What the other guy said. Also, if such "disorders" (and the whole idea of classifying any behavior we don't like as a "disease" has it's own boatload of problems) are solely defined by their physical components, why do all psychiatrists demand that the medication only be given with a counseling component? (It can't just be for the money, can it?) And why do people still systematically exaggerate the threat of those who have mentall illnesses yet are on medication? Wouldn't that be like dissociating from someone because he had a cold once and got medicated?
Just because the evidence hasn't had a practical outcome yet doesn't mean it's just another stupid reductionist scientist blathering on about something absolutely pointless.
Doesn't mean it isn't, either. Scientists presenting such simple reductionism are generally trying to cloak a philosophical bias.
This is interesting news; you just don't like what it implies.
False, and slanderously so. I *want* the human body to be as simple as possible. That's why I have to be all the more careful about those casually assuming it is, or presenting allegedly simple proofs thereof. It's called looking for disconfirming evidence. Try it sometime.
I've read GEB, but thanks for the appeal to authority. I didn't say anything "invalidated" the reductionist view; I just said that it was casually assumed without justification, and no advances predicated thereon have been made, rendering such an assumption tenuous. And I'm still waiting for someone to come up with the Goedel statement that's supposed to crash my brain like the Turing machine it supposedly is.
It's true that those are contributors to the problem, but glitches are still a significant reason not to buy a console. For me, the main advantage of a console (rather than buying the game on PC) is that everything's standardized, so you don't have bugs, like you would on PC with lots of different possible components. So if you're going to make a console, you had better get that part right! That MS skimped on this tells me they don't "get it".
I don't think it's necessarily a problem of leadership, or vision, or management. You just have to be able to specify what you want, and for that, you have to know what you want, and what you don't care about. Programmers are generally very capable, as long as the task is well defined. Just specify what parts of the finished work are critical, and what parts have leeway: "For this aspect, I don't care how you implement it, as long it does this, this and this." And then check periodically to make sure the progress is going according to plan. The last thing you want is, "OH, you wanted the text editor to allow MORE than two pages of input! Now I have to redesign it!" Yes, that actually happened to me on some code I contracted out. And the programmer was not stupid -- he added a lot of useful functionality and made good suggestions.
I don't think you responded to my point. I wasn't saying that scientists should be expected never to get anything wrong, and we should devour them when they do. Read my post again. I was saying how in theoretical astrophysics, what counts as a "good idea" is actually applying an equation correctly. I mean, back in September, everyone was cheering just because some scientist, after 75 years, said, "hey, you know, when you apply an equation correctly, you don't need dark matter". If it took them that long to figure that out, what the **** were they doing the whole time? And if you fundamentally change your theory every few years, maybe you should wait until you have more evidence before postulating one?
It really pisses me off the leeway we give theoretical physicists. If an engineer screws up on a bridge, or if a doctor screws up on a patient, people know, and they demand accountability. If astrophysicists fail to properly apply an equation for 100 years, or miss something simple for 75 years, "hey, that's science, it's tough man, cut us some slack". How many times have they changed opinions on whether the universe is expanding or contracting now? And just so you don't misunderstand, it's absolutely okay to make mistakes -- as long as they're new! Each time scientists err in a theory and "change their collective mind" about something, it should come with a fundamental re-evaluation of what practices led to the error, and what kind of evidence counts as proof. If they did that, you wouldn't see them switch opinions about some matter every third year, or, even better, admit they don't know.
I find it amusing that the deterioration of our language in many cases is cause by an overabundance of vocabulary. I think more words, with very subtle shades of meaning, can allow more depth in our communication. However, most people use these words with slightly different meanings almost interchangably, and that confuses the reader. What, exactly, is the difference between "paradigm," "model," "precedent," and "situation?" If you don't know the difference, don't use the words.
Exactly! Thank you so much for bringing this up! I *hate* when people use words in complete ignorance of their meaning. Please, folks, if you're not sure what it means, *just don't use it*. It's that simple. Really.
I once had a flame war that went like this: (I'm the 2nd, and every 2nd thereafter)
-You shouldn't shoot trespassers because that's violent. -Fighting in a war is violent too. Are you against that? -I don't answer strawman arguments. [provides link to strawman] [This is where my anger starts rising.] -I know what a strawman is. How is it a strawman? -Because I'm not talking about soldiers, I'm talking about trespassers. -Yes, but an implication of your position is opposition to working as a soldier. For it to be a strawman, you have to state how my argument attacks a misrepresentation of your position, and how that differs from your actual position. So how does it? -Because I'm talking about shooting trespassers. You're talking about soldiers. Big difference. -Okay, so further explain your position so as to show how it distinguishes between the violence of a soldier and the violence of shooting a trespasser. -I already did. -No, you didn't. You just said that you oppose shooting trespassers because it's violent. Yet it's clear the violence is not sufficient for you to oppose something. This I showed by bringing up soldiers. -We're not talking about soldiers. You need to show why shooting trespassers is wrong. You instead invoked a strawman about soldiers. -Look, a strawman is not a generic catchall for "arguments I disagree with". It refers to a specific fallacy of attacking a position different from the one under discussion. Whenever you call something a strawman, you need to know exactly how the argument it attacks is different from the actual argument you are promoting. You obviously can't even do that. [goes on forever]
Yeah, I know, I've ordered like, eight books from the Mises institute and post on their blog. I'm just pretending to be a sheep so people won't dismiss me as a kook. I have to repair my karma, you know. Luckily I got back up to neutral (and then positive!) today.
And while 5,000,000 people were buffing their paladins to make the run into Molten Core, I was watching informative TV programs like "Nova."
You have a TV that can switch between that program, a program about the Coasean theory of the firm, a program about the P=NP problem, and a program about the history of late-19th-century Australia, and go to whatever part you like, at whim? What links does it have that allow you to explore sub-topics you like in-depth?
That's how anti-trust laws get abused. You can call anything a monopoly if you restrict your definition of "its market" well enough. In the Windows case, it was "MS has a monopoly on OS's... for x86 computers... that people use at home... and not as servers". I've heard of cases where someone was called a monopoly because he "dominated" the market for "dough... that comes ready-made... for pizzas... in the Salt Lake City limits... after 10pm". Strictly speaking, everyone is a monopoly. I have a monopoly on the services of Leon Geeste. The corner store has a monopoly on hot dogs sold at that corner. They need to ask more substantive questions like, "Do people have an alternative?" "Is the alleged monopolist spending money to hurt competitors rather than improve its product?"
Some people just don't "get" how much less of a waste computers are compared to TV. When visiting home, my parents always lecture me on how much I use the computer. The last time, I said, "I just learned about the Coasean Theory of the firm, the P=NP problem, and the history of late-19th century Australia on Wikipedia, while you were learning about the latest celebrity gossip. Who's wasting whose time here?" (I think I said it more tactfully though.) I know, that's the internet, not gaming, but the bias applies to all computer-related stuff.
They're basically coming up with algorithms to determine when the phone "should" be set to vibrate. What I want to know is, why are they involving a University for this? Anyone who's used or been around users of cell phones is capable of coming up with ideas on how to make phones go into silent mode. It's probably expensive to hire *professors* to work on this problem, when an engineering firm, or heck, asking high schoolers for ideas, could get you all the ideas you'd need on this. No new technology is needed for this -- just programming software.
Set your phone to vibrate. It's been working for me for years. Non-invasive when doing anything in my daily routine.
Is there really a reason I should have to enter my schedule into my phone?
The idea behind this is that people forget to do this, so the phone does it automatically. That's why they want you to enter your schedule. Of course, people *conscious* of those around them and *concerned* about the impacts of their actions on others probably *already* do this consistently enough not to need one. The people least likely to buy the "polite" phone are the ones who probably need it the most.
This study took essentially random, disparate topics, from multiple boards, and sent them in emails, isolated from the context. Of course people are going to have a hard time ascertaining sincerity when they don't see the context! An meaningful study would have measured people's perceptions of posts on boards they regularly go to. The conclusion may be the same, but at least then it would be well-grounded.
Okay, first, to clarify, I agree this isn't the only factor, and never said it was, just that it's the major one. And I don't think you're understanding the point, no offense. Yes, Indian and Chinese population centers are dense, BUT they still have the option of leaving for better land within their country. Thus, the fact that they are in dense population centers means that they *prefer* it to the alternatives. In Japan, there is no real alternative because the other land within the country is uninhabitable. It's the *option* of moving to the other space, not the current density distribution, that indicates propensity to suicide.
Looking at aggregate statistics is misleading. I could box in the place you're sitting with an arbitrary square and claim that that plot has a population density of 500,000/sq km. It's true that a lot of Japan is uninhabited, but that's because it's harsh, mountainous, high land. Belgium and the Netherlands are mostly low, fertile, and flat as my girlfriend's chest. (How do you think they got to be called the _nether_ lands?) Japan's population is mostly squeezed along the thin strip of coastline. Fleeing that wage slavery to live in the mountains is like going to live in a poorhouse in Victorian England -- how about looking that up on Wikipedia?
They have so little land. They're all packed in there tightly. Scientists have done experiments with rats where they give them enough space and resources for 50 of them, start them with 10, let them breed, and then let nature take its course. What happens is that eventually they start fighting over resources (predictable) but also get mental illnesses at a much higher rate. They also started engaging in self-destructive acts. I think we see the same thing with Japanese people now. What, 130 million people in a (mountainous) area the size of California? They all have to be wage slaves because there's no cheap land to move to when your job gets shitty, so they just have to "take it". Problem is, a lot of them can't take the high stress that the wage slave-drivers try to milk out of them. "We got 30 people who can replace you. Work harder!" Yeah, you can probably imagine how it feels. It doesn't help that the Bank of Japan's policies are keeping the economy in the gutter by inflating the money supply so your same shitty wages buy you less and less.
Not to be a back-seat driver, but just off the top of my head, it seems a less cheeky, dignified way to do... whatever the purpose of charging victims is... would be to send a letter saying something like "Recently, you were under our care. We hope your life has returned to normal. The Red Cross's volunteers dedicate their time and efforts to helping people like you. Now that you have seen firsthand the good that our organization accomplishes, perhaps you would consider helping us in our future efforts so that we can better assist people like you. Attached is a donation form. We welcome any aid you feel you can give. For reference, the cost of your treatement was $X."
It turns out that 60, not 49 angels can fit on the head of a pin. Seriously, how is this science? I thought science was about making falsifiable predictions, not figuring out what happened in the past.
Secondly, you can't really consider "every possible input". A mere stream of eight bytes has 2^64 possible values, but is not enough to contain the smallest possible HTTP transaction.
It doesn't matter. A robust program would check that input is a member of a well-understood set of inputs it knows how to handle, and if not, reject it. This is exactly what we did in first year (high school) computer science -- refuse all user input except for the type we know how to handle. I don't think it requires a mathematical proof, just limiting input.
Slashdot Mirror
What the other guy said. Also, if such "disorders" (and the whole idea of classifying any behavior we don't like as a "disease" has it's own boatload of problems) are solely defined by their physical components, why do all psychiatrists demand that the medication only be given with a counseling component? (It can't just be for the money, can it?) And why do people still systematically exaggerate the threat of those who have mentall illnesses yet are on medication? Wouldn't that be like dissociating from someone because he had a cold once and got medicated?
Just because the evidence hasn't had a practical outcome yet doesn't mean it's just another stupid reductionist scientist blathering on about something absolutely pointless.
Doesn't mean it isn't, either. Scientists presenting such simple reductionism are generally trying to cloak a philosophical bias.
This is interesting news; you just don't like what it implies.
False, and slanderously so. I *want* the human body to be as simple as possible. That's why I have to be all the more careful about those casually assuming it is, or presenting allegedly simple proofs thereof. It's called looking for disconfirming evidence. Try it sometime.
I've read GEB, but thanks for the appeal to authority. I didn't say anything "invalidated" the reductionist view; I just said that it was casually assumed without justification, and no advances predicated thereon have been made, rendering such an assumption tenuous. And I'm still waiting for someone to come up with the Goedel statement that's supposed to crash my brain like the Turing machine it supposedly is.
another scientist assumes a reductionist view of the mind despite the fact that no advances in AI have been predicated on such. How is that news?
It's true that those are contributors to the problem, but glitches are still a significant reason not to buy a console. For me, the main advantage of a console (rather than buying the game on PC) is that everything's standardized, so you don't have bugs, like you would on PC with lots of different possible components. So if you're going to make a console, you had better get that part right! That MS skimped on this tells me they don't "get it".
I don't think it's necessarily a problem of leadership, or vision, or management. You just have to be able to specify what you want, and for that, you have to know what you want, and what you don't care about. Programmers are generally very capable, as long as the task is well defined. Just specify what parts of the finished work are critical, and what parts have leeway: "For this aspect, I don't care how you implement it, as long it does this, this and this." And then check periodically to make sure the progress is going according to plan. The last thing you want is, "OH, you wanted the text editor to allow MORE than two pages of input! Now I have to redesign it!" Yes, that actually happened to me on some code I contracted out. And the programmer was not stupid -- he added a lot of useful functionality and made good suggestions.
I don't think you responded to my point. I wasn't saying that scientists should be expected never to get anything wrong, and we should devour them when they do. Read my post again. I was saying how in theoretical astrophysics, what counts as a "good idea" is actually applying an equation correctly. I mean, back in September, everyone was cheering just because some scientist, after 75 years, said, "hey, you know, when you apply an equation correctly, you don't need dark matter". If it took them that long to figure that out, what the **** were they doing the whole time? And if you fundamentally change your theory every few years, maybe you should wait until you have more evidence before postulating one?
Um... no amount of evidence constitutes proof.
*sigh*
Sorry, nitpicker. Here's what it should have said:
"It should come with a fundmental re-evaluation of what counts as verification or falsification."
Happy?
Now you can go back to bitching about how hard it is to see the forest when there are all those damn trees in the way.
It really pisses me off the leeway we give theoretical physicists. If an engineer screws up on a bridge, or if a doctor screws up on a patient, people know, and they demand accountability. If astrophysicists fail to properly apply an equation for 100 years, or miss something simple for 75 years, "hey, that's science, it's tough man, cut us some slack". How many times have they changed opinions on whether the universe is expanding or contracting now? And just so you don't misunderstand, it's absolutely okay to make mistakes -- as long as they're new! Each time scientists err in a theory and "change their collective mind" about something, it should come with a fundamental re-evaluation of what practices led to the error, and what kind of evidence counts as proof. If they did that, you wouldn't see them switch opinions about some matter every third year, or, even better, admit they don't know.
I find it amusing that the deterioration of our language in many cases is cause by an overabundance of vocabulary. I think more words, with very subtle shades of meaning, can allow more depth in our communication. However, most people use these words with slightly different meanings almost interchangably, and that confuses the reader. What, exactly, is the difference between "paradigm," "model," "precedent," and "situation?" If you don't know the difference, don't use the words.
Exactly! Thank you so much for bringing this up! I *hate* when people use words in complete ignorance of their meaning. Please, folks, if you're not sure what it means, *just don't use it*. It's that simple. Really.
I once had a flame war that went like this: (I'm the 2nd, and every 2nd thereafter)
-You shouldn't shoot trespassers because that's violent.
-Fighting in a war is violent too. Are you against that?
-I don't answer strawman arguments. [provides link to strawman] [This is where my anger starts rising.]
-I know what a strawman is. How is it a strawman?
-Because I'm not talking about soldiers, I'm talking about trespassers.
-Yes, but an implication of your position is opposition to working as a soldier. For it to be a strawman, you have to state how my argument attacks a misrepresentation of your position, and how that differs from your actual position. So how does it?
-Because I'm talking about shooting trespassers. You're talking about soldiers. Big difference.
-Okay, so further explain your position so as to show how it distinguishes between the violence of a soldier and the violence of shooting a trespasser.
-I already did.
-No, you didn't. You just said that you oppose shooting trespassers because it's violent. Yet it's clear the violence is not sufficient for you to oppose something. This I showed by bringing up soldiers.
-We're not talking about soldiers. You need to show why shooting trespassers is wrong. You instead invoked a strawman about soldiers.
-Look, a strawman is not a generic catchall for "arguments I disagree with". It refers to a specific fallacy of attacking a position different from the one under discussion. Whenever you call something a strawman, you need to know exactly how the argument it attacks is different from the actual argument you are promoting. You obviously can't even do that.
[goes on forever]
Yeah, I know, I've ordered like, eight books from the Mises institute and post on their blog. I'm just pretending to be a sheep so people won't dismiss me as a kook. I have to repair my karma, you know. Luckily I got back up to neutral (and then positive!) today.
And while 5,000,000 people were buffing their paladins to make the run into Molten Core, I was watching informative TV programs like "Nova."
You have a TV that can switch between that program, a program about the Coasean theory of the firm, a program about the P=NP problem, and a program about the history of late-19th-century Australia, and go to whatever part you like, at whim? What links does it have that allow you to explore sub-topics you like in-depth?
That's how anti-trust laws get abused. You can call anything a monopoly if you restrict your definition of "its market" well enough. In the Windows case, it was "MS has a monopoly on OS's ... for x86 computers ... that people use at home ... and not as servers". I've heard of cases where someone was called a monopoly because he "dominated" the market for "dough ... that comes ready-made ... for pizzas ... in the Salt Lake City limits ... after 10pm". Strictly speaking, everyone is a monopoly. I have a monopoly on the services of Leon Geeste. The corner store has a monopoly on hot dogs sold at that corner. They need to ask more substantive questions like, "Do people have an alternative?" "Is the alleged monopolist spending money to hurt competitors rather than improve its product?"
Some people just don't "get" how much less of a waste computers are compared to TV. When visiting home, my parents always lecture me on how much I use the computer. The last time, I said, "I just learned about the Coasean Theory of the firm, the P=NP problem, and the history of late-19th century Australia on Wikipedia, while you were learning about the latest celebrity gossip. Who's wasting whose time here?" (I think I said it more tactfully though.) I know, that's the internet, not gaming, but the bias applies to all computer-related stuff.
They're basically coming up with algorithms to determine when the phone "should" be set to vibrate. What I want to know is, why are they involving a University for this? Anyone who's used or been around users of cell phones is capable of coming up with ideas on how to make phones go into silent mode. It's probably expensive to hire *professors* to work on this problem, when an engineering firm, or heck, asking high schoolers for ideas, could get you all the ideas you'd need on this. No new technology is needed for this -- just programming software.
Set your phone to vibrate. It's been working for me for years. Non-invasive when doing anything in my daily routine.
Is there really a reason I should have to enter my schedule into my phone?
The idea behind this is that people forget to do this, so the phone does it automatically. That's why they want you to enter your schedule. Of course, people *conscious* of those around them and *concerned* about the impacts of their actions on others probably *already* do this consistently enough not to need one. The people least likely to buy the "polite" phone are the ones who probably need it the most.
This study took essentially random, disparate topics, from multiple boards, and sent them in emails, isolated from the context. Of course people are going to have a hard time ascertaining sincerity when they don't see the context! An meaningful study would have measured people's perceptions of posts on boards they regularly go to. The conclusion may be the same, but at least then it would be well-grounded.
Okay, first, to clarify, I agree this isn't the only factor, and never said it was, just that it's the major one. And I don't think you're understanding the point, no offense. Yes, Indian and Chinese population centers are dense, BUT they still have the option of leaving for better land within their country. Thus, the fact that they are in dense population centers means that they *prefer* it to the alternatives. In Japan, there is no real alternative because the other land within the country is uninhabitable. It's the *option* of moving to the other space, not the current density distribution, that indicates propensity to suicide.
Looking at aggregate statistics is misleading. I could box in the place you're sitting with an arbitrary square and claim that that plot has a population density of 500,000/sq km. It's true that a lot of Japan is uninhabited, but that's because it's harsh, mountainous, high land. Belgium and the Netherlands are mostly low, fertile, and flat as my girlfriend's chest. (How do you think they got to be called the _nether_ lands?) Japan's population is mostly squeezed along the thin strip of coastline. Fleeing that wage slavery to live in the mountains is like going to live in a poorhouse in Victorian England -- how about looking that up on Wikipedia?
They have so little land. They're all packed in there tightly. Scientists have done experiments with rats where they give them enough space and resources for 50 of them, start them with 10, let them breed, and then let nature take its course. What happens is that eventually they start fighting over resources (predictable) but also get mental illnesses at a much higher rate. They also started engaging in self-destructive acts. I think we see the same thing with Japanese people now. What, 130 million people in a (mountainous) area the size of California? They all have to be wage slaves because there's no cheap land to move to when your job gets shitty, so they just have to "take it". Problem is, a lot of them can't take the high stress that the wage slave-drivers try to milk out of them. "We got 30 people who can replace you. Work harder!" Yeah, you can probably imagine how it feels. It doesn't help that the Bank of Japan's policies are keeping the economy in the gutter by inflating the money supply so your same shitty wages buy you less and less.
Often, people would rather buy multiple devices that do one thing well than buy 1 item that does everything.
Exactly. One word: N-Gage.
Not to be a back-seat driver, but just off the top of my head, it seems a less cheeky, dignified way to do ... whatever the purpose of charging victims is ... would be to send a letter saying something like "Recently, you were under our care. We hope your life has returned to normal. The Red Cross's volunteers dedicate their time and efforts to helping people like you. Now that you have seen firsthand the good that our organization accomplishes, perhaps you would consider helping us in our future efforts so that we can better assist people like you. Attached is a donation form. We welcome any aid you feel you can give. For reference, the cost of your treatement was $X."
It turns out that 60, not 49 angels can fit on the head of a pin. Seriously, how is this science? I thought science was about making falsifiable predictions, not figuring out what happened in the past.
Secondly, you can't really consider "every possible input". A mere stream of eight bytes has 2^64 possible values, but is not enough to contain the smallest possible HTTP transaction.
It doesn't matter. A robust program would check that input is a member of a well-understood set of inputs it knows how to handle, and if not, reject it. This is exactly what we did in first year (high school) computer science -- refuse all user input except for the type we know how to handle. I don't think it requires a mathematical proof, just limiting input.
This is fucking retarded. I called dupe a full FOUR MINUTES before you, and I get modded down for "redundant", while you're bumped up for insightful?