To my mind, the really interesting question is why the universe is so damn mathematical. It's not just that we can measure things, but that things follow mathematical laws so exactly. It's no wonder that no one twigged to this fact for so long; it's such an astoundingly strange notion, from the perspective of pre-scientific peoples. For this reason (along with others), I find myself compelled to admit that a mind-like Higher Power is somehow the ultimate cause of things as we know them.
Or maybe you just have the causal relationship the wrong way around.
I personally find it astonishing how well math describes the universe. I just don't see the world following physical laws, I see the physical laws following the world.
You can be afraid of pain, but not of death, and have the same reaction. Your test is poorly designed.
Actually not. I don't think you'd feel much pain when you finally smash into the canyon floor, and certainly not while you're in flight. In fact, that part would probably be pretty exciting - if it weren't for the fear of the end.
Have the surveyor ever consider the possibility of people become pious due to fear of death?
If they became pious due to fear of death, and after becoming pious are still very much afraid, as the study shows, then that's just another lie of faith revealed, because it apparently doesn't even reduce your fears - which was the very thing that these people had hoped for.
This could be a fear of death thing or it could just be a hope for a miracle.
Frankly, if it is then these people have watched too many Hollywood movies as well as being insane. Newsflash: You believe in an all-present, all-powerful god. There's no reason he couldn't have done his miracle already, no reason to wait until the very last moment.
Really not surprising. They would all embrace death if they actually believed the "heaven and eternal bliss" nonsense.
But it makes me a little less cynical about the human race that deep down they apparently know that it's all lies.
More interesting will be all the weasling around in these comments by the faithful, where they'll pick and choose, just like they do with their holy books where they insist on literal meaning except for the "though shalt not suffer a witch to live" part, which was of course meant metaphorical.:-)
Frankly, what do you people have to compensate here?
I own an iPhone and I'm very happy with it. But if it's not for you then, hey, fine with me. We don't need any "one product only" markets, no matter what Bill thinks. It's called choice and the most stupid thing you can do with it is argue.
Ok, I don't have any kids, nor are any planned, so with that out of the way:
I don't see why you need anything special for kids. Aggressive porn ads is probably something you filter out for yourself as well, so your usual combination of AdBlock, Popup blocker enabled, etc. will do. With that setup, it is very, very likely that your daughter won't see any porn ads she didn't want to see, just like you. And any that still slip through would've almost certainly slipped through another setup as well.
As for the "think of the chiiiiiildren" content - my personal belief is that hiding that away would do great damage to the kid anyways, no matter what the age. I strongly believe that if you are willing to take the time to talk about and explain whatever it is she finds on the web, be it the sourcecode for the Linux USB driver or hardcore porn, you'll do her a much bigger favour.
Time and time again I notice that the parents that are the most restrictive are the ones who have the least interest and time for their kids. They somehow live in this dream world where they think their job as parents is to protect the kid, and that's it. Frankly, that notion is about 100,000 years outdated. Our kids won't be eaten by wolves if we don't watch them, but the gene is still there. In the modern world, kids need guidance a lot more than protection, because them not knowing what a pyramid scheme is or that alcohol should be consumed in moderation is a lot more dangerous than them knowing all about sex at age six.
There are certain skilled jobs that allow the skilled employee to hold others hostage.
Agreed, it isn't every other job. But it is a lot more than you'd think at first glance.
I've met people like that in the legal and HR departments, in marketing, in networking and in sales. And I dare say that some secretaries know a lot more and are a lot more important to the company, than their bosses. I know how dumb I occasionally look when mine's on holiday.:-)
1: Who the fuck invites anti ballistic missile system developers to brainstorming sessions on how to fight malaria? 2: If the only tool you know how to use is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Actually, he did not propose to nuke them with an ABM.:-)
It gives me, the customer, absolutely nothing to work with. There's a reason we don't calculate "miles per gallon" (or km/l over here) for the "pedal to the metal" case.
In an ideal world (you know, where everyone knows basic math and nobody is fooled by politicians' campaign promises) you'd have a bunch of measurements at various loads and simply print a curve that tells me what I need to know because I have a somewhat good feeling for where my average use scenario is on the curve.
There's absolutely nothing specific to developers here. You have the same kind of people in every other job.
The one question you need to find an answer to is this: Teamwork or solo heroes?
If, for whatever reason, your project needs a team to work, say you want to support it for years to come and can not 100% guarantee that the one developer is still on board by then, or it is simply so large that you need more than one person to do it, then you absolutely can not use asocial people. Any and all attempts to somehow fit them into the team, or build the project around this inherent conflict will fail. You can't go faster than the speed of light, it really is that simple.
However, there are projects where you need a lone hero. A crash project that needs to be done with next week, and can be shut down the week later, but it absolutely must be there during that time, and there's absolutely no way you can get it done while following procedure. Or - the more common case - you inherited a project that only this one dude even understands, and you don't have the manpower to replace it or reverse-engineer it. And sometimes, you have a project you want to fail spectacularily, and absolutely no team will give you the same show for your money that a fanatical lone hero can bring.
So if you need a hero, then enable him, empower them, and suck it up. If you need a team, kick out the hero and make sure your team knows who to thank for it. Just don't try to have both. You can't. Been there, survived it, and I did, in fact, get a T-Shirt.
We were just talking about general education here. I'd much prefer having school children with a rough sense of historic events and causes to having them memorized a hundred dates and not knowing the meaning of any of them.
With unlimited time, you could do great things. Unfortunately, you have 1-2 hours per subject per week, and most of the kids tune out after 10 minutes.
Thanks to No Child Left Behind, we are now rigorously tested on the breadth of what we teach.
Oh yeah. I can rant about that for hours.
See, I'm one of those kids whose marks started to plummet in the 3rd grade, so badly that my parents had me examined. Turns out I wasn't bad, I was bored. Breadth. I still pick up broad summaries instantaneously today. Tell me something shallow about any topic whatsoever and I'll still know it a month or a year from now. Apparently, that's not typical and most people need repetition even on the trivial facts. Later in high school and much later in university, I finally got the depth I need.
If school doesn't provide depth, it might be good for the dumbfucks who'd not catch up otherwise, but it'll ruin the brilliant kids.
To understand that one helped the other happen, -because the king of Spain was busy fighting in his homeland to quash the rebels over South America- you need some dates.
Not really. The meaningful fact is that these two events happened at the same time, not what that time was. Correlation and causation are important, not coincidence.
I say we take the trivia out of science education, and put the scientific method in. People need critical thinking skills, and problem solving methodologies a hell of a lot more than they need pi to 20 digits, or to be able name our current geologic epoch (Holocene), or any of a number of worthless pieces of trivia.
Mod parent up. A lot.
That's the problem with school. You learn by rote as if the exact birthdates, or dates of battles or whatever in history, the exact atomic masses of elements in chemistry, or the precise value of e in math, of the speed of light in physics, etc. would mean anything. Most importantly, even if they do, few teachers tell you what it is.
Sorry, I couldn't care less if the battle of Waterloo was whenever. I don't see what it matters. However, I do find it quite interesting how we know when it was. Even more so the more unreliable our sources get. The process of finding out c is a lot more interesting to me than the precise value. The meaning of it, e.g. the difference it makes to physics, is also a lot more interesting.
We are lacking meaning in our education, and yet the human brain is hardwired to look for meaning. If you learn something that means nothing, you are biologically hardwired to discard it. That's why there are so many mnemonics to help you learn useless facts.
So, what is the meaning of it? Does it make a meaningful difference if the earth is 69% or 71% covered with water? I dare say no, so why should I care as long as the number is roughly correct? Heck, "about two-thirds" is detailed enough for 99% of us. There's no meaning in knowing it any more precisely.
OS X is now up to anywhere between 8% and 15% market share, depending which statistics you want to believe, and it has started to become a target. The magic number certainly isn't at 50%, probably more like 20%.
While it's true that a few select apps are making developers rich, the reality is that most apps don't make a lot of money.
What a surprise. Not so different from the real world, is it? Where every now and then, some idea goes big and makes someone rich, and for every one such lucky guy, there's a thousand whose ideas never work out.
What's even the story here? "Some products sell real well, most sell average"? Why not take it further? "Bell curve distribution confirmed for the 4,000th time!"?:-)
Seems it's more than a day, it's a week. This is paid-for-bashing at its worst.
Seriously:
In a blog post I take a hard look at the first 24 days of sales data for the first game, Dapple, from Streaming Colour Studios
You take a "hard look" at one game. And a game, to boot. You might have noticed that the "games" category is by far the largest, thus the fiercest market.
A friend of mine is an iPhone game developer. He's got three games and four or so small apps in the app store. He's not a millionaire, but from what I hear there's a steady stream of good income. That's seven times the data points of TFA, and still I wouldn't dare to claim that as "the norm".
Using history as a measure of judicial decision would imprison most white people in the United States, would it not?
The measurement is continuity. Obviously, I can not be imprisoned for the deeds of my grandfather, whatever they were, because we are not the same person.
The roman-catholic church, however, is still the same institution. Continuity dictates that is is responsible for the actions it did two hundred years ago. Note: The institution, not the people. Except where they continue those actions today (which is plenty).
The same holds true of the faith at large. Let's make a quick check if it might be you who is consistent - or not. Imagine that John Doe would set up a party called the National Socialist Democratic All-American Party (NSDAP). And his rhetorics, claims, etc. are all the same as they were 70 years ago in Germany. What would you think? "Hey, it's a different bloke, yeah, same belief system but maybe this time they'll implement it human-friendly" ?
Each person deserves to be judged on their own merits, and that's all, according to western laws.
Person, yes. But I'm judging the faith, not the persons holding it, or rather only in regards to their faith.
I'm not saying you are a bad person. I'm saying the christian faith is a fucked up evil belief that continues to kill throughout history, and would very likely qualify as a form of insanity if it were possible to investigate that matter without bias.
The only real reason for bigger meetings is to share blame.
Too simple. It might often be one reason, but there are quite a few others. In my specific case, for example, I don't even set the number of people I have to invite, the law does. Sure, the meeting might be more productive with less people, certainly without a couple specific ones, but if for whatever reason you can't choose (and while mine is an especially clear case, you very often can't really choose all that much) - well, then there's other variables that you can and should work with.
If you read any management theory textbook written in the last 30 years, you'll see exactly this advice.
Yeah, thanks. They probably go on to mention that in real life, things are a tad more complicated. For example, sometimes people insist on attending even though it bores them to death, because it's a status symbol, makes them feel important, or even justifies their position. Sometimes you have to have people from every department or site involved in the room, just to make sure nobody can say afterwards that they weren't asked for their opinion.
There's lots and lots of other soft factors.
Sometimes, you know perfectly well that inviting just three people would give you a much better meeting - but you don't know which three.
Nah, the advise is sound. Implementing it can get a bit tricky. "turn your mobiles off, please" is very simple, and gives immediate ROI.
How are these people supposed to break even, let alone profit?
By thinking about that before they sink money into it?
Welcome back to the 1990s, when everyone thought any money you put into that IntarWeb (now 2.0) thing would magically return to you tenfold. Between then and now, we had a little clash with reality, and reality won.
If you don't have a business model, then don't complain when it's not working out financially. It really is as simple as that. Think first, then act. Pretty reliable process, suggest it to your friends.
Is it anti-AppStore-ranting day? Must've missed that in the calender, but this is the second story of this kind that takes a non-story, blows it out of proportion, and doesn't even mention the really interesting parts (like the fact that such a store already exists, oops).
Did a/. editor break his iPhone and feels like he must vent or what's going on?:-)
Good points, but this is still just a different (better perhaps?) implementation of the same concept. The big issue with the implementation is that it will only "know" what you tell it, the same as any other computer.
Or human, for that matter.
The big difference is inference. If I tell you the facts "John married Jane in 1981" and "Frank is Johns son, he's 15", you will probably conclude that Jane is very likely Franks mother, at least until you get conflicting information. Computers so far could not. AI research has been working on giving them that ability for almost 20 years now. After lots and lots of failures, they've also made some progress. The big issue hasn't been the collection of facts for years now, but how to combine those facts to generate new "knowledge". That's something we humans do with so much ease that it is too easy and gets us to generate false "knowledge" all the time - marketing are experts at exploiting that, as are novel writers.
Slashdot Mirror
To my mind, the really interesting question is why the universe is so damn mathematical. It's not just that we can measure things, but that things follow mathematical laws so exactly. It's no wonder that no one twigged to this fact for so long; it's such an astoundingly strange notion, from the perspective of pre-scientific peoples. For this reason (along with others), I find myself compelled to admit that a mind-like Higher Power is somehow the ultimate cause of things as we know them.
Or maybe you just have the causal relationship the wrong way around.
I personally find it astonishing how well math describes the universe. I just don't see the world following physical laws, I see the physical laws following the world.
You can be afraid of pain, but not of death, and have the same reaction. Your test is poorly designed.
Actually not. I don't think you'd feel much pain when you finally smash into the canyon floor, and certainly not while you're in flight. In fact, that part would probably be pretty exciting - if it weren't for the fear of the end.
Have the surveyor ever consider the possibility of people become pious due to fear of death?
If they became pious due to fear of death, and after becoming pious are still very much afraid, as the study shows, then that's just another lie of faith revealed, because it apparently doesn't even reduce your fears - which was the very thing that these people had hoped for.
This could be a fear of death thing or it could just be a hope for a miracle.
Frankly, if it is then these people have watched too many Hollywood movies as well as being insane. Newsflash: You believe in an all-present, all-powerful god. There's no reason he couldn't have done his miracle already, no reason to wait until the very last moment.
Really not surprising. They would all embrace death if they actually believed the "heaven and eternal bliss" nonsense.
But it makes me a little less cynical about the human race that deep down they apparently know that it's all lies.
More interesting will be all the weasling around in these comments by the faithful, where they'll pick and choose, just like they do with their holy books where they insist on literal meaning except for the "though shalt not suffer a witch to live" part, which was of course meant metaphorical. :-)
Frankly, what do you people have to compensate here?
I own an iPhone and I'm very happy with it. But if it's not for you then, hey, fine with me. We don't need any "one product only" markets, no matter what Bill thinks. It's called choice and the most stupid thing you can do with it is argue.
Ok, I don't have any kids, nor are any planned, so with that out of the way:
I don't see why you need anything special for kids. Aggressive porn ads is probably something you filter out for yourself as well, so your usual combination of AdBlock, Popup blocker enabled, etc. will do. With that setup, it is very, very likely that your daughter won't see any porn ads she didn't want to see, just like you. And any that still slip through would've almost certainly slipped through another setup as well.
As for the "think of the chiiiiiildren" content - my personal belief is that hiding that away would do great damage to the kid anyways, no matter what the age. I strongly believe that if you are willing to take the time to talk about and explain whatever it is she finds on the web, be it the sourcecode for the Linux USB driver or hardcore porn, you'll do her a much bigger favour.
Time and time again I notice that the parents that are the most restrictive are the ones who have the least interest and time for their kids. They somehow live in this dream world where they think their job as parents is to protect the kid, and that's it. Frankly, that notion is about 100,000 years outdated. Our kids won't be eaten by wolves if we don't watch them, but the gene is still there. In the modern world, kids need guidance a lot more than protection, because them not knowing what a pyramid scheme is or that alcohol should be consumed in moderation is a lot more dangerous than them knowing all about sex at age six.
There are certain skilled jobs that allow the skilled employee to hold others hostage.
Agreed, it isn't every other job. But it is a lot more than you'd think at first glance.
I've met people like that in the legal and HR departments, in marketing, in networking and in sales. And I dare say that some secretaries know a lot more and are a lot more important to the company, than their bosses. I know how dumb I occasionally look when mine's on holiday. :-)
1: Who the fuck invites anti ballistic missile system developers to brainstorming sessions on how to fight malaria?
2: If the only tool you know how to use is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Actually, he did not propose to nuke them with an ABM. :-)
What is wrong with that?
It gives me, the customer, absolutely nothing to work with. There's a reason we don't calculate "miles per gallon" (or km/l over here) for the "pedal to the metal" case.
In an ideal world (you know, where everyone knows basic math and nobody is fooled by politicians' campaign promises) you'd have a bunch of measurements at various loads and simply print a curve that tells me what I need to know because I have a somewhat good feeling for where my average use scenario is on the curve.
There's absolutely nothing specific to developers here. You have the same kind of people in every other job.
The one question you need to find an answer to is this: Teamwork or solo heroes?
If, for whatever reason, your project needs a team to work, say you want to support it for years to come and can not 100% guarantee that the one developer is still on board by then, or it is simply so large that you need more than one person to do it, then you absolutely can not use asocial people. Any and all attempts to somehow fit them into the team, or build the project around this inherent conflict will fail. You can't go faster than the speed of light, it really is that simple.
However, there are projects where you need a lone hero. A crash project that needs to be done with next week, and can be shut down the week later, but it absolutely must be there during that time, and there's absolutely no way you can get it done while following procedure. Or - the more common case - you inherited a project that only this one dude even understands, and you don't have the manpower to replace it or reverse-engineer it. And sometimes, you have a project you want to fail spectacularily, and absolutely no team will give you the same show for your money that a fanatical lone hero can bring.
So if you need a hero, then enable him, empower them, and suck it up. If you need a team, kick out the hero and make sure your team knows who to thank for it. Just don't try to have both. You can't. Been there, survived it, and I did, in fact, get a T-Shirt.
Yes, all true.
We were just talking about general education here. I'd much prefer having school children with a rough sense of historic events and causes to having them memorized a hundred dates and not knowing the meaning of any of them.
With unlimited time, you could do great things. Unfortunately, you have 1-2 hours per subject per week, and most of the kids tune out after 10 minutes.
Thanks to No Child Left Behind, we are now rigorously tested on the breadth of what we teach.
Oh yeah. I can rant about that for hours.
See, I'm one of those kids whose marks started to plummet in the 3rd grade, so badly that my parents had me examined. Turns out I wasn't bad, I was bored. Breadth. I still pick up broad summaries instantaneously today. Tell me something shallow about any topic whatsoever and I'll still know it a month or a year from now. Apparently, that's not typical and most people need repetition even on the trivial facts. Later in high school and much later in university, I finally got the depth I need.
If school doesn't provide depth, it might be good for the dumbfucks who'd not catch up otherwise, but it'll ruin the brilliant kids.
To understand that one helped the other happen, -because the king of Spain was busy fighting in his homeland to quash the rebels over South America- you need some dates.
Not really. The meaningful fact is that these two events happened at the same time, not what that time was. Correlation and causation are important, not coincidence.
I say we take the trivia out of science education, and put the scientific method in. People need critical thinking skills, and problem solving methodologies a hell of a lot more than they need pi to 20 digits, or to be able name our current geologic epoch (Holocene), or any of a number of worthless pieces of trivia.
Mod parent up. A lot.
That's the problem with school. You learn by rote as if the exact birthdates, or dates of battles or whatever in history, the exact atomic masses of elements in chemistry, or the precise value of e in math, of the speed of light in physics, etc. would mean anything. Most importantly, even if they do, few teachers tell you what it is.
Sorry, I couldn't care less if the battle of Waterloo was whenever. I don't see what it matters. However, I do find it quite interesting how we know when it was. Even more so the more unreliable our sources get. The process of finding out c is a lot more interesting to me than the precise value. The meaning of it, e.g. the difference it makes to physics, is also a lot more interesting.
We are lacking meaning in our education, and yet the human brain is hardwired to look for meaning. If you learn something that means nothing, you are biologically hardwired to discard it. That's why there are so many mnemonics to help you learn useless facts.
So, what is the meaning of it? Does it make a meaningful difference if the earth is 69% or 71% covered with water? I dare say no, so why should I care as long as the number is roughly correct? Heck, "about two-thirds" is detailed enough for 99% of us. There's no meaning in knowing it any more precisely.
Probably the first OS X virus in the wild is from 2006:
* http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Virus-fuer-Mac-OS-X-aufgetaucht--/meldung/69677 (german, sorry)
* http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2006/02/macosxleap.htm
Then there was some malware released in 2007 and 2008:
* http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2007/10/mac_os_x_malware_targets_porn_surfers.html
* http://www.tuaw.com/2008/11/21/new-mac-os-x-malware-osx_lamzev-a/
And then there was something early this year where I can't find the link right now.
True, could be. Now that would be an interesting story - the actual distribution of sales across the AppStore.
Wrong.
OS X is now up to anywhere between 8% and 15% market share, depending which statistics you want to believe, and it has started to become a target. The magic number certainly isn't at 50%, probably more like 20%.
While it's true that a few select apps are making developers rich, the reality is that most apps don't make a lot of money.
What a surprise. Not so different from the real world, is it? Where every now and then, some idea goes big and makes someone rich, and for every one such lucky guy, there's a thousand whose ideas never work out.
What's even the story here? "Some products sell real well, most sell average"? Why not take it further? "Bell curve distribution confirmed for the 4,000th time!"? :-)
I refer to my post yesterday.
Seems it's more than a day, it's a week. This is paid-for-bashing at its worst.
Seriously:
In a blog post I take a hard look at the first 24 days of sales data for the first game, Dapple, from Streaming Colour Studios
You take a "hard look" at one game. And a game, to boot. You might have noticed that the "games" category is by far the largest, thus the fiercest market.
A friend of mine is an iPhone game developer. He's got three games and four or so small apps in the app store. He's not a millionaire, but from what I hear there's a steady stream of good income. That's seven times the data points of TFA, and still I wouldn't dare to claim that as "the norm".
Using history as a measure of judicial decision would imprison most white people in the United States, would it not?
The measurement is continuity. Obviously, I can not be imprisoned for the deeds of my grandfather, whatever they were, because we are not the same person.
The roman-catholic church, however, is still the same institution. Continuity dictates that is is responsible for the actions it did two hundred years ago. Note: The institution, not the people. Except where they continue those actions today (which is plenty).
The same holds true of the faith at large. Let's make a quick check if it might be you who is consistent - or not. Imagine that John Doe would set up a party called the National Socialist Democratic All-American Party (NSDAP). And his rhetorics, claims, etc. are all the same as they were 70 years ago in Germany. What would you think? "Hey, it's a different bloke, yeah, same belief system but maybe this time they'll implement it human-friendly" ?
Each person deserves to be judged on their own merits, and that's all, according to western laws.
Person, yes. But I'm judging the faith, not the persons holding it, or rather only in regards to their faith.
I'm not saying you are a bad person. I'm saying the christian faith is a fucked up evil belief that continues to kill throughout history, and would very likely qualify as a form of insanity if it were possible to investigate that matter without bias.
The only real reason for bigger meetings is to share blame.
Too simple. It might often be one reason, but there are quite a few others. In my specific case, for example, I don't even set the number of people I have to invite, the law does. Sure, the meeting might be more productive with less people, certainly without a couple specific ones, but if for whatever reason you can't choose (and while mine is an especially clear case, you very often can't really choose all that much) - well, then there's other variables that you can and should work with.
If you read any management theory textbook written in the last 30 years, you'll see exactly this advice.
Yeah, thanks. They probably go on to mention that in real life, things are a tad more complicated. For example, sometimes people insist on attending even though it bores them to death, because it's a status symbol, makes them feel important, or even justifies their position. Sometimes you have to have people from every department or site involved in the room, just to make sure nobody can say afterwards that they weren't asked for their opinion.
There's lots and lots of other soft factors.
Sometimes, you know perfectly well that inviting just three people would give you a much better meeting - but you don't know which three.
Nah, the advise is sound. Implementing it can get a bit tricky. "turn your mobiles off, please" is very simple, and gives immediate ROI.
How are these people supposed to break even, let alone profit?
By thinking about that before they sink money into it?
Welcome back to the 1990s, when everyone thought any money you put into that IntarWeb (now 2.0) thing would magically return to you tenfold. Between then and now, we had a little clash with reality, and reality won.
If you don't have a business model, then don't complain when it's not working out financially. It really is as simple as that. Think first, then act. Pretty reliable process, suggest it to your friends.
Is it anti-AppStore-ranting day? Must've missed that in the calender, but this is the second story of this kind that takes a non-story, blows it out of proportion, and doesn't even mention the really interesting parts (like the fact that such a store already exists, oops).
Did a /. editor break his iPhone and feels like he must vent or what's going on? :-)
Good points, but this is still just a different (better perhaps?) implementation of the same concept. The big issue with the implementation is that it will only "know" what you tell it, the same as any other computer.
Or human, for that matter.
The big difference is inference. If I tell you the facts "John married Jane in 1981" and "Frank is Johns son, he's 15", you will probably conclude that Jane is very likely Franks mother, at least until you get conflicting information. Computers so far could not. AI research has been working on giving them that ability for almost 20 years now. After lots and lots of failures, they've also made some progress. The big issue hasn't been the collection of facts for years now, but how to combine those facts to generate new "knowledge". That's something we humans do with so much ease that it is too easy and gets us to generate false "knowledge" all the time - marketing are experts at exploiting that, as are novel writers.