this (hey, if the stars are my destination why I am not there yet?), but then I saw Manufacturing Consent last night and realized I don't have to.
I hope that many Slashdotters, whether they love or hate him, are familiar with Noam Chomsky but briefly, he's an MIT linguistics prof (who originated the idea of context free grammars!) and a leading anarchistic social dissident whose primary thesis is that America is ran by power elites who subvert democracy through media control.
One of Chomsky's more interesting ideas is that military spending is primarily a way of subzidizing scientific research (a subtle departure from the usual military-industrial-complex-tyranny-theory or the necessary-external-enemies-theory!).
Thinking along these lines suggests Martian exploraiton by the United States, whatever the direct benefits, must be very appealing to the Secret Masters of Government because:
- Intellectuals (both 'left' and 'right') and other potential trouble-makers tends to like the idea
- It gives the rest of the population sometime to be patriotic about, which makes them generally more pliant politically
- It gives us a new way to spend lots of money on scientific research... which is badly needed since the Soviet block imploded.
Now I hardly agree with everything Chomsky says, but I do find this sort of logic pretty compelling... which means that even if Mars-loving geeks like me step aside Martian exploration in my lifetime is pretty inevitable anyways.
An interview with the man inside the AIBO? I don't buy it. Admittedly I believed the little people inside the TV thing until I was twelve, but I caught on eventually. I'm sure there's just computers and stuff in there.
And, if you know, how hard is it for an USA resident-native to get a Canadian residency-permit & work-visa?
Interesting. I'm a US citizen living and working in Toronto and thinking of coming back.
For legal stuff, you might want to look check out employment authorization info at Citizenship Canada. Basically you'll need to arrange employment and then it should be pretty trivial.
For more perspective on coming up here, feel free to contact me at marcow@ANITSPAM.algorithmics.com.
I don't think you'd ever get free schools, because to be good, a course has to be current, and for that you need new material which means paying someone good to write it.
Good point. Heck, I don't think you'd eve get a free OS, because to be good, a OS has to be current...
Oops, never mind.
Seriously, WNight has some good points. For example I totally agree that human interaction is generally important in pedagogy (though I wouldn't underestimate smart courseware).
And, as ESR and others have pointed out, the open source philosophy works better for some things (OSes) than others (apps).
But just because something hasn't been done, or or wouldn't work the old way, doesn't mean it can't be done, or won't work in a new way.
True enough. But purely fyi, the reference has already been archived here.
I love the web. It's like a blackhole of compressed silliness from which productive time cannot escape.
Re:Hooray! DMP and Slashdot!
on
5 Novels
·
· Score: 1
I wonder how many other Slashdot readers are into Pinkwater?.
Quite a few, I'd expect.
Back at college I was in a group called Storyreading which was kind of like cookies and bed-time stories for post-adolescents. We read all sorts of stuff, including lots of children's literature and ocassional Pinkwater (mostly the picture books). And (dare I say it) most of us were nerds, some the kind that would read Slashdot.
Hmmm... any other storyreaders current or former reading this thread?
I think that much as Slashdot readers are disproprionately interested in SF and comic books and anime many (although perhaps fewer) would appreciate DMP.
IMHO, deep is a little too strong a term. I don't think there was much real profoundity or wisdom in that flick. Where's the deep meaning that wasn't expressed better elsewhere? I don't even believe The Matrix is supposed to be deep.
But I would certainly agree that the Wachowski epitomize cool, and the Matrix was very clever. The Matrix was a ton of fun, largely because of all the archetypal myths they drew on, and all the allusions they (maybe) threw together and let fans think about.
My favorite amusement after the movie was trying to guess the Wachowski brothers' influences, and thinking about how they relate.
Gnostic philosophy? Definitely an influence, but maybe indirectly, e.g. via Philip K. Dick? Which makes me think of the movie Blade Runner... which makes me think of T2 and Dark City... and of course of Hong Kong action flicks, and Akira and...
Or maybe it's not really Levant/Christian gnosticism at all. Maybe Neo is Krishna, ending Kali Yuga. Heck, maybe he's Buddha.
How about Nietzche? How about Ayn Rand?
Or how about other work that was already a mixture to begin with. For example the Invisibles comic. "Jack Frost" =~ "Neo"?.
Or maybe it's all lifted from The Illuminatus Trilogy, that great classic of mind-bending silliness. I'm positive that they lifted the sub from there. Or indirectly from Sewer, Gas and Electric. Or maybe just directly from Atlas Shurgged.
Then again, as Illuminatus points out, just because it really easy to find all this stuff doesn't mean it's all there.
I'm not sure that internet-based voting could decrease apathy per se (see ucblockhead's comment). But it certainly could increase turnout by making voting much easier.
I used to be an economist. We have a pretty cynical and simplisitc view that humans take action when Marginal Benefit > Marginal Cost.
Now the Marginal Benefit of voting is feeling like a good citizen, helping your favorite candidate get elected, etc. I.e. non-apathy.
The cost of voting is mostly the opportunity cost of time, and here the internet could make an obvious difference: vote from home, without a wait!
Personally, I'm so jaded that, if I was asked to (A) commute and wait an hour to pull the lever for, say, Bush or Gore, or could (B) watch two episodes of Seinfeld, I'd vote to veg. It's a protest vote, honest. But if voting just took some mouse clicks, I would at least take the trouble to write-in Pigasus.
I'm not sure that internet voting by itself would make us care more (on the left-hand side) but it could increase turnout by making voting very non-costly to individuals (on the right-hand side). So I agree with Rayban that turnout should increase, especially for small issue where marginal benefit is low.
But the broader, long-term effects of the internet on the left-hand side are less clear. Will the net foster digital democrary make us better informed and active citizens? Or will it deter democracy by making government less relevant or citizens less involved with the physical world? What do you folks think?
I think I pretty much agre with ajs' sentiments here. Books like Sandman do challenge assumptions and not everyone likes assumptions challenged. Heck (see at bottom of here) when a Sandman issue won a World Fantasy Award, they changed the rules.
However I'm not sure I would call my shelf of graphic novels 'literature'. Poetry is generally respected but isn't called 'literature'. My enjoyment of either doesn't suffer the missing label.
And connotations of words do change. Not so long ago "nerd" was always an insult. In fact, with the ever-increasing impact of multimedia (- not a cliche, really it's retro-chic!), I'm almost worried about the fate of old-style "literature".
I think I pretty much agre with ajs' sentiments here. Books like Sandman do challenge assumptions and not everyone likes assumptions challenged. Heck (see(here) when a Sandman issue won a World Fantasy Award, they changed the rules.
However I'm not sure I would call my shelf of graphic novels 'literature'. Poetry is generally respected but isn't called 'literature'. My enjoyment of either doesn't suffer the missing label.
And connotations of words do change. Not so long ago "nerd" was always an insult. In fact, with the ever-increasing impact of multimedia (- not a cliche, really it's retro-chic!), I'm almost worried about the fate of old-style "literature".
Slashdot Mirror
Shrub probably ain't gay, but given that he graudated in 1964 from an all boy's school (Andover wasn't coed until the '70s), you gotta wonder just who's crotch he was holding.
... and extrapolating (which, I'll admit, is, somewhat dubious) on to five million years of Elephantidae would suggest that one trillion elephants ever lived and and that the article was off by a factor of 25,000.
In fact:
The 100,000 elephants is low even for today. And as recently as 1970 there were an estimated 1.5 million wild elephants in Africa alone.
Fifty years isn't a bad guess for generations. this article puts life-span at 60 years... but, ater factoring in early mortality, historical average life was probably much, much lower.
Continuing back-of-the-envelope calculations:
Let's say that an average historical elephant population was two million...
... and average life-span was twenty years...
... and assuming an historical period of, say, ten thousand years...
Silly article.
This and other dubious achievements are discussed here.
Blecch. My Chomsky post leaves me blue. Which is ironic when the subject is such a fun red planet.
Going further off-topic, Mars has been a subject of lots of great science fiction, from CS Lewis to Ray Bradbury to Kim Stanley Robinson.
My recent favorite is Greg Bear's Moving Mars. Any one else have a pick?
Well you know, normally I'd be glad to support this (hey, if the stars are my destination why I am not there yet?), but then I saw Manufacturing Consent last night and realized I don't have to.
I hope that many Slashdotters, whether they love or hate him, are familiar with Noam Chomsky but briefly, he's an MIT linguistics prof (who originated the idea of context free grammars!) and a leading anarchistic social dissident whose primary thesis is that America is ran by power elites who subvert democracy through media control.
One of Chomsky's more interesting ideas is that military spending is primarily a way of subzidizing scientific research (a subtle departure from the usual military-industrial-complex-tyranny-theory or the necessary-external-enemies-theory!).
Thinking along these lines suggests Martian exploraiton by the United States, whatever the direct benefits, must be very appealing to the Secret Masters of Government because:
- Intellectuals (both 'left' and 'right') and other potential trouble-makers tends to like the idea
- It gives the rest of the population sometime to be patriotic about, which makes them generally more pliant politically
- It gives us a new way to spend lots of money on scientific research... which is badly needed since the Soviet block imploded.
Now I hardly agree with everything Chomsky says, but I do find this sort of logic pretty compelling... which means that even if Mars-loving geeks like me step aside Martian exploration in my lifetime is pretty inevitable anyways.
Cheers,
~yair
An interview with the man inside the AIBO?
I don't buy it. Admittedly I believed the
little people inside the TV thing until I was
twelve, but I caught on eventually. I'm sure
there's just computers and stuff in there.
~yair
Oops. Never mind. Reading is hard.
And, if you know, how hard is it for an USA resident-native to get a Canadian residency-permit & work-visa?
Interesting. I'm a US citizen living and working in Toronto and thinking of coming back.
For legal stuff, you might want to look check out employment authorization info at Citizenship Canada. Basically you'll need to arrange employment and then it should be pretty trivial.
For more perspective on coming up here, feel free to contact me at marcow@ANITSPAM.algorithmics.com.
I don't think you'd ever get free schools, because to be good, a course has to be current, and for that you need new material which means paying someone good to write it.
Good point. Heck, I don't think you'd eve
get a free OS, because to be good, a OS
has to be current...
Oops, never mind.
Seriously, WNight has some good points. For
example I totally agree that human interaction
is generally important in pedagogy (though
I wouldn't underestimate smart courseware).
And, as ESR and others have pointed out, the open
source philosophy works better for some things
(OSes) than others (apps).
But just because something hasn't been done, or
or wouldn't work the old way, doesn't mean it can't be done, or won't work in a new way.
True enough. But purely fyi, the reference has already been archived here.
I love the web. It's like a blackhole of compressed silliness from which productive time cannot escape.
I wonder how many other Slashdot readers are into Pinkwater?.
Quite a few, I'd expect.
Back at college I was in a group called Storyreading which was kind of like cookies and bed-time stories for post-adolescents. We read all sorts of stuff, including lots of children's literature and ocassional Pinkwater (mostly the picture books). And (dare I say it) most of us were nerds, some the kind that would read Slashdot.
Hmmm... any other storyreaders current or former reading this thread?
I think that much as Slashdot readers are disproprionately interested in SF and comic books and anime many (although perhaps fewer) would appreciate DMP.
IMHO, deep is a little too strong a term. I don't think there was much real profoundity or wisdom in that flick. Where's the deep meaning that wasn't expressed better elsewhere? I don't even believe The Matrix is supposed to be deep.
But I would certainly agree that the Wachowski epitomize cool, and the Matrix was very clever. The Matrix was a ton of fun, largely because of all the archetypal myths they drew on, and all the allusions they (maybe) threw together and let fans think about.
My favorite amusement after the movie was trying to guess the Wachowski brothers' influences, and thinking about how they relate.
Gnostic philosophy? Definitely an influence, but maybe indirectly, e.g. via Philip K. Dick? Which makes me think of the movie Blade Runner... which makes me think of T2 and Dark City... and of course of Hong Kong action flicks, and Akira and...
Or maybe it's not really Levant/Christian gnosticism at all. Maybe Neo is Krishna, ending Kali Yuga. Heck, maybe he's Buddha.
How about Nietzche? How about Ayn Rand?
Or how about other work that was already a mixture to begin with. For example the Invisibles comic. "Jack Frost" =~ "Neo"?.
Or maybe it's all lifted from The Illuminatus Trilogy, that great classic of mind-bending silliness. I'm positive that they lifted the sub from there. Or indirectly from Sewer, Gas and Electric. Or maybe just directly from Atlas Shurgged.
Then again, as Illuminatus points out, just because it really easy to find all this stuff doesn't mean it's all there.
But it sure is fun looking.
I'm not sure that internet-based voting could decrease apathy per se (see ucblockhead's comment). But it certainly could increase turnout by making voting much easier.
I used to be an economist. We have a pretty cynical and simplisitc view that humans take action when Marginal Benefit > Marginal Cost.
Now the Marginal Benefit of voting is feeling like a good citizen, helping your favorite candidate get elected, etc. I.e. non-apathy.
The cost of voting is mostly the opportunity cost of time, and here the internet could make an obvious difference: vote from home, without a wait!
Personally, I'm so jaded that, if I was asked to (A) commute and wait an hour to pull the lever for, say, Bush or Gore, or could (B) watch two episodes of Seinfeld, I'd vote to veg. It's a protest vote, honest. But if voting just took some mouse clicks, I would at least take the trouble to write-in Pigasus.
I'm not sure that internet voting by itself would make us care more (on the left-hand side) but it could increase turnout by making voting very non-costly to individuals (on the right-hand side). So I agree with Rayban that turnout should increase, especially for small issue where
marginal benefit is low.
But the broader, long-term effects of the internet on the left-hand side are less clear. Will the net foster digital democrary make us better informed and active citizens? Or will it deter democracy by making government less relevant or citizens less involved with the physical world? What do you folks think?
...and thought is viscous.
I think I pretty much agre with ajs' sentiments here. Books like Sandman do challenge assumptions and not everyone likes assumptions challenged. Heck (see at bottom of here) when a Sandman issue won a World Fantasy Award, they changed the rules.
However I'm not sure I would call my shelf of graphic novels 'literature'. Poetry is generally respected but isn't called 'literature'.
My enjoyment of either doesn't suffer the missing
label.
And connotations of words do change. Not so long ago "nerd" was always an insult. In fact, with the ever-increasing impact of multimedia (- not a cliche, really it's retro-chic!), I'm almost worried about the fate of old-style "literature".
...and thought is viscous.
I think I pretty much agre with ajs' sentiments here. Books like Sandman do challenge assumptions and not everyone likes assumptions challenged. Heck (see(here) when a Sandman issue won a World Fantasy Award, they changed the rules.
However I'm not sure I would call my shelf of graphic novels 'literature'. Poetry is generally respected but isn't called 'literature'.
My enjoyment of either doesn't suffer the missing
label.
And connotations of words do change. Not so long ago "nerd" was always an insult. In fact, with the ever-increasing impact of multimedia (- not a cliche, really it's retro-chic!), I'm almost worried about the fate of old-style "literature".