Seldon's psychohistory is a weak form, in that it only predicts grand sweeps. Strong psychohistory (found in some of Asimov's non-Foundation stories) would apply down to the level of individual thinking organisms.
It is theoretically possible that someone could devise a plan such that, when implemented, every person alive at the start(*) and every future person ends up agreeing that this was the best possible outcome. By definition, that would be the best of all possible worlds.
(*) I specify this to avoid plans which involve killing everyone who disagrees.
Statements and meanings are non-physical, ruling out scientific testing
No. There are plenty of non-physical sciences, logic being an easy example. You need to use precise semantics.
How do you perform a scientific test for meaningfulness?
First you'd need the formal definition of "meaningful". My spur-of-the-moment guess is "able to be stated (in scientific terms)". If something is statable, it is either testable (even if it is unprovable) or it is a definition. I believe that the preceding concept (when properly phrased) is provable, but the proof is probably too large to fit within a slashdot thread.
From there it's just a contrapositive away: if a non-definition is untestable, it cannot be stated scientifically, which fits our definition of "meaningless".
Yes, that all sounds pretty circular. Science by its nature must state things in scientific terms. If the nonscientist refuses to abide by those terms, then there really isn't any way for the two sides to debate.
if it were any other way, then we wouldn't be here to observe it.
I rely on one piece of evidence that avoids the Anthropic Principle: glass.
It's easy to create, comes from abundant raw material (sand), easily shaped, strong enough for many uses, transparent to visible light but not most IR (iirc), and the most amazing part of all is that it's absurdly inert to chemicals. You can store almost anything except fluorine in common glass, and look at it while you do.
From a cosmic variables perspective, it didn't have to be that way. Glass is not necessary to the formation of vertebrate life. But it's VERY convenient for tool-using civilizations. Perhaps even TOO convenient for a random lucky break.
So that's my circumstantial evidence for the existence of God.
Depends on your definition of scientist. He's actually Michael Crichton, MD, graduate of Harvard Medical School (and a BA in Anthropology). At minimum, he used to know a decent amount of biochemistry.
So... you're saying that speeding and megadollar fraud are equivalent?
In a clear majority of cases where a corporation commits a jail-worthy crime, they negotiate a settlement with the SEC or other regulating body. The corp promises to avoid such behavior in the future, but there is no finding of guilt, no admission of wrongdoing, and no fines.
In 99.4% of cases where punishment actually occurs, there is still no guilty verdict, and the fine is miniscule compared to the illicit profit they made.
As someone who has also been wanting a MyMac for years, I'll second the grandparent poster's point. If this theoretical new Mac is worth owning, then it WILL cut into PowerMac sales by a small but measurable amount.
Apple's four corner product strategy is hard for a frugal-but-savvy Mac shopper. The e/iMac is too limiting, the PowerMac is too huge and costly. (FWIW, the iMac G5 is also $$$). What I really want (and probably what Zo0ok wants) is an iMac-ish mobo, in a pizzabox/shoebox case, with AGP, for a fair price.
Most of the other thousand-odd people like me just give up at this point and buy a PowerMac. If this happens, we won't have to.
hopefully his screenwriting has improved
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Sin City Trailer
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· Score: 1
I love Miller's work in comics (bought Elektra, Ronin, DKR, etc on the shelves as a teen), but I'm rightfully worried about his film work.
MN4 is pretty small as asteroids go. Expected impact energy is 1.48 gigatons, which would suck for anyone in a few hundred km, but the rest of us are pretty safe.
How much can a system be abused before it collapses? The CCC has determined (correctly) that the threshold is higher than 10%. Illegal, but a nice little math exercise.
...that ATM cameras are there for the CUSTOMER's protection (and the money, of course). If a robber takes your card, or forces you to use it at knifepoint, the bank gets a picture of them. Like a steering wheel club, it's a simple deterrence system. Furthermore, ATM cameras aren't much of a privacy invasion, because the bank already knows who you are the moment you insert the card.
Last time I checked, no one was being held up at stamp machines. The only purpose is so the government can track who is using the mail.
BZZT. Before the war, Zarqawi was in Kurdish northern Iraq, aka not under Saddam's control or protection. We could have taken him out at any time, but chose not to.
BTW, if Russia/China are developing anti-defenses, it's because they are so much EASIER and CHEAPER than defenses. Mylar balloons shaped like reentry cones cost 30 cents, extra interceptors cost 30 megabucks. Who's going to win this arms race?
I'm sure Google keeps an enourmous database of past queries. It's part of their ranking algorithm.
And yes, they really do know every short phrase that quickly. Think about it: they easily survived a slashdotting of a very intensive application. They've got insane computing power, dedicated to text matching.
Old news. 3 years ago Freeverse Software released the Save the Boys laptop insulator. It was a suggestion from their president's wife, who wanted to get pregnant.
Stop the Insanity: don't fix your family's PCs!
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Given Up to Spyware?
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I fix spyware infections on PCs at work. I will even fix coworker's personal PCs (brought in) if they need to work from home. They pay me to keep things humming, and I do my job.
But if my family or friends ask me to fix their Windows PC, I give them the best possible help. I say "GET A MAC".
My dad's 1999 blueberry iMac still does almost everything they need (almost == my sister wants ITMS and a burner). So far I haven't had to touch a thing, except for occasional version updates and document recovery requests.
No. You're thinking of copyrights, which have become infinite. Patents only last 20 years. And to complete the trilogy, trademarks last as long as the holder actively enforces them.
vortimax, what kind of doctors are you seeing? If they're HMO/PCP types, yes you might have trouble with a non-ordinary condition. They are neither paid nor trained to deal with "zebras" (as opposed to "horses", aka typical maladies).
I completely agree with several of the other comments here. Pick one good doctor (defined as smart, educated, and a good listener), preferably at a tertiary-care research hospital, and stick with her (and her referrals). Don't hide stuff (like unrelated symptoms or self-treatments), and keep an open mind.
FWIW, I wasn't attacking you in particular. I had an issue to raise, and your quip was a good jumping-on point.
Personally, I think the right time for a court challenge was immediately after the first retroactive copyright extension law. Retroactivity really pisses me off. The apparent legal theory is "if we don't grant this extension, Walt Disney's heirs will someday invent a time machine and go back to tell him not to bother". Copyright terms should be bound by the law that was in effect at the time of creation.
The big problem, though, is that (approximately) NO ONE in America is living up to the terms of the deal. As we both said, Congress has not set Limited Terms to Promote Progress. Then the Supreme Court failed to check and balance that mistake. But the worst part is that we the people don't stop them.
the deal is that you get to see it when the copyright expires
That's a very interesting theory. The REALITY is that our dear Congress keeps saying "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further" every few years.
Ever since the Bono Act, we are living in an age of perpetual copyright. I do not expect any current copyright to expire in my lifetime. It's far less likely to happen than Social Security being solvent in 2040.
make it worth more to your senators and representatives than the entertainment companies
Yeah, right. The combined disposable income of all the EFF/Eldred geeks in America is a fraction of the major media's combined current lobbying budgets (not to mention their profit margins and marketing budgets).
Although it's standard to compare Gaiman and Moore, their styles are really quite different. Moore tends towards epics, while Gaiman prefers introspection. I like both.
Cerebus may have trailed off into self-indulgence, but Church & State and Jaka's Story earned their acclaim.
Most importantly, if you haven't read Maus, you and I are unlikely to have a useful conversation about comics. Bye.
set the standard that comic creators today are still trying to meet.
To clarify this declaration: Watchmen is absolutely positively one of best comics ever made... IN THE SUPERHERO GENRE. Along with Dark Knight Returns, it spawned the "grim-n-gritty" style of comics noir, and allowed some to break free of the four-color spandex world.
But superhero != comics. Don't ignore Maus, Cerebus, Sandman, quite a few worthy manga series, etc, most of whom owe very little to the influence of Watchmen.
Slashdot Mirror
Seldon's psychohistory is a weak form, in that it only predicts grand sweeps. Strong psychohistory (found in some of Asimov's non-Foundation stories) would apply down to the level of individual thinking organisms.
It is theoretically possible that someone could devise a plan such that, when implemented, every person alive at the start(*) and every future person ends up agreeing that this was the best possible outcome. By definition, that would be the best of all possible worlds.
(*) I specify this to avoid plans which involve killing everyone who disagrees.
Sheesh, I can hardly believe that you didn't mention the GAY PENGUINS. They even raised an adopted daughter.
Statements and meanings are non-physical, ruling out scientific testing
No. There are plenty of non-physical sciences, logic being an easy example. You need to use precise semantics.
How do you perform a scientific test for meaningfulness?
First you'd need the formal definition of "meaningful". My spur-of-the-moment guess is "able to be stated (in scientific terms)". If something is statable, it is either testable (even if it is unprovable) or it is a definition. I believe that the preceding concept (when properly phrased) is provable, but the proof is probably too large to fit within a slashdot thread.
From there it's just a contrapositive away: if a non-definition is untestable, it cannot be stated scientifically, which fits our definition of "meaningless".
Yes, that all sounds pretty circular. Science by its nature must state things in scientific terms. If the nonscientist refuses to abide by those terms, then there really isn't any way for the two sides to debate.
No amount of science will tell us what our aims ought to be in life, or about social values
You can't prove that. Some day there might be a Hari Seldon who solves the equation of what is best in life.
Sure, I don't believe in strong psychohistory. But I can't logically rule it out.
if it were any other way, then we wouldn't be here to observe it.
I rely on one piece of evidence that avoids the Anthropic Principle: glass.
It's easy to create, comes from abundant raw material (sand), easily shaped, strong enough for many uses, transparent to visible light but not most IR (iirc), and the most amazing part of all is that it's absurdly inert to chemicals. You can store almost anything except fluorine in common glass, and look at it while you do.
From a cosmic variables perspective, it didn't have to be that way. Glass is not necessary to the formation of vertebrate life. But it's VERY convenient for tool-using civilizations. Perhaps even TOO convenient for a random lucky break.
So that's my circumstantial evidence for the existence of God.
Depends on your definition of scientist. He's actually Michael Crichton, MD, graduate of Harvard Medical School (and a BA in Anthropology). At minimum, he used to know a decent amount of biochemistry.
So... you're saying that speeding and megadollar fraud are equivalent?
In a clear majority of cases where a corporation commits a jail-worthy crime, they negotiate a settlement with the SEC or other regulating body. The corp promises to avoid such behavior in the future, but there is no finding of guilt, no admission of wrongdoing, and no fines.
In 99.4% of cases where punishment actually occurs, there is still no guilty verdict, and the fine is miniscule compared to the illicit profit they made.
How is that "equivalent punishment"?
As someone who has also been wanting a MyMac for years, I'll second the grandparent poster's point. If this theoretical new Mac is worth owning, then it WILL cut into PowerMac sales by a small but measurable amount.
Apple's four corner product strategy is hard for a frugal-but-savvy Mac shopper. The e/iMac is too limiting, the PowerMac is too huge and costly. (FWIW, the iMac G5 is also $$$). What I really want (and probably what Zo0ok wants) is an iMac-ish mobo, in a pizzabox/shoebox case, with AGP, for a fair price.
Most of the other thousand-odd people like me just give up at this point and buy a PowerMac. If this happens, we won't have to.
I love Miller's work in comics (bought Elektra, Ronin, DKR, etc on the shelves as a teen), but I'm rightfully worried about his film work.
His last major projects were Robocop 2 & 3. 'nuff said.
MN4 is pretty small as asteroids go. Expected impact energy is 1.48 gigatons, which would suck for anyone in a few hundred km, but the rest of us are pretty safe.
Hey, it's a real live literal example of the Free Rider Dilemma.
How much can a system be abused before it collapses? The CCC has determined (correctly) that the threshold is higher than 10%. Illegal, but a nice little math exercise.
...that ATM cameras are there for the CUSTOMER's protection (and the money, of course). If a robber takes your card, or forces you to use it at knifepoint, the bank gets a picture of them. Like a steering wheel club, it's a simple deterrence system. Furthermore, ATM cameras aren't much of a privacy invasion, because the bank already knows who you are the moment you insert the card.
Last time I checked, no one was being held up at stamp machines. The only purpose is so the government can track who is using the mail.
Get it?
BZZT. Before the war, Zarqawi was in Kurdish northern Iraq, aka not under Saddam's control or protection. We could have taken him out at any time, but chose not to.
BTW, if Russia/China are developing anti-defenses, it's because they are so much EASIER and CHEAPER than defenses. Mylar balloons shaped like reentry cones cost 30 cents, extra interceptors cost 30 megabucks. Who's going to win this arms race?
I'm sure Google keeps an enourmous database of past queries. It's part of their ranking algorithm.
And yes, they really do know every short phrase that quickly. Think about it: they easily survived a slashdotting of a very intensive application. They've got insane computing power, dedicated to text matching.
Old news. 3 years ago Freeverse Software released the Save the Boys laptop insulator. It was a suggestion from their president's wife, who wanted to get pregnant.
I fix spyware infections on PCs at work. I will even fix coworker's personal PCs (brought in) if they need to work from home. They pay me to keep things humming, and I do my job.
But if my family or friends ask me to fix their Windows PC, I give them the best possible help. I say "GET A MAC".
My dad's 1999 blueberry iMac still does almost everything they need (almost == my sister wants ITMS and a burner). So far I haven't had to touch a thing, except for occasional version updates and document recovery requests.
Don't just treat the symptoms. Cure the disease.
No. You're thinking of copyrights, which have become infinite. Patents only last 20 years. And to complete the trilogy, trademarks last as long as the holder actively enforces them.
Slashdot really needs to add this to the FAQ.
vortimax, what kind of doctors are you seeing? If they're HMO/PCP types, yes you might have trouble with a non-ordinary condition. They are neither paid nor trained to deal with "zebras" (as opposed to "horses", aka typical maladies).
I completely agree with several of the other comments here. Pick one good doctor (defined as smart, educated, and a good listener), preferably at a tertiary-care research hospital, and stick with her (and her referrals). Don't hide stuff (like unrelated symptoms or self-treatments), and keep an open mind.
I'm guessing you won't even want to KNOW about Yottabytes and Zeptometers. It's true, Dr Seuss has come back from the grave and taken over the ISO.
Grumbel goes too far. A more appropriate statement would be: "If it encourages your leaders to start more wars, then yes, it's A Bad Thing".
Make no mistake, unipolar domination with zero coffins flying to Dover, that's a no-brainer.
FWIW, I wasn't attacking you in particular. I had an issue to raise, and your quip was a good jumping-on point.
Personally, I think the right time for a court challenge was immediately after the first retroactive copyright extension law. Retroactivity really pisses me off. The apparent legal theory is "if we don't grant this extension, Walt Disney's heirs will someday invent a time machine and go back to tell him not to bother". Copyright terms should be bound by the law that was in effect at the time of creation.
The big problem, though, is that (approximately) NO ONE in America is living up to the terms of the deal. As we both said, Congress has not set Limited Terms to Promote Progress. Then the Supreme Court failed to check and balance that mistake. But the worst part is that we the people don't stop them.
That's a very interesting theory. The REALITY is that our dear Congress keeps saying "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further" every few years.
Ever since the Bono Act, we are living in an age of perpetual copyright. I do not expect any current copyright to expire in my lifetime. It's far less likely to happen than Social Security being solvent in 2040.Yeah, right. The combined disposable income of all the EFF/Eldred geeks in America is a fraction of the major media's combined current lobbying budgets (not to mention their profit margins and marketing budgets).
Although it's standard to compare Gaiman and Moore, their styles are really quite different. Moore tends towards epics, while Gaiman prefers introspection. I like both.
Cerebus may have trailed off into self-indulgence, but Church & State and Jaka's Story earned their acclaim.
Most importantly, if you haven't read Maus, you and I are unlikely to have a useful conversation about comics. Bye.
To clarify this declaration: Watchmen is absolutely positively one of best comics ever made ... IN THE SUPERHERO GENRE. Along with Dark Knight Returns, it spawned the "grim-n-gritty" style of comics noir, and allowed some to break free of the four-color spandex world.
But superhero != comics. Don't ignore Maus, Cerebus, Sandman, quite a few worthy manga series, etc, most of whom owe very little to the influence of Watchmen.