You're confusing two different meanings of the word theory. One meaning is of hypothesis or conjecture, as in a suggested explanation yet to be proven right or wrong.
Another meaning is of governing principles as in "theory of operation". I have a book at home call "Loudspeakers: Theory and Design". The author does not offer hypotheses about how speakers work; he has no doubt as to whether they work and how they work. He's not writing conjecture - he's writing science and engineering - the general body of rules governing the operation of loudspeakers, which the author collectively refers to as their "theory of operation". This second sense of the word can be defied.
In the days of Darwin, the word "theory" in "Theory of Evolution" probably may have refered to the first sense of the word, as a hypothetical explanation of the origin of all species, including ours. But talk to a biologist or naturalist today and he'll tell you they have no doubt but that evolution is a fact; how it works, its principles of operation, is something they're still exploring and trying to explain.
This confusion between the meanings is something the Bible-thumbers love to exploit (I'm not lumping you in with them, though). They jump up and down and shout about how evolution is just a "theory" and that their half-baked Creation Science theories deserve equal consideration in the schools. Don't buy it. Evolution is a fact. We're sure of the big picture; it's just some of the details that we haven't worked out yet.
Wil. Not because he switched to linux, but because his story included a pointer to pr0n. Get your head in the game, Apple, you're losing serious points here!
Interesting idea. I like people who think about etymologies.
--Jim
Re:Third-Moon a Disturbing Libertarian Myth!
on
Is This Moon Three?
·
· Score: 1
You believe it was a hoax only because you WANT to believe.
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.htm l
Don't be so gullible.
Hey, Poindexter, did you actually read the page I linked to? Didn't think so. Hook, line, and sinker! I land at least one of you every time I post that link.
--Jim
Re:Third-Moon a Disturbing Libertarian Myth!
on
Is This Moon Three?
·
· Score: 1
Of course, we all know that the Moon landing was a fake! Just ask Buzz Aldrin, he'll set you straight (though he might also break your nose).
Just out of curiosity, what is the scientific criterion for a moon?
Isaac Asimov, in one of his popular-science articles, once presented a well-reasoned argument that the Earth and Moon should not be considered a planet and satellite, but a double planet. He formed his argument by comparing the masses of all the other moons in the Solar system to the masses of their primaries, and showed that the Moon:Earth mass ratio was far greater than that of any other planet/satellite pair. He suggested that we could account for this "outlier" by considering the Earth and Moon to be a double planet.
Whether this argument would stand up to real scientific scrutiny, I don't know. It sounded pretty good to me, but I was just 10 at the time. Maybe it was just gee-whiz stuff made up to impress 10-year-olds, but that doesn't really seem like Isaac's style.
In a related note, did anyone else see the story about Buzz Aldrin punching that flat-earther in the nose? Oh, sorry, my mistake. He wasn't a flat-earther, he was one of those nuts who say that the Moon landing was faked. Seems this clown approached Buzz in public and asked him to swear on a Bible that he walked on the moon. Buzz put up with him briefly, then popped in the snout.
The Moon landing was a fake? No, actually it was a feint and a jab! Hey, Buzz, smack him once for me, would you?
Why do I have a feeling that most people focused on Prince's spelling rather than what he was saying?
Because it's difficult to take him seriously when he writes, as another poster said, like a fourteen year old girl chatting via IM.
--Jim
Re:Webster's dictionary anyone?
on
0wnz0red
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Somebody owes me 15 minutes added back to my life timer for suggesting this was a worthwhile read.
Sorry, but the most credit I can give you on refund is five minutes. After that long, you should be smart enough to bail out on your own. So let's see, five minutes, um... carry the one... so I'll be seeing you at 4:33 PM next Thurs... oh! er, never mind. Wasn't 'sposed to say that. Have a nice day!
I think we're drowning in semantics here, the point is that one of the first things that distinguished Opera from other browsers was that you could have several pages open under the same top-level window.
I see your point, and yes I like that feature very much in tabbed browsing. (I also like being able to make middle-click bring up a new tab in Mozilla - presumably Opera has a similar feature?) I'll keep that point in mind the next time someone mentions MDI.
Opera may be worth another look - although I'm quite happy with Mozilla. Another poster mentioned that the MDI interface has been eliminated from current versions of Opera.
"Pioneered" the MDI browser concept? Isn't that like saying Microsoft pioneered the blue screen of death or that the Ford Pinto pioneered the exploding gas tank? To "pioneer" suggests moving forward, but MDI applications are relics of the past.
I detest MDI apps and refuse to use them. I tried the Opera demo version years ago and upon seeing the MDI user interface, I promptly quit and erased Opera from my hard drive. Likewise StarOffice 5.2, or whatever their last MDI version was.
Linux systems - and unix machines in general - don't need MDI applications. They already have applications for moving windows around, resizing them and the like. It's called a "Window Manager". MDI applications reimplement window management poorly at best.
If you want to talk about stuff that Opera has pioneered, start with tabbed browsing.
ATIP info from disk:
Indicated writing power: 5
Is not unrestricted
Is not erasable
Disk sub type: Medium Type A, low Beta category (A-) (2)
ATIP start of lead in: -11634 (97:26/66)
ATIP start of lead out: 359849 (79:59/74)
Your previous post suggests your seeing 3:30 at 40X and 4:00 at 32X
Those are ballpark times at best, +/- 30 sec... dimly remembered from a couple of months back. So, just for the sake of asking, who is making good quality 40x media, and what brands names are they being sold under?
Don't Link to Us! links to sites that attempt to impose substantial restrictions on other sites that link to them. The Linking Policy for Don't Link to Us! precludes us from requesting permission to link to a site, and compels us to link directly to the targeted page (i.e., a "deep link") rather than to a site's home page. Descriptions of sites' linking policies generally are accurate (though often not complete) at the time they are posted here but are likely to change over time. On occasion a web site will modify its linking policy in response to public ridicule. Perhaps their appearance in Don't Link to Us! will help encourage some of these sites to move forward into the 20th century.
Most of the media on the market is total shit. CMC sell's a lot under the Imation/Memorex/BrandX names even selling it as "40X".
I have a load of 40x CD-Rs stamped TDK, but actually made by CMC. I've found them to be quite reliable even when written at 40x. When I first got my 40x drive, I did a series of tests, writing out 700MB of random data, reading it back in, and comparing checksums, and I regularly check my CDs with the same technique. I've written thirty or so CDs at 40x onto CMC 40x media and to date have only produced one coaster that I know of. (Even that coaster probably wasn't the fault of the media, as I was hammering the disk and the cdrecord FIFO dropped to 0% during writing. The drive was supposed to have buffer underrun protection, but evidently it didn't work in this case.) I consider one coaster in thirty to be within acceptable limits, and certainly better than "total shit".
I don't know what the article says, but I can tell you from firsthand experience. I have an Asus 40/12/48x drive. I've been quite please with it. I did some timing tests when I first got it, and as I recall it was on the order of 3:30 to burn a 700MB disk at 40x, but dropped only to about 4:00 at 32x and was still in the neighborhood of four and a half minutes at 24x. My memory may be off by thirty seconds in either direction, but the times for the upper speeds were very similar (due, of course to the limitation the first poster noted).
Great idea! That episode was called Space Seed, I think. Wrath of Khan is still my favorite of all the Star Trek movies. It has everything that made the original series great: action, drama, plot twists, and three dimensional characters. I believe the movie stands on its own very well, but if you've seen Space Seed then it certainly helps establish the context of the movie and explain Khan's obsession with Kirk. Space Seed and Wrath of Khan on the same DVD would be a cool combination.
Khan never sat in a Klingon ship; it was a Federation ship he hijacked... the Reliant, as I recall. And they had to cover the captain's seat with rich Corinthian leather!
Of course, we could build a fusion pulse rocket right now. Just get a huge bowl, with shock absorbers and a spaceship above it, and explode a few hydrogen bombs underneath.
Actually, this is an old concept known as Daedalus and was invented by the British Interplanetary Society...
Readers of Niven/Pournelle's Footfall will recognize this as Orion, which was used as part (first stage?) of the Daedalus project's craft.
If you're referring to any of the following "proof" that the landings didn't take place, then you need to do some real research...
Have you even seen the moon photos at the tripod site I mentioned? It IS real research! The photos are real, the analysis CONCLUSIVE. See the photos, they're 100% convincing!
OK, my first reaction was "What a fscking moron!"... but then I remember that the Slashdot Effect exceeded that poor guy's pathetic Tripod hourly bandwidth limit, and I realize maybe you haven't actually seen the photographic analysis at that site. So I'll be kind, withhold judgment, and I'll only say: wait until Brainsluice is back online, then go look at the pictures yourself. Then, if there's still any question in your mind about whether I'm serious, we'll have a real debate about taking one's pet issues (or one's self?) too seriously.
Slashdot Mirror
1C - VxWorks
You're confusing two different meanings of the word theory. One meaning is of hypothesis or conjecture, as in a suggested explanation yet to be proven right or wrong.
Another meaning is of governing principles as in "theory of operation". I have a book at home call "Loudspeakers: Theory and Design". The author does not offer hypotheses about how speakers work; he has no doubt as to whether they work and how they work. He's not writing conjecture - he's writing science and engineering - the general body of rules governing the operation of loudspeakers, which the author collectively refers to as their "theory of operation". This second sense of the word can be defied.
In the days of Darwin, the word "theory" in "Theory of Evolution" probably may have refered to the first sense of the word, as a hypothetical explanation of the origin of all species, including ours. But talk to a biologist or naturalist today and he'll tell you they have no doubt but that evolution is a fact; how it works, its principles of operation, is something they're still exploring and trying to explain.
This confusion between the meanings is something the Bible-thumbers love to exploit (I'm not lumping you in with them, though). They jump up and down and shout about how evolution is just a "theory" and that their half-baked Creation Science theories deserve equal consideration in the schools. Don't buy it. Evolution is a fact. We're sure of the big picture; it's just some of the details that we haven't worked out yet.
--Jim
Wil. Not because he switched to linux, but because his story included a pointer to pr0n. Get your head in the game, Apple, you're losing serious points here!
--Jim
These days, vegetables are like software
Does that make Johnny Appleseed the first free software advocate?
--Jim
Interesting idea. I like people who think about etymologies.
--Jim
You believe it was a hoax only because you WANT to believe.
m l
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.ht
Don't be so gullible.
Hey, Poindexter, did you actually read the page I linked to? Didn't think so. Hook, line, and sinker! I land at least one of you every time I post that link.
--Jim
Of course, we all know that the Moon landing was a fake! Just ask Buzz Aldrin, he'll set you straight (though he might also break your nose).
--Jim
Just out of curiosity, what is the scientific criterion for a moon?
Isaac Asimov, in one of his popular-science articles, once presented a well-reasoned argument that the Earth and Moon should not be considered a planet and satellite, but a double planet. He formed his argument by comparing the masses of all the other moons in the Solar system to the masses of their primaries, and showed that the Moon:Earth mass ratio was far greater than that of any other planet/satellite pair. He suggested that we could account for this "outlier" by considering the Earth and Moon to be a double planet.
Whether this argument would stand up to real scientific scrutiny, I don't know. It sounded pretty good to me, but I was just 10 at the time. Maybe it was just gee-whiz stuff made up to impress 10-year-olds, but that doesn't really seem like Isaac's style.
Does anybody else remember this essay?
--Jim
Will the stolen moon rock madness ever end?
In a related note, did anyone else see the story about Buzz Aldrin punching that flat-earther in the nose? Oh, sorry, my mistake. He wasn't a flat-earther, he was one of those nuts who say that the Moon landing was faked. Seems this clown approached Buzz in public and asked him to swear on a Bible that he walked on the moon. Buzz put up with him briefly, then popped in the snout.
The Moon landing was a fake? No, actually it was a feint and a jab! Hey, Buzz, smack him once for me, would you?
--Jim
But not nearly as apt as Neal Stephenson's vehicular analogy. See In the Beginning Was the Command Line. "Stay away from my house you freak!"
--Jim
Perhaps it is because he has been using shorthand since 1985.
I'm not surprised. But he still writes like a 14-year-old girl. And I still can't take him seriously.
--Jim
Why do I have a feeling that most people focused on Prince's spelling rather than what he was saying?
Because it's difficult to take him seriously when he writes, as another poster said, like a fourteen year old girl chatting via IM.
--Jim
Somebody owes me 15 minutes added back to my life timer for suggesting this was a worthwhile read.
Sorry, but the most credit I can give you on refund is five minutes. After that long, you should be smart enough to bail out on your own. So let's see, five minutes, um... carry the one... so I'll be seeing you at 4:33 PM next Thurs... oh! er, never mind. Wasn't 'sposed to say that. Have a nice day!
-- G. Reaper, Esq.
I think we're drowning in semantics here, the point is that one of the first things that distinguished Opera from other browsers was that you could have several pages open under the same top-level window.
I see your point, and yes I like that feature very much in tabbed browsing. (I also like being able to make middle-click bring up a new tab in Mozilla - presumably Opera has a similar feature?) I'll keep that point in mind the next time someone mentions MDI.
Opera may be worth another look - although I'm quite happy with Mozilla. Another poster mentioned that the MDI interface has been eliminated from current versions of Opera.
--Jim
Opera pioneered the MDI browser concept...
"Pioneered" the MDI browser concept? Isn't that like saying Microsoft pioneered the blue screen of death or that the Ford Pinto pioneered the exploding gas tank? To "pioneer" suggests moving forward, but MDI applications are relics of the past.
I detest MDI apps and refuse to use them. I tried the Opera demo version years ago and upon seeing the MDI user interface, I promptly quit and erased Opera from my hard drive. Likewise StarOffice 5.2, or whatever their last MDI version was.
Linux systems - and unix machines in general - don't need MDI applications. They already have applications for moving windows around, resizing them and the like. It's called a "Window Manager". MDI applications reimplement window management poorly at best.
If you want to talk about stuff that Opera has pioneered, start with tabbed browsing.
--Jim
ATIP info from disk:
Indicated writing power: 5
Is not unrestricted
Is not erasable
Disk sub type: Medium Type A, low Beta category (A-) (2)
ATIP start of lead in: -11634 (97:26/66)
ATIP start of lead out: 359849 (79:59/74)
Your previous post suggests your seeing 3:30 at 40X and 4:00 at 32X
Those are ballpark times at best, +/- 30 sec... dimly remembered from a couple of months back. So, just for the sake of asking, who is making good quality 40x media, and what brands names are they being sold under?
--Jim
Don't Link to Us! links to sites that attempt to impose substantial restrictions on other sites that link to them. The Linking Policy for Don't Link to Us! precludes us from requesting permission to link to a site, and compels us to link directly to the targeted page (i.e., a "deep link") rather than to a site's home page. Descriptions of sites' linking policies generally are accurate (though often not complete) at the time they are posted here but are likely to change over time. On occasion a web site will modify its linking policy in response to public ridicule. Perhaps their appearance in Don't Link to Us! will help encourage some of these sites to move forward into the 20th century.
Rock on, dude.
--Jim
Most of the media on the market is total shit. CMC sell's a lot under the Imation/Memorex/BrandX names even selling it as "40X".
I have a load of 40x CD-Rs stamped TDK, but actually made by CMC. I've found them to be quite reliable even when written at 40x. When I first got my 40x drive, I did a series of tests, writing out 700MB of random data, reading it back in, and comparing checksums, and I regularly check my CDs with the same technique. I've written thirty or so CDs at 40x onto CMC 40x media and to date have only produced one coaster that I know of. (Even that coaster probably wasn't the fault of the media, as I was hammering the disk and the cdrecord FIFO dropped to 0% during writing. The drive was supposed to have buffer underrun protection, but evidently it didn't work in this case.) I consider one coaster in thirty to be within acceptable limits, and certainly better than "total shit".
--Jim
I don't know what the article says, but I can tell you from firsthand experience. I have an Asus 40/12/48x drive. I've been quite please with it. I did some timing tests when I first got it, and as I recall it was on the order of 3:30 to burn a 700MB disk at 40x, but dropped only to about 4:00 at 32x and was still in the neighborhood of four and a half minutes at 24x. My memory may be off by thirty seconds in either direction, but the times for the upper speeds were very similar (due, of course to the limitation the first poster noted).
--Jim
Great idea! That episode was called Space Seed, I think. Wrath of Khan is still my favorite of all the Star Trek movies. It has everything that made the original series great: action, drama, plot twists, and three dimensional characters. I believe the movie stands on its own very well, but if you've seen Space Seed then it certainly helps establish the context of the movie and explain Khan's obsession with Kirk. Space Seed and Wrath of Khan on the same DVD would be a cool combination.
--Jim
Khan never sat in a Klingon ship; it was a Federation ship he hijacked... the Reliant, as I recall. And they had to cover the captain's seat with rich Corinthian leather!
--Jim
Of course, we could build a fusion pulse rocket right now. Just get a huge bowl, with shock absorbers and a spaceship above it, and explode a few hydrogen bombs underneath.
Actually, this is an old concept known as Daedalus and was invented by the British Interplanetary Society...
Readers of Niven/Pournelle's Footfall will recognize this as Orion, which was used as part (first stage?) of the Daedalus project's craft.
--Jim
Wooo.. sorry - I finally got through to see the site. hehe. Uhm, .. hehe
Well, at least ONE other person on Slashdot knows I'm not a complete moron!
--Jim
If you're referring to any of the following "proof" that the landings didn't take place, then you need to do some real research...
Have you even seen the moon photos at the tripod site I mentioned? It IS real research! The photos are real, the analysis CONCLUSIVE. See the photos, they're 100% convincing!
Oh, you guys are just too MUCH fun...
--jim
OK, my first reaction was "What a fscking moron!"... but then I remember that the Slashdot Effect exceeded that poor guy's pathetic Tripod hourly bandwidth limit, and I realize maybe you haven't actually seen the photographic analysis at that site. So I'll be kind, withhold judgment, and I'll only say: wait until Brainsluice is back online, then go look at the pictures yourself. Then, if there's still any question in your mind about whether I'm serious, we'll have a real debate about taking one's pet issues (or one's self?) too seriously.
--Jim