Hehe most people and scientists agree that for all intents and purposes the Earth, the Moon, all the major planets and most of their moons are spherical. It's not really much of a debate, I'm sure you yourself can easily classify a basketball (it has slight grooves and bumped texture) as spherical while you wouldn't say the same for a tetrahedra, most potatoes, a banana or almost all naturally occuring rocks (even those polished by water/ice as they tend to be flat).
"No, you're not anti-women, you just want rape victims to suffer for nine more months. After all, they were asking for it, weren't they?"
Wow a straw-man argument delivered on fire. What the hell makes you think that making such accusations is in any way reasonable?
On science; did you miss the SotUA topics on increased maths and science education, increased funds for both private and government research, increased funds for alternative fuels as well as nuclear energy?
"It is the general policy of the the Bush Administration not to allow any dissent"
Uh-huh... so I guess that's why Bush made several positive references to the Democrats in the speech, and why he's trying to put a point across about the difference between positive and negative criticism (not specifically adressed to the Democrats; it's needed on both sides of the aisle), and why you're even allowed to post on the internet?
Don't let your disagreement on some topics cloud everything for you; you'll only stumble around in the dark.
Wow you're either successfully trolling or giving an excellent example of how completely different the world can look depending on who's watching.
How you could interpret Bush's initial small surprise and near-giggle before he reined in the SotUA as getting a little upset is beyond me lol. Actually if you didn't see it live I guess whatever editing room it passed through could be explanation enough -- don't know if that's the explanation but it could explain your other impression as well.
If it wasn't the editing room I can only suppose the world must seem like a very drab humourless place to you.
Then again I like Bush and you don't so perhaps that's all the explanation needed:)
p.s. perhaps you hate it when Bush Sr. & Clinton get so well along, if so you probably seethed at the mention of Clinton as one of Bush Jr.'s favourite persons as well? It was right there in the SotUA as the humourous intro to the Social Security topic.
Your grandfather didn't think Social Security would be there for him. It is. Your father did not think that Social Security would be there for him. It probably will be. You think Social Security will be there for you even if it's just a little.
From this I think you should reach different conclusions than you do in your post. You should not expect Social Security to be there for you at all.
I enjoyed the small "piece de resistance" (sp?) even as a pro-Republican but you hit the nail on the head there.
I'm not an american but it's adamant for those who are to understand how huge an impact social security will (and to a certain extent already does) have. Perhaps they should look at Italian economics as well as what the economic battles in the EU for the last years have been all about.
Not fixing social security will make the present deficit look like paradise and those arguing for one over the other are completely delusional (not even Bush does that as the SotUA clearly showed).
"The Democrats had plenty to say on the matter. It's not their fault that the majority party didn't want anything to do with their ideas. What more were Democrats supposed to do?"
There is only one Congress, not two. They're supposed to do exactly the same as the republicans are supposed to do: build support for their ideas across party lines wherever they can find it. Discuss it, debate it, hone it, and compromise on those things they can before it's put to a vote. Rinse and repeat. Even add a few horses if necessary *shudder* but go light on the camels.
If they're not able to (and it's always hard) then it's dead, but good ideas don't actually have political boundaries and there's always two sides to a trench.
Applies to any politician.
Funny how some commentators have made it an issue about Bush that he's gone to the step of appointing a bipartisan commity on the issue: if Congress is sitting on their thumbs that's all he can do to try to spur them on.
You know I think Bill Clinton did a great job with the economy and I also think Bush does a great job with the economy. That aside people both within and outside government need to get their head out of the sand and start differentiating between spending and investement. Imho a lot of the current spending (including taxcuts) are appropriate investements which will actually pay back into the future economy.
People and especially media always underestimate the Money Multiplier Effect, if they've even heard of it which I don't suppose they have unless they've read real economics.
The deficit can easily be cut in half by 2009 if Congress (republicans and democrats alike) cut the pork. It was nice seeing John McCains response to that but on the other hand he was all alone...
During Clintons years the US government had to stop paychecks to their embassies and was in practice broke for a few weeks. Even with that happening I still think Clinton did a good job and we haven't seen anything close to that situation under Bush nor are we likely to.
Lol yes that was funny and it was easily seen that Bush thought it funny as well before reining it in, I was almost expecting a witty comeback:)
Next on the list of entertainment value would be Republican John McCains (Arizona) exhuberant applause against pork lol:)
But those Democrats... I'm surprised at how lacklustre they were as there were lots of nonpartisan stuff they hardly reacted to, same goes for the Democrat response afterwards by the Governor of Virginia. Kinda feel sorry for the guy, got the impression he was hung out to dry by his fellow Democrats (don't know much about him but he's probably good at his job as long as that job description does not include speeches). Then again just about any Democrat rebuttal speech would be better than last years.
My main impression of the SotUA as well as the comments and rebuttals afterwards is that the Democrats suffer from a major case of Kerryitis: they all remind me of small bitter kindegarden teachers. It's not intended as a flame just a personal observation; they should try not being so dreary (I'm sure they have it in them). Bill Clinton, as we all know, at least had/has plenty of zest;)
On the actual topics of the SotUA I'm surprised the following doesn't create more debate and (hopefully) support: - the initiative including nuclear energy - yet again more money for alternative fuels - combatting oil dependency - increased focus on science and math education
Or are people in general too partisan to approve of this if it's origin isn't their own party? Because I just can't see people having that much trouble with the suggestions themselves...
Wake up and realize that even paranoids have enemies.
I would think they almost always have insanely huge amounts of enemies j/k:)
But wow I've never heard of people signing up to use usernames as insults before, seems your opinons whatever they are have given people a purpose in life (sadly for you and them both not in a positive way though).
On topic: I'm a Bush-supporter and watched the State of the Union address. I'm a bit surprised Slashdotters haven't really picked up on the anti-patenting of human life -- would have thought most people here who are against software patents (I am too) would agree and understand the logic but all we got was yet another stupid flamefest about irrelevant embryonic stemcells (non-embryonic stemcells is the big thing not the fetal ones).
The way things are going I would not be surprised if we get another Republican president in 2008 and hopefully the name will be McCain (who I initially liked best among the Republican contenders in 2000). His exhuberant applause at the pork-chopping suggestion in the SotUA was priceless:)
Interesting idea but as other replies have pointed out it would need more details and some sort of excuse for rogue planets.
Personally I'm not overly concerned about the classification debate but privately I view any object with large enough mass to compress itself by gravity into a spheroid shape as a planet unless it orbits another such planet in which case I see it as a moon. Yes that means Ceres is a planet imo and that Pluto/Charon is a double moon with two additional moons P1 & P2... lol at least the discussion should show people how diverse our solar system is:)
If one takes spheroid shape as the starting point one can still continue the debate to ones hearts delight by arguing over subgroups such as "miniature planets" and what should be the criteria for each subgroup.
Can't help thinking about 'oil in space' when reading that wikipedia article though lol:) (there must be at least partial indegrients to a great SF story somewhere in that).
What kind of sniveling brownnosing asshole mods the parent Offtopic? It's +5 Insightful and not in any way Offtopic.
After enough encouragement CmdrTaco solved the link abuse and deserves accolade for that, hopefully the next priority will be enabeling article moderation (no it won't make Slashdot Digg, it will make Slashdot a better Slashdot).
And suddenly, even though I'm completely unconnected to the theft, I become very rich because I originally chose a humorous surname to my nick on sourceforge, a "surnick" I've since used more than my real nick...
Sorry you're not the first (google "picotechnology") and I have some additional information: true picotechnology will be when we can easily create one kind of atom from another kind of atom by manipulating their subatomic structure (just as true nanotechnology is the manipulation of individual atoms instead of the current buzzword/bs interpretation which is just advanced but "conservative" chemistry).
Drexler is in some ways the Copernicus of our time, sad as that is at least he wont be forgotten by history.
Some of them will but the vocal ones will simply dig up absolutely everything they can to prove they were right in principle, much of which will be of an even more dubious nature than the little red book hoax was. The majority will probably continue unaware that it was admitted to be a hoax anyway.
Took me a while to try to see this from your perspective... but no I think you're absolutely wrong.
One bit of computer memory in abstract needs at least two dimensions: - time/statechange - something for time/statechange to act upon
I can see why one would think of someething like a bit as purely on/off and thus only one dimension, but one can't have time/statechange completely on its own. And you won't be able to do/express much (like the simulation of further dimensions) with one bit of computer memory. If you want more bits it would make an array (or linear list or whatever really) which is a concept that is at least 2-dimensional in itself (and which can easily represent more). With time/statechanges that adds up to at least three dimensions needed (bit, linear address, statechange).
"capable of accurately modeling three-dimensional phenomena"
Yes and an even better example would be to have it model stuff like a pentatope (the simplest regular figure in four dimensions) and then even add POV statechanges (which takes yet another dimension which makes for a total of at least 5 simulated dimensions as you have the four "solid" ones as well as time/statechange) to get the interactive graphic at the linked page. Now you could have a large (actually infinite) number of possible statechanges available through rotation and translation (not implemented at the page for obvious reasons) at any lenght and any angle but that in itself will not enable you to create a simulated sixth dimension. For that you need to introduce a simulation/definition/variables representing a sixth dimension into the code. And even if you do that the simulation is still a 3-dimensional (x,y-coordinate + time) representation: you haven't actually created for real a fifth or sixth dimension.
So the real reason why any of these surveys into abstract higher dimensions are possible has to do with the word model which implies that someone figured out how to simulate additional dimensions. As such it's not an argument in the way you seem to portray it.
"...a zero-dimensional system (a single point)..."
A zero-dimentional system would not be dimensionless if it has statechanges, in fact a zero-dimensional system would be the same as absolute nothingness.
Those misconceptions aside I think you're totally missing the point of the grandparent because you dislike the reference to God. So let's take God out of the picture (even though I personally think the entity belongs there) because the example by the grandparent applies equally to the philosophical question of "free will vs. causality" (aka "How can one have free will in a world ruled by causality?") which such a fifth dimension (or multiverse if you will) solves in just the same way by removing any contradiction between the two.
"A Dell Linux-based laptop with all its hardware features supported would be a very welcome product."
Yes! Then I could wipe it and install OpenBSD on it and still have a chance of the additional laptop-specific hardware working (or being easily hackable)!:)
2+2=4 is mathematics and solely dependant on the chosen axioms (which is why mathematics and similar have a special place within science -- that is; they're incessantly debated as to whether they are actually science).
Let me give an example. If I change the axioms (and this is done for serious purposes for example in fussy logic) I can easily make the following true: 2+2=1
What axiom did I change? I'm no high-level matematician and as such I don't know the name but I can explain it: I changed whatever axiom that says the calculation has to happen linearily to saying that the calculation happens circularily with a circular division of 3.
So imagine an analog clock with three hours in total, start a pointer at 3/0 and move it to 2 then add 2 more "hours" and you'll see that 2+2=1 under that particular axiom.
All mathematics is built this way, all mathematics require/demand intelligence (you) to be perceived as they are logically selfcongruent tautologies (made by you or taught you by other intelligence like mathematicians). We are that intelligence that makes 2+2=4 (there might be others too (but we don't know that yet) and the debate as to whether mathematics would exist without us to think of it is a black hole of philosophy imho).
This does absolutely not mean that mathematics are bogus or irrelevant, quite the opposite.
Slashdot Mirror
Hehe most people and scientists agree that for all intents and purposes the Earth, the Moon, all the major planets and most of their moons are spherical. It's not really much of a debate, I'm sure you yourself can easily classify a basketball (it has slight grooves and bumped texture) as spherical while you wouldn't say the same for a tetrahedra, most potatoes, a banana or almost all naturally occuring rocks (even those polished by water/ice as they tend to be flat).
"No, you're not anti-women, you just want rape victims to suffer for nine more months. After all, they were asking for it, weren't they?"
Wow a straw-man argument delivered on fire. What the hell makes you think that making such accusations is in any way reasonable?
On science; did you miss the SotUA topics on increased maths and science education, increased funds for both private and government research, increased funds for alternative fuels as well as nuclear energy?
"It is the general policy of the the Bush Administration not to allow any dissent"
Uh-huh... so I guess that's why Bush made several positive references to the Democrats in the speech, and why he's trying to put a point across about the difference between positive and negative criticism (not specifically adressed to the Democrats; it's needed on both sides of the aisle), and why you're even allowed to post on the internet?
Don't let your disagreement on some topics cloud everything for you; you'll only stumble around in the dark.
Wow you're either successfully trolling or giving an excellent example of how completely different the world can look depending on who's watching.
:)
How you could interpret Bush's initial small surprise and near-giggle before he reined in the SotUA as getting a little upset is beyond me lol. Actually if you didn't see it live I guess whatever editing room it passed through could be explanation enough -- don't know if that's the explanation but it could explain your other impression as well.
If it wasn't the editing room I can only suppose the world must seem like a very drab humourless place to you.
Then again I like Bush and you don't so perhaps that's all the explanation needed
p.s. perhaps you hate it when Bush Sr. & Clinton get so well along, if so you probably seethed at the mention of Clinton as one of Bush Jr.'s favourite persons as well? It was right there in the SotUA as the humourous intro to the Social Security topic.
Your grandfather didn't think Social Security would be there for him. It is.
Your father did not think that Social Security would be there for him. It probably will be.
You think Social Security will be there for you even if it's just a little.
From this I think you should reach different conclusions than you do in your post. You should not expect Social Security to be there for you at all.
I enjoyed the small "piece de resistance" (sp?) even as a pro-Republican but you hit the nail on the head there.
I'm not an american but it's adamant for those who are to understand how huge an impact social security will (and to a certain extent already does) have. Perhaps they should look at Italian economics as well as what the economic battles in the EU for the last years have been all about.
Not fixing social security will make the present deficit look like paradise and those arguing for one over the other are completely delusional (not even Bush does that as the SotUA clearly showed).
"The Democrats had plenty to say on the matter. It's not their fault that the majority party didn't want anything to do with their ideas. What more were Democrats supposed to do?"
There is only one Congress, not two. They're supposed to do exactly the same as the republicans are supposed to do: build support for their ideas across party lines wherever they can find it. Discuss it, debate it, hone it, and compromise on those things they can before it's put to a vote. Rinse and repeat. Even add a few horses if necessary *shudder* but go light on the camels.
If they're not able to (and it's always hard) then it's dead, but good ideas don't actually have political boundaries and there's always two sides to a trench.
Applies to any politician.
Funny how some commentators have made it an issue about Bush that he's gone to the step of appointing a bipartisan commity on the issue: if Congress is sitting on their thumbs that's all he can do to try to spur them on.
Spending, spending....
You know I think Bill Clinton did a great job with the economy and I also think Bush does a great job with the economy. That aside people both within and outside government need to get their head out of the sand and start differentiating between spending and investement. Imho a lot of the current spending (including taxcuts) are appropriate investements which will actually pay back into the future economy.
People and especially media always underestimate the Money Multiplier Effect, if they've even heard of it which I don't suppose they have unless they've read real economics.
The deficit can easily be cut in half by 2009 if Congress (republicans and democrats alike) cut the pork. It was nice seeing John McCains response to that but on the other hand he was all alone...
During Clintons years the US government had to stop paychecks to their embassies and was in practice broke for a few weeks. Even with that happening I still think Clinton did a good job and we haven't seen anything close to that situation under Bush nor are we likely to.
Lol yes that was funny and it was easily seen that Bush thought it funny as well before reining it in, I was almost expecting a witty comeback :)
:)
;)
Next on the list of entertainment value would be Republican John McCains (Arizona) exhuberant applause against pork lol
But those Democrats... I'm surprised at how lacklustre they were as there were lots of nonpartisan stuff they hardly reacted to, same goes for the Democrat response afterwards by the Governor of Virginia. Kinda feel sorry for the guy, got the impression he was hung out to dry by his fellow Democrats (don't know much about him but he's probably good at his job as long as that job description does not include speeches). Then again just about any Democrat rebuttal speech would be better than last years.
My main impression of the SotUA as well as the comments and rebuttals afterwards is that the Democrats suffer from a major case of Kerryitis: they all remind me of small bitter kindegarden teachers. It's not intended as a flame just a personal observation; they should try not being so dreary (I'm sure they have it in them). Bill Clinton, as we all know, at least had/has plenty of zest
On the actual topics of the SotUA I'm surprised the following doesn't create more debate and (hopefully) support:
- the initiative including nuclear energy
- yet again more money for alternative fuels
- combatting oil dependency
- increased focus on science and math education
Or are people in general too partisan to approve of this if it's origin isn't their own party? Because I just can't see people having that much trouble with the suggestions themselves...
Disclaimer: I'm pro-Republican (like noone knew already lol)
Wake up and realize that even paranoids have enemies.
:)
:)
I would think they almost always have insanely huge amounts of enemies j/k
But wow I've never heard of people signing up to use usernames as insults before, seems your opinons whatever they are have given people a purpose in life (sadly for you and them both not in a positive way though).
On topic: I'm a Bush-supporter and watched the State of the Union address. I'm a bit surprised Slashdotters haven't really picked up on the anti-patenting of human life -- would have thought most people here who are against software patents (I am too) would agree and understand the logic but all we got was yet another stupid flamefest about irrelevant embryonic stemcells (non-embryonic stemcells is the big thing not the fetal ones).
The way things are going I would not be surprised if we get another Republican president in 2008 and hopefully the name will be McCain (who I initially liked best among the Republican contenders in 2000). His exhuberant applause at the pork-chopping suggestion in the SotUA was priceless
Interesting idea but as other replies have pointed out it would need more details and some sort of excuse for rogue planets.
:)
Personally I'm not overly concerned about the classification debate but privately I view any object with large enough mass to compress itself by gravity into a spheroid shape as a planet unless it orbits another such planet in which case I see it as a moon. Yes that means Ceres is a planet imo and that Pluto/Charon is a double moon with two additional moons P1 & P2... lol at least the discussion should show people how diverse our solar system is
If one takes spheroid shape as the starting point one can still continue the debate to ones hearts delight by arguing over subgroups such as "miniature planets" and what should be the criteria for each subgroup.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_o rigin
:) (there must be at least partial indegrients to a great SF story somewhere in that).
Intriguing ideas no matter if right or wrong and I don't think it truly matters in regard to oilprice in light of these Wired articles:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.12/gas.html
Can't help thinking about 'oil in space' when reading that wikipedia article though lol
"I have read Slashdot for a few years, sometimes religiously, but I somehow missed the abr. of dupe."
;) j/k
You Sir must be editor material, expect to be contacted shortly
Because we want Slashdot to be better.
That simple, really, and we can't understand why the powers that be wouldn't jump at this opportunity of making it better.
What kind of sniveling brownnosing asshole mods the parent Offtopic? It's +5 Insightful and not in any way Offtopic.
After enough encouragement CmdrTaco solved the link abuse and deserves accolade for that, hopefully the next priority will be enabeling article moderation (no it won't make Slashdot Digg, it will make Slashdot a better Slashdot).
Moderators and metamoderators: the parent's post is a humorous!
Here it is if somebody haven't seen it or need to laugh a bit: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/end.php
:)
"Alaska can come too"
Oh and happy new year!
And suddenly, even though I'm completely unconnected to the theft, I become very rich because I originally chose a humorous surname to my nick on sourceforge, a "surnick" I've since used more than my real nick...
Sorry you're not the first (google "picotechnology") and I have some additional information: true picotechnology will be when we can easily create one kind of atom from another kind of atom by manipulating their subatomic structure (just as true nanotechnology is the manipulation of individual atoms instead of the current buzzword/bs interpretation which is just advanced but "conservative" chemistry).
Drexler is in some ways the Copernicus of our time, sad as that is at least he wont be forgotten by history.
Bwaaah-hah-ha-ha!!
:)
Thanks for waking up my neighbours
"There is no liberal media, and looking at how they lambasted Clinton over his lie ought to prove that."
Are you saying liberals can't hate adultery as much as anyone else? If so that's silly, of course they can.
Conclusion: media is sensationalist, which is actually much worse than being slanted politically.
Some of them will but the vocal ones will simply dig up absolutely everything they can to prove they were right in principle, much of which will be of an even more dubious nature than the little red book hoax was. The majority will probably continue unaware that it was admitted to be a hoax anyway.
Seen it before, expecting to see it again.
"Computer memory is one-dimensional"
Took me a while to try to see this from your perspective... but no I think you're absolutely wrong.
One bit of computer memory in abstract needs at least two dimensions:
- time/statechange
- something for time/statechange to act upon
I can see why one would think of someething like a bit as purely on/off and thus only one dimension, but one can't have time/statechange completely on its own. And you won't be able to do/express much (like the simulation of further dimensions) with one bit of computer memory. If you want more bits it would make an array (or linear list or whatever really) which is a concept that is at least 2-dimensional in itself (and which can easily represent more). With time/statechanges that adds up to at least three dimensions needed (bit, linear address, statechange).
"capable of accurately modeling three-dimensional phenomena"
Yes and an even better example would be to have it model stuff like a pentatope (the simplest regular figure in four dimensions) and then even add POV statechanges (which takes yet another dimension which makes for a total of at least 5 simulated dimensions as you have the four "solid" ones as well as time/statechange) to get the interactive graphic at the linked page. Now you could have a large (actually infinite) number of possible statechanges available through rotation and translation (not implemented at the page for obvious reasons) at any lenght and any angle but that in itself will not enable you to create a simulated sixth dimension. For that you need to introduce a simulation/definition/variables representing a sixth dimension into the code. And even if you do that the simulation is still a 3-dimensional (x,y-coordinate + time) representation: you haven't actually created for real a fifth or sixth dimension.
So the real reason why any of these surveys into abstract higher dimensions are possible has to do with the word model which implies that someone figured out how to simulate additional dimensions. As such it's not an argument in the way you seem to portray it.
"...a zero-dimensional system (a single point)..."
A zero-dimentional system would not be dimensionless if it has statechanges, in fact a zero-dimensional system would be the same as absolute nothingness.
Those misconceptions aside I think you're totally missing the point of the grandparent because you dislike the reference to God. So let's take God out of the picture (even though I personally think the entity belongs there) because the example by the grandparent applies equally to the philosophical question of "free will vs. causality" (aka "How can one have free will in a world ruled by causality?") which such a fifth dimension (or multiverse if you will) solves in just the same way by removing any contradiction between the two.
Let's make a program to solve this and call it Nitro as an acronym for Nitro Isn't Things Recursively Obfuscated and...
:)
j/k
"A Dell Linux-based laptop with all its hardware features supported would be a very welcome product."
:)
Yes! Then I could wipe it and install OpenBSD on it and still have a chance of the additional laptop-specific hardware working (or being easily hackable)!
If only Dell had the balls to actually do it...
2+2=4 is mathematics and solely dependant on the chosen axioms (which is why mathematics and similar have a special place within science -- that is; they're incessantly debated as to whether they are actually science).
Let me give an example. If I change the axioms (and this is done for serious purposes for example in fussy logic) I can easily make the following true:
2+2=1
What axiom did I change? I'm no high-level matematician and as such I don't know the name but I can explain it: I changed whatever axiom that says the calculation has to happen linearily to saying that the calculation happens circularily with a circular division of 3.
So imagine an analog clock with three hours in total, start a pointer at 3/0 and move it to 2 then add 2 more "hours" and you'll see that 2+2=1 under that particular axiom.
All mathematics is built this way, all mathematics require/demand intelligence (you) to be perceived as they are logically selfcongruent tautologies (made by you or taught you by other intelligence like mathematicians). We are that intelligence that makes 2+2=4 (there might be others too (but we don't know that yet) and the debate as to whether mathematics would exist without us to think of it is a black hole of philosophy imho).
This does absolutely not mean that mathematics are bogus or irrelevant, quite the opposite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom#Mathematics