Wow! I wish I could rate your post higher than 5 Crudpuppy!
The fact that you disagree with a central theme of a book does not mean you cannot gain a lot by trying to understand where the writer is coming from!
Ayn Rand books highlights some of the (real and potentially serious) flaws in an increasingly socialist philosophy.
Her suggested soultions are incredibly unrealistic and overly extreme..., her writing style is boring and overly repetitive..., most of her characters are simply implausible.
But, being able to understand where she is coming from, without being carried away to the extreme by her evangelism, will greatly enrich your ability to understand and interact with econonic and political issues in your own society.
While, in the short term, you may not be able to negotiate the price you are hoping for. In the long term, an attitude of noticing and fixing problems that improve the quality of work your team, and your boss, are doing is always noticed! And with the right mindset, you can always turn that noticing into profit/ benefits/ extra days off etc. And, if nothing else, it provides a huge boost to your CV when you are looking for your next job.
I came in as a developer to a finance team in international bank a few years ago. Going way beyond my 'job description' of designing reporting systems as directed, I always tried to understand the reasoning behind any new system or change requests coming from my bosses.
As a direct result of this, I have been able to suggest many improvements in the way those accounting and finance teams work. Making their lives much easier, becoming a bit of a finance expert in the process, and making them look so good in the eyes of their own bosses that a global project based on the system I designed and built has being implemented.
You may ask how all this has benefited me. It's true my rates only went up about 15% in this period. However, I used the value I had created as a reason to be able to change the time I arrive in the office to anything between 9:30 and 11:30 am. To me, those extra hours in the morning are extremely valuable. I could have also got other benefits from my extra value but this was the most important one to me and what I focused on getting.
Also, when I gave notice three months ago that I was going to leave . Even though they had hired a replacement, whom I have given full training. The fact that I have accumulated so much value and knowledge meant they offered to rehire me for a better role with an 80% raise! I refused it (as the reason I'm leaving is not just financial). So instead, I agreed to come in as a consultant three times a week, still with the 80% raise, one weeks notice period, and with the clear understanding that as soon as I get a new job I'll be leaving.
These are not the kind of things that happen to people who want to do only what is in their job description.
It helps if you realise that your boss is also just a regular guy who is trying to get through his own work day as smoothly as possible as well. And who probably is having his own issues with his own boss. If he has been trying to get extra budget for a new server because the last one is so old his iphone is more powerful than it is, and you come to him asking for payment (or a raise/ or budget for a new project) because you've created a nice doohickey that will reduce the amount of time you and your team spend doing a job which currently already leaves you with a lot of downtime. His reaction may be less than enthusiastic.
It's just a clump of neural cells. It's not like it has a pleasure centre or anything.
To be honest this guy's (Kevin Warwick) previous work tends to lend a suggestion of dubiousness to the whole thing.
His first project was "interfacing" the human body with a machine by sticking a RFID chip in his arm and waving it in front of a reader! That's just as high tech as putting a wireless card in your wallet and tapping it on a reciever.
In this case, it sounds like all he has done is set up a bunch of neural cells which he uses as tangled cables: 1. Send input through here 2. Find out where output comes from 3. Plug control there
I may be oversimplifying, but without giving the cells some sort of feedback for them to know whether thier result is right or wrong, you will simply end upwith random connections being made until the robot no longer works.
It seems like he is getting really good at sticking biological bits into machines (and vice versa) but not making any real progress in actually getting useful information across that barrier.
(Even his robot hand experiment is just a variation of the mind control gamepad computer game manufacturers have been working on, only in his case he transmits the signal over the internet.)
While there may be a number of people whose way of life consists of draining the resources of others to make thier own life better. Those are not the only people who need, or want, help.
There are also people who may have been very productive for most of thier lives but due to accident, misfortune, or even temporary stupidity, may be in need of a little help to get back on thier feet. With this help, they could return to being productive members of society for the rest of thier lives, without it, whatever potential for production they still had will be lost permanently.
While I definitely don't subscribe to the agenda which says "everyone is entitled to a certain level of enjoyment out of life, irrespective of what they put into it". Nevertheless, a good safety net means that you get more productive members of the society than you would otherwise. A side effect of a good safety net though, is that it is very difficult to separate the permanently unproductive from those of temporarily reduced productivity.
Besides, if you believe that people who can't survive on thier own (irrespective of how they got that way) shouldn't be helped to survive by others, why should cute animals be any different?
Do you really believe the writer of this pseudo-science article had to rush to meet an important reporting deadline so they wouldn't get scooped by another network?!?
Funnily enough, I'm just reading super-freakonimcs and the authors mentioned a few things about the general male-female wage gap, which confirmed things in my personal experience.
All the research done shows women are are more likely to leave the workforce earlier than men or downshift in thier careers. Even the summary says that. Basically, most of the factors that affect the pay gap are things done by choice.
On a personal level even a small amount observation will show that most women don't make as much money as men becuase they really don't want to.
When any of my male acquaintances are looking for a job thier first question is always "How can I get a job that pays more money." With my female acquaintances when they are looking for a job the first comment is almost always "I want to know if i will like it there."
Men value money more on average while women value work environment and quality. Men are more likely to ask for a raise than women. And men are more likely to quit becuase they didn't get the raise while women are more likely to quit becuase they don't like the environment.
All this naturally leads to the conclusion that men will make more money than women but women will enjoy thier jobs more than men.
Can any of you say this isn't true in your own personal experience?
I believe the grand parent was not referring to a grammatically incorrect question but a question based on a faulty assumption.
Before his response has been hijacked by the grammar police, I understood him to be reffering to a situation where you get asked the question "What is the correct value for Pi" and you answer "An acceptable approximate is 3.142" rather than spending ages trying to explain the concept of pi and why you can't give an accurate answer to the question.
That way you can satisfy your geeky need for accuracy without making people afraid to ask you questions.
Saying "I have no reason to believe there are pink fairies at the bottom of the garden" and saying "I am absolutely sure there are no pink fairies at the bottom of the garden" are two totally different things.
if you add the axiom that these fairies are invisble and try to avoid being noticed. Then Yes! it becomes arrogant to insist that they do not exist.
The GP is actually the most reasoned take on the issue I have yet heard.
The truth is that many scientific theories require similar levels of faith. (multiple universe theory, string theory, even some interpretations of Einstien's theory of relativity) They are supported by mathematical formulations that cannot be proved or disproved in reality in much the same way the proofs of a higher being are supported by philosophical formulations. The existence of a mathematical formula is meaningless unless all the variables in it can be matched to existing and measurable physical phenomena. Yet no one goes around writing books saying I believe string theory is rubbish.
Consider these scenarios 1. The world is actually the Matrix. The architect decides that only humans who belive in him will get downloaded into a cyber brain and live forever upon expiration of thier body. Does this not make him a defacto God.
2 Dr Manhattan (from watchmen) goes to another galaxy. Seeds it with life, watches over it as it grows, guides it towards sentience and gives the sentient beings a list of rules they should live by and steps back to see which of them sincerely obeys or disobeys (not out of fear). The ones that he deems worthy, at the moment of death are transfigured and given similar powers to him (a substitute body is of course provided for burial to prevent questions). doesn't this make him to all intents and purposes God.
3. The Ori/ The ancients (from stargate) are Gods in everything but name (despite the writers desperately trying to claim otherwise). In fact they are very similar to the greek/norse pantheons. Whether or not they ask for worship does not detract from the title.
I could think up more examples but I'm sure you see my point.
You cannot prove any of the above scenarios aren't currently the case. The only thing you can do (which is what stargate does) is to say becuase you know the origin of a God then that reduces from his/her/it's divinity. But in the old Pantheons it was quite possible for a mortal to be elevated to Godhood.
As a scientist one of the most valuable pieces of information you can have is knowing what you don't know.
The market movement is integrally random. It's true that, like most random systems, if you have all the inputs you can probably predict it, but no one has all the inputs.
A model of this random system helps people to improve thier predictions and they invest in the market based on these predictions.
Unlike say a climate model, where if everyone is totally wrong, the weather still does what it wants anyway. With the markets, investors acting based on the results of whatever model they are using are actually changing the reality of the market.
When everyone uses the same model, when the model says "Stock A is a good investment" everyone sees the model and decides it's a good investment, demand increases, price goes up. This information is then fed back into the model. The model now looks at the increased demand and says "A is an even better investment". Everyone looks at this result, demand increases even more and price goes up faster. This information is fed into the model again which now says "Wow! look at the action on that stock it's an absolutely GREAT investment!" Demand goes through the roof and prices soar.
the problem with this is that the people pushing up the prices are the speculators. And all speculators rely on the fact that at the end of all the rigmarole, there will be an actual consumer willing to pay the price they are quoting for the item. According to thier model lots of people are willing to pay the price. But in the real world all the consumers got prices out of the market ages ago. When the speculators now try to sell, prices crash!
when everyone is using a different model, this activity is spread across diffent stocks becuase the initial recommendations vary and so the feedback is watered down. But as more people rely on the same model, the more likely it is that that model will actually begin to become the cause of market movements, rather than a predictor, and the more acute the boom/bust cycles will be.
The same thing could be seen in the housing market (in the UK at least). Long after house prices were way to expensive for the average family (even with a hundred percent mortgage) to buy. Thousands of people were still desperately trying to borrow money to buy a house they couldn't afford. Afterall all the experts were predicting that house prices would rise and they would soon be able to sell it pay off thier loan and make a tidy profit.
The question they all forgot to ask was "Who's gonna buy it?"
Well..., actually this theory may be just as falsifiable as most Intelligent Design ones.
In most inteligent design theories the final piece of evidence to prove o disprove it is easily available after you're dead.
In the case of this model, we probably won't get detection methods good enough to create a less biased sample space until after those of us alive now are dead. So, all in all, we should be able to answer both questions at roughly the same time:)
Well, What about if we program the sentient robots to LOVE serving us? Afterall, no matter how smart/sentient/independent any creature is all thier base desires are hard coded. Ours may have been hard coded by evolution. But thiers will be hard coded by us.
Wow!
This must be some amazing new Karma whoring technique. Tell the Mods they're crap and get modded EVEN higher!!
Oh great Master, I grovel in awe at your feet!
So, 57% of users don't like their online activities being watched so that advertisers can learn more about them and 72% of users don't like seeing advertising that is not relevant to them.
However, the only way an advertiser can know what is and isn't relevant to a group of users is to observe the user's activities and learn from them!
The more information an advertiser has about you the less non-relevant advertising they will give you. In the end, it's a trade off. Either maintain your privacy and see more crappy ads, or let them have your information and you'll get ads you're more interested in.
Uranus is full of the stuff and other gas giants have it as well. Well sir, u'r anus may be full of the stuff... but I assure mine get's released regularly!
Hmmm..., considering that only microscopic percentage of peoples IQs go so high (assuming you were quoting your actual IQ and not just giving an example) it's possible that your brain just burns out every now and then and has to reboot.
Last time I measured (few years ago) my IQ was around 136 and I've always needed more sleep than others around me (constantly get teased about it) otherwise I actually begin to feel my brain slowing down until it's almost impossible for me to multiply 7 by 8 without a piece of paper (don't know why but I could never memorise the 7 times tables properly. Btw, I'm a 30 year old programmer so I should know this).
I never really considered it but the two might go together. Perhaps brains that generally run at higher horsepower need to shut down more often.
Then again I haven't been sleeping well recently so this idea may be dumber than I realise.:)
Why is it whenever I have mod points there are no interesting topics to use them on:(.
Anyway, the parent makes a very valid point. What if gravity waves are actually slower (or, dare I say it, faster) than the speed of light, what happens to the General Relativity equations then?
It's unrealistic to assume the stored reserves of energy won't be used as a result of this.
The best that may be achieved is using them up at a slower rate (but no where near close enough to reach a net of zero). The simple fact is, no matter how many speeces are made about it, humanity will continue to burn fossil fuels until there is a CHEAPER option, or until we run out. It is in our nature.
This death ray thing is not that cheaper option, and it just makes things hotter while we wait to run out.
Ah, but you ARE increasing the net energy in the global system. You are taking energy which would have been reflected/deflected off the higher atmosphere and tunnelling it to the surface.
The article mentions that there is 8 times as much solar energy in outer space than at the earth's surface. True, some of this is due to the atmosphere absorbing the heat (which would still contribute to global warming) but a major part of it is also due to the heat being reflcted away (which won't).
By turning the energy from light to microwaves, they are trying to take the reflection,refraction/absorbtion out of the equation.
Net effect? More solar radiation being introduced into the system.
When I said I understood your point I was referring to what you said about implying to the child that the reason he can't do something is as a result of a character flaw. That is extremely unproductive and will still end up leaving the child afraid to try new things. Infact, it is almost identical to the statement that the reason he cannot do something is becuase of a genetic flaw. Basically what you're saying is "Be careful about stretching yourself too much, you'll probably fail". And the question in this is "How much is too much?"
Yes, I do disagree with the statement that they are somethings certain people can NEVER learn (which seems to be what you're implying). It's possible that what one person learns in one week another might need a year to learn. It's also possible that no matter how hard they try they may never be able to use that knowledge as fast and naturally as somebody else. But they CAN learn it, if taught the right way!
Learning tends to come down to either memorizing data, or understanding steps. ie you are usually either trying to remember something, or figure out how it should be done(or how it works). Memorizing can always be achieved by enough repitition. Although sometimes that may mean an inordate (but still achievable) amount of repition. Figuring something out is much more dependent on initial point of view and the style in which it's explained to you. But if the worst comes to the worst, you can simply memorize the steps which someone else has already figured out!
IMO (from a couple dozen tutoring experiences of both children and fellow adults) the difficulty most people have is that they are often told they need to be able to learn the same way and in the same time as everybody else. This simply isn't true! Everybody has different starting points. I've often noticed that the reason somebody would have difficulty with something is becuase there's some piece of information thier teacher (or study material) never bothered to explain becuase it's taken for granted they understand.
As an extreme example: No matter how old you are, if no one ever explained WHY 1+1=2, you will always have trouble with multiplication (your addition however, may be okay).
The way we interpret information is always based on how we have been taught (by life as well as people) to view the world, in addition to any natural affinities we might have. However, we can also learn different ways of viewing the world, providing we can find the right teacher to teach us the new view.
I am reminded of a story of six blind men each grabbing a different bit of an elephant (ear,trunk,leg,side,tusk and tail) and leaving with a different impression of what an elephant looked like (a leaf, a snake, a tree, a wall... etc). This misunderstanding wasn't due to any innate character flaw in these men (perhaps they only had a few seconds to make the examination). But to correct it they will either need to perform a complete examination of the elephant themselves, or have it explained to them by someone who has performed the complete examination and also understands the reason for thier misunderstanding (A simple "I'm right you're wrong" or "Just believe me okay" won't work.)
Okay, I'm worried I may be repeating myself (and i'm almost late for work) so I'll just address the last two points quickly.
I do believe human brains are different from animal brains. We have either evolved, or been created, to be able to understand and proces abstract information. We may have limited memory space, but our compression routines are so good we never use it all up (unfortunately though, the stored memories degrade with time). And yes, I do believe that if any other animal can understand abstract concepts, and we can bridge the communication barrier properly we will be able to teach it anything we know. It may be much harder for it (or perhaps much easier with certain ideas) but it will be possible.
I think I understand your point. I know my Dad was always telling me to "burn the midnight oil" in college, and the thought that always went through my mind is "Why?!?".
Still, I think the main point of this researches result is not about asking the kids to apply more elbow grease, but rather about being careful not to limit them by telling them what they CAN'T do.
ie. it's most important that the child does not attach his success or failure at a specific task to his nature/value as a person. Rather he should see it as a stepping stone to improvement!
No matter how bad anyone is at ANY subject, they can learn it. Usually it takes a combination of effort and technique. A bad teacher could mean you have to put in ten times more effort and a good teacher could mean you have to put in ten times less.
Personally, I tend to think in patterns and images. So I conciously try to visualise a model of whatever I'm learning. This meant I could go through most of university without ever taking notes. It also means I'm total crap at integration (not differentiation) becuase I could never build a model of it that worked.
I think the most important lesson a child can learn about his ability is that he/she CAN do anything. If they are willing to find out HOW to do it and willing to put in the necessary effort to make it work (e.g. With the right steriods, narcotics and maybe a bionic arm or two, that 800 pounds will be a breeze!).
The caveat though is that not everything is worth the effort
:) My girlfriend is continually teasing me about how I'm so smart yet I'm always asking stupid questions.
A couple of days ago though, she suddenly stopped and said "I guess you're so smart becuase you ask the stupid questions!"
Also, in my experience tutoring a few friends, I tend to find that people learn a lot faster once you've convinced them that they ARE intelligent and they CAN understand what's going on. Thier own self limitatiom is a major factor slowing them down.
(Yes, I know this is slashdot and I'm going to get slated for claiming I have a girlfriend but, as it turns out, getting dates is a skill. One just as learnable as any other. As long as you know where to look ***plug alert*** David D'angelo ***end plug***)
Currently much more work is being done with adult stem cells than with embryonic stem cells. Therefore you will get much more results from the adult cell research than the embryonic one.
It says nohing about the usefulness or morality of the research one way or another.
Actually, your point about rejection and cancer tends to point to the solution of using cloned embryonic stem cells. Which will combine the advantages of both techniques.
The moral issue is exactly that, a moral issue. A Nazi scientist experimenting on a Jew is exactly the same. a moral issue.
Looking for scientific backing for a moral arguement actually weakens it. An immoral act is an immoral act, irrespective of whether it adds to the scietific body of knowledge or not!
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Wow! I wish I could rate your post higher than 5 Crudpuppy!
The fact that you disagree with a central theme of a book does not mean you cannot gain a lot by trying to understand where the writer is coming from!
Ayn Rand books highlights some of the (real and potentially serious) flaws in an increasingly socialist philosophy.
Her suggested soultions are incredibly unrealistic and overly extreme..., her writing style is boring and overly repetitive..., most of her characters are simply implausible.
But, being able to understand where she is coming from, without being carried away to the extreme by her evangelism, will greatly enrich your ability to understand and interact with econonic and political issues in your own society.
While, in the short term, you may not be able to negotiate the price you are hoping for. In the long term, an attitude of noticing and fixing problems that improve the quality of work your team, and your boss, are doing is always noticed! And with the right mindset, you can always turn that noticing into profit/ benefits/ extra days off etc.
And, if nothing else, it provides a huge boost to your CV when you are looking for your next job.
I came in as a developer to a finance team in international bank a few years ago. Going way beyond my 'job description' of designing reporting systems as directed, I always tried to understand the reasoning behind any new system or change requests coming from my bosses.
As a direct result of this, I have been able to suggest many improvements in the way those accounting and finance teams work. Making their lives much easier, becoming a bit of a finance expert in the process, and making them look so good in the eyes of their own bosses that a global project based on the system I designed and built has being implemented.
You may ask how all this has benefited me. It's true my rates only went up about 15% in this period. However, I used the value I had created as a reason to be able to change the time I arrive in the office to anything between 9:30 and 11:30 am. To me, those extra hours in the morning are extremely valuable. I could have also got other benefits from my extra value but this was the most important one to me and what I focused on getting.
Also, when I gave notice three months ago that I was going to leave . Even though they had hired a replacement, whom I have given full training. The fact that I have accumulated so much value and knowledge meant they offered to rehire me for a better role with an 80% raise!
I refused it (as the reason I'm leaving is not just financial). So instead, I agreed to come in as a consultant three times a week, still with the 80% raise, one weeks notice period, and with the clear understanding that as soon as I get a new job I'll be leaving.
These are not the kind of things that happen to people who want to do only what is in their job description.
It helps if you realise that your boss is also just a regular guy who is trying to get through his own work day as smoothly as possible as well. And who probably is having his own issues with his own boss.
If he has been trying to get extra budget for a new server because the last one is so old his iphone is more powerful than it is, and you come to him asking for payment (or a raise/ or budget for a new project) because you've created a nice doohickey that will reduce the amount of time you and your team spend doing a job which currently already leaves you with a lot of downtime. His reaction may be less than enthusiastic.
So how do you 'reward' it?
It's just a clump of neural cells. It's not like it has a pleasure centre or anything.
To be honest this guy's (Kevin Warwick) previous work tends to lend a suggestion of dubiousness to the whole thing.
His first project was "interfacing" the human body with a machine by sticking a RFID chip in his arm and waving it in front of a reader! That's just as high tech as putting a wireless card in your wallet and tapping it on a reciever.
In this case, it sounds like all he has done is set up a bunch of neural cells which he uses as tangled cables:
1. Send input through here
2. Find out where output comes from
3. Plug control there
I may be oversimplifying, but without giving the cells some sort of feedback for them to know whether thier result is right or wrong, you will simply end upwith random connections being made until the robot no longer works.
It seems like he is getting really good at sticking biological bits into machines (and vice versa) but not making any real progress in actually getting useful information across that barrier.
(Even his robot hand experiment is just a variation of the mind control gamepad computer game manufacturers have been working on, only in his case he transmits the signal over the internet.)
While there may be a number of people whose way of life consists of draining the resources of others to make thier own life better. Those are not the only people who need, or want, help.
There are also people who may have been very productive for most of thier lives but due to accident, misfortune, or even temporary stupidity, may be in need of a little help to get back on thier feet. With this help, they could return to being productive members of society for the rest of thier lives, without it, whatever potential for production they still had will be lost permanently.
While I definitely don't subscribe to the agenda which says "everyone is entitled to a certain level of enjoyment out of life, irrespective of what they put into it". Nevertheless, a good safety net means that you get more productive members of the society than you would otherwise.
A side effect of a good safety net though, is that it is very difficult to separate the permanently unproductive from those of temporarily reduced productivity.
Besides, if you believe that people who can't survive on thier own (irrespective of how they got that way) shouldn't be helped to survive by others, why should cute animals be any different?
Is there any reason we can't start with 1 - 2 ton asteroid chunks?
We have already been able to land delicate equipment on Mars (a planet with significantly less atmosphere) using some parachutes and ballons.
I'm sure that should be able to provide a cheap option for precious mineral recovery.
Blame lazy reporters!
Do you really believe the writer of this pseudo-science article had to rush to meet an important reporting deadline so they wouldn't get scooped by another network?!?
Funnily enough, I'm just reading super-freakonimcs and the authors mentioned a few things about the general male-female wage gap, which confirmed things in my personal experience.
All the research done shows women are are more likely to leave the workforce earlier than men or downshift in thier careers. Even the summary says that.
Basically, most of the factors that affect the pay gap are things done by choice.
On a personal level even a small amount observation will show that most women don't make as much money as men becuase they really don't want to.
When any of my male acquaintances are looking for a job thier first question is always "How can I get a job that pays more money."
With my female acquaintances when they are looking for a job the first comment is almost always "I want to know if i will like it there."
Men value money more on average while women value work environment and quality. Men are more likely to ask for a raise than women. And men are more likely to quit becuase they didn't get the raise while women are more likely to quit becuase they don't like the environment.
All this naturally leads to the conclusion that men will make more money than women but women will enjoy thier jobs more than men.
Can any of you say this isn't true in your own personal experience?
Thing is I'm not sure if it would be funny or insightful :D
I believe the grand parent was not referring to a grammatically incorrect question but a question based on a faulty assumption.
Before his response has been hijacked by the grammar police, I understood him to be reffering to a situation where you get asked the question
"What is the correct value for Pi"
and you answer
"An acceptable approximate is 3.142"
rather than spending ages trying to explain the concept of pi and why you can't give an accurate answer to the question.
That way you can satisfy your geeky need for accuracy without making people afraid to ask you questions.
I think that once we establish even a tiny foothold on Mars, colonization will be able to proceed slowly but steadily.
Ummmm..., isn't that what was supposed to happen with the space station?
Saying "I have no reason to believe there are pink fairies at the bottom of the garden" and saying "I am absolutely sure there are no pink fairies at the bottom of the garden" are two totally different things.
if you add the axiom that these fairies are invisble and try to avoid being noticed. Then Yes! it becomes arrogant to insist that they do not exist.
The GP is actually the most reasoned take on the issue I have yet heard.
The truth is that many scientific theories require similar levels of faith. (multiple universe theory, string theory, even some interpretations of Einstien's theory of relativity) They are supported by mathematical formulations that cannot be proved or disproved in reality in much the same way the proofs of a higher being are supported by philosophical formulations.
The existence of a mathematical formula is meaningless unless all the variables in it can be matched to existing and measurable physical phenomena.
Yet no one goes around writing books saying I believe string theory is rubbish.
Consider these scenarios
1. The world is actually the Matrix. The architect decides that only humans who belive in him will get downloaded into a cyber brain and live forever upon expiration of thier body. Does this not make him a defacto God.
2 Dr Manhattan (from watchmen) goes to another galaxy. Seeds it with life, watches over it as it grows, guides it towards sentience and gives the sentient beings a list of rules they should live by and steps back to see which of them sincerely obeys or disobeys (not out of fear). The ones that he deems worthy, at the moment of death are transfigured and given similar powers to him (a substitute body is of course provided for burial to prevent questions). doesn't this make him to all intents and purposes God.
3. The Ori/ The ancients (from stargate) are Gods in everything but name (despite the writers desperately trying to claim otherwise). In fact they are very similar to the greek/norse pantheons. Whether or not they ask for worship does not detract from the title.
I could think up more examples but I'm sure you see my point.
You cannot prove any of the above scenarios aren't currently the case. The only thing you can do (which is what stargate does) is to say becuase you know the origin of a God then that reduces from his/her/it's divinity.
But in the old Pantheons it was quite possible for a mortal to be elevated to Godhood.
As a scientist one of the most valuable pieces of information you can have is knowing what you don't know.
The market movement is integrally random. It's true that, like most random systems, if you have all the inputs you can probably predict it, but no one has all the inputs.
A model of this random system helps people to improve thier predictions and they invest in the market based on these predictions.
Unlike say a climate model, where if everyone is totally wrong, the weather still does what it wants anyway. With the markets, investors acting based on the results of whatever model they are using are actually changing the reality of the market.
When everyone uses the same model, when the model says "Stock A is a good investment" everyone sees the model and decides it's a good investment, demand increases, price goes up. This information is then fed back into the model. The model now looks at the increased demand and says "A is an even better investment". Everyone looks at this result, demand increases even more and price goes up faster. This information is fed into the model again which now says "Wow! look at the action on that stock it's an absolutely GREAT investment!" Demand goes through the roof and prices soar.
the problem with this is that the people pushing up the prices are the speculators. And all speculators rely on the fact that at the end of all the rigmarole, there will be an actual consumer willing to pay the price they are quoting for the item. According to thier model lots of people are willing to pay the price. But in the real world all the consumers got prices out of the market ages ago. When the speculators now try to sell, prices crash!
when everyone is using a different model, this activity is spread across diffent stocks becuase the initial recommendations vary and so the feedback is watered down. But as more people rely on the same model, the more likely it is that that model will actually begin to become the cause of market movements, rather than a predictor, and the more acute the boom/bust cycles will be.
The same thing could be seen in the housing market (in the UK at least). Long after house prices were way to expensive for the average family (even with a hundred percent mortgage) to buy. Thousands of people were still desperately trying to borrow money to buy a house they couldn't afford. Afterall all the experts were predicting that house prices would rise and they would soon be able to sell it pay off thier loan and make a tidy profit.
The question they all forgot to ask was "Who's gonna buy it?"
Well..., actually this theory may be just as falsifiable as most Intelligent Design ones.
In most inteligent design theories the final piece of evidence to prove o disprove it is easily available after you're dead.
In the case of this model, we probably won't get detection methods good enough to create a less biased sample space until after those of us alive now are dead. So, all in all, we should be able to answer both questions at roughly the same time :)
Well, What about if we program the sentient robots to LOVE serving us? Afterall, no matter how smart/sentient/independent any creature is all thier base desires are hard coded. Ours may have been hard coded by evolution. But thiers will be hard coded by us.
Which may or may not be a good thing.
Wow!
This must be some amazing new Karma whoring technique. Tell the Mods they're crap and get modded EVEN higher!!
Oh great Master, I grovel in awe at your feet!
So, 57% of users don't like their online activities being watched so that advertisers can learn more about them and 72% of users don't like seeing advertising that is not relevant to them.
However, the only way an advertiser can know what is and isn't relevant to a group of users is to observe the user's activities and learn from them!
The more information an advertiser has about you the less non-relevant advertising they will give you. In the end, it's a trade off. Either maintain your privacy and see more crappy ads, or let them have your information and you'll get ads you're more interested in.
Hmmm..., considering that only microscopic percentage of peoples IQs go so high (assuming you were quoting your actual IQ and not just giving an example) it's possible that your brain just burns out every now and then and has to reboot.
:)
Last time I measured (few years ago) my IQ was around 136 and I've always needed more sleep than others around me (constantly get teased about it) otherwise I actually begin to feel my brain slowing down until it's almost impossible for me to multiply 7 by 8 without a piece of paper (don't know why but I could never memorise the 7 times tables properly. Btw, I'm a 30 year old programmer so I should know this).
I never really considered it but the two might go together. Perhaps brains that generally run at higher horsepower need to shut down more often.
Then again I haven't been sleeping well recently so this idea may be dumber than I realise.
Why is it whenever I have mod points there are no interesting topics to use them on :(.
Anyway, the parent makes a very valid point.
What if gravity waves are actually slower (or, dare I say it, faster) than the speed of light, what happens to the General Relativity equations then?
It's unrealistic to assume the stored reserves of energy won't be used as a result of this.
The best that may be achieved is using them up at a slower rate (but no where near close enough to reach a net of zero). The simple fact is, no matter how many speeces are made about it, humanity will continue to burn fossil fuels until there is a CHEAPER option, or until we run out. It is in our nature.
This death ray thing is not that cheaper option, and it just makes things hotter while we wait to run out.
Ah, but you ARE increasing the net energy in the global system. You are taking energy which would have been reflected/deflected off the higher atmosphere and tunnelling it to the surface.
The article mentions that there is 8 times as much solar energy in outer space than at the earth's surface. True, some of this is due to the atmosphere absorbing the heat (which would still contribute to global warming) but a major part of it is also due to the heat being reflcted away (which won't).
By turning the energy from light to microwaves, they are trying to take the reflection,refraction/absorbtion out of the equation.
Net effect? More solar radiation being introduced into the system.
When I said I understood your point I was referring to what you said about implying to the child that the reason he can't do something is as a result of a character flaw. That is extremely unproductive and will still end up leaving the child afraid to try new things. Infact, it is almost identical to the statement that the reason he cannot do something is becuase of a genetic flaw. Basically what you're saying is "Be careful about stretching yourself too much, you'll probably fail". And the question in this is "How much is too much?"
Yes, I do disagree with the statement that they are somethings certain people can NEVER learn (which seems to be what you're implying). It's possible that what one person learns in one week another might need a year to learn. It's also possible that no matter how hard they try they may never be able to use that knowledge as fast and naturally as somebody else. But they CAN learn it, if taught the right way!
Learning tends to come down to either memorizing data, or understanding steps. ie you are usually either trying to remember something, or figure out how it should be done(or how it works). Memorizing can always be achieved by enough repitition. Although sometimes that may mean an inordate (but still achievable) amount of repition. Figuring something out is much more dependent on initial point of view and the style in which it's explained to you. But if the worst comes to the worst, you can simply memorize the steps which someone else has already figured out!
IMO (from a couple dozen tutoring experiences of both children and fellow adults) the difficulty most people have is that they are often told they need to be able to learn the same way and in the same time as everybody else. This simply isn't true! Everybody has different starting points. I've often noticed that the reason somebody would have difficulty with something is becuase there's some piece of information thier teacher (or study material) never bothered to explain becuase it's taken for granted they understand.
As an extreme example: No matter how old you are, if no one ever explained WHY 1+1=2, you will always have trouble with multiplication (your addition however, may be okay).
The way we interpret information is always based on how we have been taught (by life as well as people) to view the world, in addition to any natural affinities we might have. However, we can also learn different ways of viewing the world, providing we can find the right teacher to teach us the new view.
I am reminded of a story of six blind men each grabbing a different bit of an elephant (ear,trunk,leg,side,tusk and tail) and leaving with a different impression of what an elephant looked like (a leaf, a snake, a tree, a wall... etc). This misunderstanding wasn't due to any innate character flaw in these men (perhaps they only had a few seconds to make the examination). But to correct it they will either need to perform a complete examination of the elephant themselves, or have it explained to them by someone who has performed the complete examination and also understands the reason for thier misunderstanding (A simple "I'm right you're wrong" or "Just believe me okay" won't work.)
Okay, I'm worried I may be repeating myself (and i'm almost late for work) so I'll just address the last two points quickly.
I do believe human brains are different from animal brains. We have either evolved, or been created, to be able to understand and proces abstract information. We may have limited memory space, but our compression routines are so good we never use it all up (unfortunately though, the stored memories degrade with time). And yes, I do believe that if any other animal can understand abstract concepts, and we can bridge the communication barrier properly we will be able to teach it anything we know. It may be much harder for it (or perhaps much easier with certain ideas) but it will be possible.
As for you wieghtlifting son
Still, I think the main point of this researches result is not about asking the kids to apply more elbow grease, but rather about being careful not to limit them by telling them what they CAN'T do.
ie. it's most important that the child does not attach his success or failure at a specific task to his nature/value as a person. Rather he should see it as a stepping stone to improvement!
No matter how bad anyone is at ANY subject, they can learn it. Usually it takes a combination of effort and technique. A bad teacher could mean you have to put in ten times more effort and a good teacher could mean you have to put in ten times less.
Personally, I tend to think in patterns and images. So I conciously try to visualise a model of whatever I'm learning. This meant I could go through most of university without ever taking notes. It also means I'm total crap at integration (not differentiation) becuase I could never build a model of it that worked.
I think the most important lesson a child can learn about his ability is that he/she CAN do anything. If they are willing to find out HOW to do it and willing to put in the necessary effort to make it work (e.g. With the right steriods, narcotics and maybe a bionic arm or two, that 800 pounds will be a breeze!).
The caveat though is that not everything is worth the effort
A couple of days ago though, she suddenly stopped and said "I guess you're so smart becuase you ask the stupid questions!"
Also, in my experience tutoring a few friends, I tend to find that people learn a lot faster once you've convinced them that they ARE intelligent and they CAN understand what's going on. Thier own self limitatiom is a major factor slowing them down.
(Yes, I know this is slashdot and I'm going to get slated for claiming I have a girlfriend but, as it turns out, getting dates is a skill. One just as learnable as any other. As long as you know where to look ***plug alert*** David D'angelo ***end plug***)
Currently much more work is being done with adult stem cells than with embryonic stem cells. Therefore you will get much more results from the adult cell research than the embryonic one.
It says nohing about the usefulness or morality of the research one way or another.
Actually, your point about rejection and cancer tends to point to the solution of using cloned embryonic stem cells. Which will combine the advantages of both techniques.
The moral issue is exactly that, a moral issue. A Nazi scientist experimenting on a Jew is exactly the same. a moral issue.
Looking for scientific backing for a moral arguement actually weakens it. An immoral act is an immoral act, irrespective of whether it adds to the scietific body of knowledge or not!