Quantum mechanics is not falsifiable because it relies on the number 1, which cannot be proven not to exist.
Mathematics relies on axioms, which do not require proof. If you can define new axioms and still produce theories that fit observable data, there's probably a Nobel Prize waiting for you.
Quantum Mechanics is a set of theories that fit observable data, and are definitely falsifiable.
My theory involves invisible pink elephants, undetectable elves, and other universes which do not interact even indirectly with ours. It unequivocally predicts that the sky is green and not blue.
This theory is science because it makes a falsifiable prediction. It relies on unfalsifiable constructs, but it is still itself falsifiable and therefore science.
You are completely correct here - your theory is science. Where you go wrong is assuming that it has any value. The outcome is empirically wrong, so the theory must be incorrect. Back to the drawing board to look for a theory (which can say whatever you like) that fits the observable data.
That's actually quite a good example of science in action. A bad theory is easily disproven.
The speed of light has been reduced to almost walking pace in some materials. I can run faster than light (provided I'm not travelling through the same medium). In fact, I believe light was stopped in a form of diamond recently (can't find the supporting link though).
I'm being a bit silly, but you may want to look up Cerenkov radiation and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox.
Look at Vista? Why bother? Look at WinXP for a better example. Even Vista is hard-pressed to compete.
Advantage: Proprietary software.
Proprietary software may be a dinosaur, but you forget the dinosaurs were around for a few hundred million years and were only killed off by a massive planet-changing event. If OSS is likened to Humans, then you're in for a long wait before seeing the ascendency of OSS.
On second thought, maybe it's better to drop the whole 'dinosaur' analogy completely.
Surely the problem being solved is plot continuity. It's hard to write a meaningful plot in which people on long-distance missions come back to find tens of thousands of years have passed at home.
You've got to love Deepak Chopra. That line was right out of the Simpsons (that one with the self-help guru) and maybe they were referencing Chopra, maybe not, but the end result is a meaningless bit of text.
And no, you can't "work faster" on the Mac than you can on Windows. They are effectively identical.
An example from a while back - colour proofing tools were built into the Mac OS, making some tasks much faster on a Mac than on a PC.
AppleScript was often (and may still be?) used for workflow automation. For a long time, it was capable of things that Windows could not manage. I knew people using it for printing workflow and other people using it for website content automation, and it saved massive amounts of time while still allowing them to use their familiar applications.
Things have probably changed since then, but you cannot assume that the OS is irrelevant to applications.
The Mac ads have always been arrogant and condescending, and this is a major "up yours" to Apple.
The Mac ads may be considered arrogant and condescending to some Windows users who identify far too closely with their OS of choice. Step back a little, and look at them for the light-hearted ads they are.
And the tagline is absolutely perfect: "Life Without Walls". That's a direct hit on the most obnoxious characteristic of the Apple world -- the lock-in.
The tagline is atrocious. The next thought I had was "If there are no walls, why would I want Windows?"
The new ad from Microsoft is nice enough, but since Linux runs on PCs, it works every bit as well for Tux. Hell, it more or less works for OS X.
What was said about Windows in the last three ads? Buzz is nice enough, but when you're already the monopoly player you hardly need to get the word out. What reasons do people now have to buy Vista that they didn't know about before the last three ads?
Gates was in the ads because he's still the best public face Microsoft has. Especially now that he's older, he looks more like the avuncular old man and less the threatening nerd.
People like a friendly face in the ad, or at least a face they can relate to. Bill Gates is far better than anyone else at Microsoft for that.
While I agree with the general point you're making, you must recall that Bush spent hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on his Iraq adventure, and that's nowhere near over.
I'm pretty sure the US economy wasn't helped by vast sums of money being pumped into a war against a dictator who was being effectively controlled. The whole thing may yet pay dividends for the people of Iraq, in that they're finally starting to get back on their feet, but it cost the US taxpayers a *lot* of money to help out a foreign country.
What could that money have accomplished in the US? Better healthcare, better education, improved roads, meaningful job creation... It's pretty easy to draw up a long list.
16 Jan 2004, 8:58am Tim, Can you bring some milk and bread over please? Thanks, O
18 Jan 2004, 5:24pm What happened? I'm starving out here you know! I can't just pop down to the shop for supplies, it's a freaking desert out there!
22 Jan 2004, 3:42pm Tim, Are you mad at me? Is that why you're not talking? I'm sorry I was angry in my last email. Just drop by, we'll talk and drink coffee. You'll need to bring the coffee though. And some milk and bread. Maybe honey too. I like honey. O
28 Jan 2004, 5:30pm Bob, Can you check up on Tim for me? It's like he's frozen me out or something. I just want to know everything's okay. Also, can you send me a few bottles of milk and some loaves of bread. Maybe honey and jam too. Oh, and coffee! Not that I need to stay awake out here. You never think you're bored until you're stuck in a cave in the wilderness. Luckily I've got ADSL here. Thanks, and say "Hi" to Mary and the kids for me, O
29 Jan 2004, 12:37pm O, I think Tim's gone. Looks like he left in a hurry. Typical of his type - I told you about him, you'll remember. Anyway, I'll get Chuck to drop over some supplies in the next day or so. Look after yourself, Bob
29 Jan 2004, 3:52pm Damn it! I thought Tim was different. I thought he had commitment, you know? What happened to people who could take the long view? Anyway, thanks for getting chuck to drop the food over. I appreciate it - there'll be an extra virgin for you in the afterlife! Can you remind Chuck to bring a can opener? I don't want to have to shoot these ones open. Those soldiers nearly heard me last time. Thanks again, O
The word "survivor" has different contexts, and you're using it in a popular but not exlusive one.
"Person X is survived by their wife and children," is used simply to mean that when person X died, their wife and children lived on. It doesn't mean they all faced some danger together.
It only means that people lived on.
In fact, dictionary.com has "to remain alive after the death of someone," as the first definition.
It's correct to say that the family of a suicide are survivors.
You're arguing from a rational perspective here, but I don't believe people kill themselves while in a rational frame of mind. Instead it's an emotional choice, brought about either by events and an inability to deal with them, or a disorder that creates the belief that suicide is the only option.
Cool, rational debate isn't a feature of suicides.
Apple stopped releasing source code. There was an outcry. They reversed themselves. The Apple apologists claimed that Apple had merely "not released the code yet", despite the fact that Apple had stopped releasing code, with several binary releases going by without any source releases.
You're reducing anyone who disagrees with you to an "Apple apologist" endlessly shouting down dissension with a "PR talking point."
Can you point out anything more official than blogs to show that Apple stopped open-sourcing Darwin? I've seen many blogs make the point, but they've never had anything more than a delay between a major OS release and the source code appearing to prove their case. It's all just speculation.
In your other examples, you're probably hitting the mark. You also forgot the factory in Burma, which was shut down by Apple only after people realised and complained that Apple were (effectively) supporting the military junta in the suppression of the people's democratic rights. Or something like that (it was back in... '96?). That was a very real example you should add to your list.
But the Darwin thing seems to be nothing more than a delay. Not every conspiracy about Apple is true, you know. Sometimes stuff just happens.
Huh? Who is saying that? Normally pro-Apple blogs are almost universally against this, tech sites like Slashdot are almost universally against this, so who's on Apple's side here?
Perhaps you might like to read some of the comments in this topic today and recalibrate your sense of reality.
Slashdot Mirror
There was a great line in one of the Terry Pratchett books:
"A lie can run around the world before the truth has put its boots on."
Refutations are never as widespread as the lies. Just look to an politics for more examples.
I'm pretty sure that if this were not so, the world would be a far better place.
Quantum mechanics is not falsifiable because it relies on the number 1, which cannot be proven not to exist.
Mathematics relies on axioms, which do not require proof. If you can define new axioms and still produce theories that fit observable data, there's probably a Nobel Prize waiting for you.
Quantum Mechanics is a set of theories that fit observable data, and are definitely falsifiable.
My theory involves invisible pink elephants, undetectable elves, and other universes which do not interact even indirectly with ours. It unequivocally predicts that the sky is green and not blue.
This theory is science because it makes a falsifiable prediction. It relies on unfalsifiable constructs, but it is still itself falsifiable and therefore science.
You are completely correct here - your theory is science. Where you go wrong is assuming that it has any value. The outcome is empirically wrong, so the theory must be incorrect. Back to the drawing board to look for a theory (which can say whatever you like) that fits the observable data.
That's actually quite a good example of science in action. A bad theory is easily disproven.
So the YECs are guilty of blasphemy then?
Believing that evidence is put in place by their God with the intent to deceive others is pretty much a slight against their God.
Nice! Now, what do they think should be done to blasphemers?
The speed of light has been reduced to almost walking pace in some materials. I can run faster than light (provided I'm not travelling through the same medium). In fact, I believe light was stopped in a form of diamond recently (can't find the supporting link though).
I'm being a bit silly, but you may want to look up Cerenkov radiation and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox.
I really, *really* do not want to know how you are so sure of that.
Look at Vista? Why bother? Look at WinXP for a better example. Even Vista is hard-pressed to compete.
Advantage: Proprietary software.
Proprietary software may be a dinosaur, but you forget the dinosaurs were around for a few hundred million years and were only killed off by a massive planet-changing event. If OSS is likened to Humans, then you're in for a long wait before seeing the ascendency of OSS.
On second thought, maybe it's better to drop the whole 'dinosaur' analogy completely.
4) Profit!
(caution - step 4 only applies to corporations which take part in no-bid tenders organised by their former board members)
I'll deliver all the zeros and ones you could ever want, but if you want me to make them do something, you're going to have to pay.
Hell, atoms are everywhere. Lots of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and trace elements free for the taking! Why pay anyone for anything?
Surely the problem being solved is plot continuity. It's hard to write a meaningful plot in which people on long-distance missions come back to find tens of thousands of years have passed at home.
You've got to love Deepak Chopra. That line was right out of the Simpsons (that one with the self-help guru) and maybe they were referencing Chopra, maybe not, but the end result is a meaningless bit of text.
And no, you can't "work faster" on the Mac than you can on Windows. They are effectively identical.
An example from a while back - colour proofing tools were built into the Mac OS, making some tasks much faster on a Mac than on a PC.
AppleScript was often (and may still be?) used for workflow automation. For a long time, it was capable of things that Windows could not manage. I knew people using it for printing workflow and other people using it for website content automation, and it saved massive amounts of time while still allowing them to use their familiar applications.
Things have probably changed since then, but you cannot assume that the OS is irrelevant to applications.
The Mac ads have always been arrogant and condescending, and this is a major "up yours" to Apple.
The Mac ads may be considered arrogant and condescending to some Windows users who identify far too closely with their OS of choice. Step back a little, and look at them for the light-hearted ads they are.
And the tagline is absolutely perfect: "Life Without Walls". That's a direct hit on the most obnoxious characteristic of the Apple world -- the lock-in.
The tagline is atrocious. The next thought I had was "If there are no walls, why would I want Windows?"
The new ad from Microsoft is nice enough, but since Linux runs on PCs, it works every bit as well for Tux. Hell, it more or less works for OS X.
What was said about Windows in the last three ads? Buzz is nice enough, but when you're already the monopoly player you hardly need to get the word out. What reasons do people now have to buy Vista that they didn't know about before the last three ads?
You should be modded up for that post.
Non-portable Macs have terrible GPU options. I'm okay that my MBP has a fixed GPU, but iMacs need some means to upgrade GPUs.
As a Mac user, I'm looking forward to installing this on my Vista partition. Bootcamp is an option for me!
(Amazon sent my copy last night...)
Gates was in the ads because he's still the best public face Microsoft has. Especially now that he's older, he looks more like the avuncular old man and less the threatening nerd.
People like a friendly face in the ad, or at least a face they can relate to. Bill Gates is far better than anyone else at Microsoft for that.
Marathon.
The series had so much depth that people were still discussing points over seven years later.
The way that a lot of story was delivered was through terminal screens, readable in-game. Not groundbreaking, but some amazing stuff was in there.
While I agree with the general point you're making, you must recall that Bush spent hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on his Iraq adventure, and that's nowhere near over.
I'm pretty sure the US economy wasn't helped by vast sums of money being pumped into a war against a dictator who was being effectively controlled. The whole thing may yet pay dividends for the people of Iraq, in that they're finally starting to get back on their feet, but it cost the US taxpayers a *lot* of money to help out a foreign country.
What could that money have accomplished in the US? Better healthcare, better education, improved roads, meaningful job creation... It's pretty easy to draw up a long list.
16 Jan 2004, 8:58am
Tim,
Can you bring some milk and bread over please?
Thanks,
O
18 Jan 2004, 5:24pm
What happened? I'm starving out here you know! I can't just pop down to the shop for supplies, it's a freaking desert out there!
22 Jan 2004, 3:42pm
Tim,
Are you mad at me? Is that why you're not talking? I'm sorry I was angry in my last email.
Just drop by, we'll talk and drink coffee. You'll need to bring the coffee though. And some milk and bread. Maybe honey too. I like honey.
O
28 Jan 2004, 5:30pm
Bob,
Can you check up on Tim for me? It's like he's frozen me out or something. I just want to know everything's okay.
Also, can you send me a few bottles of milk and some loaves of bread. Maybe honey and jam too. Oh, and coffee! Not that I need to stay awake out here. You never think you're bored until you're stuck in a cave in the wilderness. Luckily I've got ADSL here.
Thanks, and say "Hi" to Mary and the kids for me,
O
29 Jan 2004, 12:37pm
O,
I think Tim's gone. Looks like he left in a hurry. Typical of his type - I told you about him, you'll remember. Anyway, I'll get Chuck to drop over some supplies in the next day or so.
Look after yourself,
Bob
29 Jan 2004, 3:52pm
Damn it! I thought Tim was different. I thought he had commitment, you know? What happened to people who could take the long view?
Anyway, thanks for getting chuck to drop the food over. I appreciate it - there'll be an extra virgin for you in the afterlife!
Can you remind Chuck to bring a can opener? I don't want to have to shoot these ones open. Those soldiers nearly heard me last time.
Thanks again,
O
The word "survivor" has different contexts, and you're using it in a popular but not exlusive one.
"Person X is survived by their wife and children," is used simply to mean that when person X died, their wife and children lived on. It doesn't mean they all faced some danger together.
It only means that people lived on.
In fact, dictionary.com has "to remain alive after the death of someone," as the first definition.
It's correct to say that the family of a suicide are survivors.
This short post by an AC is an excellent point.
You're arguing from a rational perspective here, but I don't believe people kill themselves while in a rational frame of mind. Instead it's an emotional choice, brought about either by events and an inability to deal with them, or a disorder that creates the belief that suicide is the only option.
Cool, rational debate isn't a feature of suicides.
iTunes will no longer be a monopoly when someone creates a comparable store for digital media.
www.amazon.com
actually ACTIVELY BLOCKING competitors from using their platform
Yup, Microsoft never tried to do that...
Apple stopped releasing source code. There was an outcry. They reversed themselves. The Apple apologists claimed that Apple had merely "not released the code yet", despite the fact that Apple had stopped releasing code, with several binary releases going by without any source releases.
You're reducing anyone who disagrees with you to an "Apple apologist" endlessly shouting down dissension with a "PR talking point."
Can you point out anything more official than blogs to show that Apple stopped open-sourcing Darwin? I've seen many blogs make the point, but they've never had anything more than a delay between a major OS release and the source code appearing to prove their case. It's all just speculation.
In your other examples, you're probably hitting the mark. You also forgot the factory in Burma, which was shut down by Apple only after people realised and complained that Apple were (effectively) supporting the military junta in the suppression of the people's democratic rights. Or something like that (it was back in... '96?). That was a very real example you should add to your list.
But the Darwin thing seems to be nothing more than a delay. Not every conspiracy about Apple is true, you know. Sometimes stuff just happens.
Now Apple is all good and dandy! BS!
Huh? Who is saying that? Normally pro-Apple blogs are almost universally against this, tech sites like Slashdot are almost universally against this, so who's on Apple's side here?
Perhaps you might like to read some of the comments in this topic today and recalibrate your sense of reality.