He's absolutely right. There are some biologist (some bioinformaticists) who need to be real math pros and the ones that are have a distinct advantage. However, most biologists aren't and they do fine.
For instance, to do qPCR (a way to quantify gene expression) requires a lot of mathematical calculations, essentially calculus and linear algebra. You don't need to know them though because there is great software which does it for you. You do need to understand what its doing though to use it. I've seen people use it poorly because they don't understand it.
So you need "intuition" about how calculus and algebra work, bu you don't need to do it. I know what an integral is. I know what a linear transformation is and how it can be used. I could not though for the life of me integrate or derive anything myself on paper.
30 years ago you could say the same thing for an accountant. They needed to be an absolute whiz with not calculus but also arithmatic.
Now they have Excel, and they don't need to be a master at doing math, they need to be a master at understanding it.
I think most people don't like what EO said because they think he's against math or math education, and he's not. Do you know how you get math intuition? You take a lot of math classes.
Malaysia sucks. Seriously, detention without trial? Death penalty for drugs? State religion? High risk of infectious disease? Monarchy? Sex-trafficking?
I mean, I don't OWN a copy of Windows or really probably any piece of software I [didn't really] pay for.
I license it. Even if you made a law saying unlocking is ok, all the phone companies would have to do is retain ownership of the phone and simply license its use to you.
Remember kids: Ownership is not a real thing. It's a thing made up by naked apes so they can fight.
I don't think the point of the coal/radiation meme isn't that they are SO radioactive, its that even nuclear plants aren't that radioactive. Even when they meltdown (really every accident except Chernobyl) they radiation is minimal (in the sense that its not like it kills TONS of people).
But farmers are not dumb. They have done these calculations. Monsanto seeds do not require greater long-term expense. It is no problem to quit using Monsanto's seeds if the costs are too high. You are not "locked in" to Monsanto's product. Many farmers can and do plant non-GMO seeds and if you've seen the prices of "organic" corn and soybeans you will know you can make money doing this.
If Monsanto's seeds quit being worth the money to plant, farmers would quit planting them.
It is not analogous to say buying MS products for your business. With those you do get locked-in when your Exchange server won't migrate out to a FOSS alternative. Or when your Oracle database system won't export to new products.
With farming though, all you have to do is buy different seeds next year.
Also, many people don't know this, FARMERS (by and large) DO NOT SAVE SEEDS.
Even the non GMO seeds are hybrids with enhanced vigor. If you saved the seeds the "hybrid-vigor" (google that) would not persist. This is not due to scheming by seed companies, this is just how genetics works.
Some people get so into the idea that Monsanto is evil that they forget to think if they are actually making a good product.
Good luck getting other countries to sign onto this. There are already UN treaties about space-based weaponry. No one is going to put up with a country having giant orbital lasers which could just as easily vaporize large metropolitan areas as they could space rocks.
What they are really afraid of is the fact that once cars become self-driving, no one will need to own one anymore.
Technology is actually upended the business model of the entire autoindustry. They might innovate themselves right out of business.
I mean seriously who cares about cloudplayer in a self-driving car? If it can drive itself I'll just leave my earbuds in.
The most common vehicle in 10 years will be the autonomous Dodge caravan, taxiing us all around. Rich people will have maybe their own auto-Bently's or something, but the rest of us will just share a car.
The software I have written for my odd specialized purposes is similar to the software my colleagues write: It's spaghetti code written with custom libraries which are not better than common ones and it has no documentation at all.
We could open-source it, but then you'd just bitch about how poorly its constructed.
We don't have time to open-source our code. Heck, I've had people ask to use software I've made and I've regretted giving it to them because I then am obligated to explain to them how to use it.
Bitcoin has a built in limit and a built in "profitability scale" for its mining. The faster you mine the less profitable it is. Unless you could jump WAAAY ahead of the curve (as some early adopters did) you won't be able to make money mining.
Bitcoin needs people to spend it, not mine it, and thats a difficult problem which can't be solved without top-down (gov't) influence. People have to psychologically learn to accept bitcoins, and that wont happen unless they are made to.
There are a lot of benefits to bitcoins, but I think they will remain an, at-most, black-market currency.
Since this thread is just going to be a bunch of "zomg wasted muney!" why don't you educate academics like me about what exactly "ERP" systems are and what you do with it and why its so great?
The university I work at gets new crazy "enterprise" software sometimes and usually it ends up offloading some of the work the bureaucrats used to do on me (purchasing paperwork) meanwhile they take 51% of my grant money.
But that HuffPo piece doesn't link to a primary source outlining the specifics of the critique. Both flavonols and flavanols are actual plant chemicals, what the evidence its a mistake? How many times was it made? I've looked and looked and can't find any direct info from Brandt (the scientist who found this) on this. I could be missing it, but given that this story is all over the place now and I can't find an original blog post or something with 15 mins of Googling is disturbing.
It's basically a single HuffPo piece with no reference which has been re-spammed all over the internet.
Bittman says that Kristen Brandt of Newcastle University has found this spelling error. I find this interesting as a plant chemist. However, he just links to a HuffPo article that doesn't link to Brandt's comments. Every other study I can Google just links back to HuffPo or to nowhere.
Does anyone know where I can read Brandt's claims?
Slashdot Mirror
He's absolutely right. There are some biologist (some bioinformaticists) who need to be real math pros and the ones that are have a distinct advantage. However, most biologists aren't and they do fine.
For instance, to do qPCR (a way to quantify gene expression) requires a lot of mathematical calculations, essentially calculus and linear algebra. You don't need to know them though because there is great software which does it for you. You do need to understand what its doing though to use it. I've seen people use it poorly because they don't understand it.
So you need "intuition" about how calculus and algebra work, bu you don't need to do it. I know what an integral is. I know what a linear transformation is and how it can be used. I could not though for the life of me integrate or derive anything myself on paper.
30 years ago you could say the same thing for an accountant. They needed to be an absolute whiz with not calculus but also arithmatic.
Now they have Excel, and they don't need to be a master at doing math, they need to be a master at understanding it.
I think most people don't like what EO said because they think he's against math or math education, and he's not. Do you know how you get math intuition? You take a lot of math classes.
Malaysia sucks. Seriously, detention without trial? Death penalty for drugs? State religion? High risk of infectious disease? Monarchy? Sex-trafficking?
NO. THANKS.
I mean, I don't OWN a copy of Windows or really probably any piece of software I [didn't really] pay for.
I license it. Even if you made a law saying unlocking is ok, all the phone companies would have to do is retain ownership of the phone and simply license its use to you.
Remember kids: Ownership is not a real thing. It's a thing made up by naked apes so they can fight.
I don't think the point of the coal/radiation meme isn't that they are SO radioactive, its that even nuclear plants aren't that radioactive. Even when they meltdown (really every accident except Chernobyl) they radiation is minimal (in the sense that its not like it kills TONS of people).
Oh when you're eyes get hacked and you're unable to see people who don't want to be seen.
Just don't upgrade?
Yeah me too, though honestly there are a million little customizable web portals out there.
I suspect this is what happens. Scientists rarely write a new grant entirely from scratch.
I guess they keep fining MS so they won't have to prosecute any other trusts.
Luckily there is no monopolistic dominance in other sectors like banking or finance.
The combine costs a lot more than $120k.
But farmers are not dumb. They have done these calculations. Monsanto seeds do not require greater long-term expense. It is no problem to quit using Monsanto's seeds if the costs are too high. You are not "locked in" to Monsanto's product. Many farmers can and do plant non-GMO seeds and if you've seen the prices of "organic" corn and soybeans you will know you can make money doing this.
If Monsanto's seeds quit being worth the money to plant, farmers would quit planting them.
It is not analogous to say buying MS products for your business. With those you do get locked-in when your Exchange server won't migrate out to a FOSS alternative. Or when your Oracle database system won't export to new products.
With farming though, all you have to do is buy different seeds next year.
Also, many people don't know this, FARMERS (by and large) DO NOT SAVE SEEDS.
Even the non GMO seeds are hybrids with enhanced vigor. If you saved the seeds the "hybrid-vigor" (google that) would not persist. This is not due to scheming by seed companies, this is just how genetics works.
Some people get so into the idea that Monsanto is evil that they forget to think if they are actually making a good product.
Good luck getting other countries to sign onto this. There are already UN treaties about space-based weaponry. No one is going to put up with a country having giant orbital lasers which could just as easily vaporize large metropolitan areas as they could space rocks.
What they are really afraid of is the fact that once cars become self-driving, no one will need to own one anymore.
Technology is actually upended the business model of the entire autoindustry. They might innovate themselves right out of business.
I mean seriously who cares about cloudplayer in a self-driving car? If it can drive itself I'll just leave my earbuds in.
The most common vehicle in 10 years will be the autonomous Dodge caravan, taxiing us all around. Rich people will have maybe their own auto-Bently's or something, but the rest of us will just share a car.
There are lots of non GM soybeans around and they are cheap.
Why do famers buy expensive GM seeds then?
Because they are better. You make more money when you plant GM seed.
Farmers are not dumb.
The software I have written for my odd specialized purposes is similar to the software my colleagues write: It's spaghetti code written with custom libraries which are not better than common ones and it has no documentation at all.
We could open-source it, but then you'd just bitch about how poorly its constructed.
We don't have time to open-source our code. Heck, I've had people ask to use software I've made and I've regretted giving it to them because I then am obligated to explain to them how to use it.
Don't tell me what's important for me you arrogant twat.
How about "animals including humans"?
If companies had a hard time finding skilled employees you'd expect wages to be rising, and they aren't.
What CEOs mean when they say this is "We can't find skilled, educated employees who will work for pennies."
Bitcoin has a built in limit and a built in "profitability scale" for its mining. The faster you mine the less profitable it is. Unless you could jump WAAAY ahead of the curve (as some early adopters did) you won't be able to make money mining.
Bitcoin needs people to spend it, not mine it, and thats a difficult problem which can't be solved without top-down (gov't) influence. People have to psychologically learn to accept bitcoins, and that wont happen unless they are made to.
There are a lot of benefits to bitcoins, but I think they will remain an, at-most, black-market currency.
Answered my own question:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVRgIXLWDHs
Since this thread is just going to be a bunch of "zomg wasted muney!" why don't you educate academics like me about what exactly "ERP" systems are and what you do with it and why its so great?
The university I work at gets new crazy "enterprise" software sometimes and usually it ends up offloading some of the work the bureaucrats used to do on me (purchasing paperwork) meanwhile they take 51% of my grant money.
So tell me, WHY?
But it will take you 10x longer than having someone who knows what they're doing teach you.
It's just not efficient.
China is one of the places where people are still cheaper than machines.
But that HuffPo piece doesn't link to a primary source outlining the specifics of the critique. Both flavonols and flavanols are actual plant chemicals, what the evidence its a mistake? How many times was it made? I've looked and looked and can't find any direct info from Brandt (the scientist who found this) on this. I could be missing it, but given that this story is all over the place now and I can't find an original blog post or something with 15 mins of Googling is disturbing.
It's basically a single HuffPo piece with no reference which has been re-spammed all over the internet.
Bittman says that Kristen Brandt of Newcastle University has found this spelling error. I find this interesting as a plant chemist. However, he just links to a HuffPo article that doesn't link to Brandt's comments. Every other study I can Google just links back to HuffPo or to nowhere.
Does anyone know where I can read Brandt's claims?
On silly OS variants which do nothing to advance anything ever.