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User: gtall

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  1. Ummm...why? To quote Professor Snape, “The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure. Thoughts are not etched on the inside of skulls, to be perused by an invader. The mind is a complex and many-layered thing.”

    That seems apropos. The brain itself has various parts that work in parallel. What part of it contains the mind that it may be read? It is likely there is no single part, so that parallel parts contents would have to be assembled into a coherent picture. That itself is a moving target because the brain is not static.

    The concept of mind is more abstract than the brain in which it resides. Just what precisely is "the mind"? If anything, it is a process so there is no "reading" it once, assuming it can be "read" at all. Any reader would have to sense trajectories. Yet the trajectories continually get interrupted by outside events, or internal events that are seemingly outside any current trajectory of conscious thought. And it isn't clear there are single trajectories to a stream of consciousness. Many scientists appear to work on problems in the "background", so which trajectory is the main one? How would we discern the difference. How many trajectories are there? They appear to branch promiscuously.

    For me, mind-reading is so ill-defined as to be an incoherent concept.

  2. Nice academic argument, except you left out some rather pertinent facts. The government does not have any manufacturing facilities. They have to buy on the open market just like everyone else. Those suppliers make a profit on government buys or they wouldn't sell to the government.

    Just to make things interesting, if the government is spending money on goods and services, Congress-critters will want to make sure their states and districts get a cut of the pie. So the government cannot simply contract out to the least cost suppliers, and those least cost suppliers might be overseas. Companies can choose those overseas suppliers much more easily than the government can because the Congress-critters will demand it.

  3. Re:This is the issue with executive orders/regulat on Google Joins Apple in Condemning the Repeal of the Clean Power Plan (theverge.com) · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You are confusing Trump and Obama. Obama abused E.O.s because he couldn't get them passed by Congress. Trump is abusing them because he has the attention span of gnat and needs instant gratification so he can bellow at his base about all the wonderful things he's doing to America.

  4. Re:Well if we hope to detangle ourselves from trad on Trump Meets With Apple's Tim Cook To Talk Trade (reuters.com) · · Score: 1

    Bullshit. The only reason the U.S. has the large economy it does is because of international trade.

    American people get control of their country back? To return to what, the 1950s?

  5. Re:Will Trump help Cook on Trump Meets With Apple's Tim Cook To Talk Trade (reuters.com) · · Score: 1

    It never pays to feed the troll. The best thing Cook can do is run the other way whenever Trump comes calling.

  6. Re:We'll make Mexico pay for the trade war on Trump Meets With Apple's Tim Cook To Talk Trade (reuters.com) · · Score: 1

    You mean his alleged administration is more careful about their actions. Trump has the attention span of gnat.

  7. Re:Why do you right wing nutjobs hate the Earth? on White House Reportedly Exploring Wartime Rule To Help Coal, Nuclear (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Re Trump and his approval rating among Republicans. It is possible that the Republicans have chased a fair number of the normal people out of the Party that simply cannot stomach him. So his approval rating would remain high in the left over dregs.

  8. Re:Mythological war on coal. on White House Reportedly Exploring Wartime Rule To Help Coal, Nuclear (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't think the coal industry has enough money to make big contributions to Republicans. Rather, I think the Republicans are playing on the notion that coal will save the states where there are enough fools in those states to think coal could do this.

    As for the Republicans blaming Obama for a "war on coal", in some sense it doesn't matter what Obama did, they'd have picked on something else. They needed an "issue" and the "war on coal" guaranteed them Republican voters. Those states never bought into the whole Environment Degradation issue that is central to Democrats. The voters in those states more or less have a Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to coal. Coal can foul their air and their water, but they understand coal, they do not understand Env. Deg. E. D. doesn't provide jobs. The whole fact that coal doesn't provide many jobs and what jobs it does are being automated away is lost on the voters in those states.

    Nothing the White House can do on coal will save it, natural gas will eat the part of the lunch it hasn't already eaten. I'm unsure about nuclear. If the W.H. were serious about nuclear, they'd solve the waste issue first...but they aren't serious, and solving it would be unglamorous, take a lot of time, require far reaching policy decisions...in short, just what the Republicans are no good at.

  9. Re:Seize the means of production on Many Amazon Warehouse Workers are on Food Stamps (theintercept.com) · · Score: 1

    The truly rich have tax accountants and lawyers to hide their activities. It isn't as though there is a national registry of rich assholes.

  10. Re: The Best People on Senate Confirms Climate Denier With No Scientific Credentials To Head NASA (nytimes.com) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We know he doesn't have a PhD in science. That should make him bang out of line right there. But when has the Trump administration ever cared about qualifications other that sucking up to Trump?

  11. Hmm...might have something to do with name, National Atmospheric and Space Administration.

  12. Not settled, eh? Check out the fish populations it the Atlantic that American fishermen harvest. They've been moving north, and it is costing the fishermen further south to shell more for fuel. I guess the fish get to vote here.

    Hey, maybe the Arctic is warming all by itself...fucking magic!!

  13. Re:The one thing I do not need on an A phone on ZTE Exports Ban May Mean No Google Apps, a Death Sentence For Its Smartphones (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Stop watching T.V., it is bad for you.

  14. Re:Trade war could break out too on ZTE Exports Ban May Mean No Google Apps, a Death Sentence For Its Smartphones (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 2

    The U.S. will pay back its debt, otherwise it would go into default and take down the entire world's finances. As of 2017, China held $1.7 Trillion in U.S. out of about $21 Trillion total U.S. debt. Much of that debt is held by entities in the U.S. including the SS account (and I believe Medicare, but I'm unsure about that one). The problem going forward is not the debt owed by China (or Japan), although they could cause problems if they wanted to stick it to the current alleged American administration. The problem going forward is Congress and the alleged president having no problems with further diving into more debt. Sooner or later, those chickens will come home to roost and every budgetary account of the Fed. Gov. will take a hit.

    And taxes will necessarily go up.

  15. I can understand the need to update a device, certainly for discovered faults. I have a hard time thinking updates are going to be done in realtime while the device is functioning. Say you are on the phone and an update occurs, "Hey fella, I'll need to call you back. An update just bricked my pacemaker."

  16. You have it backwards, the pacemaker was kept and the rest of Dick Cheney replaced. Now he's more of an automaton...well, more so than before.

  17. Re: Idiot post about Silicon Valley on 'Increasingly, People in Silicon Valley Are Losing Touch With Reality' (500ish.com) · · Score: 1

    Maybe you could practice your reading comprehension. He said it "Perhaps we can blame part of it on Trump".

    Well, if the U.S. President gets away with saying asinine things most of his life, and still gets to be President, others merely note what works and do likewise. Advertising works.

  18. Re:What Should Be Banned... on Iran Bans State Bodies From Using Telegram App, Khamenei Shuts Account (reuters.com) · · Score: 1

    Yes, and at least for me, the Disable Advertising automatically disables itself after some unspecified period of time. What's up with that?

  19. Re:Now build a desktop & an internet browser f on Microsoft Built Its Own Custom Linux Kernel For Its New IoT Service (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1

    Ah...no....now go wash your mouth out with soap.

  20. Re:Custom IoT kernel? Why? on Microsoft Built Its Own Custom Linux Kernel For Its New IoT Service (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1

    There is one poster up above who believes that MS has changed its stripes, but not the rest of us.

  21. Re:Obsolete? No, at least not yet. on The Scientific Paper Is Obsolete (theatlantic.com) · · Score: 1

    Errrm...most "papers" these days are never printed. We call them, get this, Documents. And who among us has the time to mechanize a document with computer-driven content, and to what end. And poking in computer driven content does not automatically make for a deeper and clearer message, it isn't magic pixie dust. Difficult concepts and methods are difficult, hence the appellation, "difficult". Sure, let's embed AI into a document. We only need make for sentient AI to understand the document, its context (few documents stand in isolation), and its implications. I have some instructions around here for Deep Thought, I'll get back to you when I find them.

  22. Re: Bull. Shit. on The Scientific Paper Is Obsolete (theatlantic.com) · · Score: 1

    No, it started with the Enlightenment (and before them, the Greeks) when those primeval scientists realized that the masses knew squat and were incapable of understanding more sophisticated concepts and methods. No amount of writing for the masses is going to make them understand complicated interacting systems, mathematics, physics, etc. And most proles don't want to know about those elements of science. What they want are whizzy things that make their lives easier or more fun.

  23. Re:Agile and Scrum Are Like Communism on Survey Finds 'Agile' Competency Is Rare In Organizations (sdtimes.com) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Agile's biggest problem is that it tends to turn out systems that are dirty snowballs. Gluing bits and bobs onto a system using Scrums and Sprints as a filtering device only encourages the bits and bobs becoming unglued later as the system wavers on its rickety foundations. And even the term "sprint" is a term to keep the entire "team" working as if it were always running the last few yards of the last leg in a relay race. Micromanagers using it are telling their people in precise terms they think the people are lazy dolts who require constant needling and pushing to produce. The people get that message loud and clear, and will find ways to push back.

    And Scrums are a godsend for micromanagers who think ordering their flocks daily activities is somehow managing. The point scoring is also tailor made for micromanagers to show their bosses how "much" progress is being made..."Lookee here, see this magic number". Those numbers are pink unicorns and pixie dust to micromanagers.

  24. Re:can't blame Amazon for everything on Trump Orders Audit of Postal Service After Suggesting Amazon Is To Blame For Their Troubles (politico.com) · · Score: 1

    No, the Toys R Us geniuses did anticipate that, they simply figured their business had a sunset provision and were perfectly fine with it.

  25. That made my whole day, thanks!!