Scott is in many ways an unlikely hero of recorded sound. Born in Paris in 1817, he was a man of letters, not a scientist, who worked in the printing trade and as a librarian. He published a book on the history of shorthand, and evidently viewed sound recording as an extension of stenography. In a self-published memoir in 1878, he railed against Edison for "appropriating" his methods and misconstruing the purpose of recording technology. The goal, Scott argued, was not sound reproduction, but "writing speech, which is what the word phonograph means."
Visually capturing the sound would theoretically give you more information than a stenographer could record - tone of voice, for example. It would also mean the stenographer wouldn't have to keep up in real time, because they could just analyze the recording later. However, I sure wouldn't want to be the one tasked with "reading" the recording.
I admit that's a generalization, but in my experience, engineering students tend to be more whiny than other students. There may be easier majors than Engineering, but there are harder ones, too. I studied both Physics and E.E., and IMO, Physics was harder. I don't mean to offend any engineers. If it makes you feel better, I also think engineering students are much saner and have a better appreciation for good beer.
In a corporate world where everything is beholden to the shareholder, those 10% are the only ones who really count. That same 10% isn't effected by overpriced CDs or overpriced gas or overpriced pharmaceuticals, because they have plenty of cash to cover it without it effecting their quality of life.
That's an interesting statistic about stock ownership. But I wouldn't be so sure they don't feel the effect of rising prices -- especially gas prices. The top 10% starts at about $100K. I know several people with incomes over 100K and trust me, ANYONE can live at or beyond their means. Plus, wealthier people probably USE more gas in their big cars and trucks. Why, even Rush Limbaugh once complained that he had to ask his pilot to fly his private jet slower because of the rising cost of jet fuel.
What they don't understand is that some grade school drop-out who calls himself a preacher doesn't get to have the same input into a high school science curriculum as a guy who won Canada's highest science award.
You do have a point, but I think you're missing mine. Think about Joe Regular here. His "grade school dropout preacher" (actually, most pastors have divinity degrees) may have helped save his marriage, prayed with him through his child's illness, gotten his friend to quit doing drugs, etc. This pastor has chosen to study matters of the heart and to pursue a career of serving people for (probably) much less pay than he is capable of earning. Joe has lots of good reasons to respect and believe his pastor over some complete stranger on TV.
Regarding your comment, I don't know about "input", but IMO a democracy should give everyone an equal VOICE in any aspect of public education, and the more persuasive people generally win. Just realize what you are up against. Demeaning comments are not persuasive.
If slashdot is any indication of the communication skills and social expectations of scientists then I think the scientists might be the ones that need to develop an understanding -- of people. People are not always logical. Even technical people are influenced by emotion. I offer as evidence OS preference flame wars -- if we were purely logical we would just share FACTS regarding each OS and not get into flame wars (but it's just the OTHER people being illogical, right?).
In the context of this article, what is the goal of communication? It it just to convey information or to convince people or to persuade them to take some action? Whatever the goal is you need to realize that some people won't listen/agree/act and that doesn't necessarily make them idiots. Try to see if from their point of view: you hear some guy claiming to be very qualified saying something you don't quite understand that possibly conflicts with your world view. What are you going to do? Get your own Ph.D. and do your own research so you can see if the guy really knows what he's talking about? No, you've got your own life to live so you've just got to decide at the time -- Is this something I need to care about? Is this guy really qualified? Is he biased AGAINST what I believe in a way that would influence his interpretation of the facts? Is he being paid to say this? I'm sure most of you ask yourself these questions when you hear about research "proving" something you don't agree with (or "disproving" something you did agree with).
I take it you haven't been inside an engineering college lately.
Even when I was in engineering school, the majority of graduate students were foreign. I forget where, but I once read a quote that went something like this: "American universities are the best in the world. In fact, they are so good that American high school graduates can't compete in them".
It seems like all of American know-how goes into designing things like this, then companies move the jobs overseas...
The researchers are: "graduate students Yogesh Ramadass, Naveen Verma, and Joyce Kwong, along with Professor Anantha Chandrakasan". While they may very well all be U.S. citizens, it makes me want to ask for a precise definition of "American know-how".
Ethnicity or religion? *rolls eyes* Come on, man, you're not that stupid.
Apparently, I am. I wasn't suggesting that race or religion quotas in congress would be a good idea, but I've heard such things suggested before, so I honestly wasn't sure what was being proposed.
Surprisingly, a developer things that the technique he is working on is better than other techniques to address the class of problems to which the technique applies.
I don't get it -- are you implying that there is some ulterior motive? Does this somehow make his opinion less relevant or more suspect? Obviously he's working on that technique because he thinks it's the best technique. IMO, the fact that he's practicing what he's preaching only adds weight to his opinion.
Even later, under Reagan, he wanted to remove critical portions of the Voting Rights Act, because black people weren't likely to vote for him. Congress blocked his attempt.
That's a pretty serious accusation. Do you have any details on that? I googled this speech, which includes the following:
In addition, the bill extends for 10 years the protections for language minorities...
...Yes, there are differences over how to attain the equality we seek for all our people. And sometimes amidst all the overblown rhetoric, the differences tend to seem bigger than they are. But actions speak louder than words. This legislation proves our unbending commitment to voting rights. It also proves that differences can be settled in a spirit of good will and good faith.
So I'm guessing that the "critical portions" were along the lines of providing foreign language ballots.
How would you suggest we implement "proportional representation"? When you say "proportional", are you talking about party affiliation or ethnicity or religion or what?
I tend to agree that PC gaming is not going away. PC game programming definitely has it's challenges. The console programmer is programming for known hardware so he can optimize much more easily than a PC game programmer who has to deal with unknown graphics capabilities, cpu speed, memory size, monitor resolution, etc. Good graphics APIs help, but do not take the problem away. OTOH, once you have programmed for this variability, you have a more portable game. When I buy a new PC, I don't mind paying a few hundred more for discrete graphics card (I don't buy consoles anyway), and I enjoy loading all my old games onto it and knowing they'll (usually) still work. Sometimes I even find that some group has created a modified version of the game that improves the experience on faster hardware (like open GL versions of doom or descent). Also, user created content (maps, characters, campaigns, etc) is an area where PC games outshine their console counterparts.
Most Bible Thumpers have it totally wrong. IF they actually read the bible, they would have found that the earth was NOT actually created in 6 or 7 days. YES YES That is the GENESIS account, BUT, the original hebrew/aramaic translations describe a day as a period or era (really undetermined period of time) Psalms describes that a day with God is as a thousand years (let you look it up for yourself). this does not mean day with God IS a thousand years. It really just means a day is a long long time. hence AS a thousand years and not IS a thousand years. SO it is plausible he created the universe AND still have the big bang theory still be in harmony. Except that Scientists don't want to accept that and Zealot, fundamentalist religionsists do not want to acknoledge this.
You are overlooking the words "...And there was evening, and there was morning--the first day.". A literal reading pretty much limits that to one solar day. If you are looking for room for an old earth, you need go no farther than Gen 1:1-2 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. ". This is before the "first day", so the creation of the heavens and the earth could have taken any amount of time. Again, if you take it literally the sun and moon and stars are created a few days later. I don't see anyway to reconcile the scientific theories of origins with a literal reading of Genesis. I'm saying this as an open minded Christian who has a Physics degree.
True. I believed Intel, when they explained the superiority of Ray-Tracing, and now I believe Nvidia, when they say the opposite.
It sounds like ray tracing is better, but slower. If that is the case, a move to ray tracing might be more likely if we see a "leveling off" of scene complexity while hardware performance continues to increase. It might get to where a ray traced game looks better and is fast enough.
Did anyone gather from TFA if any of the brain-decoding is "generic", or if all of it is trained to a specific individual?
Excellent question! It would be interesting if looking at the same picture created the same brainwave pattern in everyone or even in most people. Comparing the patterns the same picture creates in different brains might lead to all kinds of discoveries about how the brain works.
For the less technical people out there, both sides are about dogma. They are either accepting what they were taught in church or what they were taught in school. You may have only had the experience of arguing with people who didn't know science. I do know the science and I still question evolution. Maybe I'm biased because my degree is in Physics and not Biology. I don't want to dignify something with the title "theory" that is not only unverified but unverifiable. The time scales involved do not allow you to watch new species evolve in a lab.
I freely admit that my belief in God plays a large factor as well. You can't prove evolution, but it is plausible, and if you rule out any intervention by a higher power, it's the ONLY plausible theory we have. I believe in God, so for me there is an alternative theory for the origins of life.
They should put a little protection in there for those that want to teach the Flat Earth concept, too.
You can express doubt about the theory of evolution without saying anything unfactual. You can point to "gaps" (granted, you might want to read up on recent discoveries as some of those gaps close). You can mention how rare beneficial mutations are. You can point out the assumptions made in dating fossils and in the creation of "the fossil record". If you present all the relevant facts and let the students think for themselves, I don't see how this is a problem. The way some people freak out about this, you'd think evolution was a religion.
Yep, we are going to hell in a handbasket. The religious factions have acquired far too much political power period.
Okay, doesn't it seem like there's a contradiction in there?
For a country founded upon secular principles it continually amazes me to see how far we have fallen.
You'd have to do some serious mental gymnastics to convince yourself that the U.S. was founded on secular principles (or maybe not - they do tend to gloss over our religious heritage in public school these days).
The way the discussion is being framed is a big part of the problem - that it's an either/or situation. I've seen quotes from a number of scientists that see no conflict between faith and science; they all boil down to how you choose to define them. The sad fact is that religious zealots tend not to be persuadable.
You should have patience with "religious zealots". See, we evolved this way. We were born with the "God gene" so we can't help what we believe. It's a scientific theory, so I'm sure you don't doubt it.
Slashdot Mirror
Your equation for "RP" ignores different paths reaching the same position.
... this IS news that matters!
FTA:
Scott is in many ways an unlikely hero of recorded sound. Born in Paris in 1817, he was a man of letters, not a scientist, who worked in the printing trade and as a librarian. He published a book on the history of shorthand, and evidently viewed sound recording as an extension of stenography. In a self-published memoir in 1878, he railed against Edison for "appropriating" his methods and misconstruing the purpose of recording technology. The goal, Scott argued, was not sound reproduction, but "writing speech, which is what the word phonograph means."Visually capturing the sound would theoretically give you more information than a stenographer could record - tone of voice, for example. It would also mean the stenographer wouldn't have to keep up in real time, because they could just analyze the recording later. However, I sure wouldn't want to be the one tasked with "reading" the recording.
I admit that's a generalization, but in my experience, engineering students tend to be more whiny than other students. There may be easier majors than Engineering, but there are harder ones, too. I studied both Physics and E.E., and IMO, Physics was harder. I don't mean to offend any engineers. If it makes you feel better, I also think engineering students are much saner and have a better appreciation for good beer.
That's an interesting statistic about stock ownership. But I wouldn't be so sure they don't feel the effect of rising prices -- especially gas prices. The top 10% starts at about $100K. I know several people with incomes over 100K and trust me, ANYONE can live at or beyond their means. Plus, wealthier people probably USE more gas in their big cars and trucks. Why, even Rush Limbaugh once complained that he had to ask his pilot to fly his private jet slower because of the rising cost of jet fuel.
Okay, maybe that was a bad example.
You do have a point, but I think you're missing mine. Think about Joe Regular here. His "grade school dropout preacher" (actually, most pastors have divinity degrees) may have helped save his marriage, prayed with him through his child's illness, gotten his friend to quit doing drugs, etc. This pastor has chosen to study matters of the heart and to pursue a career of serving people for (probably) much less pay than he is capable of earning. Joe has lots of good reasons to respect and believe his pastor over some complete stranger on TV.
Regarding your comment, I don't know about "input", but IMO a democracy should give everyone an equal VOICE in any aspect of public education, and the more persuasive people generally win. Just realize what you are up against. Demeaning comments are not persuasive.
This is a duplicate from over a month ago.
If slashdot is any indication of the communication skills and social expectations of scientists then I think the scientists might be the ones that need to develop an understanding -- of people. People are not always logical. Even technical people are influenced by emotion. I offer as evidence OS preference flame wars -- if we were purely logical we would just share FACTS regarding each OS and not get into flame wars (but it's just the OTHER people being illogical, right?).
In the context of this article, what is the goal of communication? It it just to convey information or to convince people or to persuade them to take some action? Whatever the goal is you need to realize that some people won't listen/agree/act and that doesn't necessarily make them idiots. Try to see if from their point of view: you hear some guy claiming to be very qualified saying something you don't quite understand that possibly conflicts with your world view. What are you going to do? Get your own Ph.D. and do your own research so you can see if the guy really knows what he's talking about? No, you've got your own life to live so you've just got to decide at the time -- Is this something I need to care about? Is this guy really qualified? Is he biased AGAINST what I believe in a way that would influence his interpretation of the facts? Is he being paid to say this? I'm sure most of you ask yourself these questions when you hear about research "proving" something you don't agree with (or "disproving" something you did agree with).
The article points this out near the end.
Personally, I think it's probably more like: more time working => less time drinking
Even when I was in engineering school, the majority of graduate students were foreign. I forget where, but I once read a quote that went something like this: "American universities are the best in the world. In fact, they are so good that American high school graduates can't compete in them".
The researchers are: "graduate students Yogesh Ramadass, Naveen Verma, and Joyce Kwong, along with Professor Anantha Chandrakasan". While they may very well all be U.S. citizens, it makes me want to ask for a precise definition of "American know-how".
I thought this sounded familiar.
I always thought Bush was more a proponent of nucular energy.
Thanks.
Ethnicity or religion? *rolls eyes* Come on, man, you're not that stupid.Apparently, I am. I wasn't suggesting that race or religion quotas in congress would be a good idea, but I've heard such things suggested before, so I honestly wasn't sure what was being proposed.
I don't get it -- are you implying that there is some ulterior motive? Does this somehow make his opinion less relevant or more suspect? Obviously he's working on that technique because he thinks it's the best technique. IMO, the fact that he's practicing what he's preaching only adds weight to his opinion.
That's a pretty serious accusation. Do you have any details on that? I googled this speech, which includes the following:
In addition, the bill extends for 10 years the protections for language minorities...
...Yes, there are differences over how to attain the equality we seek for all our people. And sometimes amidst all the overblown rhetoric, the differences tend to seem bigger than they are. But actions speak louder than words. This legislation proves our unbending commitment to voting rights. It also proves that differences can be settled in a spirit of good will and good faith.
So I'm guessing that the "critical portions" were along the lines of providing foreign language ballots.
How would you suggest we implement "proportional representation"? When you say "proportional", are you talking about party affiliation or ethnicity or religion or what?
Here is an opposing viewpoint from Doug Lombardi.
I tend to agree that PC gaming is not going away. PC game programming definitely has it's challenges. The console programmer is programming for known hardware so he can optimize much more easily than a PC game programmer who has to deal with unknown graphics capabilities, cpu speed, memory size, monitor resolution, etc. Good graphics APIs help, but do not take the problem away. OTOH, once you have programmed for this variability, you have a more portable game. When I buy a new PC, I don't mind paying a few hundred more for discrete graphics card (I don't buy consoles anyway), and I enjoy loading all my old games onto it and knowing they'll (usually) still work. Sometimes I even find that some group has created a modified version of the game that improves the experience on faster hardware (like open GL versions of doom or descent). Also, user created content (maps, characters, campaigns, etc) is an area where PC games outshine their console counterparts.
You are overlooking the words "...And there was evening, and there was morning--the first day.". A literal reading pretty much limits that to one solar day. If you are looking for room for an old earth, you need go no farther than Gen 1:1-2 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. ". This is before the "first day", so the creation of the heavens and the earth could have taken any amount of time. Again, if you take it literally the sun and moon and stars are created a few days later. I don't see anyway to reconcile the scientific theories of origins with a literal reading of Genesis. I'm saying this as an open minded Christian who has a Physics degree.
One day we WILL know the absolute truth of it.On what do you base that belief?
It sounds like ray tracing is better, but slower. If that is the case, a move to ray tracing might be more likely if we see a "leveling off" of scene complexity while hardware performance continues to increase. It might get to where a ray traced game looks better and is fast enough.
... excel spreadsheet desktop!
Excellent question! It would be interesting if looking at the same picture created the same brainwave pattern in everyone or even in most people. Comparing the patterns the same picture creates in different brains might lead to all kinds of discoveries about how the brain works.
For the less technical people out there, both sides are about dogma. They are either accepting what they were taught in church or what they were taught in school. You may have only had the experience of arguing with people who didn't know science. I do know the science and I still question evolution. Maybe I'm biased because my degree is in Physics and not Biology. I don't want to dignify something with the title "theory" that is not only unverified but unverifiable. The time scales involved do not allow you to watch new species evolve in a lab.
I freely admit that my belief in God plays a large factor as well. You can't prove evolution, but it is plausible, and if you rule out any intervention by a higher power, it's the ONLY plausible theory we have. I believe in God, so for me there is an alternative theory for the origins of life.
I concede. I just looked up "secular state" and I see now that it doesn't mean "atheist state" or "anti-religious state".
You can express doubt about the theory of evolution without saying anything unfactual. You can point to "gaps" (granted, you might want to read up on recent discoveries as some of those gaps close). You can mention how rare beneficial mutations are. You can point out the assumptions made in dating fossils and in the creation of "the fossil record". If you present all the relevant facts and let the students think for themselves, I don't see how this is a problem. The way some people freak out about this, you'd think evolution was a religion.
Okay, doesn't it seem like there's a contradiction in there?
For a country founded upon secular principles it continually amazes me to see how far we have fallen.You'd have to do some serious mental gymnastics to convince yourself that the U.S. was founded on secular principles (or maybe not - they do tend to gloss over our religious heritage in public school these days).
The way the discussion is being framed is a big part of the problem - that it's an either/or situation. I've seen quotes from a number of scientists that see no conflict between faith and science; they all boil down to how you choose to define them. The sad fact is that religious zealots tend not to be persuadable.You should have patience with "religious zealots". See, we evolved this way. We were born with the "God gene" so we can't help what we believe. It's a scientific theory, so I'm sure you don't doubt it.