I abhor mathematical proofs of supposedly scientific things. Math is a tool for constructing human thought in meaningful exchanges for other humans to understand. It is, therein, a language and not a scientific form of proof in and of itself.
As just one more language, math suffers the faults that any language can suffer. Just because something makes a working equation does not give it validity. Certainly no more than when a sentence is grammatically correct does that make the sentence a proof of anything. "My cat is a dog."
However, if anyone would like to propose a repeatable and verifiable experiment for finding the universe where George W. Bush lost in 2000, I am all for conducting it just after I pack my suitcase.
A key component of publishing is the role of writers as great masters of wisdom that all of us can barely understand. That's why the AP Style guide limits writers to 20,000 words: because our feeble simian brains can barely comprehend the greatness of their massive ideas.
People who make their livings as writers have to publish stuff like this, or else they will weaken and eventually die.
On a more serious note, what scares me is that this sort high-above-the-clouds view of issues has no place in the IT world. Any editor dumb enough to let it be published needs slapped -- viciously and repeatedly. When I read political or business news, it is this type of grand, self-annointed pontification that makes me quit reading and go back to coding or playing video games.
Every medium eventually hits this point: more audience than they have content. So what do you to keep the audience? Churn out blithering piles of crap. If the audience goes for it, you keep churning it out.
"Well, looks like you are fucked then. Monday night football is ESPN. Some Thursday and Saturday games are only on the NFL Network."
Local ESPN and NFL Network games' rights are sold to local TV stations, and therefore I get to watch them. My local ESPN game goes on the ABS affiliates, and the NFL Network games end up on my CBS affiliate. And in full HD.
For example, I live near Pittsburgh; the Hall of Fame Game in August on NFL Network was carried on KDKA-DT.
My antenna gives me what is really a wireless video stream of 19 Mb/s in MPEG-2.
It's not like in the age of BitTorrent that you really need to be beholden to the cable companies, unless you have a real need for college football or MLB.
Don't forget what uncle Milt Friedman taught us: people vote with their feet. If you don't like what the cable company is doing to you, get a dish, an antenna or just download the shit out of everything you want.
Between my antenna and BT I'm pleased as punch paying practically nothing for the few TV programs I bother to watch. As long as the NFL stays on local TV, I could care less. And MY HD is just gorgeous.
I didn't think of my remarks so much pro-MS as pro-smartassed. Usually when people suggest tossing fish and using crowbars and taking laptops to a window replacement business, they're not being peculiarly serious. BTW, in the original story part of the issue was the company refused to service the laptop because it had Linux installed and thereby was considered to have a voided warranty. Hence, the joke.
Take a crowbar and a fish. Pry the broken hinge open so as to free the penguin, then toss the fish to give the penguin an incentive to get out of the laptop. You may need to clean out the accumulated penguin filth.
Then take the laptop to a replacement window specialist to put windows back in the laptop. Once that is done, take the laptop to have the hinge serviced. Tada! all is well.
"1) who says that the Northwest Passage myth has anything to do with water?"
How about wishful thinking being considered a factor? Human beings are big fans of pimping all kinds of ideas when wishful thinking outweighs the evidence so far.
If you think about it, for all the information Columbus may have had, his westward voyage was still mostly wishful thinking. After all, he ended finding out the planet was a full 100% bigger than he thought it was, and there was a whole civilization previously unaccounted for sitting between him and his destination.
If you were spending lives and resources and money trying to reach Asia and kept ramming into largely uninhabited lands that were mostly impoverished and not worth trading with, you'd start thinking about maybe there is a shortcut to places that don't suck so much. Not for any rational reason, but because you'd be sick of killing Injuns in Mexico as opposed to trading spices in Malacca.
Have we tried modifying the kid instead of the computer? The computer's just doing what it was built to do... DAMMIT! The kid's just doing what he was built to do, also. Disconnect a few components and repurpose him as a neutered slave for an Asian emperor. It is the only choice besides blind acceptance.
In fairness to Bin Laden, the 90% of his men who died in combat under him fighting the Russians are probably the only fertilizer Afghanistan has seen since the Mongols salted the earth while passing through. And since many of the fighters were foreign, it did in fact represent a net gain for the country.
And don't tell me, "Sure, you can easily store 300 Mb of video." I like really drawn out sadistic shit filmed in 1080i. Gritty details, with little compression, of intriguingly deformed people. If I lose a mole or an unsightly patch of back hair, the whole effect is lost. Nothing shorter than two hours, because the drawn-outness is important to me.
A repetitive and easy game. Sort of get the group/chat thing. But, by the tenth paint-by-numbers mission I couldn't gag the damn game down anymore.
I've long suspected that WoW is more of a culture of "Wow! We did this and this and that and got this and this and that, and jeepers, aren't we great."
Blizzard obviously figured out what gamers want.
Re:When I have to negate something
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Why Myths Persist
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Hey! That's a shorter and better version of what I said. No fair!!
I abhor mathematical proofs of supposedly scientific things. Math is a tool for constructing human thought in meaningful exchanges for other humans to understand. It is, therein, a language and not a scientific form of proof in and of itself.
As just one more language, math suffers the faults that any language can suffer. Just because something makes a working equation does not give it validity. Certainly no more than when a sentence is grammatically correct does that make the sentence a proof of anything. "My cat is a dog."
However, if anyone would like to propose a repeatable and verifiable experiment for finding the universe where George W. Bush lost in 2000, I am all for conducting it just after I pack my suitcase.
Throw rocks at them.
Because if not, the representation clearly isn't Thompson.
A key component of publishing is the role of writers as great masters of wisdom that all of us can barely understand. That's why the AP Style guide limits writers to 20,000 words: because our feeble simian brains can barely comprehend the greatness of their massive ideas.
People who make their livings as writers have to publish stuff like this, or else they will weaken and eventually die.
On a more serious note, what scares me is that this sort high-above-the-clouds view of issues has no place in the IT world. Any editor dumb enough to let it be published needs slapped -- viciously and repeatedly. When I read political or business news, it is this type of grand, self-annointed pontification that makes me quit reading and go back to coding or playing video games.
Every medium eventually hits this point: more audience than they have content. So what do you to keep the audience? Churn out blithering piles of crap. If the audience goes for it, you keep churning it out.
Same here. No love for Penn State. Not that I deeply care. And right now Comcast refuses to carry BTN.
"Well, looks like you are fucked then. Monday night football is ESPN. Some Thursday and Saturday games are only on the NFL Network."
Local ESPN and NFL Network games' rights are sold to local TV stations, and therefore I get to watch them. My local ESPN game goes on the ABS affiliates, and the NFL Network games end up on my CBS affiliate. And in full HD.
For example, I live near Pittsburgh; the Hall of Fame Game in August on NFL Network was carried on KDKA-DT.
Dammit, that deserves a "5 - Funny" rating.
My antenna gives me what is really a wireless video stream of 19 Mb/s in MPEG-2.
It's not like in the age of BitTorrent that you really need to be beholden to the cable companies, unless you have a real need for college football or MLB.
Don't forget what uncle Milt Friedman taught us: people vote with their feet. If you don't like what the cable company is doing to you, get a dish, an antenna or just download the shit out of everything you want.
Between my antenna and BT I'm pleased as punch paying practically nothing for the few TV programs I bother to watch. As long as the NFL stays on local TV, I could care less. And MY HD is just gorgeous.
Sorry. I'm just a retard who tries too hard with most of his jokes.
I didn't think of my remarks so much pro-MS as pro-smartassed. Usually when people suggest tossing fish and using crowbars and taking laptops to a window replacement business, they're not being peculiarly serious. BTW, in the original story part of the issue was the company refused to service the laptop because it had Linux installed and thereby was considered to have a voided warranty. Hence, the joke.
Take a crowbar and a fish. Pry the broken hinge open so as to free the penguin, then toss the fish to give the penguin an incentive to get out of the laptop. You may need to clean out the accumulated penguin filth.
Then take the laptop to a replacement window specialist to put windows back in the laptop. Once that is done, take the laptop to have the hinge serviced. Tada! all is well.
"1) who says that the Northwest Passage myth has anything to do with water?"
How about wishful thinking being considered a factor? Human beings are big fans of pimping all kinds of ideas when wishful thinking outweighs the evidence so far.
If you think about it, for all the information Columbus may have had, his westward voyage was still mostly wishful thinking. After all, he ended finding out the planet was a full 100% bigger than he thought it was, and there was a whole civilization previously unaccounted for sitting between him and his destination.
If you were spending lives and resources and money trying to reach Asia and kept ramming into largely uninhabited lands that were mostly impoverished and not worth trading with, you'd start thinking about maybe there is a shortcut to places that don't suck so much. Not for any rational reason, but because you'd be sick of killing Injuns in Mexico as opposed to trading spices in Malacca.
Have we tried modifying the kid instead of the computer? The computer's just doing what it was built to do... DAMMIT! The kid's just doing what he was built to do, also. Disconnect a few components and repurpose him as a neutered slave for an Asian emperor. It is the only choice besides blind acceptance.
My experience has been that very large mountains of bullshit have been constructed using PRNewsWire.
Just to piss on our leg?
In fairness to Bin Laden, the 90% of his men who died in combat under him fighting the Russians are probably the only fertilizer Afghanistan has seen since the Mongols salted the earth while passing through. And since many of the fighters were foreign, it did in fact represent a net gain for the country.
That may have been the scariest part of the whole article. Since when do the Russians care about the environment?
France is planning to test Le Grand-père de Toutes les Bombes next week.
The week after that North Korea is threatening to test indoor plumbing.
And just get rid of both string theory AND inflation.
You stuffed a damn penguin into the thing and you wonder why the hinge broke!?!?!
And don't tell me, "Sure, you can easily store 300 Mb of video." I like really drawn out sadistic shit filmed in 1080i. Gritty details, with little compression, of intriguingly deformed people. If I lose a mole or an unsightly patch of back hair, the whole effect is lost. Nothing shorter than two hours, because the drawn-outness is important to me.
I've heard a very similar argument made in favor of using LSD.
Not a big fan of FPS games, either. The only series in recent years to really locked me in is Total War.
A repetitive and easy game. Sort of get the group/chat thing. But, by the tenth paint-by-numbers mission I couldn't gag the damn game down anymore.
I've long suspected that WoW is more of a culture of "Wow! We did this and this and that and got this and this and that, and jeepers, aren't we great."
Blizzard obviously figured out what gamers want.
Nice try but you're wrong.