"My generation was a part of that 'absolutely everyone must go to college or they will forever be unemployed' push."
Every generation is subject to that bullshit. The joke is that with low unemployment today is the ideal time to skip college and get into the workforce early.
Jeez. Don't people understand that Macity Appleness is the primary motivation for buying the whole slew of Apple products? It's not like there aren't lower-priced non-Macity, Appleness-free products that serve the exact same purpose.
See, I think cynicism in our culture almost cries out for a return to the old Trek values. It's sort of like how during the 1930s all the movies were giant, fabulous epics. People sometimes yearn for a sense that how the world is today is not all there is to the world.
I'm not the best Trekkie, although I was raised by one (my mom had the good fortune to grow up watching the originals when they were new). But, my understanding of some of Trek canon is that the later timeline of the Federation has a pretty serious downfall built into it.
My thought is, couldn't you take the cynical, fallen Federation thread and plug into it the old Gene Rodenberry thread of clear optimism? Sort of a Restoration story arc about the Federation.
It would be thoroughly sci-fi -- almost an homage to Asimov's Foundation and Empire books -- and it would function as a counterpoint to the overtly dark material that dominates today. The heart of such an effort would be the impulse that the ideals of the Federation are worth fighting for and preserving, even in the face of seeming doom.
Not a BSG type clean break, but I'd like to see them find a spot into the future. Y'know, where some new writing could occur. Enough with the time travel and the continuity issues.
I didn't say Linux sucks. I said Via sucks, and thereby is going to make this machine portray Linux as sucking. But, whatever. Enjoy being thoughtlessly reactionary.
Ya see? The sun is obviously getting ready to retire. And when it retires, it will require more Social Security payments than any retiree in history cause it needs to pay for hydrogen, plus it didn't take early retirement like these lazy Baby Boomers.
I figured while all the conservatives were being retards and thinking their pony (no sunspots) had arrived to stop Al Gore from killing all the polar bears (global warming), we might as well get stoopid about other conservative boogeymen, like the impending Social Security crisis.
Of course, the sun is hiding Iraq's WMDs (where better to hide them than inside a giant nuclear explosion). And Al Gore invented the internet. Maybe when Mitt Romeny beats Hillary Clinton the Republicans can ask Mormom Jesus and his Indian friends to go kick the suns ass.
I'm assuming that since that all was stoopid and belligerent and pointless that it will be well received by all the conservatives.
In the past, not very much as long as the reason was innocent enough. The real crappy part is you get shipped home and even in the best scenario have to rejoin the queue for a new visa -- which is obviously a pretty drastic punishment by itself in many cases.
H1B's for Nigerians? Eh... I recall the Nigerian students from college. A lot of them were on the seven year plan, and I can remember one who I know for a fact was well past the expiration on his visa.
I don't see an increase in H1B visas as much of a boon for Nigeria. India, maybe a bit more so.
Does anyone recall an article from a while back about the audit of the budget for the movie Sahara? In the tax write-offs for the film (which was mostly shot in North Africa, not Nigeria) the producers actually wrote down "bribes" as an itemized deduction.
Oddly, US tax laws include some leeway for writing off donations in handling business elsewhere in the world. Just, very few people overtly itemize the deduction as bribery. Although, that is what the deduction does.
You can't take a dump in Nigeria without slipping a twenty to some joker. Nigeria is so thoroughly corrupt that they make a Bush-Cheney fundraiser look like a candy bar sale for your local high school chorus.
"If you want to use math to prove something about the physical world you also need physics."
Bingo. This is also where the last version of this discussion ended.
"Are you against the study of physics then? How else do you suggest we learn about the universe, besides coming up with models to explain observed phenomena, and then testing and improving those models?"
Not at all. What I have a problem with is the tendency for highly theoretical physics to just turn into an endless, and often pointless, math exercise. Then, when the universe doesn't fit the math exercise, people start just plain making shit up.
At that point, it isn't a scientific theory. The entire point of a scientific theory is for it to be as exclusionary as possible. And if the exclusions fail too many times, then you have to toss the theory altogether -- not try to imagine even more unprovable crap and add more math.
I'm not opposed to math or physics. I'm opposed to people making shit up. Which, especially when we get into the bigger theories of the universe and space-time, is 90% of what is being done.
Keep in mind, no field in science has put more theories into the landfill than figuring out space and time. It wasn't all that long ago the universally accepted theories included friggin ether.
Really? So there is an inherent truth to it when we use imaginary numbers? Not so much.
Math is not the only way to prove things. Repeatability is. Lots of science was put in place long before the mathematics that explain it.
To the extent that math is repeatable, it is so because it has been taught as an international language. While it is nice to have everyone communicating in the same language, what we choose to describe with that language can hardly be considered truth simply because it is meaningful.
While 1+1=2 is valid in mathematics, it doesn't provide a meaningful proof of anything. After all, I can take two lumps of Play Dough, slam them together and then how many lumps do I have? It ain't two lumps.
Then, there is the fact that our choice of assigning numbers to describe physics has actually retarded our understanding of the universe. Thus, we waste huge amounts of time trying to make up crap like Dark Energy to excuse the fact that our math simply doesn't describe the universe we live in.
Wow... since all their co-workers are dudes, because girls can't do math because their girl parts make it possible for them to ask boys to help them in HS with a reasonable expectation of service.
We accept the win conditions set down by white, upper-class land holders in the 1790s to ensure the continuation of their gains whereby they can have a small group of electors nullify a popular vote should the smelly masses not make the right choice.
Slashdot Mirror
"My generation was a part of that 'absolutely everyone must go to college or they will forever be unemployed' push."
Every generation is subject to that bullshit. The joke is that with low unemployment today is the ideal time to skip college and get into the workforce early.
Just go ahead and add "Avoiding the music industry's nanny state / racketeering" to the list of good reasons to live off campus.
Jeez. Don't people understand that Macity Appleness is the primary motivation for buying the whole slew of Apple products? It's not like there aren't lower-priced non-Macity, Appleness-free products that serve the exact same purpose.
Apparently the Cubans dress like whores, or so the manual implies.
Otherwise, I'm stickin' with my bitchin' antenna -- OTA HD ROCKS!
See, I think cynicism in our culture almost cries out for a return to the old Trek values. It's sort of like how during the 1930s all the movies were giant, fabulous epics. People sometimes yearn for a sense that how the world is today is not all there is to the world.
I'm not the best Trekkie, although I was raised by one (my mom had the good fortune to grow up watching the originals when they were new). But, my understanding of some of Trek canon is that the later timeline of the Federation has a pretty serious downfall built into it.
My thought is, couldn't you take the cynical, fallen Federation thread and plug into it the old Gene Rodenberry thread of clear optimism? Sort of a Restoration story arc about the Federation.
It would be thoroughly sci-fi -- almost an homage to Asimov's Foundation and Empire books -- and it would function as a counterpoint to the overtly dark material that dominates today. The heart of such an effort would be the impulse that the ideals of the Federation are worth fighting for and preserving, even in the face of seeming doom.
Not a BSG type clean break, but I'd like to see them find a spot into the future. Y'know, where some new writing could occur. Enough with the time travel and the continuity issues.
Jeez. Look at the friggin calendar, will ya?!
I didn't say Linux sucks. I said Via sucks, and thereby is going to make this machine portray Linux as sucking. But, whatever. Enjoy being thoughtlessly reactionary.
You're obviously not recalling just how bad Via's chips have been.
Wow! Are we trying to convince people that Linux sucks?
Wow! What do I get?! More money! Please... If companies can't hire enough techies, it is hard for me to feel bad.
I guess folks who hate Slashdot must have had their navigation bar disappear from their browser.
Ya see? The sun is obviously getting ready to retire. And when it retires, it will require more Social Security payments than any retiree in history cause it needs to pay for hydrogen, plus it didn't take early retirement like these lazy Baby Boomers.
I figured while all the conservatives were being retards and thinking their pony (no sunspots) had arrived to stop Al Gore from killing all the polar bears (global warming), we might as well get stoopid about other conservative boogeymen, like the impending Social Security crisis.
Of course, the sun is hiding Iraq's WMDs (where better to hide them than inside a giant nuclear explosion). And Al Gore invented the internet. Maybe when Mitt Romeny beats Hillary Clinton the Republicans can ask Mormom Jesus and his Indian friends to go kick the suns ass.
I'm assuming that since that all was stoopid and belligerent and pointless that it will be well received by all the conservatives.
In the past, not very much as long as the reason was innocent enough. The real crappy part is you get shipped home and even in the best scenario have to rejoin the queue for a new visa -- which is obviously a pretty drastic punishment by itself in many cases.
H1B's for Nigerians? Eh... I recall the Nigerian students from college. A lot of them were on the seven year plan, and I can remember one who I know for a fact was well past the expiration on his visa.
I don't see an increase in H1B visas as much of a boon for Nigeria. India, maybe a bit more so.
Does anyone recall an article from a while back about the audit of the budget for the movie Sahara? In the tax write-offs for the film (which was mostly shot in North Africa, not Nigeria) the producers actually wrote down "bribes" as an itemized deduction.
Oddly, US tax laws include some leeway for writing off donations in handling business elsewhere in the world. Just, very few people overtly itemize the deduction as bribery. Although, that is what the deduction does.
You can't take a dump in Nigeria without slipping a twenty to some joker. Nigeria is so thoroughly corrupt that they make a Bush-Cheney fundraiser look like a candy bar sale for your local high school chorus.
"If you want to use math to prove something about the physical world you also need physics."
Bingo. This is also where the last version of this discussion ended.
"Are you against the study of physics then? How else do you suggest we learn about the universe, besides coming up with models to explain observed phenomena, and then testing and improving those models?"
Not at all. What I have a problem with is the tendency for highly theoretical physics to just turn into an endless, and often pointless, math exercise. Then, when the universe doesn't fit the math exercise, people start just plain making shit up.
At that point, it isn't a scientific theory. The entire point of a scientific theory is for it to be as exclusionary as possible. And if the exclusions fail too many times, then you have to toss the theory altogether -- not try to imagine even more unprovable crap and add more math.
I'm not opposed to math or physics. I'm opposed to people making shit up. Which, especially when we get into the bigger theories of the universe and space-time, is 90% of what is being done.
Keep in mind, no field in science has put more theories into the landfill than figuring out space and time. It wasn't all that long ago the universally accepted theories included friggin ether.
Really? So there is an inherent truth to it when we use imaginary numbers? Not so much.
Math is not the only way to prove things. Repeatability is. Lots of science was put in place long before the mathematics that explain it.
To the extent that math is repeatable, it is so because it has been taught as an international language. While it is nice to have everyone communicating in the same language, what we choose to describe with that language can hardly be considered truth simply because it is meaningful.
While 1+1=2 is valid in mathematics, it doesn't provide a meaningful proof of anything. After all, I can take two lumps of Play Dough, slam them together and then how many lumps do I have? It ain't two lumps.
Then, there is the fact that our choice of assigning numbers to describe physics has actually retarded our understanding of the universe. Thus, we waste huge amounts of time trying to make up crap like Dark Energy to excuse the fact that our math simply doesn't describe the universe we live in.
How many goddamned times do we have to have this discussion on here?
Math is a language. It is a means whereby describe things to the best of our comprehension in a manner that best conveys our impressions to others.
Just because a bunch of numbers add up does not mean it is proof of anything. Otherwise, Creationists are right and the world began in 4004 BC.
Don't expect her to change anytime soon. Got it.
You can't have a decent revolution without at least one fax with a line to the outside world. The internet is just the next logical step.
Wow... since all their co-workers are dudes, because girls can't do math because their girl parts make it possible for them to ask boys to help them in HS with a reasonable expectation of service.
We accept the win conditions set down by white, upper-class land holders in the 1790s to ensure the continuation of their gains whereby they can have a small group of electors nullify a popular vote should the smelly masses not make the right choice.