i burst out laughing at the sight of the sinister oriental devils weaving their way through space in their intergalactic rickshaws - unbelievable stuff. right from the word go.
the thing that really surprised me above all else, was how poor the special effects were, varying from sub-standard to utterly dismal in parts. i can remember that the team behind them were rather surprised (and hurt) that they lost out to The Matrix at the oscars!
You might want to have a look at fauxto; an online photoshop running in Flash and very capable indeed. http://www.fauxto.com/
it can deal with layers etc and at the moment is probably equiv to ps 3.
I'm not a huge fan of adobe (the majority of their apps have turned into shocking examples of bloatware and have fumbled the ball) but... ps (et al) online is not outside the realms of possibility imho.
It should be easy to debate with people who fall for this type of pseudoscience or the many types of superstitious garbage - after all, Randi has done quite well with people who take his challenge to demonstrate some kind of mystical power, and its difficult to see why such powers would not throw something testable up, in the case of these cables, something that would perform well in a comparison.
Unfortunately magic hi-fi cables and this type of thing often boil down to people believing what they want to believe, even if it does involves lightening their wallets considerably.
Anyhow, my favorite example of Randi in action is his debunking of a kung-fu master who tries to demonstrate telekinesis live on tv - spoiler warning - he doesn't http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7471941094792399305
While Flex is an alternative way of creating Flash content, like the Flash ide it still only publishes swf files (Flash 9 movies.)
It is incredibly powerful tho and if you've had anything to do with creating Java then its quite easy to get into.
Anyhow, If you're going to shell out for Flex then my advice is to get the standalone version, as the eclipse plugin caused real problems and almost fouled my existing Eclipse setup - naughty.
Also, set aside a good few hours to get svn working properly with it (subclipse); that part is not much fun at all i'm afraid.
the problem with stereotypes is that apart from anything else they are very difficult to shift.
there is good evidence to suggest that whenever an individual encounters evidence that might contradict their stereotype, then instead of revising their beliefs, they will in fact ignore the evidence or even distort the evidence to support their initial belief.
an example of this might be a racist who believes that all black people are lazy and as a consequence poor; when this person sees a black person driving an expensive car, instead of revising their initial stereotype, they might decide that they are probably dealing drugs or a thief.
I hope that television (especially the beeb) is going the way of the music and newspaper business. file sharing and other internet goodies will certainly help to that end.
Why;
they have dumbed tv down to the point of no return (along with the other uk channels, especially the now dismal ch4)
even the dumb content is nowhere near as good as it used to be (apart from radio 4)
they have failed utterly to conceal their cynical efforts to deceive and defraud their dosile audience (since when has public service broadcasting included stealing from gullible people who phone up to participate in shows?)
If they think that the iplayer (cross platform or not) can justify their upcoming efforts to levy the licence fee on anyone who has a computer then i would say that they have another thing coming.
Most of the comments in this thread betray a biased and mean-spirited attitude towards Scientology and its founder, Ron Hubbard.
It is very easy to be disrespectful towards someone you have never met or know nothing about.
The truth is that it is hard to know where to begin in trying to sum up Ron Hubbard. He bestrode' the worlds of science and religion, moulding them into a unique synthesis (Diabetics)
How many slashdotters have sold books in the quantity of Ron Hubbard? Since 1954 when he first exploded onto the world stage with his first major best-selling work of philosophy How I Solved the Riddle of the Universe on $5 a Day, he hardly took a break from writing. He write a book every week for the rest of his life - 257,000 of them - each one a complete masterpiece.
But writing books was just a sideline to this extraordinary multi-faceted super-human millionaire. His real love was money and he made more of it than any other religious teacher in the history of the world.
The message he put across to his millions of followers was simple: "Renounce all your material possessions", he said, "and give them to me."
http://interactiveresources.co.uk/ are pretty damm good, and designed with tablets/whiteboards etc in mind. their products are probably a bit junior for what you have in mind though.
Eclipse does require a lot of computer resources, but when you consider the job it does, its actually an amazing bit of kit. also there are memory management plugin that can keep it under control if are trying to get it to run on a celeron with 256m ram.
as tfa, once you get over the initial hassle of setting the thing up, its a joy to use. also, its dammed stable.
the svn, the code completion, error checking, and the countless lovely little features (i love you all) work a treat, and make it a winner every time. i don't know a single developer thats used both who doesn't recognise visual studio to be a vastly inferior product.
funny that, i'd say that basically there are two types of people in the world, those that think that there are two types of people and those that don't:)
And what exactly are you doing? You're on Slashdot defending one of the worst film directors in history!
Since when has making money been the "be all & end all" of film-making? especially when you're using a tax loophole to get your dismal efforts onto the screen.
I would say its pretty obvious that if market forces had a say in this, then Boll would never have been allowed to make a single film.
i'm not sure how my comment was meant to be a troll, but still...
in mentioning Burt, i wanted to get an understanding of what you would consider a personal attack. you gave me an answer, so fair enough. now if i point out that in the very prominent Newman et al twins studies (a cornerstone of iq research), that there were clear indications of bias in the selection process (participation was deliberately refused to twins that said they were unalike!) then would this be considered a personal attack on those involved in carrying out the study?
as to The really fun part is that Gould's criticism needs that the IQ researchers are idiots or in a conspiracy does this mean that anyone who believes that iq tests are unfair and based on a very limited idea of what constitutes intelligence are idiots or in a conspiracy?
i haven't actually read the mismeasure of man but i'm critical of the iq test, my main problem being the unexamined ideas and circular arguments that lie behind it, for example the lack of any kind of scientific validity. i mentioned this before but you failed to deal with it, choosing instead to cut and past a bunch of stuff.
and it certainly doesn't take an idiot to confuse correlation with causation; there are any number of scientists that make this same mistake over and over.
anyhow, imo iq theory is pseudo-science, just like astrology or biorhythms, and for that reason it should be dismissed, along with the dodgy political beliefs that it is used to justify (eg social darwinism and eugenics.)
what are these points that haven't been addressed?
Any answer will probably be personal attacks on your sources without answering their points
would you call it a personal attack to point out that one of the poster boys of the iq theorists (cyril burt) was a huge influence on educational theory and yet was caught interfering with the data from his research in a cheat? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_Burt
is it perhaps a bit personal to point out that data from his "research" still manages to finds its way into studies carried out by iq theorists today?
try not to take it too personally but iq and the theory behind it have been debunked again and again- the fact that it continues to rear its head from time to time is not surprising but a bit annoying none the less.
gp is right - there is no agreement on what constitutes intelligence.
if you want a crude justification for social darwinism, laissez faire economics or racism, then IQ fits the bill nicely.
if you need a meaningfull and scientific test for intelligence then that test really ought to be valid. unfortunately intelligence tests lack criterion validity, face validity, construct validity etc. etc.
IQ has nothing to do with science and more to do with ideology.
there is certainly a lot of debate as to why the industrial revolution occurred where and when it did.
theories come along all the time, but imho none of them really come close to replacing or contributing much to the basic reasons as i see them i.e.
the growth in demand for, and the ability to produce cotton was the driving force behind the industrial revolution;
obviously new technology had appeared e.g. steam engine, spinning jenny, power looms etc which helped a lot, and the abundant waterways in the north allowed for transport and a source of power(waterwheels and then steam).
also, good local wool made available the needed warp, but most of all the damp environment in the north of england, meant that the cotton stretched a bit in the machines and lessened the stress that was placed on them. the large amounts of free flowing cash floating around london and its social clubs didn't harm matters at all.
its always worth remembering that the huge british navy was more than able to enforce an artificial monopoly over any alternatives to english cotton that appeared around the world; a good example being the superior indian calicos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_(textile)
can anyone give me an answer to the following question-
given that electromagnetic signals:
-travel at the speed of light
-are useful for communication
-are quite easy to pick up and analyse en masse
-keep going indefinitely
why is it that we haven't found evidence for one single civilisation?
is it presuming too much about other lifeforms to expect that at least one, out of the millions of civilisations that must be there, at some stage of its development, may have used radio waves?
i don't know enough about it, but my sympathies lie with the idea that while the universe may well be teeming with life, approximately 40,000 years ago something very special happened on earth . call it the "great leap forward" or whatever, but somehow, the sudden explosion of sophisticated language and the thought that it enabled (and vice versa), allowed for the incredibly rapid development of the civilisation that we see around us today.
its worth considering that life of our type may well be a very rare event. perhaps even unique in the universe.
At one stage it did occur to me that the Mayor Ken Livingstone managed to get a somewhat easy ride from the government when he introduced the congestion charge (apart from it being a huge earner- check out the value of fines!)
Then the news emerged that cameras were left on at the weekend, when the charge is not enforced? Duh!
Whether your roads are congested or not, watch for these "congestion zones" springing up near you...the central London zone has just been extended to Kensington & Chelsea, an area which has never had a congestion problem.
I guess i need to just keep saying that catchy little mantra that the media seem to like so much - security vs liberty.
i used to feel slightly guilty for the lead figures (fully painted) that i pinched from their little shop in Hammersmith; now i shall dust the nicer ones off and enjoy them without the tinge.
Clearly the prevailing attitude is that the last 6000 years of language, culture, understanding of the universe, civilisation etc doesn't amount to anything special?
And i was thinking that the notion that all of "this" can be reduced to a set of behaviors was a thing of the past, just like the creationist belief.
slashdot man though well behaved, is still just a monkey shaved
Slashdot Mirror
btw- anyone know who's on first base?
I started this post to say that his website looks more dated than the contraption
Then i had a proper look at the keyboard and...my heart melted. Maybe its getting close to xmas.
I'll take 3.
i'm with you on the trade federation.
i burst out laughing at the sight of the sinister oriental devils weaving their way through space in their intergalactic rickshaws - unbelievable stuff. right from the word go.
the thing that really surprised me above all else, was how poor the special effects were, varying from sub-standard to utterly dismal in parts. i can remember that the team behind them were rather surprised (and hurt) that they lost out to The Matrix at the oscars!
When i were a lad, we was grateful to have a sandpit in classroom - and we were happy!
You might want to have a look at fauxto; an online photoshop running in Flash and very capable indeed. http://www.fauxto.com/ it can deal with layers etc and at the moment is probably equiv to ps 3. I'm not a huge fan of adobe (the majority of their apps have turned into shocking examples of bloatware and have fumbled the ball) but... ps (et al) online is not outside the realms of possibility imho.
It should be easy to debate with people who fall for this type of pseudoscience or the many types of superstitious garbage - after all, Randi has done quite well with people who take his challenge to demonstrate some kind of mystical power, and its difficult to see why such powers would not throw something testable up, in the case of these cables, something that would perform well in a comparison. Unfortunately magic hi-fi cables and this type of thing often boil down to people believing what they want to believe, even if it does involves lightening their wallets considerably. Anyhow, my favorite example of Randi in action is his debunking of a kung-fu master who tries to demonstrate telekinesis live on tv - spoiler warning - he doesn't http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7471941094792399305
While Flex is an alternative way of creating Flash content, like the Flash ide it still only publishes swf files (Flash 9 movies.)
It is incredibly powerful tho and if you've had anything to do with creating Java then its quite easy to get into.
Anyhow, If you're going to shell out for Flex then my advice is to get the standalone version, as the eclipse plugin caused real problems and almost fouled my existing Eclipse setup - naughty.
Also, set aside a good few hours to get svn working properly with it (subclipse); that part is not much fun at all i'm afraid.
the problem with stereotypes is that apart from anything else they are very difficult to shift.
there is good evidence to suggest that whenever an individual encounters evidence that might contradict their stereotype, then instead of revising their beliefs, they will in fact ignore the evidence or even distort the evidence to support their initial belief.
an example of this might be a racist who believes that all black people are lazy and as a consequence poor; when this person sees a black person driving an expensive car, instead of revising their initial stereotype, they might decide that they are probably dealing drugs or a thief.
I hope that television (especially the beeb) is going the way of the music and newspaper business. file sharing and other internet goodies will certainly help to that end.
Why;
they have dumbed tv down to the point of no return (along with the other uk channels, especially the now dismal ch4)
even the dumb content is nowhere near as good as it used to be (apart from radio 4)
they have failed utterly to conceal their cynical efforts to deceive and defraud their dosile audience (since when has public service broadcasting included stealing from gullible people who phone up to participate in shows?)
If they think that the iplayer (cross platform or not) can justify their upcoming efforts to levy the licence fee on anyone who has a computer then i would say that they have another thing coming.
Most of the comments in this thread betray a biased and mean-spirited attitude towards Scientology and its founder, Ron Hubbard.
It is very easy to be disrespectful towards someone you have never met or know nothing about.
The truth is that it is hard to know where to begin in trying to sum up Ron Hubbard. He bestrode' the worlds of science and religion, moulding them into a unique synthesis (Diabetics)
How many slashdotters have sold books in the quantity of Ron Hubbard? Since 1954 when he first exploded onto the world stage with his first major best-selling work of philosophy How I Solved the Riddle of the Universe on $5 a Day, he hardly took a break from writing. He write a book every week for the rest of his life - 257,000 of them - each one a complete masterpiece.
But writing books was just a sideline to this extraordinary multi-faceted super-human millionaire. His real love was money and he made more of it than any other religious teacher in the history of the world.
The message he put across to his millions of followers was simple: "Renounce all your material possessions", he said, "and give them to me."
http://interactiveresources.co.uk/ are pretty damm good, and designed with tablets/whiteboards etc in mind. their products are probably a bit junior for what you have in mind though.
Eclipse does require a lot of computer resources, but when you consider the job it does, its actually an amazing bit of kit. also there are memory management plugin that can keep it under control if are trying to get it to run on a celeron with 256m ram.
as tfa, once you get over the initial hassle of setting the thing up, its a joy to use. also, its dammed stable.
the svn, the code completion, error checking, and the countless lovely little features (i love you all) work a treat, and make it a winner every time. i don't know a single developer thats used both who doesn't recognise visual studio to be a vastly inferior product.
funny that, i'd say that basically there are two types of people in the world, those that think that there are two types of people and those that don't :)
So what's new - another bunch of liberals have failed to see the point!
the terrorists want to take away our freedom - the only way we can foil them is beat them to it! Get with it people.
And what exactly are you doing? You're on Slashdot defending one of the worst film directors in history!
Since when has making money been the "be all & end all" of film-making? especially when you're using a tax loophole to get your dismal efforts onto the screen.
I would say its pretty obvious that if market forces had a say in this, then Boll would never have been allowed to make a single film.
i'm not sure how my comment was meant to be a troll, but still...
in mentioning Burt, i wanted to get an understanding of what you would consider a personal attack. you gave me an answer, so fair enough. now if i point out that in the very prominent Newman et al twins studies (a cornerstone of iq research), that there were clear indications of bias in the selection process (participation was deliberately refused to twins that said they were unalike!) then would this be considered a personal attack on those involved in carrying out the study?
as to The really fun part is that Gould's criticism needs that the IQ researchers are idiots or in a conspiracy does this mean that anyone who believes that iq tests are unfair and based on a very limited idea of what constitutes intelligence are idiots or in a conspiracy?
i haven't actually read the mismeasure of man but i'm critical of the iq test, my main problem being the unexamined ideas and circular arguments that lie behind it, for example the lack of any kind of scientific validity. i mentioned this before but you failed to deal with it, choosing instead to cut and past a bunch of stuff.
and it certainly doesn't take an idiot to confuse correlation with causation; there are any number of scientists that make this same mistake over and over.
anyhow, imo iq theory is pseudo-science, just like astrology or biorhythms, and for that reason it should be dismissed, along with the dodgy political beliefs that it is used to justify (eg social darwinism and eugenics.)
what are these points that haven't been addressed?
Any answer will probably be personal attacks on your sources without answering their points
would you call it a personal attack to point out that one of the poster boys of the iq theorists (cyril burt) was a huge influence on educational theory and yet was caught interfering with the data from his research in a cheat? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_Burt
is it perhaps a bit personal to point out that data from his "research" still manages to finds its way into studies carried out by iq theorists today?
try not to take it too personally but iq and the theory behind it have been debunked again and again- the fact that it continues to rear its head from time to time is not surprising but a bit annoying none the less.
gp is right - there is no agreement on what constitutes intelligence.
if you want a crude justification for social darwinism, laissez faire economics or racism, then IQ fits the bill nicely.
if you need a meaningfull and scientific test for intelligence then that test really ought to be valid. unfortunately intelligence tests lack criterion validity, face validity, construct validity etc. etc.
IQ has nothing to do with science and more to do with ideology.
there is certainly a lot of debate as to why the industrial revolution occurred where and when it did.
theories come along all the time, but imho none of them really come close to replacing or contributing much to the basic reasons as i see them i.e.
the growth in demand for, and the ability to produce cotton was the driving force behind the industrial revolution;
obviously new technology had appeared e.g. steam engine, spinning jenny, power looms etc which helped a lot, and the abundant waterways in the north allowed for transport and a source of power(waterwheels and then steam).
also, good local wool made available the needed warp, but most of all the damp environment in the north of england, meant that the cotton stretched a bit in the machines and lessened the stress that was placed on them. the large amounts of free flowing cash floating around london and its social clubs didn't harm matters at all.
its always worth remembering that the huge british navy was more than able to enforce an artificial monopoly over any alternatives to english cotton that appeared around the world; a good example being the superior indian calicos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_(textile)
can anyone give me an answer to the following question-
given that electromagnetic signals:
-travel at the speed of light
-are useful for communication
-are quite easy to pick up and analyse en masse
-keep going indefinitely
why is it that we haven't found evidence for one single civilisation?
is it presuming too much about other lifeforms to expect that at least one, out of the millions of civilisations that must be there, at some stage of its development, may have used radio waves?
i don't know enough about it, but my sympathies lie with the idea that while the universe may well be teeming with life, approximately 40,000 years ago something very special happened on earth . call it the "great leap forward" or whatever, but somehow, the sudden explosion of sophisticated language and the thought that it enabled (and vice versa), allowed for the incredibly rapid development of the civilisation that we see around us today.
its worth considering that life of our type may well be a very rare event. perhaps even unique in the universe.
At one stage it did occur to me that the Mayor Ken Livingstone managed to get a somewhat easy ride from the government when he introduced the congestion charge (apart from it being a huge earner- check out the value of fines!)
Then the news emerged that cameras were left on at the weekend, when the charge is not enforced? Duh!
Whether your roads are congested or not, watch for these "congestion zones" springing up near you...the central London zone has just been extended to Kensington & Chelsea, an area which has never had a congestion problem.
I guess i need to just keep saying that catchy little mantra that the media seem to like so much - security vs liberty.
http://www.noliberties.com/trailer_teaser.htm
i used to feel slightly guilty for the lead figures (fully painted) that i pinched from their little shop in Hammersmith; now i shall dust the nicer ones off and enjoy them without the tinge.
thanks Games Workshop!
"come and see the violence inherent in the [open-source] system...help, help, i'm being repressed..."
nice try
I wouldn't be so sure.
Clearly the prevailing attitude is that the last 6000 years of language, culture, understanding of the universe, civilisation etc doesn't amount to anything special?
And i was thinking that the notion that all of "this" can be reduced to a set of behaviors was a thing of the past, just like the creationist belief.
slashdot man though well behaved, is still just a monkey shaved
lots of impressive theory getting thrown around here, but none of this stuff matters if your setup is let down by a substandard power cable; https://www.virtualdynamics.ca/content.php?id=126& secondary_id=43/