Apparently, you have no clue how web development works. Some of your criticism is valid, but some of it is plain inane.
1) Single pixel gifs and google-analytics are how people on a budget track website usage. You want to roll your own code - pay for it. 2) IE6 and IE7 is so different that it requires different CSS. We're hoping that people abandon IE6 ASAP so that we don't have to support that abomination anymore. 3) Commented out banner rotation is the quick way to deal with requests that say "Put this in now! But it's only temporary, so be ready to roll it back at a moments notice." 4) Lorem ipsum is the standard placeholder anytime anyone does any design work. Why? Because it is guaranteed public domain. 5) 20 errors in HTML validation? That's it? You might work flawlessly, but sometimes, flawless is what keeps you from putting out a working site on time. 6) Nothing on the page that could have been done better in HTML 3.1? Of course. Now you go develop it. Test it. Roll it out, and make sure it is easy to update in the future.
Yeah, the site ain't perfect. But it seems to me that you never developed a site that had to come in on budget and on time. The flaws you pointed out are nothing more than what is done every day in web development shops around the world. You want to fix it? I'm sure the site would love to employ a perfectionist know-it-all with zero work experience.
The point is that his argument is completely non-scientific and provides no insight into the science of Climate Change. Yet it was commonly used to argue that Climate Change wasn't happening. To be honest, that says more about the people who used his argument, but it still means that he was more a writer and less a scientist, despite the impression that his books give.
I actually went to the library and tried finding books about Islam. In retrospect, nearly everything I learned about Islam and Muslims was exaggerated, or misunderstood, or just plain fantasy.
Did you learn that from the books in the library, or from performing studies yourself? If you learned it from books.... you fell into the fallacy that Crichton proposes.
My problem with Crichton though is not that what he says is wrong - it's that what he says is a) obvious (some people are wrong sometimes - duh), and b) yields no clue as to how to distinguish truth from fiction. It's impossible to do all studies yourself. At some point, you have to rely on the opinion of others. How do you distinguish crap from truth? I don't think Crichton knew how to do that.
A HACK? Your opinion is wrong. Crichton was thought-provoking and insightful, and he was a gifted story-teller
You're mistaking opinion for fact.
Crichton's point is it doesn't matter how many people *think* he's is wrong about climate change, it only takes one person to *prove* him wrong.
Really? I read his main statement about GCC on his website. I was extremely disappointed to find out that his main argument can be summarized as "scientists have been wrong before. They could be wrong again." At this point, you should know there is no scientific proof for anything. Science CANNOT prove anything. It can merely provide the data to support or refute a theory. Nothing else. Discussing the merit of GCC based on whether something has been proven is completely pointless. And I'm deeply disappointed that Chrichton forgot that.
Considering your UID, I'd argue that you haven't been around long enough (on slashdot or otherwise) to make any kind of assumptions about who posts on slashdot.
But we're not talking about other sheep or cows. We're talking about 2 wolves and a sheep. Since the rest of your post is just as completely off-topic and based on whishful thinking, here are some questions to bring you back on topic: - what controls the cost of a black-market gun? (hint: supply and demand) - who is more likely to have a gun ready? (hint: planning trumps reaction time) - what's the reason behind gun-less robberies? (hint: read the personnel manual for a bank)
You know who always shoots first? The wolf. Congrats on still being dead. As for me being anti-gun.... you just demonstrated you like to talk out of your ass. Congrats again.
Standard reply to this idiocy: and the wolves are armed as well. What does the sheep do now? I always find it ludicrous that in this example, only the sheep are armed with guns.
What I always find interesting in your posts is the pervasive paranoia about Chinese PSYOPS.
The thought in some circles that China isn't the danger others believe it to be is apparently proof that China's long-standing information campaigns to convince Americans of just that appear to be working quite well.
There are many problems with this sentence: 1) There is no way to corroborate its premise. "Some circles" and "is apparently proof" mean absolutely nothing. Either name the circles, or don't propagate the idea that it is supported. Either something is proof, or it isn't. 2) There is no way to disprove the conclusion that Chinese PSYOP is influencing American judgment of Chinese intentions. The only way to show your resilience is to espouse the most aggressive and hawkish position in the room. This is a problem, as it leads to a vicious circle in analysis, not to mention that it is not a rational basis for doing an assessment in the first place.
Quite frankly, that sentence does more to discredit your entire analysis than anything you show to support it. If someone starts a discussion with the premise that disagreements are based on a susceptibility to PSYOPs, it becomes impossible to rationally explore all angles. This in turn means that the only course of action is to remove that individual from the discussion, and start from scratch.
Sadly, as much as I did enjoy your post, I can't take it seriously. Thankfully, the citations provide an alternate starting point.
It matters in the context of the original poster's comment. According to him, Obama and Hu are ideological buddies. If you'd ask either of them about this, they'd laugh you out of the room.
If that's really an issue, watch how quickly the constitution will be amended. The Constitution is not some sacred document, to be worshiped in some altar. It's a document that is the foundation of our existing government. As smart as its crafters were, they weren't all-knowing. Therefore, amending the Constitution now is a-ok.
Good point. Here's my summary on why a perfectly free market for insurance (any insurance, but especially for health care insurance) is bad:
Insurances can exist when risk can be pooled. In a perfect free market, everyone can choose any insurance plan and everyone has all information about future risk. Each individual will select the lowest-priced insurance for their situation. That insurance will accept the customer if their model shows that the customer will contribute more than they will have to pay out. This means that there will be a very strong separation of health insurance subscribers, based on their health conditions. Healthy people will pay less because they will be picked up by insurance companies that pay out less. Sick people (or those with a strong propensity to get sick) will pay more, because the more expensive insurance companies do not have a pool of healthy people to pick up any excess cost.
The end-game here is that everyone will pay just about what they would pay without insurance, because risk and cost will be assessed on an individual level,not on a group level. That's what a perfect free-market insurance market looks like, and it doesn't work. Unless companies can expect to offset the cost of sick people with contributions from healthy people, it is impossible for the insurance system to work.
Whether the cost is paid through taxes, mandatory pay-check withholding or legal force, it doesn't matter. Everybody has to pay into the system in order for insurance to work. Once you start going the voluntary route, scientific advances in predicting risk and disease propagation will guarantee that insurances will move more and more cost to the individual contributor, and insurance ceases to be insurance. Instead, it turns into a personal savings account. And at that point, I don't need the administrative overhead of an insurance company.
You know how to deal with that "problem"? Print-out occurs behind a glass plate. Voter can confirm vote on print-out, and push a button that says "Confirm". No take-home, no problem.
The problem is not with the recording. The problem is what a voter is allowed to take home. Which, as you said, should be nothing.
With the electoral college, if there is a problem with voting in one state or district, you can at least narrow down the 'fight' over recounts, etc, to the state or district where there is a problem or extremely close contest and don't have to worry about any other states/districts. If we went to a popular national vote, if you have a close election, recounts and rules lawyering will have to go on in every single district in the nation.
I don't know if I agree. The symptom of narrow fights simply indicates that some votes count more than others under the electoral college system. I have a fundamental problem with that, and would take the drawback of more spread-out lawyer fights. After all, the electoral college is unique to the US, yet other democracies manage elections just fine (actually better than the US, if I dare say so). This tells me that the problem isn't the system, but something specific to the US. I'd point to the problem of changing voting system at every election, but that's just me.
And this is why vengeful and emotional people should stay out of the business of war and diplomacy.
A dead martyr is indeed immortal and far more valuable to a cause than a living murderer hiding in some cave, cut-off from all communication. I'd love to see him in Guantanamo, but will settle for him being perpetually on the run. Killing him - especially if there's no evidence of him actually having been killed - will only serve to turn him into a symbol which can't be killed. That is why in modern times, revolutionary leaders were incarcerated and not executed.
It might not be as dramatic as the russians invading our borders with tanks, it may be more subtle like the mexicans POURING over the border, but regardless Joe has already warned us of this 'event' that'll happen if BO wins, so you can't blame him and BO.
What? Wow - talk about basic, raw and unadulterated xenophobia. Mexicans will POUR over the border when Obama gets elected? I'm not even sure how that's supposed to play out and how that'll be Obama's fault without resorting to the worst stereotypes of backward, inbred, drooling rednecks (apologies to all actual rednecks out there).
Please don't vote. You're just not qualified to do so in an informed matter.
Note that Kamerschen didn't pen this. See his website. Also, there's a difference between taking all of someone's revenue, and taking a certain percentage. The discussion is around what the percentage is.
Merely repeating an analogy does not make it true.
Computer networks are not public streets, private houses or anything similar. They are computer networks, and operate differently. As others pointed out already, computer networks are assumed to be open unless specifically set up as not open. From TFA, it says nothing about what has happened, and how access was accomplished. As a result, it is impossible to say whether actual entering and breaking had occurred, or whether someone did the equivalent of entering a room that was mislabeled as "public restroom" instead of "sekrit storage".
.... can I just shoot them if they try to hunt me down? What about a nice EMP blast? And will they be armed? Or will they behave more like searchers from the Chronicles of Riddick?
I'm really not sure if I'm looking forward to that. Either they won't be armed, and they'll be easily disabled, or they will be, and then.... Meh.
We use a decimal system for money, and a base 60 timing system, because those systems worked out best for those purposes. We use feet and inches for measurement of distance because that works best for us in practice.
Not really. They're used because everyone is used to them.
Centering a window in the US system? You walk over and put it in the center.
Have you built houses in Europe? It works the same exact way. That's because the center depends on the building blocks used. If you know the relationship between size of your building block and size of the wall, you're set. What unit is used to measure that building block is completely irrelevant.
As for your examples - I know them well, because my parents' house is built exactly like it. Everything is a multiple of 4 - generally a multiple of 8, with an occasional multiple of 6 thrown in. Rooms are 16x24, 8x8, 12x16, etc. That's because the base building block is the 2x4 with a length of either 4 or 8 feet. Why is the base building block that size? Absolutely no reason other than arbitrary decision making, with some concession to minimal strength required to build a frame and siding. It would work the same if I'd tell you that the base building block is 2 hogshead by 1 barleyrod.
As for fractions - yes, 1/3 and 2/3 appear quite often. Something to consider is that with a 2x4 and 2x8, 1/3 and 2/3 are just as painful to construct as in anything based on 5s or 10s. You're working with trigonometry then, not algebra. The only magic number there is 3 - and that 3 only matters if the base building block is small enough to be often used in 3s.
Finally, as for lining up with a hash mark or a fraction between hash marks, there's the old engineering joke: "What's the difference between a nut of size 5 and of size 5.0?" "$100". With millimeters and 10's of inches on tape measures, you're really down to what kind of accuracy you need, instead of what kind of accuracy you have. And again, that's not mentioning the fact that it depends on the base building block, not the base of the number system. Dividing a 16 foot wall into threes is just as a much pain using inches as it would be if it were 5 meters. It is only easy if it is 12 feet - but then again, it would also be easy if it would be 3 meters.
Seriously, there is nothing magical about base 12 in construction. What matters is the size of the basic building block - and that one is only occasionally divisible by 3.
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently, you have no clue how web development works. Some of your criticism is valid, but some of it is plain inane.
1) Single pixel gifs and google-analytics are how people on a budget track website usage. You want to roll your own code - pay for it.
2) IE6 and IE7 is so different that it requires different CSS. We're hoping that people abandon IE6 ASAP so that we don't have to support that abomination anymore.
3) Commented out banner rotation is the quick way to deal with requests that say "Put this in now! But it's only temporary, so be ready to roll it back at a moments notice."
4) Lorem ipsum is the standard placeholder anytime anyone does any design work. Why? Because it is guaranteed public domain.
5) 20 errors in HTML validation? That's it? You might work flawlessly, but sometimes, flawless is what keeps you from putting out a working site on time.
6) Nothing on the page that could have been done better in HTML 3.1? Of course. Now you go develop it. Test it. Roll it out, and make sure it is easy to update in the future.
Yeah, the site ain't perfect. But it seems to me that you never developed a site that had to come in on budget and on time. The flaws you pointed out are nothing more than what is done every day in web development shops around the world. You want to fix it? I'm sure the site would love to employ a perfectionist know-it-all with zero work experience.
The point is that his argument is completely non-scientific and provides no insight into the science of Climate Change. Yet it was commonly used to argue that Climate Change wasn't happening. To be honest, that says more about the people who used his argument, but it still means that he was more a writer and less a scientist, despite the impression that his books give.
Did you learn that from the books in the library, or from performing studies yourself? If you learned it from books.... you fell into the fallacy that Crichton proposes.
My problem with Crichton though is not that what he says is wrong - it's that what he says is a) obvious (some people are wrong sometimes - duh), and b) yields no clue as to how to distinguish truth from fiction. It's impossible to do all studies yourself. At some point, you have to rely on the opinion of others. How do you distinguish crap from truth? I don't think Crichton knew how to do that.
You're mistaking opinion for fact.
Really? I read his main statement about GCC on his website. I was extremely disappointed to find out that his main argument can be summarized as "scientists have been wrong before. They could be wrong again." At this point, you should know there is no scientific proof for anything. Science CANNOT prove anything. It can merely provide the data to support or refute a theory. Nothing else. Discussing the merit of GCC based on whether something has been proven is completely pointless. And I'm deeply disappointed that Chrichton forgot that.
Considering your UID, I'd argue that you haven't been around long enough (on slashdot or otherwise) to make any kind of assumptions about who posts on slashdot.
But we're not talking about other sheep or cows. We're talking about 2 wolves and a sheep. Since the rest of your post is just as completely off-topic and based on whishful thinking, here are some questions to bring you back on topic:
- what controls the cost of a black-market gun? (hint: supply and demand)
- who is more likely to have a gun ready? (hint: planning trumps reaction time)
- what's the reason behind gun-less robberies? (hint: read the personnel manual for a bank)
You know who always shoots first? The wolf. Congrats on still being dead. As for me being anti-gun.... you just demonstrated you like to talk out of your ass. Congrats again.
Standard reply to this idiocy: and the wolves are armed as well. What does the sheep do now? I always find it ludicrous that in this example, only the sheep are armed with guns.
What I always find interesting in your posts is the pervasive paranoia about Chinese PSYOPS.
There are many problems with this sentence:
1) There is no way to corroborate its premise. "Some circles" and "is apparently proof" mean absolutely nothing. Either name the circles, or don't propagate the idea that it is supported. Either something is proof, or it isn't.
2) There is no way to disprove the conclusion that Chinese PSYOP is influencing American judgment of Chinese intentions. The only way to show your resilience is to espouse the most aggressive and hawkish position in the room. This is a problem, as it leads to a vicious circle in analysis, not to mention that it is not a rational basis for doing an assessment in the first place.
Quite frankly, that sentence does more to discredit your entire analysis than anything you show to support it. If someone starts a discussion with the premise that disagreements are based on a susceptibility to PSYOPs, it becomes impossible to rationally explore all angles. This in turn means that the only course of action is to remove that individual from the discussion, and start from scratch.
Sadly, as much as I did enjoy your post, I can't take it seriously. Thankfully, the citations provide an alternate starting point.
It matters in the context of the original poster's comment. According to him, Obama and Hu are ideological buddies. If you'd ask either of them about this, they'd laugh you out of the room.
If that's really an issue, watch how quickly the constitution will be amended. The Constitution is not some sacred document, to be worshiped in some altar. It's a document that is the foundation of our existing government. As smart as its crafters were, they weren't all-knowing. Therefore, amending the Constitution now is a-ok.
Good point. Here's my summary on why a perfectly free market for insurance (any insurance, but especially for health care insurance) is bad:
Insurances can exist when risk can be pooled. In a perfect free market, everyone can choose any insurance plan and everyone has all information about future risk. Each individual will select the lowest-priced insurance for their situation. That insurance will accept the customer if their model shows that the customer will contribute more than they will have to pay out. This means that there will be a very strong separation of health insurance subscribers, based on their health conditions. Healthy people will pay less because they will be picked up by insurance companies that pay out less. Sick people (or those with a strong propensity to get sick) will pay more, because the more expensive insurance companies do not have a pool of healthy people to pick up any excess cost.
The end-game here is that everyone will pay just about what they would pay without insurance, because risk and cost will be assessed on an individual level,not on a group level. That's what a perfect free-market insurance market looks like, and it doesn't work. Unless companies can expect to offset the cost of sick people with contributions from healthy people, it is impossible for the insurance system to work.
Whether the cost is paid through taxes, mandatory pay-check withholding or legal force, it doesn't matter. Everybody has to pay into the system in order for insurance to work. Once you start going the voluntary route, scientific advances in predicting risk and disease propagation will guarantee that insurances will move more and more cost to the individual contributor, and insurance ceases to be insurance. Instead, it turns into a personal savings account. And at that point, I don't need the administrative overhead of an insurance company.
You know how to deal with that "problem"? Print-out occurs behind a glass plate. Voter can confirm vote on print-out, and push a button that says "Confirm". No take-home, no problem.
The problem is not with the recording. The problem is what a voter is allowed to take home. Which, as you said, should be nothing.
I don't know if I agree. The symptom of narrow fights simply indicates that some votes count more than others under the electoral college system. I have a fundamental problem with that, and would take the drawback of more spread-out lawyer fights. After all, the electoral college is unique to the US, yet other democracies manage elections just fine (actually better than the US, if I dare say so). This tells me that the problem isn't the system, but something specific to the US. I'd point to the problem of changing voting system at every election, but that's just me.
Looks like some crappy teeny-bopper who thinks he knows everything there is to know can't accept the truth that some opinions might differ from his.
What? Wow - talk about basic, raw and unadulterated xenophobia. Mexicans will POUR over the border when Obama gets elected? I'm not even sure how that's supposed to play out and how that'll be Obama's fault without resorting to the worst stereotypes of backward, inbred, drooling rednecks (apologies to all actual rednecks out there).
Please don't vote. You're just not qualified to do so in an informed matter.
Note that Kamerschen didn't pen this. See his website. Also, there's a difference between taking all of someone's revenue, and taking a certain percentage. The discussion is around what the percentage is.
Nice strawman, though.
I'll plug my favorite NPR station: kqed.org. Live streams right on the site. And by far the best of all the Public Radio stations I've come across.
Merely repeating an analogy does not make it true.
Computer networks are not public streets, private houses or anything similar. They are computer networks, and operate differently. As others pointed out already, computer networks are assumed to be open unless specifically set up as not open. From TFA, it says nothing about what has happened, and how access was accomplished. As a result, it is impossible to say whether actual entering and breaking had occurred, or whether someone did the equivalent of entering a room that was mislabeled as "public restroom" instead of "sekrit storage".
Not to mention that any actual loop hole would be patched so fast you'd think Congress was using a time machine.
Even scarier - we only implement in so far as it appears to benefit certain segments of the voting/donating population.
Or you can just use this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KcD3KQ38CM. Not quite as mindblowing, but a bit more targeted. :)
.... can I just shoot them if they try to hunt me down? What about a nice EMP blast? And will they be armed? Or will they behave more like searchers from the Chronicles of Riddick?
I'm really not sure if I'm looking forward to that. Either they won't be armed, and they'll be easily disabled, or they will be, and then.... Meh.
Not really. They're used because everyone is used to them.
Have you built houses in Europe? It works the same exact way. That's because the center depends on the building blocks used. If you know the relationship between size of your building block and size of the wall, you're set. What unit is used to measure that building block is completely irrelevant.
As for your examples - I know them well, because my parents' house is built exactly like it. Everything is a multiple of 4 - generally a multiple of 8, with an occasional multiple of 6 thrown in. Rooms are 16x24, 8x8, 12x16, etc. That's because the base building block is the 2x4 with a length of either 4 or 8 feet. Why is the base building block that size? Absolutely no reason other than arbitrary decision making, with some concession to minimal strength required to build a frame and siding. It would work the same if I'd tell you that the base building block is 2 hogshead by 1 barleyrod.
As for fractions - yes, 1/3 and 2/3 appear quite often. Something to consider is that with a 2x4 and 2x8, 1/3 and 2/3 are just as painful to construct as in anything based on 5s or 10s. You're working with trigonometry then, not algebra. The only magic number there is 3 - and that 3 only matters if the base building block is small enough to be often used in 3s.
Finally, as for lining up with a hash mark or a fraction between hash marks, there's the old engineering joke:
"What's the difference between a nut of size 5 and of size 5.0?"
"$100".
With millimeters and 10's of inches on tape measures, you're really down to what kind of accuracy you need, instead of what kind of accuracy you have. And again, that's not mentioning the fact that it depends on the base building block, not the base of the number system. Dividing a 16 foot wall into threes is just as a much pain using inches as it would be if it were 5 meters. It is only easy if it is 12 feet - but then again, it would also be easy if it would be 3 meters.
Seriously, there is nothing magical about base 12 in construction. What matters is the size of the basic building block - and that one is only occasionally divisible by 3.