Since when did parenting become the job of a president? It's ridiculous to even suggest that principality an morality of children should be governed.
And why is the debate on evil video games on again? If a poor kid is exposed to violent games, then parents are at fault, not the government. And if the parents don't give a shit about games, who's to say it stops there? Should Clinton regulate movies too? And what about televised programs? Should kids go to bed at 8pm?
So the OEMs are forced to add another fancy selling point, like upgrading the specs once again, in order to keep making the big bucks. They don't give a damn if it brings any added value to the product or if it even functions properly. What matters is some fancy little side remark on the laptop's brochure that makes their fancy little product be picked by the vast hordes of consuming sheep. Who cares if it makes sense or if it's even usable. What's important is that them flock falls for that "OMG! IT'S N+1!!!" and promptly spend their cash, specially for the "it's bigger than my neighbour's" bragging rights. I don't think it's so much about the laptop stickers. It used to be, but something significant has happened lately. You see, three or four years back, the performance of a budget laptop was relatively slow. It feels like the hardware finally caught up with the software (except for games). You can actually buy a 500 laptop because it CAN and WILL perform in almost every everyday application (except for games and such, of course). And it's so cheap because the components are dated and/or low-end enough and cheap to produce. In addition, market got bigger and we all know that the larger the scale of the production, the cheaper it gets to produce as well.
Of course, every now and then, PC makers push the limits to set new standards. For example, TFT panels used to come in 14" and 15" flavors, but nowadays it's kind of difficult to get a screen that small. And it's not like they decided to make more money by setting 17", 19" and 20" standards, because they didn't. The demand for larger panels was there and as technology advanced and more consumers got into flat screens, prices also went down. By today's standards, you can get a 20" screen for what, 250 bucks? A few years ago, getting 15" for 250 bucks was a dream.
...that the US (especially the Bush administration) is going to even pay out a measly 21 million dollars a year? There's a certain arrogance on behalf of the US - to pay out on a ruling like this is akin to being pushed around. Because they have to or face WTO sanctions, that's why. As if the United States ever cared? We completely ignore the UN, so why not WTO? And it's not like WTO is the only one threatening the US with sanctions; the European Union has put some pressure on the US over this as well since it's sort of a multi billion dollar business over there as well.
The truth is that the current administration has had little concerns over foreign and domestic policy. And if something as utterly important as privacy or habeas corpus is thrown in the garbage, why would they even bother to pay Antigua? And more importantly, who the hell will stand up to the United States?
It's been 60 years since Sputnik took off. You'd think the "who's got the biggest cock" race would be over by now. The current shuttles are getting a bit old now and the most recent problems/accidents/tragedies indicated the very same thing. Maybe Russian rockets is the safest route for now?
I find it hard to believe that the teacher punished the kid for using Firefox. He/she probably installed the application without authorization to do so. Not knowing what Firefox is, is hardly an oddity. After all, if every single being knew that there's a browser other than IE, far more would be using FF (or Opera for that matter).
Seriously... This is something I always wondered about with blogs -- what happens when a major site like this (that I'm sure has been linked to by blogs and used as fodder for blog posts) shuts down? Can you imagine how many blogs will be inconvenienced when Youtube goes the way of the dinosaur as well? All it takes is some bean counter to kill half the internet. If YouTube goes the way of the dinosaur, it's only because there's a better replacement.
I guess this puts Microsoft and Yahoo further apart. Not too long ago, it was speculated that Microsoft would make a move to buy Yahoo. Now Yahoo's sponsoring.NET's biggest competitor.
IE speaks a completely different CSS language than Firefox, they just happened to sound about 95% alike. If as much as 5% of your code is viewed differently between the two browsers, you're up for some serious headaches. Whenever I'm writing CSS, I always end up with problems that usually shouldn't exist. And it's not so much that there's a difference between IE and FF in terms of how they interpret the code, but how poorly IE copes with it. When something's not working like you'd expect it to, it usually ends with some ugly workarounds or a largely rewritten portion of the code.
I was obviously joking. For starters, why would a horse be "invented"? I was only referring to the idiotic attempt of some creationists who tried to explain how dinosaurs could co-exist without the help of evolution. Check the link I provided in that same post for more information.
Hmmm one wonders what religion you're defending... clearly you're not a muslim... I noticed a distinct lack of threats in your post... What makes you think he's defending any religion at all? Is atheism out of the question here?
Is it fun ? Attacking reasonable people irrationally ? Actually, his post was kind of funny, or at least from an atheist's point of view. Or an open-minded religious person's point of view. Furthermore, he is not really targeting 'reasonable people' but more the religion itself. Blasting a theology is not the same thing as blasting its believers.
Is that implying evolution? 10,000 years!! I thought Earth is only 7,000 years old. I declare this article a heresy. Depends on how you interpret it. Most Christians believe horses were introduced sometime during the 17th century. Other believers say horses came a century later - a delay caused by a late introduction of dinosaurs. So you might be off a century or so.
Gather around me kids, for I am sitting here in my 18th century rocker to tell you a story about a programmer.. A good programmer..
I used to work for a small-sized IT business; a popular community that housed some 130,000 members. It began with the loss of a fellow employee who had basically coded 99% of everything on the site. To that date, everything had worked fine. We had some issues every now and then, but a backup system helped us from getting hammered if anything bad happened.
We never worried too much about him leaving because, for starters, I had some experience with the code/system. In addition, the now departed programmer had left a comprehensive list of features and explanations of his system that would help any programmer (that would replace him) to get around any tricky problems that would/could occur.
Unfortunately, I won't go into what type of business this was, but let's just say that it's not typical programming skills. When I began looking for his replacement, I realized how hard it was to get someone with adequate skills and all the knowhow that was required besides the actual programming. As we were on a tight budget, it was important for us to find that one guy who didn't expect a zillion dollar salary. Typically, that would be someone who shares our interests, a recent graduate who knows his ways around programming.
Eventually I found one guy who claimed to be all that we wanted. After a month, it turned out that the guy was more and more frustrated over how things worked at the company. He disliked about everything about the code and spent most of the time cursing. At this point, I started to believe that our entire code sucked.
Roughly a month later, we decided to rebuild "everything" so that he could have his ways around the code. Since we only had one programmer, I had to comply because it was an important role in the company. My limited coding skills provided no extra help in evaluating our current code, so I trusted this guy since he seemed to be very thorough and experienced. Also, I was promised it would take no longer than one month to do all this.
What a fool I was. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. I should have known, but a company on a tight budget and no one else with good programming skills forced us into this move. Turns out, our super experienced programmer needed not one month, but two, three, four, five, six and seven months to complete his task. By then, he had reprogrammed almost everything and merged some of it with the old code. We waited for the relaunch of our software with great anticipation. Three! Two! One! Go! Oh crap, everything f*cked up.
Following the launch of our new software, we had months and months of trial and error problems. Members were complaining and nothing went in the right direction. Eventually, we were essentially bankrupt and had to let the superb programmer go. The guy who had left us with a huge mess.
When I read this Slashdot story, I had a smile on my face because I learned that a programmer can only know that his code is perfect by the response of many other programmers who can view his code (i.e. open source). Some programmers seem to think their code is perfect and that occurring bugs are caused by impossible-to-foresee problems. The point of my story is that if you truly want to know if you are a good programmer, you must let a lot of programmers decide that for you. Unless your name starts with J and ends with ohn Carmack, of course.
In Europe and the United States, we've seen the governments meddling with online freedom over and over again. For example, France is soon voting on a law that would force ISPs to shut down users who download copyrighted material. And then there's our own White House's Safe Port Act that forces financial institutions to shut down its operations to gambling sites. What's more bizarre is that some congressmen want the ISPs to regulate it; block "illegal" sites by banning the IP adresses. In Sweden they had party members who wanted ISPs to hand out IP adresses of users.
I can tell you categorically that my team won't download and play with Silverlight... won't build a Live widget... won't consider any Microsoft search or ad products in the future. Say all you want about Internet Explorer, but I can't stress how important Silverlight is. Regardless of what you think of Microsoft, the folks at Adobe want the same world domination as the Redmont folks do. A little competition never hurts...the customers.:)
After weeks of privacy protests over its advertising system, Facebook CEO announced that users now can turn the system off completely. CEO Zuckerberg said 'We simply did a bad job with this release.' It should be off by default and optional in the settings, as with MSN Messenger and many other applications.
On a personal note, I enjoyed Facebook at first until I realized that making my network public is quite idiotic. I mean, I can certainly live without Facebook and if I look at the privacy issues and compare it with the Facebook offers, it's just not that sweet any longer.
The west coast mainline upgrade in good old blighty has cost something like 20 billion dollars for less than 300 miles of track between London and Manchester. All this to achieve a speed of around 140mph. Does MagLev still look expensive? Yes it does. You are referring to a project that failed miserably. As stated in the same Wikipedia article you provided, the upgrade was expected to cost only $4 billion. Instead of looking up one of the biggest failures in history, why not just look for figures that actually represent what a regular train tracks system would cost - one that does not fail miserably? Blatantly ripped from Wikipedia:
However the plan was doomed from the beginning, since Railtrack had not assessed the technical viability of "moving block signalling" (see the Railway Signalling page for more details) prior to promising the speed increase to Virgin and the Government. No-one had attempted to implement moving block on a line as complex as the WCML anywhere in the world, and it soon became apparent to engineers that the technology was not mature enough to be used on the line. The bankruptcy of Railtrack in 2001 following the Hatfield crash brought a reappraisal of the plans whilst the original cost of the upgrade soared. Despite early fears that the cost overruns on the project would push the final price tag to £13bn, reappraisal of the plans has brought the cost down to between £8bn and £10bn, ready by 2008 with a maximum speed for tilting trains of a more modest 200 km/h (125 mph). Services from Liverpool to the South West and the South Coast were withdrawn by Virgin in September 2003.
A hundred million bucks a mile? Do they have to coat the trains with moon rocks? They build jet fighters, melt them and use it for tracks. Apparently, John Woo is involved in this project too.
It's unclear how many will actually get built here, at $100 million per track mile. The problem is that this technology is still a bit away from being fully completed. And $100 million per track mile is very optimistic considering the Japanese Linimo HSST cost some $100 million per kilometer, or rougly 0.62 miles. I mention this particular maglev construction because it could be similar to what the US is looking for - a low speed version that works perfectly within cities. Still, anything faster than that is also extremely expensive.
Maybe this technology is still 20 years away from being feasible at all. Why not spend money on regular trains and install extra isolated windows in cities at only a fraction of the cost?
Please read my posts all over again. I don't think you're reading the same page as I am because you're messing things up. For example, you've previously stated that scientists ignored the sailors' experiences with giant waves. Then you go on by saying that they should "stick to what can actually be measured, instead of trying to argue against something simply because it can't". Point is, they haven't been able to measure it because all they've had was stories about giant waves and no data.
Then you go on by saying that I "could technically be right, but, if a UFO or God ever did show up, you'd be wrong, so, why even risk the hit". What exactly are you referring to here? When was anyone predicting anything on UFOs and Gods and what do you mean about risk the hit?Maybe the pilots did see a UFO? They were in the plane. The scientists weren't. That's how the public sees it. Plus, at least in terms of early NASA UFO sightings, the astronauts WERE scientists. They were all guys with Phds, for the most part. That is my point. Regardless of who you are, whatever you saw or experienced holds no scientific value because it has to be proven and fact based before scientists can do anything about it. I'm not really sure why you brought this up.
Your last paragraph is a mystery to me. I don't even know what to reply to that, but all I've been struggling with here, is that I've tried to explain to you that scientists need data, facts and knowledge to process in order to make changes. Words from anyone is worth squat because regardless of who he or she is, it can't be proven unless there's data, facts or knowledge. The only reason that I explained this to you was because your prior posts suggested otherwise. Now you're suddenly trying to explain to me what I've been explaining to you.
One thing I've learned over the years is that new technology almost never gets any extensive research on safety. It's too expensive and too difficult to predict problems. There are exceptions, of course, such as planes and things that generally involve the safety of hundreds of people.
In most other cases, however, we learn from our own mistakes, through trial and error. If something goes wrong with a car, scientists will see this and hopefully perfect it in the next version.
Same goes with nano technology. You can put a hundred super computers at it and try to predict as many dangers as possible, but in the end, it's gonna cost so much and delay advancements so far that, ultimately, we're better off with the trail and error phase. Things will surely go wrong, people might get hurt, but that's how it's been going on for ages.
Your argument has the premise that scientists are the people whose job it is to separate fact from fiction. By allowing them to accept or reject what the sailors say, you argue that scientists should be in a position to judge the credibility of other people, and, in fact, in today's society, they are. You seem to ignore what I'm saying and merely reduce all my points to "how can you tell who's who". It's not easy to debate with someone who chooses to see what he wishes to see, but here goes.
Science comes from the Latin scientia, knowledge. If you cannot separate fact from fiction, your job as a scientist is sort of pointless. Let's say that you're a scientist who is developing a new car. If you put it your way, the scientist is supposed to - at least in some cases - go for fictional "facts". Maybe he's heard that alien abductions can be avoided if only the hull of the car's roof is twice as thick. After all, there are quite a few pilots with high authority who have claimed to have seen UFOs (read: like sailors on the seas). See, there's no reason for the scientist to alter the design of the car, because he has no knowledge of what this UFO (read: wave) performs like.
I have never stated that scientists ignore the sailors' claims. In fact, this very article proves that there are scientists who work with this issue to gain knowledge on the subject. By doing this, they disprove its fictional status by making it a fact.
Your last sentence in my quote is rather mystifying to me. Of course they should be in a position to judge people. As are you. As am I. As is everyone else. Is your boss not judging people? Is the judge not judging people? Are you never judging people? Did your mother never tell you to not hang around "them boys" at school? By doing so, did he not judge them? Judging is, aside from being a pure essentiality of science, is also a human action.
So when you indicate that scientists should not be in position to judge the credibility of people, who should? Do you now suggest that scientists should believe that God exists, solely because a lot of people with credibility do so? Or that aliens exist, because some pilots and a bunch of other folks say so? And as a scientist, would you actually consider to allow yourself not to judge people when you're doing your job? Explain to us all how that would work, because I am curious.
I would think sailors would be credible. That's the thing. You put sailors into same camp as UFO believers, but really, they are subject matter experts when it comes to the water. Really, that someone never went and bothered to really check the sailor's claims of giant waves for decades just tells me that "credible evidence" as you call it is just an excuse for laziness in the discipline. You don't have to be an expert to know that you're being probed anally by an alien. Same goes for enormous waves - you'd have to be pretty stupid not to recognize that a 100 foot wave is something out of the ordinary. My point is, sailors should be trusted as much as UFO believers until there is credible evidence. And by credible evidence, I am not saying eyewitnesses, but documented facts and material to analyze. For example, we must know how often they occur, where they occur, how fast they travel, how far, how wide they can get, etcetera. Without this knowledge, it's basically idiotic to alter any ship design, because for all we know, it could be like making all clothes in Italy volcano proof; an eruption happens every now and then, but it's so rare that it's silly to think you need to protect yourself from it.
Last but not least, I assure you that out of the millions of sailors out there, some of them are morons, compulsive liars and mentally insane. Of course, that statement goes for everyone else too. Point is, how can you as a scientist tell who's who? Therefore, eyewitnesses aren't very credible. Oh, and I'm definitely not saying that I doubt the existence of such waves. I just think that the post that I made my first reply to wasn't very insightful.
[..] therefor, everything from safety standards, to engineering, to the ships themselves, were all designed in line with what was predicted, but not what was observed. I think you're missing the point. It's not about altering ships to handle huge waves, but instead to warn them in advance. For instance, crew could get off the deck in time and the captain would have time to change its direction to match that of the wave.
I find it amazing that anyone would blindly trust an academic institution with any matter of policy, regarding climate, when, 2 ships a week have been sinking now for decades (on average), that, there's eyewitnesses that have said what caused these sinkings, and instead, ignored them. Ignored what exactly? The article states that "severe weather has sunk more than 200 supertankers and container ships exceeding 200 metres in length during the last two decades. There's no data on how many of these ships actually sunk from a super wave. In fact, the number could be so small that it's not even worth our time. More importantly, most of these accidents happen to really old boats.
Last but not least, there are many eyewitnesses who claim to have spotted UFOs, been exposed to abductions, seen the Loch Ness monster and whatnot. You need credible evidence before you start spending billions of dollars on altering ship designs.
It's only making money in areas where consumers have no choice. Did you think this through for, what, two seconds? What about Amazon where it is a huge success? How can you justify your claims on web sales? Or did Amazon run out of iPod?
Also, most places that offer Zune also sell iPods. At least that's what I've noticed.
Slashdot Mirror
Check this link to learn more about this phenomenon. It's a BBC documentary well worth your time.
Since when did parenting become the job of a president? It's ridiculous to even suggest that principality an morality of children should be governed.
And why is the debate on evil video games on again? If a poor kid is exposed to violent games, then parents are at fault, not the government. And if the parents don't give a shit about games, who's to say it stops there? Should Clinton regulate movies too? And what about televised programs? Should kids go to bed at 8pm?
Of course, every now and then, PC makers push the limits to set new standards. For example, TFT panels used to come in 14" and 15" flavors, but nowadays it's kind of difficult to get a screen that small. And it's not like they decided to make more money by setting 17", 19" and 20" standards, because they didn't. The demand for larger panels was there and as technology advanced and more consumers got into flat screens, prices also went down. By today's standards, you can get a 20" screen for what, 250 bucks? A few years ago, getting 15" for 250 bucks was a dream.
...that the US (especially the Bush administration) is going to even pay out a measly 21 million dollars a year? There's a certain arrogance on behalf of the US - to pay out on a ruling like this is akin to being pushed around. Because they have to or face WTO sanctions, that's why. As if the United States ever cared? We completely ignore the UN, so why not WTO? And it's not like WTO is the only one threatening the US with sanctions; the European Union has put some pressure on the US over this as well since it's sort of a multi billion dollar business over there as well.The truth is that the current administration has had little concerns over foreign and domestic policy. And if something as utterly important as privacy or habeas corpus is thrown in the garbage, why would they even bother to pay Antigua? And more importantly, who the hell will stand up to the United States?
It's been 60 years since Sputnik took off. You'd think the "who's got the biggest cock" race would be over by now. The current shuttles are getting a bit old now and the most recent problems/accidents/tragedies indicated the very same thing. Maybe Russian rockets is the safest route for now?
I find it hard to believe that the teacher punished the kid for using Firefox. He/she probably installed the application without authorization to do so. Not knowing what Firefox is, is hardly an oddity. After all, if every single being knew that there's a browser other than IE, far more would be using FF (or Opera for that matter).
I guess this puts Microsoft and Yahoo further apart. Not too long ago, it was speculated that Microsoft would make a move to buy Yahoo. Now Yahoo's sponsoring .NET's biggest competitor.
I was obviously joking. For starters, why would a horse be "invented"? I was only referring to the idiotic attempt of some creationists who tried to explain how dinosaurs could co-exist without the help of evolution. Check the link I provided in that same post for more information.
Gather around me kids, for I am sitting here in my 18th century rocker to tell you a story about a programmer.. A good programmer..
I used to work for a small-sized IT business; a popular community that housed some 130,000 members. It began with the loss of a fellow employee who had basically coded 99% of everything on the site. To that date, everything had worked fine. We had some issues every now and then, but a backup system helped us from getting hammered if anything bad happened.
We never worried too much about him leaving because, for starters, I had some experience with the code/system. In addition, the now departed programmer had left a comprehensive list of features and explanations of his system that would help any programmer (that would replace him) to get around any tricky problems that would/could occur.
Unfortunately, I won't go into what type of business this was, but let's just say that it's not typical programming skills. When I began looking for his replacement, I realized how hard it was to get someone with adequate skills and all the knowhow that was required besides the actual programming. As we were on a tight budget, it was important for us to find that one guy who didn't expect a zillion dollar salary. Typically, that would be someone who shares our interests, a recent graduate who knows his ways around programming.
Eventually I found one guy who claimed to be all that we wanted. After a month, it turned out that the guy was more and more frustrated over how things worked at the company. He disliked about everything about the code and spent most of the time cursing. At this point, I started to believe that our entire code sucked.
Roughly a month later, we decided to rebuild "everything" so that he could have his ways around the code. Since we only had one programmer, I had to comply because it was an important role in the company. My limited coding skills provided no extra help in evaluating our current code, so I trusted this guy since he seemed to be very thorough and experienced. Also, I was promised it would take no longer than one month to do all this.
What a fool I was. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. I should have known, but a company on a tight budget and no one else with good programming skills forced us into this move. Turns out, our super experienced programmer needed not one month, but two, three, four, five, six and seven months to complete his task. By then, he had reprogrammed almost everything and merged some of it with the old code. We waited for the relaunch of our software with great anticipation. Three! Two! One! Go! Oh crap, everything f*cked up.
Following the launch of our new software, we had months and months of trial and error problems. Members were complaining and nothing went in the right direction. Eventually, we were essentially bankrupt and had to let the superb programmer go. The guy who had left us with a huge mess.
When I read this Slashdot story, I had a smile on my face because I learned that a programmer can only know that his code is perfect by the response of many other programmers who can view his code (i.e. open source). Some programmers seem to think their code is perfect and that occurring bugs are caused by impossible-to-foresee problems. The point of my story is that if you truly want to know if you are a good programmer, you must let a lot of programmers decide that for you. Unless your name starts with J and ends with ohn Carmack, of course.
In Europe and the United States, we've seen the governments meddling with online freedom over and over again. For example, France is soon voting on a law that would force ISPs to shut down users who download copyrighted material. And then there's our own White House's Safe Port Act that forces financial institutions to shut down its operations to gambling sites. What's more bizarre is that some congressmen want the ISPs to regulate it; block "illegal" sites by banning the IP adresses. In Sweden they had party members who wanted ISPs to hand out IP adresses of users.
On a personal note, I enjoyed Facebook at first until I realized that making my network public is quite idiotic. I mean, I can certainly live without Facebook and if I look at the privacy issues and compare it with the Facebook offers, it's just not that sweet any longer.
Maybe this technology is still 20 years away from being feasible at all. Why not spend money on regular trains and install extra isolated windows in cities at only a fraction of the cost?
Please read my posts all over again. I don't think you're reading the same page as I am because you're messing things up. For example, you've previously stated that scientists ignored the sailors' experiences with giant waves. Then you go on by saying that they should "stick to what can actually be measured, instead of trying to argue against something simply because it can't". Point is, they haven't been able to measure it because all they've had was stories about giant waves and no data.
Then you go on by saying that I "could technically be right, but, if a UFO or God ever did show up, you'd be wrong, so, why even risk the hit". What exactly are you referring to here? When was anyone predicting anything on UFOs and Gods and what do you mean about risk the hit? Maybe the pilots did see a UFO? They were in the plane. The scientists weren't. That's how the public sees it. Plus, at least in terms of early NASA UFO sightings, the astronauts WERE scientists. They were all guys with Phds, for the most part. That is my point. Regardless of who you are, whatever you saw or experienced holds no scientific value because it has to be proven and fact based before scientists can do anything about it. I'm not really sure why you brought this up.
Your last paragraph is a mystery to me. I don't even know what to reply to that, but all I've been struggling with here, is that I've tried to explain to you that scientists need data, facts and knowledge to process in order to make changes. Words from anyone is worth squat because regardless of who he or she is, it can't be proven unless there's data, facts or knowledge. The only reason that I explained this to you was because your prior posts suggested otherwise. Now you're suddenly trying to explain to me what I've been explaining to you.
One thing I've learned over the years is that new technology almost never gets any extensive research on safety. It's too expensive and too difficult to predict problems. There are exceptions, of course, such as planes and things that generally involve the safety of hundreds of people.
In most other cases, however, we learn from our own mistakes, through trial and error. If something goes wrong with a car, scientists will see this and hopefully perfect it in the next version.
Same goes with nano technology. You can put a hundred super computers at it and try to predict as many dangers as possible, but in the end, it's gonna cost so much and delay advancements so far that, ultimately, we're better off with the trail and error phase. Things will surely go wrong, people might get hurt, but that's how it's been going on for ages.
Science comes from the Latin scientia, knowledge. If you cannot separate fact from fiction, your job as a scientist is sort of pointless. Let's say that you're a scientist who is developing a new car. If you put it your way, the scientist is supposed to - at least in some cases - go for fictional "facts". Maybe he's heard that alien abductions can be avoided if only the hull of the car's roof is twice as thick. After all, there are quite a few pilots with high authority who have claimed to have seen UFOs (read: like sailors on the seas). See, there's no reason for the scientist to alter the design of the car, because he has no knowledge of what this UFO (read: wave) performs like.
I have never stated that scientists ignore the sailors' claims. In fact, this very article proves that there are scientists who work with this issue to gain knowledge on the subject. By doing this, they disprove its fictional status by making it a fact.
Your last sentence in my quote is rather mystifying to me. Of course they should be in a position to judge people. As are you. As am I. As is everyone else. Is your boss not judging people? Is the judge not judging people? Are you never judging people? Did your mother never tell you to not hang around "them boys" at school? By doing so, did he not judge them? Judging is, aside from being a pure essentiality of science, is also a human action.
So when you indicate that scientists should not be in position to judge the credibility of people, who should? Do you now suggest that scientists should believe that God exists, solely because a lot of people with credibility do so? Or that aliens exist, because some pilots and a bunch of other folks say so? And as a scientist, would you actually consider to allow yourself not to judge people when you're doing your job? Explain to us all how that would work, because I am curious.
Last but not least, I assure you that out of the millions of sailors out there, some of them are morons, compulsive liars and mentally insane. Of course, that statement goes for everyone else too. Point is, how can you as a scientist tell who's who? Therefore, eyewitnesses aren't very credible. Oh, and I'm definitely not saying that I doubt the existence of such waves. I just think that the post that I made my first reply to wasn't very insightful.
Last but not least, there are many eyewitnesses who claim to have spotted UFOs, been exposed to abductions, seen the Loch Ness monster and whatnot. You need credible evidence before you start spending billions of dollars on altering ship designs.
Also, most places that offer Zune also sell iPods. At least that's what I've noticed.