Slashdot, where a discussion of someone hacking a high profile government official's private email address spirals through Monty Python jokes into a flame war about the Roman empire.
And here I am, at work, wasting my time reading this discussion and posting on that fact.
I'm sorry here folks, but this is a flawed premise to begin with.
How many of those economists based their opinions on hard data and rigorous modeling based upon a careful analysis of the facts? My guess is few, if any. From TFA:
Not surprisingly, 88 percent of Democratic economists think Democratic Sen. Barack Obama would be best, while 80 percent of Republican economists pick Republican Sen. John McCain.
What does this tell us? That economists, despite having had training on how to construct economic models, tend to be like other people. They form an opinion/bias (ie political party) and then they view the world through the haze of that opinion in a self-reinforcing way.
If you really want to shed some light on the economy, don't collect a survey of opinions from economists, fund detailed, rigorous studies.
And... bingo - this is my major complaint against people who preach enthusiastically about the virtues of libertarianism. It is a great idea in theory, but in order for it to work, you must have a well-informed, intelligent public that is capable of making decisions based upon a complex set of variables.
In other words, it is completely impractical in reality.
I wasn't trying to make the claim that nothing good ever came out of Hollywood, more the statement that the majority of Hollywood has sucked since the medium ever started. I clearly recognize that making generalizations isn't a good idea. After all, every single generalization and absolute statement ever made is false in some way (this one included).
Keep in mind that Hollywood is, primarily, a big business. As such, they are interested not in producing the best, most insightful films ever made. Instead, they are more focused on films that sell well, which are easy to watch and offer some great escapism.
That isn't to say that there are zero great films from Hollywood, only that there are few, which isn't a new thing.
As for your counter-examples of good Hollywood films from Kubrick and Hitchcock, yes I have seen several of their films. You do know, however, that most of Kubrick's work came out of London, right? You also know that Hitchcock began his career in the UK?
Although the anecdote may be apocryphal, I feel compelled to jump in here with a story from the time when filmmaker Luis Bunuel was working in the early days of Hollywood, circa 1940.
From what he describes in his autobiography, even way back then, things were so formulaic, he got disgusted. He then took this disgust to the next step, plotting out charts of characters, plot, era, etc., so that with this system and a few basic facts, the whole story could be told.
Then, a while later, he went to a premiere of a spy film where the heroine is shot at the end (I forget the title). Upon leaving the theater his companion was going on and on about how original the film was, so Bunuel simply states that he could tell what was going to happen from the opening shot. Naturally, the companion didn't believe him, so to prove his point, they went back to Bunuel's apartment to ask his roommate.
Upon describing some of the opening scenes, Bunuel's roommate just waved his hands, saying, "Don't bother - they shoot her in the end."
So, this past history when Hollywood had the ability to crank out thoughtful, meaningful, entertaining, and relevant films - when was that, exactly?
You may wish to try contacting the University of Wisconsin's SWAP program. I'm not sure how they have set it up, but it basically takes all of the old equipment and sells it to general public. This includes, computers, desks, oscilloscopes, incubators, etc. It is a bit like going to the best garage sale ever.
I don't know this program started, but it sounds like the kind of thing you're looking for. Trying to get in touch with some of the folks in charge may give you insights into how to get it to work.
In the end, though, I suspect that setting up something like it will take a lot of paperwork and will have to be approved by about 20 committees.
I can't believe a person would spend his life on a pursuit like this. He must not care one bit about humanity's problems. "Your actions are screaming so loud I can't hear a word you say."
Too bad. He seems like a bright guy who could have contributed something.
You mean, something like a jetpack? That would be awesome.
So it comes down to, what does "in His own image" mean? We like much of the creation story in Gensis, I think it is meant to be taken figuratively, not literally.
What I find interesting is that this figurative interpretation is what is already being favored by the Catholic Church. From their acceptance of the Big Bang and evolution, it is already clear that they are comfortable with figurative interpretations. This is in stark contrast to a few hundred years ago, when you could be killed for minor points of dogma.
I'm hoping is that some of the more extreme groups take heed and see that it is possible to have an open mind with religion. If you look at history, there has been a long track record of religion disagreeing with science and science winning. Is there anyone (of importance) out there who still disagrees with the heliocentric view of the solar system? I wonder how much of the current switch from the Catholic Church is a recognition that their obstinate views in the past backfired.
That is one advantage of an older religious group - perspective. This reminds me of one conversation I had a few weeks back. My friends and I were musing at the relative levels of extremism and how that relates to the age of a religion. Take Buddhism for example. It is an old religion and there is very little extremism. Christianity is younger, and there is still some extremism with a whole lot back in the dark ages. Islam, on the other hand, is still relatively young, about the same age of Christianity in the dark ages, and we all know how much Islamic extremists make the news. Hopefully, then, as religions get older and settle down, they will start adopting the more peaceful, open-minded approaches.
You know, after a long history of not-so-good behavior in the face of science (eg, Galileo), it is good to see that the Catholic Church is recognizing that much of current scientific thinking is consistent with scientific ideas.
In fact, Catholic high schools even teach evolution, recognizing that you can still choose to believe in God as the creator alongside a belief in evolution as the mechanism of creation.
I see the acknowledgment of the possibility of alien life along this same vein. I wonder, though, how the creation of freaky-ass-bug-eyed aliens would fit into the "God created man is his own image" idea. Perhaps that God is so wacky and cool he can take on any shape?
Although your hacking prowess is impressive, I personally just can't imagine spending that much effort to watch TV.
If I want to consume quality media, I'd rather just get the DVDs of what I want to watch.
Then again, I think I'm a bit of an oddball on/. in that I have never lived with cable TV (or satellite or...). In fact, my TV was made in 1984, has faux-wood grain on the outside, and when it stops working next year, I'll probably just stop watching altogether.
Sometimes, making a joke to deal with a horrific situation is needed, but those comments (and some of the posts in this discussion) just disappoint me.
Although I agree in general with what you're saying, I think you have downplayed the severity of the earthquake. It is not simply something that "happens every now and then." Earthquakes are massive, destructive, horrible events.
I am American, and I am embarrassed at the behavior of many Americans. The grandparent post had a very good point about the heavy bias inherent in this thread. Again and again, we see the same theme perpetuated in American media - if Americans are killed, even in small numbers, it is a very big deal, way out of proportion to the numbers. I personally was very upset with the coverage of the tsunami a few years back when all the reports featured something akin to "thousands killed, including a few Americans," as if the few Americans were what mattered.
As the population grows, the use of natural resources increases. The point at which you start using resources past the sustainable limit will come a lot further than the point of massive starvation, etc. In the short term, doing things like clearing forests and irrigating can yield wonderful results. The trouble is that these practices can lead to topsoil erosion and saline soils.
If you wait until the mass starvation are imminent, it is WAY too late to do anything to stop them.
I love conspiracy theories as much as the next guy, but there were some very good reasons to eliminate the EV1. Check out this link: http://blogs.edmunds.com/karl/239
I know that I'm probably going to be throwing gasoline into a potential flame war here, but your site is hardly authoritative. That article simply lines up a series of straw-man arguments and shoots them down. eg:
5. Rumor: The oil industry is evil because it's making a profit.
Fact: The American economy is based on capitalism. If you're doing business in America you're supposed to make a profit.
Whatever, though. It doesn't matter.
The exciting thing is that they are making a new electric car, so even if there were dubious circumstances around stopping the EV1 (I don't know the details well enough to comment), it is all moot.
Your example is correct, but there is even MORE subtlety involved.
The question here is framed as the test being accurate 99% of the time. In practice, though, you usually examine the test from two different standpoints - the false positive and the false negative.
Going back to the example at hand, you can think of it in the terms of the probability of identifying an innocent person as a terrorist (false positive) and the probability of not identifying a real terrorist (false negative). It is extremely hard to pick a test that can give you a low false positive and a low false negative, whereas it is very easy to maximize one or the other.
For example, if the government wanted to make the statement, "We have a method of identifying 100% of terrorists," that's easy - just assume that everyone is a terrorist. * insert sarcastic political jab here *
On the other hand, you can also easily design a test that will never wrongly accuse an innocent person - just assume nobody is a terrorist. Actually, this last test is very effective. If we use the numbers from the parent, where terrorists are 0.00005 percent of the population, I can trivially construct a test which is 99.99995 percent accurate just by assuming everyone is innocent.
Obviously, both of these tests are useless, but they help illustrate the difficulty here. If you are going to institute any screening method, you are pretty much guaranteed to seriously fuck up, either by wrongfully accusing a great number of people or by missing one or two very dangerous people.
The solution - don't do random screening. Period. You will not catch terrorists and/or you will seriously erode personal freedoms. The terrorism problem is much more difficult (and no, I don't think I have the answers, even though I'm posting to slashdot).
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe they were using base 830?
I just hope this leads to a whole new wave of ornithopters.
And if you always turn that far to the left, why should we believe anything you say in a political discussion?
Flying monkeys?
Slashdot, where a discussion of someone hacking a high profile government official's private email address spirals through Monty Python jokes into a flame war about the Roman empire.
And here I am, at work, wasting my time reading this discussion and posting on that fact.
*sigh*
I'm sorry here folks, but this is a flawed premise to begin with.
How many of those economists based their opinions on hard data and rigorous modeling based upon a careful analysis of the facts? My guess is few, if any. From TFA:
What does this tell us? That economists, despite having had training on how to construct economic models, tend to be like other people. They form an opinion/bias (ie political party) and then they view the world through the haze of that opinion in a self-reinforcing way.
If you really want to shed some light on the economy, don't collect a survey of opinions from economists, fund detailed, rigorous studies.
Substitute "I'm" with "most people" and you've concisely summarized the evolution of societal mores.
Nicely done!
And ... bingo - this is my major complaint against people who preach enthusiastically about the virtues of libertarianism. It is a great idea in theory, but in order for it to work, you must have a well-informed, intelligent public that is capable of making decisions based upon a complex set of variables.
In other words, it is completely impractical in reality.
I wasn't trying to make the claim that nothing good ever came out of Hollywood, more the statement that the majority of Hollywood has sucked since the medium ever started. I clearly recognize that making generalizations isn't a good idea. After all, every single generalization and absolute statement ever made is false in some way (this one included).
Keep in mind that Hollywood is, primarily, a big business. As such, they are interested not in producing the best, most insightful films ever made. Instead, they are more focused on films that sell well, which are easy to watch and offer some great escapism.
That isn't to say that there are zero great films from Hollywood, only that there are few, which isn't a new thing.
As for your counter-examples of good Hollywood films from Kubrick and Hitchcock, yes I have seen several of their films. You do know, however, that most of Kubrick's work came out of London, right? You also know that Hitchcock began his career in the UK?
I'm just saying....
Although the anecdote may be apocryphal, I feel compelled to jump in here with a story from the time when filmmaker Luis Bunuel was working in the early days of Hollywood, circa 1940.
From what he describes in his autobiography, even way back then, things were so formulaic, he got disgusted. He then took this disgust to the next step, plotting out charts of characters, plot, era, etc., so that with this system and a few basic facts, the whole story could be told.
Then, a while later, he went to a premiere of a spy film where the heroine is shot at the end (I forget the title). Upon leaving the theater his companion was going on and on about how original the film was, so Bunuel simply states that he could tell what was going to happen from the opening shot. Naturally, the companion didn't believe him, so to prove his point, they went back to Bunuel's apartment to ask his roommate.
Upon describing some of the opening scenes, Bunuel's roommate just waved his hands, saying, "Don't bother - they shoot her in the end."
So, this past history when Hollywood had the ability to crank out thoughtful, meaningful, entertaining, and relevant films - when was that, exactly?
You may wish to try contacting the University of Wisconsin's SWAP program. I'm not sure how they have set it up, but it basically takes all of the old equipment and sells it to general public. This includes, computers, desks, oscilloscopes, incubators, etc. It is a bit like going to the best garage sale ever.
I don't know this program started, but it sounds like the kind of thing you're looking for. Trying to get in touch with some of the folks in charge may give you insights into how to get it to work.
In the end, though, I suspect that setting up something like it will take a lot of paperwork and will have to be approved by about 20 committees.
You mean, something like a jetpack? That would be awesome.
What I find interesting is that this figurative interpretation is what is already being favored by the Catholic Church. From their acceptance of the Big Bang and evolution, it is already clear that they are comfortable with figurative interpretations. This is in stark contrast to a few hundred years ago, when you could be killed for minor points of dogma.
I'm hoping is that some of the more extreme groups take heed and see that it is possible to have an open mind with religion. If you look at history, there has been a long track record of religion disagreeing with science and science winning. Is there anyone (of importance) out there who still disagrees with the heliocentric view of the solar system? I wonder how much of the current switch from the Catholic Church is a recognition that their obstinate views in the past backfired.
That is one advantage of an older religious group - perspective. This reminds me of one conversation I had a few weeks back. My friends and I were musing at the relative levels of extremism and how that relates to the age of a religion. Take Buddhism for example. It is an old religion and there is very little extremism. Christianity is younger, and there is still some extremism with a whole lot back in the dark ages. Islam, on the other hand, is still relatively young, about the same age of Christianity in the dark ages, and we all know how much Islamic extremists make the news. Hopefully, then, as religions get older and settle down, they will start adopting the more peaceful, open-minded approaches.
You know, after a long history of not-so-good behavior in the face of science (eg, Galileo), it is good to see that the Catholic Church is recognizing that much of current scientific thinking is consistent with scientific ideas.
In fact, Catholic high schools even teach evolution, recognizing that you can still choose to believe in God as the creator alongside a belief in evolution as the mechanism of creation.
I see the acknowledgment of the possibility of alien life along this same vein. I wonder, though, how the creation of freaky-ass-bug-eyed aliens would fit into the "God created man is his own image" idea. Perhaps that God is so wacky and cool he can take on any shape?
Although your hacking prowess is impressive, I personally just can't imagine spending that much effort to watch TV.
/. in that I have never lived with cable TV (or satellite or ...). In fact, my TV was made in 1984, has faux-wood grain on the outside, and when it stops working next year, I'll probably just stop watching altogether.
If I want to consume quality media, I'd rather just get the DVDs of what I want to watch.
Then again, I think I'm a bit of an oddball on
I, for one, am shocked that /.ers didn't fully read the article before posting.
Shocked.
Why should you care?
Because the actions of a government don't make all of the citizens culpable.
Because good, moral people are struggling to make sense of things and rebuild their lives.
Because maybe you want to live in a world where people look out for one another.
Because ignoring the situation will only cause greater suffering.
Or, how about this:
Because it is the decent thing to do.
I feel embarrassed to be human.
Seriously, people suck.
Sometimes, making a joke to deal with a horrific situation is needed, but those comments (and some of the posts in this discussion) just disappoint me.
Well said. As an American I would hate to be judged by the actions of my government.
Although I agree in general with what you're saying, I think you have downplayed the severity of the earthquake. It is not simply something that "happens every now and then." Earthquakes are massive, destructive, horrible events.
I am American, and I am embarrassed at the behavior of many Americans. The grandparent post had a very good point about the heavy bias inherent in this thread. Again and again, we see the same theme perpetuated in American media - if Americans are killed, even in small numbers, it is a very big deal, way out of proportion to the numbers. I personally was very upset with the coverage of the tsunami a few years back when all the reports featured something akin to "thousands killed, including a few Americans," as if the few Americans were what mattered.
Your argument is specious.
As the population grows, the use of natural resources increases. The point at which you start using resources past the sustainable limit will come a lot further than the point of massive starvation, etc. In the short term, doing things like clearing forests and irrigating can yield wonderful results. The trouble is that these practices can lead to topsoil erosion and saline soils.
If you wait until the mass starvation are imminent, it is WAY too late to do anything to stop them.
I know that I'm probably going to be throwing gasoline into a potential flame war here, but your site is hardly authoritative. That article simply lines up a series of straw-man arguments and shoots them down. eg:
Whatever, though. It doesn't matter.
The exciting thing is that they are making a new electric car, so even if there were dubious circumstances around stopping the EV1 (I don't know the details well enough to comment), it is all moot.
1. Write a book on how to spot terrorists.
2. Assume anyone buying that book is a terrorist.
3. ???
4. Profit!
Your example is correct, but there is even MORE subtlety involved.
The question here is framed as the test being accurate 99% of the time. In practice, though, you usually examine the test from two different standpoints - the false positive and the false negative.
Going back to the example at hand, you can think of it in the terms of the probability of identifying an innocent person as a terrorist (false positive) and the probability of not identifying a real terrorist (false negative). It is extremely hard to pick a test that can give you a low false positive and a low false negative, whereas it is very easy to maximize one or the other.
For example, if the government wanted to make the statement, "We have a method of identifying 100% of terrorists," that's easy - just assume that everyone is a terrorist. * insert sarcastic political jab here *
On the other hand, you can also easily design a test that will never wrongly accuse an innocent person - just assume nobody is a terrorist. Actually, this last test is very effective. If we use the numbers from the parent, where terrorists are 0.00005 percent of the population, I can trivially construct a test which is 99.99995 percent accurate just by assuming everyone is innocent.
Obviously, both of these tests are useless, but they help illustrate the difficulty here. If you are going to institute any screening method, you are pretty much guaranteed to seriously fuck up, either by wrongfully accusing a great number of people or by missing one or two very dangerous people.
The solution - don't do random screening. Period. You will not catch terrorists and/or you will seriously erode personal freedoms. The terrorism problem is much more difficult (and no, I don't think I have the answers, even though I'm posting to slashdot).
And for video conferencing. I learned that the hard way.