You're arguing a completely different definition of truth here. Whatever philosophical arguments you have against it, science is just guessing at how things work, then trying them out. We do this to gain information. Sometimes that information leads to useful innovations, sometimes it just settles questions scientists have. It also lets me play video games and go out to the movies, so I like it.
Anyway, quit generalizing so much. You can rationalize the point out of any activity that way. Very little ends up getting done based on that train of thought.
Wait, I just noticed the "Please do not feed the trolls" sign posted at the gate. I guess I should leave you alone now.
Rockstar has lawyers of its own, as well as an entire PR department. I'm sure it would be fairly simple to put out a press release praising Jack for his charity and saying that if he feels the game is satisfactory, Paul has strong feelings toward the fight against childhood leukemia (or somesuch), and if Jack likes, he can choose any charity that works toward its cure. In fact, Paul might say, that Jack's idea has moved him so that he would like to make the same donation.
Hell, even if Jack refuses and attacks Rockstar for misinterpreting him, Paul could apologize, say he misunderstood, and make the charitable donation himself.
And I was totally unaware that we make VCRs. We're an optical drive company, after all. We have one consumer electronics unit that plays VHS, but that's because it was designed to record them to DVD.
Anyway, I figure VCRs will last quite some time yet. Hell, even cassette decks still have their uses. Plus, VHS tapes are still way more convenient and familiar to most people than either recorded DVDs or TiVos. I'm sure companies will still be making them 30 years from now.
So, wait. These scientists worked so long to track down and photograph this rare creature in its natural habitat, then tore off one of its tentacles before it could get away? That can't end well for the creature.
It's not reliable right now, but it's possible. My voice seems really good for voice recognition, but my sister for instance cannot for the life of her get any computers to respond to her. Even so, it's possible to make a device that can understand a certain number of set commands spoken by a particular person, especially if the person or machine is trained to adapt to the situation. It's not quite ready for prime time, true, but I think it would still go over very well as a Sharper Image type of thing.
As far as I can tell, this is kind of pointless. What it really needs is voice commands. If you have a small cute animal you can ask "What's the weather?" or "Play me a song" and have it follow your commands, that would be on the level of the cell phone, microwave oven, or even television in terms of cultural impact. An actual computer-based interactive device you can set on your kitchen table and ask for current information or to follow basic commands is the kind of near-future sci-fi thing they've been talking about for years. It's the object that we will take for granted ten years from now but will integrate itself into our daily lives.
The thing is, that doesn't seem far off at all right now. Sure, it would be an expensive gadget, but properly designed and marketed it would be bigger than the iPod among the rich, hip gadget people and soon everyone would need one. Sooner or later people wouldn't think anything of spending a thousand dollars on a little toy you can ask for movie listings, headlines, traffic, or just command to call Mom, listen to the radio, or play word games.
This should be possible. Why the hell isn't it already here?
The thing here is that it specifically makes the grasshopper find and jump into water when the worms reach maturity and become aquatic. It's steering the grasshopper to go where it needs to be, then crawls out of the bug while it's drowning.
I've always thought these sound devices were really neat, but I have found no possible way to explain their functionality to non-science types without the phrase "sonic laser." It's by far the simplest way to get the idea across. It's a just a metaphor anyway, so it doesn't have to be a completely accurate description.
They're not attacking civilians or anything, as far as I've heard. The main information I've been told is that, at least in the first few days, a lot of the police and such were set to guarding buildings or particular areas and would train their guns on anyone that came near. There was a similar reaction from the patrolling officers, who would told their weapons outside the car windows as they drove. I understand that the police officers stationed there are under an incredible amount of stress and they have to be careful. It just that the orders that they were being given just don't seem to coincide with the best interests of the law-abiding refugees.
I don't think this is a political issue anymore, I'm just upset at how ineffective the support has been up until now. The most insightful comment I've read was from Newt Gringrich, who said "I think it puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years, because if we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?"
There was an interesting blog based in New Orleans where they comment on things like this. It has links to a lot of pictures they have been taking of the events.
Asians and Jews are integrated into American society very well, for one thing. Culturally, they usually also place high importance on education. If you're talking about tests in Europe and Asia, then the IQ tests are generally adapted to account for cultural differences, whereas here in the States cultural minorities take the standardized tests that were not designed with them in mind.
Of course, it also depends on how you define intelligence. I suppose if you are talking about how well one does in school, then I suppose it might be valid to make your claim. If we're supposed to be measuring actual mental ability, there are too many other factors to be able to say anything definitively.
Either way, most of the differences are a lot more easily explained by differences in culture than anything inherent to the actual race. If you live around people that don't consider intelligence important, you're not going to do as well on intelligence tests. If people around you think intelligence is vital, you're going to do better. Taken that way it's fairly obvious.
It's not just social roles. They've done studies on that as well. Little girls and boys have inherent behavioral tendencies, even in situations when they are raised against social norms. Even babies that are too young to have developed social identities have particular gender-based predispositions.
There is some other really interesting research being done in the way the sexes think, and it seems that men and women use completely different parts of the brain for most brain processes. We're fundamentally wired differently to excel in different areas.
That mostly goes to prove that IQ tests are designed for middle class white people.
Actually, I guess if by IQ you mean "test to see if you think like an average middle class white American," then white people are -way- ahead of the game on this one.
I agree that the IQ metric is an inaccurate and mostly pointless way to measure a person's mind. That doesn't mean that intelligence testing is pointless and insignificant. I was fairly impressed with the WAIS, or Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, when I had to take it during a diagnosis for learning disability.
The WAIS III is a really thorough testing of various mental aptitudes, divided between ability and achievement. It doesn't end up providing you with one big number or rubber stamp or anything to say that you're officially intelligence, but it's a really good way to measure a person's mental ability, where she excels, and where there might be a problem that needs to be handled. It was very useful to me for identifying my particular learning problems, and I have gotten support in the areas I need it.
I also found out I was the most astoundingly intelligent person the tester has ever seen when it comes to arranging patterns using colored blocks of different designs, so now I know that my goal in life is to become a professional Tetris player. I'm sure it must be applicable to some important mental ability or another, but Tetris is the only thing I can think of or really care about.
One other thing, actually. I grew up mostly around women, so I seem to pick up on verbal cues and body language better than most guys. I really have to say that in a lot of cases it's just not a good trait to have.
When I was a teenager, I'd always get stuck in the middle of whatever spats the girls in my group of friends were having, or pick up on whatever uncomfortable drama was going on that particular week despite my best efforts not to. I found the best way to go was to blatantly ignore their tone of voice, subtle comments, and pointed looks on any social matter. Since I was the nerd anyway, it fit right into character, and everyone thought I was completely oblivious, which I also picked up on and didn't care.
I'm thinking that a lot of guys do this, at least subconsciously. For one thing, you're a lot safer not getting involved in fights between girls. For another, guys are basically lazy, and it's a lot easier to get away with not doing something when you can say that your wife/girlfriend/mother/etc never directly told you to do it.
While I can say that being able to pick up on what my girlfriend wants and even communicating that way myself is helpful, I don't know that the ability to understand what women are conveying is actually worth it. I still get a little depressed when my friends are talking about partying with three or four girls at once and my first response is "Oh, man. I'm sorry to hear that. At least you made it back alive." And none of them ever see where I'm coming from. It's a lonely life.
There's something in way the sexes evolved that makes a difference in these areas. You can see it in children fairly easily, where girls like to play together and work to come to a consensus when deciding what to do, while boys just speak their minds then argue with anyone that disagrees. It's a generalization, but there are interesting child development studies that show how these differences affect them in school and such.
Anyway, that kind of thing seems like an ancient adaptation in our species. Men need to make snap decisions and communicate clearly when hunting or defending their tribe, whereas women need more sensitive communication to focus on keeping their group together for protection, child-rearing, and to build social infrastructure. In fact, one theory has it that the real reason we developed language was to be able to gossip, so they can keep tabs on what everyone has been doing even without seeing it themselves.
So the result is that men are very direct with communication and women speak more indirectly, by saying what they feel or hinting at things and suchlike, in order to get others to agree without being confrontational. They work well within the gender-group, but problems arise when men and women interact with each other on their own levels. People like to say that men are too dense or women won't say what they think, that kind of thing.
Really, both sides have their plusses and minuses. I think they're just different, and people need to meet each other somewhere in between to work it out. I listen to my girlfriend and pick up the hints when she's got something on her mind and try to identify with her, but conversely I expect her to tell me directly what she wants or else I won't do anything. That way I am sensitive and she is clear and we hardly ever get in arguments about anything.
It kind of disturbed me too. He makes nudity sound extremely dirty. It's the kind of thing that makes me question these "family values" types and their obsession with deviant sexual acts. From their descriptions, you can tell that they've got much sicker minds than most of the people they're speaking out against.
The mouse does communicate when you press the wrong button. It does the wrong thing. That's enough to stop most people and make them pay more attention to what they're doing.
Usually, the big problem experienced users have when they deal with inexperienced users is terminology. If you say to double-click an icon, we know that means left-click. A lot of people don't. When I'm dealing with someone who does not know how to use a computer, I always say "left-click" and "right-click." If they don't know the difference, I ask them how they're holding the mouse and tell them which finger they should click with. If they don't figure it out after that, they're either being obstinately ignorant or have some sort of mental problem.
The whole usability argument of one-button versus multi-button mice doesn't make sense to me. I can see a problem with some of these high-end twelve button mice they have out now, but it doesn't take that long to teach a person which button out of two they need to click to select things. That's all they really need to know at first. When you have to pop up a menu, tell them to use the other one. That's -way- easier than trying to explain to them how to option-click or command-click or whichever.
The thing is that you have to learn an entirely new idiom to be able to use a computer anyway, no matter how user friendly it is. I agree that they should do what they can to make the interface consistent and logical, and focus on usability for the common person as well as the experienced user, but when it comes down to one button on a mouse versus two buttons, it's really not a huge difference.
Personally, I think the extra button makes more sense, as the extra usability is really helpful to the large segment of users with enough experience to take advantage of it. Sacrificing that for an annoying keyboard-mouse combination click in order to make things slightly simpler for the absolute beginners only serves to frustrate me. And I grew up using Macs exclusively.
That's actually the less popular mouse-handling technique. For most people, clicking with their ring finger is less comfortable than using their middle. People usually tend to use their index finger for scrolling as well, since it's more coordinated. It sounds like you're just unusually dextrous.
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Oh man! Not the Lego pirate ship! That was my favorite Lego set! That's not being made anymore, damnit.
Oh, the sacrifices we make in the name of science!
You're arguing a completely different definition of truth here. Whatever philosophical arguments you have against it, science is just guessing at how things work, then trying them out. We do this to gain information. Sometimes that information leads to useful innovations, sometimes it just settles questions scientists have. It also lets me play video games and go out to the movies, so I like it.
Anyway, quit generalizing so much. You can rationalize the point out of any activity that way. Very little ends up getting done based on that train of thought.
Wait, I just noticed the "Please do not feed the trolls" sign posted at the gate. I guess I should leave you alone now.
Rockstar has lawyers of its own, as well as an entire PR department. I'm sure it would be fairly simple to put out a press release praising Jack for his charity and saying that if he feels the game is satisfactory, Paul has strong feelings toward the fight against childhood leukemia (or somesuch), and if Jack likes, he can choose any charity that works toward its cure. In fact, Paul might say, that Jack's idea has moved him so that he would like to make the same donation.
Hell, even if Jack refuses and attacks Rockstar for misinterpreting him, Paul could apologize, say he misunderstood, and make the charitable donation himself.
And I was totally unaware that we make VCRs. We're an optical drive company, after all. We have one consumer electronics unit that plays VHS, but that's because it was designed to record them to DVD.
Anyway, I figure VCRs will last quite some time yet. Hell, even cassette decks still have their uses. Plus, VHS tapes are still way more convenient and familiar to most people than either recorded DVDs or TiVos. I'm sure companies will still be making them 30 years from now.
So, wait. These scientists worked so long to track down and photograph this rare creature in its natural habitat, then tore off one of its tentacles before it could get away? That can't end well for the creature.
Understatement is a hobby of mine.
It's not reliable right now, but it's possible. My voice seems really good for voice recognition, but my sister for instance cannot for the life of her get any computers to respond to her. Even so, it's possible to make a device that can understand a certain number of set commands spoken by a particular person, especially if the person or machine is trained to adapt to the situation. It's not quite ready for prime time, true, but I think it would still go over very well as a Sharper Image type of thing.
And yet so far.
As far as I can tell, this is kind of pointless. What it really needs is voice commands. If you have a small cute animal you can ask "What's the weather?" or "Play me a song" and have it follow your commands, that would be on the level of the cell phone, microwave oven, or even television in terms of cultural impact. An actual computer-based interactive device you can set on your kitchen table and ask for current information or to follow basic commands is the kind of near-future sci-fi thing they've been talking about for years. It's the object that we will take for granted ten years from now but will integrate itself into our daily lives.
The thing is, that doesn't seem far off at all right now. Sure, it would be an expensive gadget, but properly designed and marketed it would be bigger than the iPod among the rich, hip gadget people and soon everyone would need one. Sooner or later people wouldn't think anything of spending a thousand dollars on a little toy you can ask for movie listings, headlines, traffic, or just command to call Mom, listen to the radio, or play word games.
This should be possible. Why the hell isn't it already here?
That's exactly what I though of too. I'm just wondering why they don't bring in the services of the Assassin's Guild to resolve this nice and tidy.
Also, I just met Terry Pratchett today. I have to bring this up whenever possible.
I just know that somebody is going to show up in the last ten seconds and bid $2.7 billion. Unfortunately, eBay was at work so it missed the end.
It turned out okay, though, since this was actually the Hong Kong import version of Skype, a fact the seller carefully skirted in the description.
The thing here is that it specifically makes the grasshopper find and jump into water when the worms reach maturity and become aquatic. It's steering the grasshopper to go where it needs to be, then crawls out of the bug while it's drowning.
I've always thought these sound devices were really neat, but I have found no possible way to explain their functionality to non-science types without the phrase "sonic laser." It's by far the simplest way to get the idea across. It's a just a metaphor anyway, so it doesn't have to be a completely accurate description.
They're not attacking civilians or anything, as far as I've heard. The main information I've been told is that, at least in the first few days, a lot of the police and such were set to guarding buildings or particular areas and would train their guns on anyone that came near. There was a similar reaction from the patrolling officers, who would told their weapons outside the car windows as they drove. I understand that the police officers stationed there are under an incredible amount of stress and they have to be careful. It just that the orders that they were being given just don't seem to coincide with the best interests of the law-abiding refugees.
I don't think this is a political issue anymore, I'm just upset at how ineffective the support has been up until now. The most insightful comment I've read was from Newt Gringrich, who said "I think it puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years, because if we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?"
There was an interesting blog based in New Orleans where they comment on things like this. It has links to a lot of pictures they have been taking of the events.
Asians and Jews are integrated into American society very well, for one thing. Culturally, they usually also place high importance on education. If you're talking about tests in Europe and Asia, then the IQ tests are generally adapted to account for cultural differences, whereas here in the States cultural minorities take the standardized tests that were not designed with them in mind.
Of course, it also depends on how you define intelligence. I suppose if you are talking about how well one does in school, then I suppose it might be valid to make your claim. If we're supposed to be measuring actual mental ability, there are too many other factors to be able to say anything definitively.
Either way, most of the differences are a lot more easily explained by differences in culture than anything inherent to the actual race. If you live around people that don't consider intelligence important, you're not going to do as well on intelligence tests. If people around you think intelligence is vital, you're going to do better. Taken that way it's fairly obvious.
It's not just social roles. They've done studies on that as well. Little girls and boys have inherent behavioral tendencies, even in situations when they are raised against social norms. Even babies that are too young to have developed social identities have particular gender-based predispositions.
There is some other really interesting research being done in the way the sexes think, and it seems that men and women use completely different parts of the brain for most brain processes. We're fundamentally wired differently to excel in different areas.
I mean -only- women.
That mostly goes to prove that IQ tests are designed for middle class white people.
Actually, I guess if by IQ you mean "test to see if you think like an average middle class white American," then white people are -way- ahead of the game on this one.
Nerds are not good with women. They fear and worship them as powerful and alien beings to the nerd world.
Really, guys are generally kind of sexist when hanging out together, and nerds are just socially inept and therefore display it more blatantly.
I never picked up on that myself because most of my family is made up of smart and funny women and practically everyone else around here is a moron.
I agree that the IQ metric is an inaccurate and mostly pointless way to measure a person's mind. That doesn't mean that intelligence testing is pointless and insignificant. I was fairly impressed with the WAIS, or Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, when I had to take it during a diagnosis for learning disability.
The WAIS III is a really thorough testing of various mental aptitudes, divided between ability and achievement. It doesn't end up providing you with one big number or rubber stamp or anything to say that you're officially intelligence, but it's a really good way to measure a person's mental ability, where she excels, and where there might be a problem that needs to be handled. It was very useful to me for identifying my particular learning problems, and I have gotten support in the areas I need it.
I also found out I was the most astoundingly intelligent person the tester has ever seen when it comes to arranging patterns using colored blocks of different designs, so now I know that my goal in life is to become a professional Tetris player. I'm sure it must be applicable to some important mental ability or another, but Tetris is the only thing I can think of or really care about.
One other thing, actually. I grew up mostly around women, so I seem to pick up on verbal cues and body language better than most guys. I really have to say that in a lot of cases it's just not a good trait to have.
When I was a teenager, I'd always get stuck in the middle of whatever spats the girls in my group of friends were having, or pick up on whatever uncomfortable drama was going on that particular week despite my best efforts not to. I found the best way to go was to blatantly ignore their tone of voice, subtle comments, and pointed looks on any social matter. Since I was the nerd anyway, it fit right into character, and everyone thought I was completely oblivious, which I also picked up on and didn't care.
I'm thinking that a lot of guys do this, at least subconsciously. For one thing, you're a lot safer not getting involved in fights between girls. For another, guys are basically lazy, and it's a lot easier to get away with not doing something when you can say that your wife/girlfriend/mother/etc never directly told you to do it.
While I can say that being able to pick up on what my girlfriend wants and even communicating that way myself is helpful, I don't know that the ability to understand what women are conveying is actually worth it. I still get a little depressed when my friends are talking about partying with three or four girls at once and my first response is "Oh, man. I'm sorry to hear that. At least you made it back alive." And none of them ever see where I'm coming from. It's a lonely life.
There's something in way the sexes evolved that makes a difference in these areas. You can see it in children fairly easily, where girls like to play together and work to come to a consensus when deciding what to do, while boys just speak their minds then argue with anyone that disagrees. It's a generalization, but there are interesting child development studies that show how these differences affect them in school and such.
Anyway, that kind of thing seems like an ancient adaptation in our species. Men need to make snap decisions and communicate clearly when hunting or defending their tribe, whereas women need more sensitive communication to focus on keeping their group together for protection, child-rearing, and to build social infrastructure. In fact, one theory has it that the real reason we developed language was to be able to gossip, so they can keep tabs on what everyone has been doing even without seeing it themselves.
So the result is that men are very direct with communication and women speak more indirectly, by saying what they feel or hinting at things and suchlike, in order to get others to agree without being confrontational. They work well within the gender-group, but problems arise when men and women interact with each other on their own levels. People like to say that men are too dense or women won't say what they think, that kind of thing.
Really, both sides have their plusses and minuses. I think they're just different, and people need to meet each other somewhere in between to work it out. I listen to my girlfriend and pick up the hints when she's got something on her mind and try to identify with her, but conversely I expect her to tell me directly what she wants or else I won't do anything. That way I am sensitive and she is clear and we hardly ever get in arguments about anything.
Nope. Turns out, it's only crocodiles. We should kill off everything else to make more room for them.
It kind of disturbed me too. He makes nudity sound extremely dirty. It's the kind of thing that makes me question these "family values" types and their obsession with deviant sexual acts. From their descriptions, you can tell that they've got much sicker minds than most of the people they're speaking out against.
The mouse does communicate when you press the wrong button. It does the wrong thing. That's enough to stop most people and make them pay more attention to what they're doing.
Usually, the big problem experienced users have when they deal with inexperienced users is terminology. If you say to double-click an icon, we know that means left-click. A lot of people don't. When I'm dealing with someone who does not know how to use a computer, I always say "left-click" and "right-click." If they don't know the difference, I ask them how they're holding the mouse and tell them which finger they should click with. If they don't figure it out after that, they're either being obstinately ignorant or have some sort of mental problem.
The whole usability argument of one-button versus multi-button mice doesn't make sense to me. I can see a problem with some of these high-end twelve button mice they have out now, but it doesn't take that long to teach a person which button out of two they need to click to select things. That's all they really need to know at first. When you have to pop up a menu, tell them to use the other one. That's -way- easier than trying to explain to them how to option-click or command-click or whichever.
The thing is that you have to learn an entirely new idiom to be able to use a computer anyway, no matter how user friendly it is. I agree that they should do what they can to make the interface consistent and logical, and focus on usability for the common person as well as the experienced user, but when it comes down to one button on a mouse versus two buttons, it's really not a huge difference.
Personally, I think the extra button makes more sense, as the extra usability is really helpful to the large segment of users with enough experience to take advantage of it. Sacrificing that for an annoying keyboard-mouse combination click in order to make things slightly simpler for the absolute beginners only serves to frustrate me. And I grew up using Macs exclusively.
That's actually the less popular mouse-handling technique. For most people, clicking with their ring finger is less comfortable than using their middle. People usually tend to use their index finger for scrolling as well, since it's more coordinated. It sounds like you're just unusually dextrous.