Re:Not very scientific
on
Killer Ozone?
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Hey, don't diss the study. This is a real breakthrough. They're basically saying that if you breathe poisonous stuff all day it increases your chance of dying prematurely. Astounding!
You could take the Swiss way to make the president a powerless figurehead and actually dilute the executive power between a Federal Council of seven representatives. Makes this whole power-crazy tyrant phenomenon a lot harder...
Oh I'm not saying it works well as a general system, just that it's sustainable. I think any system which consists of essentially electing a tyrant for a number of years is not a democracy. No single person should be in charge of a country like that. The Swiss system is a better solution (the president is a figurehead, the actual executive power is held by a federal council).
Absolutely. I just disagree with the "you have to live it the hardest way possible so you can appreciate when things are better" approach. You may learn something in the process, but is it worth the price? Considering how little time we have on this earth, wasting the best years of it making burgers or cleaning toilets when you don't have to, when you could easily be enjoying it all instead, seems like an insult to life itself. Now if you have no choice about it, fair enough, but if you do...
Well done, so you ate cheap food, didn't sleep enough, broke your back working for peanuts, and wasted the best part of your youth working like a donkey. Hopefully this makes you feel super-good now that you're 30+ and you make in a couple of weeks what used to take you a year to earn, but you have numerous health problems related to bad diet when you were young, and are so worn down from all that work that having dinner with your significant other is a big night out for you.
Yes, I agree too. That sounds like a totally stupid study. Maybe they should mention what sort of work they were doing. If the work was to collect drops of sweat in a bucket, then 25 would definitely be more productive. For programming, at 25 my brain slows down to zero and I keep on losing track of what I'm doing, and end up spending all my time browsing the web.
It shouldn't be cold enough to shiver, but it definitely shouldn't be warm either!
Nothing compared to the pyramids of egypt. Tens of thousands of people worked on those, and all of them died, and we don't even know the circumstances of their deaths!!
Not only that, but it's also a generic algorithm applicable to many varied situations, whereas some other algorithms (like the one which won) are only applicable to PD.
The above is the point structure normally used in PD (see http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/PRISDIL.html ). As should be obvious from that, the way they won is not by having the M/S alternate regularly (because in that case there are no point 'created' in total so the average score of each would be 0), but by completely sacrificing the slave to the master (ie slave ends up with -N and master with +N). This is a totally ridiculous strategy seeing as the game is designed for "selfish agents" and an agent that sacrifices itself for another is obviously not selfish!
That's what I thought while reading the article... also making use of that code is assuming a meta-knowledge of the game, ie some sort of way you can have prepared for that particular and specific instance of the game where the specific problem is the prisoner's dilemna with its known simple outcomes. Whereas tit-for-tat is a much more generic theory that can apply to a game which you don't know about yet (eg, say, one that has N possible outcomes rather than only 4), by simply stating "try to choose the mutually beneficial outcome first and then mirror your opponent's moves", the program they devised makes use of specific knowledge of how the game works (eg with those recognition sequences..). Because of that it is clearly inferior and more a hack of PD than a game theory idea.
But, says Kendall, "Everybody in our field knows the name of Anatol Rapoport, who won the Axelrod competition. So if you can win the 20th-anniversary one, in our field there's a certain historical significance."
But in this guy's case the significance will be lost because he didn't win through any significant idea, but through a hack. As he says earlier, it's the research that counts, not the outcome.
Yep. There's the same difference between software engineering and programming as between architecture/structure engineering and building construction. Doesn't matter how good the builders are, if the architect built a bad plan the house will fall down. To push all this planning stuff out of the responsibilities of the "programmers" is unjust on the managers, though. A good software engineer should be aware of the whole process and how it needs to be conducted and be able to advise his manager (if he's not a manager himself) on how to proceed. It's part of his job.
If the builders get given a plan where the roof is placed underneath the house, they should question it, not just build it blindly without asking.
The sprinklers won't resume till the sensor dries out and the amount of moisture needed to stop the sprinklers is adjustable. Butt simple and reliable.
If you want to get way fancy then you can get a system that incorporates soil moisture sensors.
Sounds about a bazillion times more reliable than any weather report I've ever seen!
1) They'll probably be telling YOU stuff you don't know about IT.
2) Screw the theoretical/historical talks. You're talking about 10-year olds, not uni students. Get a projector and hands-on show them something interesting and fun. A game might actually not be a bad thing. Perhaps a simple game programmed in some BASIC-like language, preceded by some extremely brief examples of how writing somethign in the program and then running it results in the computer actually doing what it's told. Those who are likely to get interested in computers will be fired up by that. Those who aren't, well, they aren't. Perhaps page-down through the slightly more complex game to show them how long the program is, and tell them "that's about 1000 lines of code - nowadays computer games tend to have X bazillion lines of code, but the result is a bit more impressive!" and give them a brief demo of some modern game - perhaps even play the demo movie from a game.
Oh don't worry corporations have plenty of methods, also known as "processes", to ensure that it takes just as long to do anything on *nix than on *blows.
CNN? Straight down the middle? Don't make me laugh. CNN is well biased towards whatever the ruling party is in the States. Not as bad as, say, Fox, but still. Even BBC World is biased in the same direction (despite all that fuss about the BBC being opposed to Tony Blair. They did put out a few good unbiased documentaries which made things look bad for the Iraq "coalition" but they generally report things squarely from the side of the western world).
I don't know of any english-speaking channel which isn't biased like that. In France and Germany, Arte tends to be a little biased in the other direction. In Switzerland, the national TV is actually fairly unbiased, probably because the swiss government is neutral and it's federally funded. Even so they tend to have a little bias one way or another.
Truth is, no TV channel is "straight down the middle of the road". As you said in your post, the only way to get a decent idea of what's going on is to read many news sources. The problem is, though, even in doing so, unless you're capable of great discipline in analyzing news, you'll end up reading what you want to read and disregarding what disagrees with your world views. Perhaps over a long period of time of reading mostly from one bias you might change your view a little bit in that direction but... why the hell would you want to do that?
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, don't diss the study. This is a real breakthrough. They're basically saying that if you breathe poisonous stuff all day it increases your chance of dying prematurely. Astounding!
Daniel
You could take the Swiss way to make the president a powerless figurehead and actually dilute the executive power between a Federal Council of seven representatives. Makes this whole power-crazy tyrant phenomenon a lot harder...
Daniel
I say we give both candidates a pretzel and let it go from there, to see whether they can undo themselves.
Daniel
1. Slashdot top of front page article
2. pornographic site
3. ???
4. Slashdotted!
Daniel
Oh I'm not saying it works well as a general system, just that it's sustainable. I think any system which consists of essentially electing a tyrant for a number of years is not a democracy. No single person should be in charge of a country like that. The Swiss system is a better solution (the president is a figurehead, the actual executive power is held by a federal council).
Daniel
The UK has a tri-partite system that works fine and has been doing so for a good while.
Daniel
Absolutely. I just disagree with the "you have to live it the hardest way possible so you can appreciate when things are better" approach. You may learn something in the process, but is it worth the price? Considering how little time we have on this earth, wasting the best years of it making burgers or cleaning toilets when you don't have to, when you could easily be enjoying it all instead, seems like an insult to life itself. Now if you have no choice about it, fair enough, but if you do...
Daniel
Euler has a ridiculous amount of stuff named after him.
Deservedly, for the most part...
Daniel
Well done, so you ate cheap food, didn't sleep enough, broke your back working for peanuts, and wasted the best part of your youth working like a donkey. Hopefully this makes you feel super-good now that you're 30+ and you make in a couple of weeks what used to take you a year to earn, but you have numerous health problems related to bad diet when you were young, and are so worn down from all that work that having dinner with your significant other is a big night out for you.
Daniel
Yes, I agree too. That sounds like a totally stupid study. Maybe they should mention what sort of work they were doing. If the work was to collect drops of sweat in a bucket, then 25 would definitely be more productive. For programming, at 25 my brain slows down to zero and I keep on losing track of what I'm doing, and end up spending all my time browsing the web.
It shouldn't be cold enough to shiver, but it definitely shouldn't be warm either!
Daniel
Nothing compared to the pyramids of egypt. Tens of thousands of people worked on those, and all of them died, and we don't even know the circumstances of their deaths!!
Daniel
Yes, reading between the lines is one of those useful abilities that you get as you grow up.
Daniel
Apparently, catchy slogans like 'Listen up, you pirate, I choose copyright!' just aren't working.
Funny that...
Daniel
You're the idiot. Read the effin' dictionary under "sarcasm".
Daniel
Not only that, but it's also a generic algorithm applicable to many varied situations, whereas some other algorithms (like the one which won) are only applicable to PD.
Daniel
Defect - Defect = 0 points - 0 points
Defect - Coop = 10 points - -10 points
Coop - Defect = -10 points - 10 points
Coop - Coop = 5 points - 5 points
The above is the point structure normally used in PD (see http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/PRISDIL.html ). As should be obvious from that, the way they won is not by having the M/S alternate regularly (because in that case there are no point 'created' in total so the average score of each would be 0), but by completely sacrificing the slave to the master (ie slave ends up with -N and master with +N). This is a totally ridiculous strategy seeing as the game is designed for "selfish agents" and an agent that sacrifices itself for another is obviously not selfish!
Daniel
That's what I thought while reading the article... also making use of that code is assuming a meta-knowledge of the game, ie some sort of way you can have prepared for that particular and specific instance of the game where the specific problem is the prisoner's dilemna with its known simple outcomes. Whereas tit-for-tat is a much more generic theory that can apply to a game which you don't know about yet (eg, say, one that has N possible outcomes rather than only 4), by simply stating "try to choose the mutually beneficial outcome first and then mirror your opponent's moves", the program they devised makes use of specific knowledge of how the game works (eg with those recognition sequences..). Because of that it is clearly inferior and more a hack of PD than a game theory idea.
But, says Kendall, "Everybody in our field knows the name of Anatol Rapoport, who won the Axelrod competition. So if you can win the 20th-anniversary one, in our field there's a certain historical significance."
But in this guy's case the significance will be lost because he didn't win through any significant idea, but through a hack. As he says earlier, it's the research that counts, not the outcome.
Daniel
Yep. There's the same difference between software engineering and programming as between architecture/structure engineering and building construction. Doesn't matter how good the builders are, if the architect built a bad plan the house will fall down. To push all this planning stuff out of the responsibilities of the "programmers" is unjust on the managers, though. A good software engineer should be aware of the whole process and how it needs to be conducted and be able to advise his manager (if he's not a manager himself) on how to proceed. It's part of his job.
If the builders get given a plan where the roof is placed underneath the house, they should question it, not just build it blindly without asking.
Daniel
Relationships are too important to be taken seriously.
Daniel
The sprinklers won't resume till the sensor dries out and the amount of moisture needed to stop the sprinklers is adjustable. Butt simple and reliable. If you want to get way fancy then you can get a system that incorporates soil moisture sensors.
Sounds about a bazillion times more reliable than any weather report I've ever seen!
Daniel
1) They'll probably be telling YOU stuff you don't know about IT.
2) Screw the theoretical/historical talks. You're talking about 10-year olds, not uni students. Get a projector and hands-on show them something interesting and fun. A game might actually not be a bad thing. Perhaps a simple game programmed in some BASIC-like language, preceded by some extremely brief examples of how writing somethign in the program and then running it results in the computer actually doing what it's told. Those who are likely to get interested in computers will be fired up by that. Those who aren't, well, they aren't. Perhaps page-down through the slightly more complex game to show them how long the program is, and tell them "that's about 1000 lines of code - nowadays computer games tend to have X bazillion lines of code, but the result is a bit more impressive!" and give them a brief demo of some modern game - perhaps even play the demo movie from a game.
Daniel
Not only that, but what makes SIP better than, say, JXTA?
Daniel
Oh don't worry corporations have plenty of methods, also known as "processes", to ensure that it takes just as long to do anything on *nix than on *blows.
Daniel
One word/acronym: ESP.
Daniel
CNN? Straight down the middle? Don't make me laugh. CNN is well biased towards whatever the ruling party is in the States. Not as bad as, say, Fox, but still. Even BBC World is biased in the same direction (despite all that fuss about the BBC being opposed to Tony Blair. They did put out a few good unbiased documentaries which made things look bad for the Iraq "coalition" but they generally report things squarely from the side of the western world).
I don't know of any english-speaking channel which isn't biased like that. In France and Germany, Arte tends to be a little biased in the other direction. In Switzerland, the national TV is actually fairly unbiased, probably because the swiss government is neutral and it's federally funded. Even so they tend to have a little bias one way or another.
Truth is, no TV channel is "straight down the middle of the road". As you said in your post, the only way to get a decent idea of what's going on is to read many news sources. The problem is, though, even in doing so, unless you're capable of great discipline in analyzing news, you'll end up reading what you want to read and disregarding what disagrees with your world views. Perhaps over a long period of time of reading mostly from one bias you might change your view a little bit in that direction but... why the hell would you want to do that?
Daniel