I'm not fully prosopagnosic but recognizing faces isn't a strength. If someone is out of context I will have a hard time recognizing them (even people I know very well). What I can do is recognize people from their gaits much better - how they walk and move is more identifying to me than what their face looks like).
I'd never be good at describing what someone looks like for a police sketch artist - they have eyes, a mouth, and a nose in the normal positions. That's about it.
I wasn't disingenuous at all. Kodak started the suits (Jan. 2010). Then, as I said, "Apple and HTC sued each other (Apple first)". I'm not defending Apple, I was just correcting the post above implying that Apple started all the suits - they didn't. Besides, Motorola (the company this story is about) went after Apple before Apple went after Motorola.
I meant to include in my previous reply that this particular patent win for Motorola was related to the October 2010 suit against Apple, precisely the one that started this particular battle (i.e., it was not Apple who started the war).
Motorola sued Apple first. They sued before Apple started suing Android manufacturers. I'm not defending Apple or Microsoft or attacking Motorola, it's just that Apple did not start the smartphone patent wars.
Kodak sued Apple in January 2010. Then Apple and HTC sued each other (Apple first) around April 2010. Things started escalating. Motorola sued Apple Oct. 8, 2010 and then Apple countersued a few weeks later. Check out this link for an infographic of the suits (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399098,00.asp). Also, this article for the Motorola v. Apple suit: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-10-06/tech/29972735_1_motorola-patents-motorola-mobility-patent-infringement.
If anyone started the wars, it was Kodak. Apple has played their part in escalating the war but as far as Apple and Motorola are concerned, Motorola started that particular battle.
Way to wrongly stereotype all conservatives. This is an example of an extreme minority of conservatives in one part of the country. PETA is the liberal equivalent of these conservatives; I'm sure most liberals wouldn't want to be lumped in with PETA or some of the extreme greens or animal rights activists.
The LDS Church sued, as you said, over copyright. It had nothing to do with trying to "silence critics with lawsuits". It was about protecting copyrighted materials that were used incorrectly by a couple who spent all their time attacking the LDS Church (Gerald and Sandra Tanner); seriously, that is all that couple did (does? I can't remember if they are still alive or not). The LDS Church simply ignores critics (some individual church members will respond though). It is a doctrine of the church to let people worship how, what, or where they may (that includes worshiping nothing or attacking the LDS Church). The Church will on occasion respond to critics but will not try to silence them.
I've seen this same switch in my neuroscience/neuroimaging field (but over the past 4 years). For a long time neuroimaging post-processing was all Windows. Then it went to Linux (mostly). Now it is almost all Linux and OS X (with some Windows). At conferences or training meetings, most people seem to be running Macs. They have all the benefits of Linux/Unix plus, as you wrote, all the benefits of OS X (plus it's trivial to also run Windows on Macs {yes, that's true for most boxes running Linux}). I keep thinking I should be using Linux more than I do but I have no reason to when I have all the tools I need from Linux in OS X and I don't have fiddle around just to get Linux working flawlessly on my computer (some distros do "just work" now, mostly).
I really enjoyed the Star Trek reboot. In my opinion, it was the the best of the Star Trek movies (but I was never a Trekkie) - yes, I know some people would hang me over that statement. I liked some of the original TV show and movies (as well as Enterprise) but as I said, my life didn't revolve around Star Trek. I just think the new movie was the best of the Star Trek films.
Some of his movies are pretty good. I'll admit that I thought The Island was pretty good and almost thought-provoking. There are many worse movies out there and worse directors.
The shift in CD prices started earlier than 1999. I only rarely paid $15-$20 for a CD at that point, most of them were in the $10-$12 range (purchased on "sales" and online). What Apple did was solidify that price point without having to scour around too much for a deal on an album.
Further, singles were almost always $3-$5 (usually closer to $5). I purchased one single in my life back in the 90s (it was a song not available on an album) but generally would purchase an entire album because I could get the album for $10 (this was when there were starting to be reasonable CD prices). Now singles are inexpensive but back in 90s or earlier, if a song was available as a single, it was still pricey.
I've never had the OS of any of my iOS devices crash (I've had apps crash on occasion but it's really quick to get them open and going again). My Android phone (a $300 Motorola model, new last July) has many app crashes, many more than I see on iOS. Further, I've had the OS crash 5 times in the 7 months I've owned the phone. It's more stable with a custom ROM than it was with stock but it's still far more unstable than anything I see in iOS.
Yes, most of the time they are app crashes and not OS crashes but the OS crashes occur too.
Motorola sued Apple about this issue (maybe not in Germany but certainly here in the U.S.) before Apple really started going after other companies. I'm not defending Apple, I'm just pointing out that this didn't happen to Apple because of them "flinging around lawsuits", Motorola went after Apple before that happened.
True, but why didn't he do this when he had almost a supermajority of Democrats in Congress (during the first 2 years of his time in office)? Getting things passed at that point should have been easy for him (like the massive environmental bill, the massive health insurance reform, and the various stimulus bills were easy). The problem is that Pres. Obama says he cares but he does not do anything about it, except for when he can self-handicap himself (like he can do now with Republicans in control of the House) and reduce his apparent culpability for inaction (i.e., it's the Republicans' fault). Pres. Obama had a wonderful chance to make so real changes to the tax code and other fiscal policy measures but he did not do anything. Conrgess didn't do anything. For better or worse, at least Pres. Bush and the Republicans made changes to the tax code (the changes were positive, the massive increase in spending including for 2 wars were not positive).
Many government meetings begin with prayer; this occurs less than it used to but prayers before government meetings have been the norm since the founding of the nation. Being able to have a prayer at a political rally or a governmental function is a right protected by the 1st Amendment. What is prohibited is declaring a state religion (e.g., the only recognized and sanctioned religion is the Catholic Church or the Methodists or the Baptists) and impeding the free exercise of other religions.
Our nation was founded as a true Judeo-Christian nation, which means that diverse religious or irreligious beliefs are accepted and respected. Our Constitution would not exist without the influence of Christianity (I'm not saying a particular church, I'm referring to the broader Christian belief system). It also wouldn't exist without the influence of some important philosophers. I'm merely saying that Christianity (but particularly the freedom of religion sought by many of the early immigrants to the New World) was a necessary but not sufficient condition for the Constitution.
They are targeting high school and middle school first then will likely move on to college level. It's still a good start for bringing the price of textbooks down.
The past is already censored. We don't study the past so we already don't learn from it. A few people study history but many of our history sources are biased already. The only way to get the least unbiased sources are to go to the primary sources, which few people do (or have the ability to do). Even then, what we have about the past is limited and biased towards/by the literate.
Do what I plan on doing. Put a book together for class and offer it as free. Then, provide all the materials (text, images, videos, etc.) to students without an iOS device; the formatting doesn't have to be as nice.
I agree completely. I am in a field where these sorts of textbooks would be tremendously helpful. In fact, it would be fairly straightforward to put together my own textbook with my own images and movies and diagrams and offer it as a free download to my students. Then, as needed, I could update the book with the latest info. I would offer the material to students without iPads/iPhones/iPod Touches for free, it just wouldn't be quite as pretty. I was planning on my students never having to purchase a textbook again but now this will make it much easier to do that (unfortunately, they'd have to read my own book but at least it would be free, probably about what it would be worth).
We know from brain studies that our brains seem to peak in our mid 20s (although I've seen that number range to 40). Whether or not this translates into cognitive changes is debatable but I'd expect us to start having declines (usually speed of processing - how quickly we can handle information) around that time. However, other research (I can't find the citation right now) shows that for many of our other cognitive domains (other than processing speed) - memory, language, etc. - we see increases until the ages 40-65 (depending on cognitive domain) - and then declines after that. What this means though is that by the time we are old (in our 70s), unless we've developed dementia or some cerebrovascular disease, our abilities are generally as good as they were when we were teenagers or in our early 20s. Basically, our abilities increase and then decrease so we end up not much worse off when we were young (and sometimes still better).
Yes, some areas of cognition do start declining earlier than 45 (probably in our mid 20s) but testing changes are not always significant in the real world. Our tests (neuropsychological/cognitive) do not have as much external (ecological) validity as we would like. So what if we decline? What does that mean for real-world performance? Not always as much as we might think. We are usually good at compensating for deficiencies.
To answer your question though, having 45+ in a longitudinal study is inadequate but better than what we've had in the past (at least with huge samples). These are a good set of data. I'm sure there are some methodological flaws in the study in how they handled repeat testing (my Master's thesis was about how to handle longitudinal cognitive data; i.e., how can we accurately analyze it, accounting for unexplained variance?) but the linear mixed models they used are pretty good statistics (I just don't think that the methods account adequately for regression to the mean and unpredictable test characteristics).
As someone who administers cognitive tests for both research and clinical work, I can state that the Mini-Mental is not a very useful test (we sometimes use it clinically {because medical doctors want it} and for research {because some reviewers think that it's necessary information, which is ridiculous given the amount of other cognitive data we collect}). It's a screener that is easy to administer but it is neither sensitive nor specific. The test, frankly, doesn't tell us very much. There are other alternative and better screeners out there, the MMSE is just the most widely used. The sooner that it stops being used, the better; then we can start giving more useful tests. I'm not saying the MMSE is useless, it's just no big loss if there is copyright being claimed now. We'll move on to something else.
Slashdot Mirror
I should add that I do well on face recognition tests of famous people. My main problem is in vivo situations when people are out of context to me.
I'm not fully prosopagnosic but recognizing faces isn't a strength. If someone is out of context I will have a hard time recognizing them (even people I know very well). What I can do is recognize people from their gaits much better - how they walk and move is more identifying to me than what their face looks like). I'd never be good at describing what someone looks like for a police sketch artist - they have eyes, a mouth, and a nose in the normal positions. That's about it.
I wasn't disingenuous at all. Kodak started the suits (Jan. 2010). Then, as I said, "Apple and HTC sued each other (Apple first)". I'm not defending Apple, I was just correcting the post above implying that Apple started all the suits - they didn't. Besides, Motorola (the company this story is about) went after Apple before Apple went after Motorola.
I meant to include in my previous reply that this particular patent win for Motorola was related to the October 2010 suit against Apple, precisely the one that started this particular battle (i.e., it was not Apple who started the war).
Motorola sued Apple first. They sued before Apple started suing Android manufacturers. I'm not defending Apple or Microsoft or attacking Motorola, it's just that Apple did not start the smartphone patent wars.
Kodak sued Apple in January 2010. Then Apple and HTC sued each other (Apple first) around April 2010. Things started escalating. Motorola sued Apple Oct. 8, 2010 and then Apple countersued a few weeks later. Check out this link for an infographic of the suits (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399098,00.asp).
Also, this article for the Motorola v. Apple suit: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-10-06/tech/29972735_1_motorola-patents-motorola-mobility-patent-infringement.
If anyone started the wars, it was Kodak. Apple has played their part in escalating the war but as far as Apple and Motorola are concerned, Motorola started that particular battle.
"Yeah but in the minds of conservative"
Way to wrongly stereotype all conservatives. This is an example of an extreme minority of conservatives in one part of the country. PETA is the liberal equivalent of these conservatives; I'm sure most liberals wouldn't want to be lumped in with PETA or some of the extreme greens or animal rights activists.
The LDS Church sued, as you said, over copyright. It had nothing to do with trying to "silence critics with lawsuits". It was about protecting copyrighted materials that were used incorrectly by a couple who spent all their time attacking the LDS Church (Gerald and Sandra Tanner); seriously, that is all that couple did (does? I can't remember if they are still alive or not). The LDS Church simply ignores critics (some individual church members will respond though). It is a doctrine of the church to let people worship how, what, or where they may (that includes worshiping nothing or attacking the LDS Church). The Church will on occasion respond to critics but will not try to silence them.
I've seen this same switch in my neuroscience/neuroimaging field (but over the past 4 years). For a long time neuroimaging post-processing was all Windows. Then it went to Linux (mostly). Now it is almost all Linux and OS X (with some Windows). At conferences or training meetings, most people seem to be running Macs. They have all the benefits of Linux/Unix plus, as you wrote, all the benefits of OS X (plus it's trivial to also run Windows on Macs {yes, that's true for most boxes running Linux}). I keep thinking I should be using Linux more than I do but I have no reason to when I have all the tools I need from Linux in OS X and I don't have fiddle around just to get Linux working flawlessly on my computer (some distros do "just work" now, mostly).
Maybe they still mutate. Maybe they are mutant aliens. Maybe they mutated into turtle-looking creatures. Alien and mutant are not mutually exclusive.
"as much as I think Michael Bay is possibly the most inept and visually retarded filmmaker of all time"
That's giving so many other directors way too much credit (obvious example, Ewe Boll).
I really enjoyed the Star Trek reboot. In my opinion, it was the the best of the Star Trek movies (but I was never a Trekkie) - yes, I know some people would hang me over that statement. I liked some of the original TV show and movies (as well as Enterprise) but as I said, my life didn't revolve around Star Trek. I just think the new movie was the best of the Star Trek films.
Some of his movies are pretty good. I'll admit that I thought The Island was pretty good and almost thought-provoking. There are many worse movies out there and worse directors.
The shift in CD prices started earlier than 1999. I only rarely paid $15-$20 for a CD at that point, most of them were in the $10-$12 range (purchased on "sales" and online). What Apple did was solidify that price point without having to scour around too much for a deal on an album.
Further, singles were almost always $3-$5 (usually closer to $5). I purchased one single in my life back in the 90s (it was a song not available on an album) but generally would purchase an entire album because I could get the album for $10 (this was when there were starting to be reasonable CD prices). Now singles are inexpensive but back in 90s or earlier, if a song was available as a single, it was still pricey.
I've never had the OS of any of my iOS devices crash (I've had apps crash on occasion but it's really quick to get them open and going again). My Android phone (a $300 Motorola model, new last July) has many app crashes, many more than I see on iOS. Further, I've had the OS crash 5 times in the 7 months I've owned the phone. It's more stable with a custom ROM than it was with stock but it's still far more unstable than anything I see in iOS.
Yes, most of the time they are app crashes and not OS crashes but the OS crashes occur too.
Motorola sued Apple about this issue (maybe not in Germany but certainly here in the U.S.) before Apple really started going after other companies. I'm not defending Apple, I'm just pointing out that this didn't happen to Apple because of them "flinging around lawsuits", Motorola went after Apple before that happened.
True, but why didn't he do this when he had almost a supermajority of Democrats in Congress (during the first 2 years of his time in office)? Getting things passed at that point should have been easy for him (like the massive environmental bill, the massive health insurance reform, and the various stimulus bills were easy). The problem is that Pres. Obama says he cares but he does not do anything about it, except for when he can self-handicap himself (like he can do now with Republicans in control of the House) and reduce his apparent culpability for inaction (i.e., it's the Republicans' fault). Pres. Obama had a wonderful chance to make so real changes to the tax code and other fiscal policy measures but he did not do anything. Conrgess didn't do anything. For better or worse, at least Pres. Bush and the Republicans made changes to the tax code (the changes were positive, the massive increase in spending including for 2 wars were not positive).
Many government meetings begin with prayer; this occurs less than it used to but prayers before government meetings have been the norm since the founding of the nation. Being able to have a prayer at a political rally or a governmental function is a right protected by the 1st Amendment. What is prohibited is declaring a state religion (e.g., the only recognized and sanctioned religion is the Catholic Church or the Methodists or the Baptists) and impeding the free exercise of other religions.
Our nation was founded as a true Judeo-Christian nation, which means that diverse religious or irreligious beliefs are accepted and respected. Our Constitution would not exist without the influence of Christianity (I'm not saying a particular church, I'm referring to the broader Christian belief system). It also wouldn't exist without the influence of some important philosophers. I'm merely saying that Christianity (but particularly the freedom of religion sought by many of the early immigrants to the New World) was a necessary but not sufficient condition for the Constitution.
They are targeting high school and middle school first then will likely move on to college level. It's still a good start for bringing the price of textbooks down.
I agree completely. If I had the money for one, I'd buy a Volt in a heartbeat.
The past is already censored. We don't study the past so we already don't learn from it. A few people study history but many of our history sources are biased already. The only way to get the least unbiased sources are to go to the primary sources, which few people do (or have the ability to do). Even then, what we have about the past is limited and biased towards/by the literate.
Do what I plan on doing. Put a book together for class and offer it as free. Then, provide all the materials (text, images, videos, etc.) to students without an iOS device; the formatting doesn't have to be as nice.
I agree completely. I am in a field where these sorts of textbooks would be tremendously helpful. In fact, it would be fairly straightforward to put together my own textbook with my own images and movies and diagrams and offer it as a free download to my students. Then, as needed, I could update the book with the latest info. I would offer the material to students without iPads/iPhones/iPod Touches for free, it just wouldn't be quite as pretty. I was planning on my students never having to purchase a textbook again but now this will make it much easier to do that (unfortunately, they'd have to read my own book but at least it would be free, probably about what it would be worth).
We know from brain studies that our brains seem to peak in our mid 20s (although I've seen that number range to 40). Whether or not this translates into cognitive changes is debatable but I'd expect us to start having declines (usually speed of processing - how quickly we can handle information) around that time. However, other research (I can't find the citation right now) shows that for many of our other cognitive domains (other than processing speed) - memory, language, etc. - we see increases until the ages 40-65 (depending on cognitive domain) - and then declines after that. What this means though is that by the time we are old (in our 70s), unless we've developed dementia or some cerebrovascular disease, our abilities are generally as good as they were when we were teenagers or in our early 20s. Basically, our abilities increase and then decrease so we end up not much worse off when we were young (and sometimes still better).
Yes, some areas of cognition do start declining earlier than 45 (probably in our mid 20s) but testing changes are not always significant in the real world. Our tests (neuropsychological/cognitive) do not have as much external (ecological) validity as we would like. So what if we decline? What does that mean for real-world performance? Not always as much as we might think. We are usually good at compensating for deficiencies.
To answer your question though, having 45+ in a longitudinal study is inadequate but better than what we've had in the past (at least with huge samples). These are a good set of data. I'm sure there are some methodological flaws in the study in how they handled repeat testing (my Master's thesis was about how to handle longitudinal cognitive data; i.e., how can we accurately analyze it, accounting for unexplained variance?) but the linear mixed models they used are pretty good statistics (I just don't think that the methods account adequately for regression to the mean and unpredictable test characteristics).
As someone who administers cognitive tests for both research and clinical work, I can state that the Mini-Mental is not a very useful test (we sometimes use it clinically {because medical doctors want it} and for research {because some reviewers think that it's necessary information, which is ridiculous given the amount of other cognitive data we collect}). It's a screener that is easy to administer but it is neither sensitive nor specific. The test, frankly, doesn't tell us very much. There are other alternative and better screeners out there, the MMSE is just the most widely used. The sooner that it stops being used, the better; then we can start giving more useful tests. I'm not saying the MMSE is useless, it's just no big loss if there is copyright being claimed now. We'll move on to something else.