Unfortunately for your indignation, this is actually an example of the type of work that copyright protects. Rowling doesn't have a leg to stand on, this is a work of research, and it is very unlikely that it will negatively affect sales of the works from which it derives. In fact it's more likely to increase sales.
It does not matter that it is for profit. It does not matter if it hinders sales of Rowling's own reference manual she wants to put out later. Copyright law is pretty clear in this case - They can sell it. If Rowling is successful in stopping it, it's a failure of the court.
Very good argument that it was poorly done science in search of a pre-ordained conclusion by an interested party. I read through all the opposing comments as well, and they certainly don't seem satisfactory and are mainly just the Courtier's Reply. To be more explicit, The author of the article points out several ways in which the experiment did not have a sufficient control group and the counter-argument was that some of these are accounted for statistically. However it seems that list of things accounted for doesn't include all of the problems, and the counter-arguer just repeats himself more vehemently and seems to have absolute faith that sufficient rigor was taken despite lack of support from the research paper and multiple instances of other scientists and groups of scientists pointint out the exact same problems brought up in the article. Given the available options, we should in fact not trust the one scientist who has probable cause to fake the results and as the article points out, has already been suspiciously injudicious in his methodology. That's not just an ad hominem attack, the study itself has been attacked successfully, with a large variance on trustworthiness, and the circumstantial evidence only serves to point out that prudence urges caution in accepting the results. That some scientists agree with the research paper is not good support, as people (even scientists) who don't know tend to go with whoever's loudest, which creates false consensus.
(BTW, joe, this long reply is just to summarize the linked article and address possible concerns, not because of anything you said. I'm certainly interested in hearing any rebuttal if anyone has one)
Since you commented on it, I think this is worth highlighting (taken from the linked wikipedia page):
In Milgram's defense, 84 percent of former participants surveyed later said they were "glad" or "very glad" to have participated, 15 percent chose neutral responses (92% of all former participants responding).[9] Many later wrote expressing thanks. Milgram repeatedly received offers of assistance and requests to join his staff from former participants. Six years later (at the height of the Vietnam War), one of the participants in the experiment sent correspondence to Milgram, explaining why he was glad to have participated despite the stress:
While I was a subject in 1964, though I believed that I was hurting someone, I was totally unaware of why I was doing so. Few people ever realize when they are acting according to their own beliefs and when they are meekly submitting to authority . . . . To permit myself to be drafted with the understanding that I am submitting to authority's demand to do something very wrong would make me frightened of myself . . . . I am fully prepared to go to jail if I am not granted Conscientious Objector status. Indeed, it is the only course I could take to be faithful to what I believe. My only hope is that members of my board act equally according to their conscience . . ..
Science does not require repetition. Repetition is a tool that is useful where it applies but it's not part of the scientific method. The actual criteria is that a prediction be made that can be tested and to perform those tests when possible.
I can understand your argument as a statement of personal views and conduct, but it is somewhat ironic that your stance would be that you can't dismiss other's thoughts, yet you entered into this conversation dismissing the argument of someone who doesn't share your view.
I, also, would disagree a great deal. I feel that no idea should ever be considered unquestionable. If I believe a fact, everyone is free to challenge it. And their rebuttals are likewise challengeable. Yes, this would become cumbersome after a point, but we're good at heuristics. The problem I see, very different from the one you mentioned of lack of acceptance of belief, is that too many people refuse to accept critique.
Hmm, meant to reply to this after work but forgot about it.
I'll (try to) be brief.
First off, I'm not accusing you of saying anything specific about creationism, I'm sorry if it came off that way and prevented you from responding with something insightful. It was merely analogy. Bsmoore01 bashed on some flaky ideology a bit, naming creationism as an example. Your reply, while quite possibly being more about blanket dismissal rather than defending particular beliefs (feel free to enlighten me), appears to be saying that no idea can be criticized because they all need some belief. That extrapolates to science being equivalent to demented insanity like creationism. Please clarify your meaning explicitly, because the manner of your post in context seems to support that. I think we can both understand that it's easy to make assumptions, but hard to make them correctly.
Going a little off that topic now, I really honestly would like to hear what you think metaphysics and philosophy can contribute to science. My idea on the matter is that philosophy has taught us a great many lessons, among them how fallible a persons perception is*, and from logic we've learned how, if not to ensure truth, to at least reinforce progress toward truth. The result is the basis of science, a guiding principle that, as bsmoore would probably agree, is the only defense against the known problem of necessary belief you talked about in your first post. The hard sciences then become the grown up metaphysics, and philosophy is the assumed backdrop to any enlightened, rational reasoning. I can understand that those versed in scientific thought and method might have become fairly arrogant, but it's not yet clear that it's unwarranted - the phenomenal amount of technological progress we've made is a pretty good indication they're on the right track.
* -- this is why the 'evidence' of someone's life experience isn't considered valid - it can't be repeated or tested, and psychology has conclusively shown time and again that any such evidence is not only untrustworthy, but such an artifact of the human psyche that it is expected - and this, again can be used to turn your words against you - to blithely state that such evidence should be accepted is to ignore the nature of reality at a very explicit and well defined level.
I'm really not trying to start a flame war. While I don't think I've understood your entire point clearly, I do believe that the arguments you've made don't fully support the case you're trying to make. If I am merely misunderstanding them, I'd appreciate the opportunity to see them clarified.
That's just silly. You're trying to tell us that just because we can't SEE atoms, that we should accept at face value that everything's made of popcorn flavored jelly beans. It just doesn't follow. Not all assumptions are equal!
Practically the whole of human progress has involved finding assumptions and testing them. Sure, I haven't personally tested whether individual electrons flow through wire when I flip a switch, but I can validate that all those theories work with a multimeter, some batteries, and a lightbulb. Scientific knowledge is built layer upon layer of discovery and verification. It works!
Sure, I have to exercise belief when I read about how paleontologists have discovered the sequence of creatures leading from a land mammal to modern whales, but I've been to fossil dig sites, I have touched ancient bones, and if I wanted to I could go to those paleontologists and have them show me all the evidence. It's been verified in several different ways by many other people too.
On the other hand, some guy can tell me his bizarre interpretation of a book written by our educational inferiors thousand of years ago that contains passages that blatantly contradict itself and reality. And you're going to tell me that's an equally respectable position?
Let's get straight to the point... Popcorn jelly beans taste terrible.
Presuming that there aren't strange effects, gravity is zero everywhere inside an empty shell, so that couldn't actually have an effect. If more mass fell in one one side, the end result would probably be a shift in the event horizon to the centerpoint of the mass.
With the acknowledgment that this wasn't asking for a serious response, I think that the birds tend to worry most about things that are relatively close and moving no faster than themselves. When you have a blade with a high tip velocity, the birds probably don't see it coming. Modern windmills have lower velocities relative to wind speed and kill far fewer birds.
To continue another thread's pool analogy, it probably wasn't a straight shot, but banked of the edges for a while.
In the grand scheme of things the solar system is pretty sparse. Even large, slow-moving objects are pretty unlikely to hit anything on a random traversal, but will often end up in strange orbits.
Re:Our credulity is not surprising...
on
Why Myths Persist
·
· Score: 1
Red herring? Is the article not a specific example of a program being able to anonymously run kernel level code, bypassing the signing mechanism? I wasn't saying it's intrinsically broken, just that what you said (anonymous code can't run) is evidently not the case.
That it exploits a flaw in 3rd party software does not change the fact that the system is currently breakable. Signing simply makes it harder, which is certainly a good thing. It does not confer complete trust, which is what absolute statement like the one you made imply.
It does have the advantage of all the failure points being reviewed by one source (MS) that can be improved over time to catch attacks like this. They obviously are not yet perfect, but it's a marked improvement. But still, how many holes are found by people who aren't honest security researchers? How many people get patched? We have no way of judging the safety of the system, nor if its improvements are increasing at a sufficient pace.
But tapes are lossy. In this case, they've lost the 'live' part.
Now, there might be some holes under the fence that people crawl under, but there's a reasonable number of those to actually police, and they're not on the property of everyone attending the show.
Bah, you're obviously not militant enough. Now whenever the discussion of marriage comes up, he's got a lead-in to make others aware that not everyone agrees with their silly beliefs.
Heh, back in the old days of CGI HTML chat rooms w/ reloading pages (don't know if those were even common...), we'd figure out html tag injection attacks. The EBIL ones where where we'd put a only we could see (pm to self usually), followed by HTML that would crash the browser... hehehe.
The obvious answer being that you don't get to reduce the number of ads, just choose which you don't want to see. The more you mark down, the more obscure the ads that it shows you next time.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately for your indignation, this is actually an example of the type of work that copyright protects. Rowling doesn't have a leg to stand on, this is a work of research, and it is very unlikely that it will negatively affect sales of the works from which it derives. In fact it's more likely to increase sales.
It does not matter that it is for profit. It does not matter if it hinders sales of Rowling's own reference manual she wants to put out later. Copyright law is pretty clear in this case - They can sell it. If Rowling is successful in stopping it, it's a failure of the court.
Penny wise, pound foolish.
"It's all very complicated and difficult, so we used the first thing I muttered into the microphone."
I'll have to try that. I always used to go to Jade Palace (*cough*phallus*cough*) (2647 Cobb Parkway), but some friends didn't like the quality.
Wow, your comment had me convinced until I read the link provided by an AC:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/1/125028/8808
Very good argument that it was poorly done science in search of a pre-ordained conclusion by an interested party. I read through all the opposing comments as well, and they certainly don't seem satisfactory and are mainly just the Courtier's Reply. To be more explicit, The author of the article points out several ways in which the experiment did not have a sufficient control group and the counter-argument was that some of these are accounted for statistically. However it seems that list of things accounted for doesn't include all of the problems, and the counter-arguer just repeats himself more vehemently and seems to have absolute faith that sufficient rigor was taken despite lack of support from the research paper and multiple instances of other scientists and groups of scientists pointint out the exact same problems brought up in the article. Given the available options, we should in fact not trust the one scientist who has probable cause to fake the results and as the article points out, has already been suspiciously injudicious in his methodology. That's not just an ad hominem attack, the study itself has been attacked successfully, with a large variance on trustworthiness, and the circumstantial evidence only serves to point out that prudence urges caution in accepting the results. That some scientists agree with the research paper is not good support, as people (even scientists) who don't know tend to go with whoever's loudest, which creates false consensus.
(BTW, joe, this long reply is just to summarize the linked article and address possible concerns, not because of anything you said. I'm certainly interested in hearing any rebuttal if anyone has one)
Science does not require repetition. Repetition is a tool that is useful where it applies but it's not part of the scientific method. The actual criteria is that a prediction be made that can be tested and to perform those tests when possible.
I can understand your argument as a statement of personal views and conduct, but it is somewhat ironic that your stance would be that you can't dismiss other's thoughts, yet you entered into this conversation dismissing the argument of someone who doesn't share your view.
I, also, would disagree a great deal. I feel that no idea should ever be considered unquestionable. If I believe a fact, everyone is free to challenge it. And their rebuttals are likewise challengeable. Yes, this would become cumbersome after a point, but we're good at heuristics. The problem I see, very different from the one you mentioned of lack of acceptance of belief, is that too many people refuse to accept critique.
I'll bite.
"I have tested it, and verified it for myself by the methods provided as relevant."
What are the methods, from whence are they provisioned, and by what criteria are they relevant?
Hmm, meant to reply to this after work but forgot about it.
I'll (try to) be brief.
First off, I'm not accusing you of saying anything specific about creationism, I'm sorry if it came off that way and prevented you from responding with something insightful. It was merely analogy. Bsmoore01 bashed on some flaky ideology a bit, naming creationism as an example. Your reply, while quite possibly being more about blanket dismissal rather than defending particular beliefs (feel free to enlighten me), appears to be saying that no idea can be criticized because they all need some belief. That extrapolates to science being equivalent to demented insanity like creationism. Please clarify your meaning explicitly, because the manner of your post in context seems to support that. I think we can both understand that it's easy to make assumptions, but hard to make them correctly.
Going a little off that topic now, I really honestly would like to hear what you think metaphysics and philosophy can contribute to science. My idea on the matter is that philosophy has taught us a great many lessons, among them how fallible a persons perception is*, and from logic we've learned how, if not to ensure truth, to at least reinforce progress toward truth. The result is the basis of science, a guiding principle that, as bsmoore would probably agree, is the only defense against the known problem of necessary belief you talked about in your first post. The hard sciences then become the grown up metaphysics, and philosophy is the assumed backdrop to any enlightened, rational reasoning. I can understand that those versed in scientific thought and method might have become fairly arrogant, but it's not yet clear that it's unwarranted - the phenomenal amount of technological progress we've made is a pretty good indication they're on the right track.
* -- this is why the 'evidence' of someone's life experience isn't considered valid - it can't be repeated or tested, and psychology has conclusively shown time and again that any such evidence is not only untrustworthy, but such an artifact of the human psyche that it is expected - and this, again can be used to turn your words against you - to blithely state that such evidence should be accepted is to ignore the nature of reality at a very explicit and well defined level.
I'm really not trying to start a flame war. While I don't think I've understood your entire point clearly, I do believe that the arguments you've made don't fully support the case you're trying to make. If I am merely misunderstanding them, I'd appreciate the opportunity to see them clarified.
Cheers,
Michael H.
And I suck at being brief.
That's just silly. You're trying to tell us that just because we can't SEE atoms, that we should accept at face value that everything's made of popcorn flavored jelly beans. It just doesn't follow. Not all assumptions are equal!
Practically the whole of human progress has involved finding assumptions and testing them. Sure, I haven't personally tested whether individual electrons flow through wire when I flip a switch, but I can validate that all those theories work with a multimeter, some batteries, and a lightbulb. Scientific knowledge is built layer upon layer of discovery and verification. It works!
Sure, I have to exercise belief when I read about how paleontologists have discovered the sequence of creatures leading from a land mammal to modern whales, but I've been to fossil dig sites, I have touched ancient bones, and if I wanted to I could go to those paleontologists and have them show me all the evidence. It's been verified in several different ways by many other people too.
On the other hand, some guy can tell me his bizarre interpretation of a book written by our educational inferiors thousand of years ago that contains passages that blatantly contradict itself and reality. And you're going to tell me that's an equally respectable position?
Let's get straight to the point...
Popcorn jelly beans taste terrible.
Presuming that there aren't strange effects, gravity is zero everywhere inside an empty shell, so that couldn't actually have an effect. If more mass fell in one one side, the end result would probably be a shift in the event horizon to the centerpoint of the mass.
It's intended to be able to charge other things through usb.
And the pullstring is better than a crank because you can put your foot through it and just keep tapping while you work.
With the acknowledgment that this wasn't asking for a serious response, I think that the birds tend to worry most about things that are relatively close and moving no faster than themselves. When you have a blade with a high tip velocity, the birds probably don't see it coming. Modern windmills have lower velocities relative to wind speed and kill far fewer birds.
Its powder level! It's over 9000!
(I tried so hard not to rise to the bait... I honestly did. Then I thought of the power/powder pun and I couldn't stop. Damn you Psykechan! Damn you!
Aqua Teen Hunger Force? :)
To continue another thread's pool analogy, it probably wasn't a straight shot, but banked of the edges for a while.
In the grand scheme of things the solar system is pretty sparse. Even large, slow-moving objects are pretty unlikely to hit anything on a random traversal, but will often end up in strange orbits.
What 90% can I cut out of yours, then? :)
And yet somehow, very many people still manage.
Good men do good, and evil men do evil, but only faith can make good men do evil.
Yes! And we can prove it with the disproportionate number of people of ethnic minorities that have been rounded up and sentenced!
(sarcasm, by the way)
Red herring? Is the article not a specific example of a program being able to anonymously run kernel level code, bypassing the signing mechanism? I wasn't saying it's intrinsically broken, just that what you said (anonymous code can't run) is evidently not the case.
That it exploits a flaw in 3rd party software does not change the fact that the system is currently breakable. Signing simply makes it harder, which is certainly a good thing. It does not confer complete trust, which is what absolute statement like the one you made imply.
It does have the advantage of all the failure points being reviewed by one source (MS) that can be improved over time to catch attacks like this. They obviously are not yet perfect, but it's a marked improvement. But still, how many holes are found by people who aren't honest security researchers? How many people get patched? We have no way of judging the safety of the system, nor if its improvements are increasing at a sufficient pace.
But tapes are lossy. In this case, they've lost the 'live' part.
Now, there might be some holes under the fence that people crawl under, but there's a reasonable number of those to actually police, and they're not on the property of everyone attending the show.
Exceeeept... apparently you can piggyback on signed drivers to accomplish anything you want to do. We can't just wish ATI to have non-crappy code.
At best we can hope that MS learns a few more things to add to their toolbox for refusing to sign off on kernel level drivers.
Bah, you're obviously not militant enough. Now whenever the discussion of marriage comes up, he's got a lead-in to make others aware that not everyone agrees with their silly beliefs.
:)
You just get to smile and nod.
Heh, back in the old days of CGI HTML chat rooms w/ reloading pages (don't know if those were even common...), we'd figure out html tag injection attacks. The EBIL ones where where we'd put a only we could see (pm to self usually), followed by HTML that would crash the browser... hehehe.
The obvious answer being that you don't get to reduce the number of ads, just choose which you don't want to see. The more you mark down, the more obscure the ads that it shows you next time.