Pray tell, what makes the theory that macroevolutionary changes are caused by random mutations "science", and the theory that macroevolutionary changes are driven by some non-random intelligence "not science"?
Something that fundamental? Well, I suppose there are people who genuinely don't know. The more the explanation is repeated, I suppose the better the chance that the "swing" demographic may come to realise the difference between them. The answer, then:
The first hypothesis can be tested, whether by observation or by directed experiment. (In particular, it is possible to check for contrary evidence: if any is found, there's something wrong with the hypothesis, and it can be either revised or rejected.)
The second hypothesis can never be tested as it is in principle impossible to do so. (In particular, it is impossible to check for contrary evidence as there is no phenomenon that would ever weaken the hypothesis in the eyes of any of its adherents.)
By virtue of these facts, one is science; the other is, at best, a distraction. QED.
<intentionally missing the joke>Sure, the US has already unilaterally pulled out of about a zillion international treaties in the last six years, why not unilaterally revoke the Bern Convention too.</intentionally missing the joke>
By which I just mean: turning copyright law into something halfway sensible isn't as easy now as it was 122 years ago. The obligations imposed by the Bern Convention are already insane, let along what's happened since Mickey Mouse came along.
Newton plagiarised it too (and I believe the date is uncertain and might be 1676).
"Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more, and things further off, than they could." -- John of Salisbury, 1159
"A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself." -- Robert Burton, 1621
"Dwarfs on the shoulders of giants see further than the giants themselves." -- Stella Didacus, 1622
"A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees the farther of the two." -- George Herbert, 1651
In any case, Newton's statement was intended ironically and as a venomous insult. Newton had been accused of plagiarising Hooke's work, and Newton was infuriated with envy that Hooke had been beating Newton to press in publishing work in optics and calculus. So Newton's implication was simply that Hooke was no giant. (He wasn't exactly a dwarf, either: Hooke is described by John Aubrey as "but of midling stature, something crooked".)
It is the argument repeated time and again on Slashdot. Evul medja execs, blah, cheat artists, blah, get my movies from bit torrent via the Pirate Bay.
(Not the gpp) If you read a bit less selectively you would quickly see that it is not "the" argument repeated constantly. I'm not even sure that it's repeated particularly often here.
Far more prominent is the argument for shorter copyright terms, as a means of encouraging artistic productivity -- usually 14 years, maybe a little longer, and perhaps with the option of renewal, either (1) once on application, or (2) on the basis that IP will be taxable assets thereafter.
That's the kind of argument that I see repeated time and again on Slashdot. I'm not sure you're looking at the same site that I am. If you disagree with those arguments, that's fine. Misrepresenting people's views, strawman arguments, are never acceptable ----
Do you see the C.S. Lewis estate suing folks who write books about the Narnia series?
If this suit is successful, that is exactly what I expect we shall see.
I think I'd better keep an eye out and if necessary forward this story to some folks I know who write articles and teach courses about children's fantasy books, including both Rowling and Lewis.
Seems to me you're drawing distinctions where none truly exist:
[...] Putting the focus on himself is not only his job, but it's part of his act. I mean, four nights a week, he [...] steals the applause [...] Stealing the stage [...] that's second nature to him.
-- see, if I excerpt your text, you could just as easily be talking about "real" politicians.
When a satirist can steal (or come close to stealing) the political process, it says more about the political process than it does about the satirist. He isn't making politics into a joke. He's simply pointing out that it is.
Again, this paragraph works just as well if you replace "satirist" with "career politician". I really see no reason why a career politician would be preferable to someone from a different line of work; what separates them isn't competence or even experience, but simply that the career politicians stand a better chance of getting party support.
So it got us thinking...Why can't we have some sort of "pre-authorization" that shows that we are law-abiding citizens who pose no threat?
Because
That would automatically and immediately make anyone who didn't have such authorization a second-class citizen.
Are you sure you'd get pre-authorization? (Ever smoked marijuana? Been photographed in the vicinity of a student protest? Signed onto a chatroom where something subversive was being discussed? Filed taxes late? Been turned down for a credit card?)
It would be a matter of months before the best way of fast-tracking yourself onto this "pre-authorization" whitelist would be to become a member of The Party. (Oh, and it's more complicated for you than it was for people living in the former USSR: unlike them, you just have to hope you chose the right party...)
In short, you would divide the entire population in one stroke into Party-members and proles. I hope that reference sounds familiar.
"A idea which cannot be tested in any known scientific manner at the moment "
Einsteins theories couldn't be tested 'at the moment' either.
That fact in no was discredits the theory.
You are ill-informed. If that had indeed ever been the case, that would indeed have completely discredited the theory. As it happens, he proposed several tests for general relativity, and confirmation started coming in 1919 (summary). No hypothesis that comes without proposed ways of testing it should ever be taken seriously (or at best, a thought-experiment).
What other industry is there that abuses their customers like this?
Other posters have mentioned the *AA (DRM) and air travel (ID checks on domestic flights); I'd also mention retail outlets that make you present a coupon before you're allowed to leave the shop, and movie theatres where you are required to watch "advertisements" about how evil you are before you're allowed to see what you've paid to see.
I'm not really sure how you think that would work. If you allowed that, you'd open the door to any country enforcing its copyright laws on every other country, simply because the content was potentially accessible to someone in their nation.
Yes. Yes, you would. I rather think that is precisely the idea.
There is something to be said about a painting's appeal over the ages AS it ages. If it's restored beyond a certain point won't we lose some historical context for the pieces and the methods used?
There's something to be said for "oldness" under some circumstances, yes, but if anything, historical context would be re-gained.
Personally, I'd like to see half this much attention being paid to Leonardo's painting of John the Baptist in the next room over, which is greatly superior in my opinion.
(Yes, I mean the Leonardo one, not the "Bacchus/John the Baptist" one that can't be certainly ascribed to Leonardo, though that's also significantly better than the Mona Lisa.)
Actually, which was the first text ever written for the future, as in several centuries? People before the 18th or 19th century never worried about the distant future at all. Their technology was so primitive that they were happy to survive into the next year.
As so often, the Greeks did it first. Thoukydides, on the Peloponnesian War:
But anyone who, on the evidence I have given, arrives at similar conclusions concerning past times, would not be far wrong; he would not be taken in, like the poets who exaggerate their fantasies, or historians who compile works more with a view to pleasing the ear than for truthfulness; their accounts cannot be checked; and as time passes, most of the facts are overwhelmed by myth.... I have not chosen to write of actions carried out in the [Peloponnesian] War based on chance information or out of personal preference, but I have described only things that I either saw myself, or learned from others through the most careful and specific enquiry. My material was gained laboriously, as eye-witnesses of given events gave different accounts of them, whether because of memory or because they were biased to one side or the other.
And it may be that the un-mythical character of these events will seem less pleasant to the ear. But anyone who wants to observe an accurate picture of events that have taken place and which will perhaps take place again in the future through the common human nature of such things: it will be enough if they can judge this material useful.
This work is a possession for all time, rather than a prize composition to be heard once.
-- Thoukydides 1.21-22
(For what it's worth, I know a bloke who posted a copy of Thoukydides to Tony Blair shortly after the beginning of the aggression against Iraq, along with a letter to the effect that those who don't learn from history... you know the rest.)
The fact that anybody is joking about 9 people losing their lives sickens mean. Have you all truly lost touch with reality to the point that the loss of human life is completely lost on you? Seriously?
You're right, it has to be said. I feel so sorry for those poor, poor people who chose to devote their lives to working on making equipment expressly designed to kill and maim human beings indiscriminately. They deserve our unreserved sympathy.
If you need to exchange documents with someone that needs to edit them, PDF is not an option.
Indeed. So in that case, what you do is: you agree between the two of you which format and editing software you want to use.
For example, the two of you might select a format that requires an investment of $500 a head, total $1000, plus upgrade costs if you need to edit it again ten years down the line, plus the cost of training if needed; or you might select one that requires no overhead and which you'll still be able to edit in ten years' time if you need to, plus the cost of training if needed. I think I see a small difference in cost-benefits between the two.
If some moron told me to install an entire office program (A sluggish one that cloned the one I already have, at that), I would email his boss and ask for the correct file format. It's common sense. IF you abuse your position to have people install redundant software, you probably won't be in that position for very long. It's like sending your files in Spanish..doc is the format of business.
I would agree with your response to the moron, but it is equally insulting to send a file in.doc format: if formatting is important, only.pdf will suffice. If you're not sending it in.pdf, you're telling me the layout is irrelevant. And if the layout is irrelevant...
Office file formats are for editing and archiving, not for presentation.
First, the graph shows that the retention rate for all contributors is below 1%. I find that pretty hard to swallow in the first place, and it makes me doubt that it's based on good data, though I suppose the decimal point could be an error (I'm hoping so).
Secondly, the graph shows a continuous line, though the x axis is clearly discrete. Based on the graph, the retention rate for non-registered contributors who have made one edit is about 0.72%; all well and good. How is it that we are given a retention rate for contributors who have made one and a half edits? How is it that we are given a retention rate for contributors who have made no edits? Has any thought at all gone into this?
The rest of the study may possibly have some good stuff in it, but the incompetence that has gone into this graph leaves me with grave reservations. I notice, for example, that the main body on p. 15 refers to "FIGURE 2 ABOUT HERE". I also notice that there is no figure 2. I don't think this study has a shred of credibility.
GP was correct: in Latin the plural of virus "slime, poison" is vira (Dictionary entry) Vir "man" has about as much to do with the matter at hand as vires "strength", i.e. nothing.
Slashdot Mirror
Something that fundamental? Well, I suppose there are people who genuinely don't know. The more the explanation is repeated, I suppose the better the chance that the "swing" demographic may come to realise the difference between them. The answer, then:
The first hypothesis can be tested, whether by observation or by directed experiment. (In particular, it is possible to check for contrary evidence: if any is found, there's something wrong with the hypothesis, and it can be either revised or rejected.)
The second hypothesis can never be tested as it is in principle impossible to do so. (In particular, it is impossible to check for contrary evidence as there is no phenomenon that would ever weaken the hypothesis in the eyes of any of its adherents.)
By virtue of these facts, one is science; the other is, at best, a distraction. QED.
Well, obviously it's because Jar Jar was clearly invented by a ten-year-old.
Really, it explains a lot, doesn't it?
<intentionally missing the joke>Sure, the US has already unilaterally pulled out of about a zillion international treaties in the last six years, why not unilaterally revoke the Bern Convention too.</intentionally missing the joke>
By which I just mean: turning copyright law into something halfway sensible isn't as easy now as it was 122 years ago. The obligations imposed by the Bern Convention are already insane, let along what's happened since Mickey Mouse came along.
Newton plagiarised it too (and I believe the date is uncertain and might be 1676).
"Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more, and things further off, than they could." -- John of Salisbury, 1159
"A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself." -- Robert Burton, 1621
"Dwarfs on the shoulders of giants see further than the giants themselves." -- Stella Didacus, 1622
"A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees the farther of the two." -- George Herbert, 1651
(Courtesy of http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0162b.shtml)
In any case, Newton's statement was intended ironically and as a venomous insult. Newton had been accused of plagiarising Hooke's work, and Newton was infuriated with envy that Hooke had been beating Newton to press in publishing work in optics and calculus. So Newton's implication was simply that Hooke was no giant. (He wasn't exactly a dwarf, either: Hooke is described by John Aubrey as "but of midling stature, something crooked".)
(Not the gpp) If you read a bit less selectively you would quickly see that it is not "the" argument repeated constantly. I'm not even sure that it's repeated particularly often here.
Far more prominent is the argument for shorter copyright terms, as a means of encouraging artistic productivity -- usually 14 years, maybe a little longer, and perhaps with the option of renewal, either (1) once on application, or (2) on the basis that IP will be taxable assets thereafter.
That's the kind of argument that I see repeated time and again on Slashdot. I'm not sure you're looking at the same site that I am. If you disagree with those arguments, that's fine. Misrepresenting people's views, strawman arguments, are never acceptable ----
---- oh. I see. IHBT.
The claim may not be true, but it is indeed made in the article:
make your virtual neighborhood a better place -- that is, in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, where it works right now.If this suit is successful, that is exactly what I expect we shall see.
I think I'd better keep an eye out and if necessary forward this story to some folks I know who write articles and teach courses about children's fantasy books, including both Rowling and Lewis.
D'accord. Ici l'original si vous le préférez.
Seems to me you're drawing distinctions where none truly exist:
[...] Putting the focus on himself is not only his job, but it's part of his act. I mean, four nights a week, he [...] steals the applause [...] Stealing the stage [...] that's second nature to him.-- see, if I excerpt your text, you could just as easily be talking about "real" politicians.
When a satirist can steal (or come close to stealing) the political process, it says more about the political process than it does about the satirist. He isn't making politics into a joke. He's simply pointing out that it is.Again, this paragraph works just as well if you replace "satirist" with "career politician". I really see no reason why a career politician would be preferable to someone from a different line of work; what separates them isn't competence or even experience, but simply that the career politicians stand a better chance of getting party support.
Works fine for UTF-8 for me (which is the encoding I use for all messages I send), in a message I sent to myself using a mixture of alphabets.
Is there some reason why people still use other character sets? Not intentionally trolling, just genuinely wondering.
... Ah, so if you buy a copy in Russia or Thailand, you're buying an "illegal" copy? Well, that clears that up, then.
Because
Einsteins theories couldn't be tested 'at the moment' either.
That fact in no was discredits the theory.
You are ill-informed. If that had indeed ever been the case, that would indeed have completely discredited the theory. As it happens, he proposed several tests for general relativity, and confirmation started coming in 1919 (summary). No hypothesis that comes without proposed ways of testing it should ever be taken seriously (or at best, a thought-experiment).
Other posters have mentioned the *AA (DRM) and air travel (ID checks on domestic flights); I'd also mention retail outlets that make you present a coupon before you're allowed to leave the shop, and movie theatres where you are required to watch "advertisements" about how evil you are before you're allowed to see what you've paid to see.
Yes. Yes, you would. I rather think that is precisely the idea.
I was wondering that too ... I wasn't thinking it's "off", just very ill-informed on the part of the person/people who wrote the article.
There's something to be said for "oldness" under some circumstances, yes, but if anything, historical context would be re-gained.
Personally, I'd like to see half this much attention being paid to Leonardo's painting of John the Baptist in the next room over, which is greatly superior in my opinion.
(Yes, I mean the Leonardo one, not the "Bacchus/John the Baptist" one that can't be certainly ascribed to Leonardo, though that's also significantly better than the Mona Lisa.)
As so often, the Greeks did it first. Thoukydides, on the Peloponnesian War:
But anyone who, on the evidence I have given, arrives at similar conclusions concerning past times, would not be far wrong; he would not be taken in, like the poets who exaggerate their fantasies, or historians who compile works more with a view to pleasing the ear than for truthfulness; their accounts cannot be checked; and as time passes, most of the facts are overwhelmed by myth. ... I have not chosen to write of actions carried out in the [Peloponnesian] War based on chance information or out of personal preference, but I have described only things that I either saw myself, or learned from others through the most careful and specific enquiry. My material was gained laboriously, as eye-witnesses of given events gave different accounts of them, whether because of memory or because they were biased to one side or the other.
And it may be that the un-mythical character of these events will seem less pleasant to the ear. But anyone who wants to observe an accurate picture of events that have taken place and which will perhaps take place again in the future through the common human nature of such things: it will be enough if they can judge this material useful.
This work is a possession for all time, rather than a prize composition to be heard once.
-- Thoukydides 1.21-22
(For what it's worth, I know a bloke who posted a copy of Thoukydides to Tony Blair shortly after the beginning of the aggression against Iraq, along with a letter to the effect that those who don't learn from history ... you know the rest.)
I'm astonished. Astonished.
You're right, it has to be said. I feel so sorry for those poor, poor people who chose to devote their lives to working on making equipment expressly designed to kill and maim human beings indiscriminately. They deserve our unreserved sympathy.
I'm afraid to say, I think the last two words of your post are redundant.
Indeed. So in that case, what you do is: you agree between the two of you which format and editing software you want to use.
For example, the two of you might select a format that requires an investment of $500 a head, total $1000, plus upgrade costs if you need to edit it again ten years down the line, plus the cost of training if needed; or you might select one that requires no overhead and which you'll still be able to edit in ten years' time if you need to, plus the cost of training if needed. I think I see a small difference in cost-benefits between the two.
I would agree with your response to the moron, but it is equally insulting to send a file in .doc format: if formatting is important, only .pdf will suffice. If you're not sending it in .pdf, you're telling me the layout is irrelevant. And if the layout is irrelevant ...
Office file formats are for editing and archiving, not for presentation.
The graph they show is practically meaningless.
The rest of the study may possibly have some good stuff in it, but the incompetence that has gone into this graph leaves me with grave reservations. I notice, for example, that the main body on p. 15 refers to "FIGURE 2 ABOUT HERE". I also notice that there is no figure 2. I don't think this study has a shred of credibility.
GP was correct: in Latin the plural of virus "slime, poison" is vira (Dictionary entry) Vir "man" has about as much to do with the matter at hand as vires "strength", i.e. nothing.