I thought that by now you'd learned that the real meat of Slashdot is in the comments. They're what has taught me the most, not the articles (which I regularly find to be boring, only mildly informative and about a narrower range of topics than the comments).
You can't test two different machines with different cases and compare the results, that's not how the scientific process works.
I recommend listening to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe---it's a great podcast in itself if you're into science, and it'll give you a more nuanced view of what science is.
This is not unscientific. It's just a low-grade study. From the SGU, I've learned that in medicine one does pilot studies with no control group, to answer the question "might there be something there?". You then do better studies later if it turns out that there might, in fact, be something there.
So, to restate: it isn't that this is unscientific, or "invalid". It's just that the "research program" has only gotten to first base by now.
The test was done on machines with differing configurations, so therefore is not valid.
Do you think the entire effect is going to go away if the experiment is performed on two different machines?
Not valid according to which standard? I don't think there's a black-and-white valid/invalid distinction.
I'd say there are degrees of quality of evidence. This could have been better, it could have been worse, and you can probably increase your confidence by gathering up the better kind of evidence.
Maybe the effect size will shrink, or invert, or do weird somersaults. I'd guess that unless the systems are wildly different, you'll see the effect size shrinking, but not going away entirely.
I'll accept this restriction as long as the same restrictions are placed upon any books and movies that contain "various degrees of profanity, racist stereotypes or derogatory language, and/or actions toward a specific group of persons."
Quick, ban the lord of the rings, it portrays all hobbits as short of stature!
Oh, what, you can't actually do that for other media? What makes you think you can do it for games, then?
Because there's a large constituency that don't "care about them new video game things". There's a large constituency of parents who have to work their ass off to put food on the table that they don't have time to parent as well or much as they'd want, and so the kids are often left alone in front of the TV (with or without video games). I can see that they might want someone else to "make the same decisions they would" regarding what their kids are seeing.
I also imagine that a lot of gamers of age at least 18 are quite complacent and while we may squeal here, who of us are going to pick up the torches and pitchforks?
Also, besides "that's how we've always done it", why at age 18? Isn't there a point in people's development, much earlier than 18, where exposure to violence/sex/... typically affects you the same way it affects adults? Wouldn't that be the point at which we can let you be stupid all you want?
Yeah, I figure _you_ weren't the one who would benefit from having it spelled out. But I got moderated up, so I guess someone else thinks that someone might benefit from it.
[...]pedophiles are constantly crossing the borders to [...] molest our children
There's a distinction I think it's worthy to know, so I'm going to spell it out. Hopefully someone will benefit from this.
Pedophile: someone sexually attracted to or aroused by kids
Child Pornographer: someone producing porn that includes kids
Child Molestation: sexual activity with kids. Maybe one should throw "non-consenting" in there, maybe not. That's a finer point than what I'll argue.
They're not the same. If you're a/Child [PM].*/, then typically you're also a pedophile, but not the other way around.
I'm not here to defend any group in particular. Just to make the distinction clear.
[I think children deserve to be protected by the legal system, but I also think that 17-year-olds should be allowed to film themselves having sex and show their pr0n to their friends. I'm for the rule of law, and against the rule of puritans. Ask me if you want to know all the nuances of my opinions.]
Kobayashi Maru is the name of a spaceship in a training exercise in the Star Trek fictional universe. In the exercise, the "Kobayashi Maru" is the precipitating element in a simulated no-win scenario. The ship's name is occasionally used among Star Trek fans or those familiar with the series to describe such situations.
This is a partial dupe comment, someone posted this bit before on Slashdot someplace, but since this is Slashdot I didn't think a dupe would be a problem.
Yes, I do mean all the users and all of what they want it to do.
I think we can all agree that the design choices made for GNOME are biased on the side of simplicity, and KDE on having lots of features, at least comparatively. We can disagree on how strong the bias is and what our personal preferences are (see $OTHER_THREAD), but the bias is there.
As a result, GNOME will fail to do some things that some of its users want it to do.
So, GNOME is a bad collection of software, by your logic? Or is there something I'm not quite getting?
(Say) I want GNU Hello to be smaller in preference of it not being able to read my mail. Some people want to keep the mail-reading feature in, for the humorous value. Some want it in as a reminder of the dangers of feature creep.
Or let's get even further. There have been games so simplified that you could have played it with a gamepad. Needless to say, none got too many players, even if they survived.
Playing guitar hero takes six buttons. I can't name _any_ gamepad that doesn't have that many (maybe except some variants of the "arrrrrrrr! Pirates' Keyboard"), yet the game sells well enough to spawn six sequel/spinoff games (II, III, Rock Band, Metallica, Aerosmith, 80's).
Slashdot Mirror
It spawned some good discussion.
See http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1093725&cid=26475193 and http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1093725&cid=26475087 and http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1093725&cid=26474807
I thought that by now you'd learned that the real meat of Slashdot is in the comments. They're what has taught me the most, not the articles (which I regularly find to be boring, only mildly informative and about a narrower range of topics than the comments).
And the service packs don't count as OS upgrades, decreasing the "8" figure? Then let's also count out apt-get dist-upgrades as well.
You can't test two different machines with different cases and compare the results, that's not how the scientific process works.
I recommend listening to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe---it's a great podcast in itself if you're into science, and it'll give you a more nuanced view of what science is.
This is not unscientific. It's just a low-grade study. From the SGU, I've learned that in medicine one does pilot studies with no control group, to answer the question "might there be something there?". You then do better studies later if it turns out that there might, in fact, be something there.
So, to restate: it isn't that this is unscientific, or "invalid". It's just that the "research program" has only gotten to first base by now.
The test was done on machines with differing configurations, so therefore is not valid.
Do you think the entire effect is going to go away if the experiment is performed on two different machines?
Not valid according to which standard? I don't think there's a black-and-white valid/invalid distinction.
I'd say there are degrees of quality of evidence. This could have been better, it could have been worse, and you can probably increase your confidence by gathering up the better kind of evidence.
Maybe the effect size will shrink, or invert, or do weird somersaults. I'd guess that unless the systems are wildly different, you'll see the effect size shrinking, but not going away entirely.
I'll accept this restriction as long as the same restrictions are placed upon any books and movies that contain "various degrees of profanity, racist stereotypes or derogatory language, and/or actions toward a specific group of persons."
Quick, ban the lord of the rings, it portrays all hobbits as short of stature!
Oh, what, you can't actually do that for other media? What makes you think you can do it for games, then?
Because there's a large constituency that don't "care about them new video game things". There's a large constituency of parents who have to work their ass off to put food on the table that they don't have time to parent as well or much as they'd want, and so the kids are often left alone in front of the TV (with or without video games). I can see that they might want someone else to "make the same decisions they would" regarding what their kids are seeing.
I also imagine that a lot of gamers of age at least 18 are quite complacent and while we may squeal here, who of us are going to pick up the torches and pitchforks?
Also, besides "that's how we've always done it", why at age 18? Isn't there a point in people's development, much earlier than 18, where exposure to violence/sex/... typically affects you the same way it affects adults? Wouldn't that be the point at which we can let you be stupid all you want?
Not all Muslims are Terrorists??? :O
[j/k ;)]
Yeah, I figure _you_ weren't the one who would benefit from having it spelled out. But I got moderated up, so I guess someone else thinks that someone might benefit from it.
but Florida departments would be idiots to [...]
We're from the government. We're here to... uh... we're here to... Bert, what are we here to do?
Let me guess, the iNail is coming out this easter?
... Apple now has the thinnest, lightest CEO on the market.
Unfortunately, due to a design decision, you'll have to replace him every so often because you can't replace just the battery.
[...]it's obviously alive.
True. The key question is when it's one person with bonus material and when it's two persons.
Paris, get down from there!!!
Why do you hate the French? :(
[...]pedophiles are constantly crossing the borders to [...] molest our children
There's a distinction I think it's worthy to know, so I'm going to spell it out. Hopefully someone will benefit from this.
They're not the same. If you're a /Child [PM].*/, then typically you're also a pedophile, but not the other way around.
I'm not here to defend any group in particular. Just to make the distinction clear.
[I think children deserve to be protected by the legal system, but I also think that 17-year-olds should be allowed to film themselves having sex and show their pr0n to their friends. I'm for the rule of law, and against the rule of puritans. Ask me if you want to know all the nuances of my opinions.]
[subj: already /.ed] at 2 in the morning on a sunday.
Posted on Monday, Jan 12th, at 10:00. (TZ=CET=GMT+1) ;)
Well, it's like the Kobashi Maru
Here's what I found when looking it up, on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru
Kobayashi Maru is the name of a spaceship in a training exercise in the Star Trek fictional universe. In the exercise, the "Kobayashi Maru" is the precipitating element in a simulated no-win scenario. The ship's name is occasionally used among Star Trek fans or those familiar with the series to describe such situations.
[and being outgeeked by a girl is awesome! ;)]
This is a partial dupe comment, someone posted this bit before on Slashdot someplace, but since this is Slashdot I didn't think a dupe would be a problem.
Yes, I do mean all the users and all of what they want it to do.
I think we can all agree that the design choices made for GNOME are biased on the side of simplicity, and KDE on having lots of features, at least comparatively. We can disagree on how strong the bias is and what our personal preferences are (see $OTHER_THREAD), but the bias is there.
As a result, GNOME will fail to do some things that some of its users want it to do.
So, GNOME is a bad collection of software, by your logic? Or is there something I'm not quite getting?
(Say) I want GNU Hello to be smaller in preference of it not being able to read my mail. Some people want to keep the mail-reading feature in, for the humorous value. Some want it in as a reminder of the dangers of feature creep.
Explain to me why this rates a +3 "Informative"
Because the moderators in question wanted to reward the poster for confirming their own biases.
Didn't you listen in psych 101? ;)
Doesn't get in the way ? As soon as you click in a window it comes to the front and obscures the material you were trying to view.
I suppose it can be turned off by editing the Gnome XML configuration file...
Run compiz. From the configuration tool (ccsm), you can set the raise behavior you want.
While I appreciate the bling factor of compiz, what's more important is that it's geek-friendly.
2009: the year of perl6 on the desktop! ... Or how about:
Yeah, I hear they're going to use perl6 for the next rewrite of DNF.
I can haz mod pntz?
Or let's get even further. There have been games so simplified that you could have played it with a gamepad. Needless to say, none got too many players, even if they survived.
Playing guitar hero takes six buttons. I can't name _any_ gamepad that doesn't have that many (maybe except some variants of the "arrrrrrrr! Pirates' Keyboard"), yet the game sells well enough to spawn six sequel/spinoff games (II, III, Rock Band, Metallica, Aerosmith, 80's).
As I was leaving, [...] pasty white guy, goat*s*e, walked in [...] He looked like a real fag.
What the... he walks around like that??? :O
For instance, where's the car?
Obviously it's an ice cream truck
Just like the internet I got this morning...
Thats what happens when you get teenagers to do your configuration management.
Competence and incompetence comes in all ages.
(I'm not a teen, I'm not trying to defend myself or my own; I'm just trying to make sure the discussion is accurate)
where new users can get all the help they need with using Linux without being insulted.
But then the friendly manuals who just wants to meet new people to hang out with and get a little attention from would start feeling really lonely.
Poor manual. Why no one likes manual? :(