Right. One is always "stuck" with what is available when needed. The Air Force had no good choice other than the F-4 if its fighter pilots were to participate in the Vietnam War.
In the eyes of impractical people, there is always a superior alternative to what is currently actually available. Such people seem to operate in a world that is not much constrained by time, so hindsight seems to them to be the same as foresight.
Can't you hear the objections? "This is unfair to poor people, allowing rich drug users to get off easy, while forcing the poor into gang recruitment centers (ie prisons)."
It's prescient, not precient. Same root as science. It refers to having foreknowledge.
If only they would invent a technology that would look over our shoulder as we write and correct out mis-spellings.
This thread has disappointed me a lot. So much of it is about toilets, not urinals.
The simple point that urine is almost always sterile should make one wonder about what the real argument is about. Why is it that the plumbers' union is leading the charge for "public health" ? Do you really believe that it is because official public health bodies are under the control of the toilet-equipment makers ? The plumbers' unions are concerned about preserving union jobs.
Most bad bacteria in a public restroom will come from feces. Some will carry by air from the toilets to the urinals. The question is whether the water-free urinal provides a better place than the flushing kind for bacteria to come to rest and multiply and which of the two provides a better opportunity for the bacteria to reach an infectable place on a human. The risk must be very low anyway, compared to the risk from defecating in a toilet.
Not having to touch a handle to flush a toilet counts in favor of the water-free toilet. Not having water, possibly contaminated, splash onto clothes or conveying coliform bacteria by mist to one's nose and mouth also counts in favor of water-free.
The existing art includes common sense. Self-observation by any reasonably self-aware person will make us to notice that we often revert to an old pattern of behavior. The now retired master of error, James Reason, author of "Absent-minded" and "Human Error", documented, categorized, and explained everday human error. One of the more common forms is the interference of old patterns with new ones. Another is the interference of two contemporary patterns at the points in the procedures where they share common elements.
O'Reilly has a fun title called "Mind Hacks". If you liked this thread, you might like the book.
[Full disclosure: I want O'Reilly to send me free stuff, like "Mind Hacks". That's why I'm touting their title.]
One question is whether they are "reading" immediate visual-processing space, visual working memory, or long-term memory. It is extremely unlikely that they are "reading" or can read text/phonic-type memory. With the large number of neurons that have to fire to process visual info, there is a lot for them to "read". All of that activity and all they can do is distinguish between two images (probably very different ones, at that) under controlled conditions using expensive machines.
I'm with you. The ability to tell which of only two images someone is looking at in repeated trials under controlled conditions using a very expensive machine with the subject's cooperation is not very special or threatening. Eventually it might become more interesting/threatening.
Right around the time that they come up with voice recognition that works for general speech.
If you really believe that electricity is a quantum phenomenon then you should be saying "fewer electrons". Saying "less electrons" is probably a sign of obsolete analog thinking. "Less electricity" is better.
Slashdot Mirror
Whatever happened to "Do No Harm"? I guess that's just something Google said when it was trying to win us over. Now that they have us....
Right. One is always "stuck" with what is available when needed. The Air Force had no good choice other than the F-4 if its fighter pilots were to participate in the Vietnam War.
In the eyes of impractical people, there is always a superior alternative to what is currently actually available. Such people seem to operate in a world that is not much constrained by time, so hindsight seems to them to be the same as foresight.
I never said the solution was wrong, only that a fine-based solution will tend to be a non-starter.
Can't you hear the objections? "This is unfair to poor people, allowing rich drug users to get off easy, while forcing the poor into gang recruitment centers (ie prisons)."
It's prescient, not precient. Same root as science. It refers to having foreknowledge. If only they would invent a technology that would look over our shoulder as we write and correct out mis-spellings.
This thread has disappointed me a lot. So much of it is about toilets, not urinals. The simple point that urine is almost always sterile should make one wonder about what the real argument is about. Why is it that the plumbers' union is leading the charge for "public health" ? Do you really believe that it is because official public health bodies are under the control of the toilet-equipment makers ? The plumbers' unions are concerned about preserving union jobs. Most bad bacteria in a public restroom will come from feces. Some will carry by air from the toilets to the urinals. The question is whether the water-free urinal provides a better place than the flushing kind for bacteria to come to rest and multiply and which of the two provides a better opportunity for the bacteria to reach an infectable place on a human. The risk must be very low anyway, compared to the risk from defecating in a toilet. Not having to touch a handle to flush a toilet counts in favor of the water-free toilet. Not having water, possibly contaminated, splash onto clothes or conveying coliform bacteria by mist to one's nose and mouth also counts in favor of water-free.
The existing art includes common sense. Self-observation by any reasonably self-aware person will make us to notice that we often revert to an old pattern of behavior. The now retired master of error, James Reason, author of "Absent-minded" and "Human Error", documented, categorized, and explained everday human error. One of the more common forms is the interference of old patterns with new ones. Another is the interference of two contemporary patterns at the points in the procedures where they share common elements.
The author of the NYTimes article on this was Lawrence K. Altman, author of "Who Goes First", a gooed book on medical self-experimentation.
Too much cortisol. Over-stimulation of the fight-or-flight response.
O'Reilly has a fun title called "Mind Hacks". If you liked this thread, you might like the book. [Full disclosure: I want O'Reilly to send me free stuff, like "Mind Hacks". That's why I'm touting their title.]
One question is whether they are "reading" immediate visual-processing space, visual working memory, or long-term memory. It is extremely unlikely that they are "reading" or can read text/phonic-type memory. With the large number of neurons that have to fire to process visual info, there is a lot for them to "read". All of that activity and all they can do is distinguish between two images (probably very different ones, at that) under controlled conditions using expensive machines.
I'm with you. The ability to tell which of only two images someone is looking at in repeated trials under controlled conditions using a very expensive machine with the subject's cooperation is not very special or threatening. Eventually it might become more interesting/threatening. Right around the time that they come up with voice recognition that works for general speech.
Starting from a dumb article keeps the discussion from reaching the heights that Slashdot can reach. Nice try, guys.
If you really believe that electricity is a quantum phenomenon then you should be saying "fewer electrons". Saying "less electrons" is probably a sign of obsolete analog thinking. "Less electricity" is better.