According to the National Safety Council, texting while driving is by far the most dangerous way to use a phone while driving - but even talking on the phone distracts drivers so badly that they can miss up to half of hazards as important as red lights and pedestrians crossing the road in front of them.
Note, too, that their tests have established that texting only while stopped at red lights still leaves drivers distracted for nearly half a minute after they put their phones down and resume driving.
That's why I only use my phone for turn-by-turn navigation by voice when I'm behind the wheel - and I input my destination and start the directions before I leave my driveway or the parking space from which I depart.
When I'm driving, I let all calls go to voicemail, as well, because none of them can possibly be as critical as the task of driving defensively. I take my responsibility for controlling a ton or more of mass moving at high velocity among other such vehicles (that I always assume are being driven by irresponsible cretins) as seriously as if my life, and the lives of my passengers, other motorists and their passengers, and pedestrians and bystanders depended on it.
It's also the reason I merge onto highways at the current speed of traffic on that road - because entering a freeway at a lower speed than the vehicles already on it is dangerous. That's why I survey traffic conditions on the road I'm entering as I'm negotiating the onramp, rather than blindly assuming that the other drivers will courteously leave me room to merge and graciously adjust their own speed to accomodate mine.
They won't.
You should always assume that every other driver on the road is actively suicidal - and determined to take you with him. It's the only way to be even marginally safe.
Other than taking off and nuking them from orbit, that is...
People who have never actually looked into the reality of the adoption process ask that question as if by reflex.
In the USA, the average time it takes to actually adopt a child is seven years from the time you first submit your application. And the cost to adopt varies widely, depending, in part, on which state the prospective parents reside in, and whether the child they adopt is a resident of that state, a different state, or another country.
Greece actually passed a sweeping adoption reform law last year that has considerably reduced both the cost and the legal complexity of adoption of Greek children by Greek citizens, so it's now easier and less expensive there than it is in the USA. But there are still many people who insist on their own, biological children for a whole range of reasons, including cultural tradtions, religious custom, and personal, psychological issues.
My point is that, while it's an easy question to ask, it's a lot harder and more complex to answer it than most people even begin to imagine...
Mitch McConnell: Democrats' Net Neutrality Bill is 'Dead on Arrival' in Senate
Then went on to observe:
This is what the Democrats need to do, go down the list of popular bills congress should pass, send them to the senate so the electorate can watch them go down in flames thanks to Mitch McConnell. Lather, rinse repeat until the 2020 election and shine the spotlight on Mitch McConnell every time he shoots one of these popular bills down. Make him the poster boy for the demise of every reform, every popular bill imaginable. It's the best way to make his 'no to everything, it's my way or the highway' policy work against him. There are tons of people on both the right and left wing who want to seen net-neutrality anchored in law and for either Rep. or Dem. politicians to be against net neutrality is not likely to be a vote winner on either side.
The problem is that there really aren't "tons of people" who want to see net neutrality anchored in law (as opposed to mere regulation) - although you're right about it being a bi-partisan issue.
In fact, the problem all along has been getting ordinary, non-technical people to understand the issues net neutrality was originally adopted by the FCC to address. They don't understand computer internetworking. Nor do they want to understand it. Technology scares them - and, despite the enormous number of stupid people with smart phones in the world, they mostly want it to stay in the background, where it belongs.
And it's not that they're entirely wrong about that, either. The only experiences the majority have with "technology" are bad ones - the kind that force them to seek technical support. Which, let's face it, is about as welcome to the ordinary schmoe as a visit to the dentist.
And often just as painful for them.
So any issue that requires them to learn about stuff they don't want to have to know about is a non-starter as a political issue, regardless of how crucial the policies that shape it may be to everyone.
Unfortunately, average Americans hate the thought of having to read anything more demanding than a McDonald's menu. Those who approach them with the clear intent of educating and informing them on technical issues are anathema to them. It doesn't matter whether the subject is net neutrality, online privacy, personal computing security, or the advantages of any given browser over any other browser, because they're every bit as enthusiastic about hearing from Jehovah's Witnesses as they are about listening to technological policy advocates.
It sucks for thee and me, because those determinedly-passive consumers are the ones who choose our legislators - and they, in turn (most of whom are no more technically inclined than their constituents), are the ones who actually determnine the shape of these policy issues about which we care so passionately...
Why fuck around replacing Steam's DRM.dll files or emulating Steam's DRM master server when you can just buy the same games DRM-free from GoG and Humble?
Say what?
Every major titleI've bought from Humble basically amounts to a redemption code for Steam.
If you're talking about indie games, sure, you can download and play many of those as stand-alone, no-DRM-check, offline purchases. But all the marquee titles require you to have a Steam subscription in order to download and play them.
I'd prefer that not be the case, but I see no sign that Steam will be going away any time soon. So, unless civilization collapses and the Internet goes bye-bye in my lifetime (which is unlikely, given my age and lifestyle), I'm not particularly worried about that.
And, as for using DRM cracks, unless you personally know and trust the cracker, you should take it as a given that any crack you download will thoughtfully include one or more malware add-ons for your inconvenience.
The good old days of cracking groups competing to release the first, best crack of a new title are long gone. Now it's a commercial venture, where ransomware gangs and botnet herders hire crackers to code bait for trusting idiots to voluntarily download and install their malwarez...
Why again is their stuff popular and not an obscure 3rd rate-choice as would deserve to be on merit?
Because, up until late last year, it was impossible to play marquee games - especially MMORPG's - on Linux, and OSX only runs on Apple's overpriced, proprietary hardware.
Nor would Adobe's DTP and graphics programs run on Linux. The same is true for Avid's ProTools DAW. Those are the industry standards for graphics and audio recording professionals.
And, yes, I'm aware there are perfectly cromulent DTP, graphics, and DAW programs that run very well on Linux - but those are not the programs in use by professional, commercial production houses. To play with the big boys, you have to use the toys the big boys use.
Oh, and MS Word is the publishing industry standard, too, so there's that. (Yes, yes, LibreOffice, right? Wrong. LibreOffice documents saved in "Word format" render all kinds of fsked up in both the Mac and Windows versions of Word, which is what every publishing house of consequence uses. So does every freelance editor I've ever worked with. Once again, the industry dictates what tools you can use, if you want to write professionally.)
Believe me when I tell you that I hate being locked in to Redmond's crapware OS - but I live in the phenomenological universe. I therefore acknowledge that there are things over which I have no control. Like the omnipresence of stupid people with smart phones, they're just unavoidable aspects of 21st century reality.
Being forced to use Windows because the industries in which I work and play have dictated I use it (or the only alternative - and I sure can't afford the Apple tax) is just something I've learned to accept.
What files should I check for? How can I remove it myself? All this hue and outcry about hundreds of thousands of installed backdoors but Kapersky won't say what files to look for?
Kaspersky has made available a downloadable tool to determine whether the MAC address of your machine is on the list of addresses this malware targets:
https://kas.pr/shadowhammer
What you have to understand about Advanced Persistent Threat malware in general is that it is all designed to be exceedingly hard to detect, and as difficult as possible to remove, so there aren't any files you can "check for," nor is there a real possibility that you can remove it yourself.
Although Kaspersky has attributed this particular piece of nastiness to a "hacker" (which is very probably a whole team of nation-state programmers, rather than a single individual) code-named BARIUM (the all-caps designator leads me to suspect that the name was bestowed by the NSA), who has been responsible for creating other, successful APT attacks in the past, the good news is that, although the original infection module was apparently very-widely-distributed (I'd go so far as to predict that every ASUS computer that was connected to the Internet prior to its discovery was infected), it was actually targeted at a specific set of around 600 MAC addresses. If your machine was not on that list, that piece of code might still be lurking on it somewhere, but it will not have downloaded and installed the really nasty back-door downloader and additional modules intended for the machines which it targeted.
As the owner of an ASUS Zenbook, this is a threat I take seriously - but the fact that it seems to have actually been aimed at a specific set of presumably-high-value target machines indicates that mine was most probably not among them. (I'm just a novelist, without any connections to the intel community, or any community likely to be of interest to such a penetration campaign - and I sure as hell don't have enough money to make it worthwhile to target me for financial reasons!)
We will learn more next month, when Kaspersky will release their full report on what it's calling ShadowHammer at an international security conference in Singapore. (That delay is likely to allow ASUS and/or Microsoft time to develop and distribute countermeasures, since the full report will, as is typical of Kaspersky's reports on APTs, undoubtedly include a sufficiently-detailed analysis of this malware to allow other bad actors to duplicate it, and/or create variants of it that could widen its reach to machines from other manufacturers.)
Unless you're a spook or a diplomat who drives an ASUS machine, it's probably not a direct threat to you, personally, though...
It seems to me the real question is, "Are you deliberately, proudly ignorant?
I'd put the flat-earthers, the moon landing hoaxers, the biblical literalists, and a myriad or three of other, similar-minded advocates of fairy stories and flat-out, made-up shit in the same, splintery box.
I can attest that it's been 45 years. I can remember the original Blackmoor and Grayhawk books being used by a gamemaster at a local game store. Part of the original fun of the game was the gamemasters, trying to juggle the maps and adventures to create a narrative and the players taking that narrative to places the gamemaster had never envisioned.
Blackmore? Greyhawk?
Hell, I still have my original, white-box set of the three brown pamphlets!
Come to that, I still have my velo-bound copy of the Chainmail rules...
(Posting as AC only so as not to undo prior upmods in this thread.)
The September 1999 cover story for the late, great Boardwatch Magazine was my interview with Sir Dystic, which took place at the house in the Oakland Hills he shared with a half-dozen other members of the Cult of the Dead Cow.
Note that the link points to my own website, because no other web archive of the magazine from that period exists, afaik. But here's the Caltech Library citation for the article, in case you have any doubts about its provenance...
Another risk in laser eye surgery is extreme dryness. My eyes are already on the dry side - damned if I'm going to gamble on having to depend on drops for the rest of my life, in addition to the posibility of poor night vision, or worse if the procedure goes sideways.
I can't even wear contacts - even when I ignore the irritation, all the ones I've tried cause my eyes to get gummy and blurry. I've resigned myself to wearing glasses, (and getting hosed because of it), for the rest of my life.
There's a very common procedure that Lasik surgeons perform on their patients (at extra cost, of course) where they install lachrimal plugs in the tear duct drainage channels. They keep the surface of the patient's eyes moist by preventing both natural and artificial tears from draining into the sinuses.
If you are uncertain whether you want to live with such an implant, you could have the collagen-based punctal variety installed. They work exactly the same as the permanent, silicone-based ones, except that the collagen dissolves in a few weeks. If you liked the results you obtained with them, you could opt to have silicone punctal plugs installed (as a separate procedure, at additional cost, of course), or try intracanalicular plugs, which are inserted more deeply into the drainage duct (and are thus less likely to fall out), but which can, in rare cases, cause nasty complications.
Since you already suffer from dry eyes, you're probably wise to pass on Lasik itself, but lachrimal plugs may help alleviate the dryness, and any Lasik-qualified surgeon will have lots of experience in installing them...
The only even-faintly-legitimate source you cite is cepr.net, which is a self-described "progressive" think tank.
Prompting Can'tNot to object:
I'm shocked. I know that the Center for Economic and Policy Research has been described by others as progressive, but I can't imagine them describing themselves that way. That just isn't done.
Technically speaking, you are correct. However, On CEPR's About us page, under the heading Affiliations, they list only one link, to EARN, which describes itself as "a nationwide network of research, policy, and public engagement organizations fighting, state by state, for an economy that works for everyone."
So, although you're correct that CEPR does not explicitly describe itself as a progressive organization, the fact that their only affiliate link is to an organization whose mission statement is an unqualified commitment to one of the key goals of U.S. progressives (and one that is absolutely not shared by any rightist organization), that seems to me to be a sufficiently-clear statement of an underlying progressivist philosophy on CEPR's part to leave no doubt about their willingness overtly to embrace it.
But, you are correct that they don't explicitly state that they consider themselves to be a progressive organization, so, in fairness, I'm compelled to withdraw that statement, and I thank you for pointing out my overreach in that regard.
FWIW - I identify as a "radical centrist" - and given that, when I lived in the SF Bay Area, I was called a fascist on more than one occasion, yet, now that I live in the heart of Trump country, I've been called a commie more than once, I think that self-ascribed "radical centrist" label is pretty much bang on...
Chavez took the oil money and used it to modernize his country instead of pocketing it all for himself. That's up there with George Washington turning down the position of King of America for WTF moments in the history of leadership. And yeah, I'm sure Chavez did a lot of awful things to get in and stay in his position. Venezuela was a hell hole before the oil money, but the fact that he didn't just keep it all for himself and his cronies (they way the Sauds do) deserves praise.
And to say he "modernized" Venezuela is equally wrong. (The Telegraph article I linked to mentions in passing that the streets of the town in which Chavez was born are still paved with dirt, for instance.) What he did do is to subsidize he country's poor - especially their costs for food and fuel - using state oil revenues, which won him their love and undying support. It's probably fair to claim that he was less corrupt than the House of Saud, but, then again, that's not really saying much.
Chavez was a very clever authoritatian. Maduro is simply a thug - and a particularly dimwitted thug, at that...
America is responsible to a large extent for what is happening in Venezuela and has long been the driving force in regime change in Iran, often through extremely direct intervention. We can't fix China (although we could stop enabling them so much) but we are responsible for much of the mess in the other countries you mentioned.
Let's see now:
According to Wikipedia, venezuelanalysis.com has been funded by the Venezuelan goverment since it was founded in 2007 (when Hugo Chavez was president), despite claiming on its website since 2014 (after Maduro took over) that it is funded exclusively via donations from its readers. And the wife of its founder, Greg Wilpert, was appointed Consul General of Venezuela's New York consulate in 2008. So, it's hardly an objective or disinterested source.
Wikipedia's article on mintpressnews.com highlights several ongoing controversies over issues of journalistic integrity (including falsely attributing co-authorship of an article on nerve gas attacks on Syrian citizens to a respected journalist who denies having co-written that article, and who has repeatedly demanded her name be removed from it, as well as falsely reporting an annual Shiite religious pilgrimage to Kerbala as a "march against ISIS"). The publication's masthead prominently features conspiracy mongers (including a strident proponent of the false and defamatory claim that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged, with actors hired to play the part of grieving parents, and that no children were actually killed there). Its sources of funding are undisclosed, although Mnar Muhawesh, its editor, now claims to be its sole investor, and that it is self-financing, via ad revenue (an extremely dubious claim, as anyone who is familiar with the paucity of legitimate advertising income available for online-only journalism ventures will attest). Her claims in this regard are impossible to verify, because, since 2015, she's made it impossible to contact her.
The only even-faintly-legitimate source you cite is cepr.net, which is a self-described "progressive" think tank. But the actual link you provide is to an editorial piece, which is, by definition, an expression of the author's personal opinion, not actual reportage.
In sum, you give us two propaganda outlets and an opinion piece in support of your argument that the USA is the party most responsible for "repressing" the people of Venezuela.
Now, I'll grant you that we embargo oil imports from Venezuela, in continuation of a policy that dates back to the G. W. Bush administration. That, in itself really doesn't affect the country's economy, because it has plenty of other customers elsewhere. What does, very much, affect it is the crash in world oil prices over the past 3 years or so - and that is entirely due to Arab countries (led by Saudi Arabia) overproducing. So, supply and demand is the cause of Venezuela's financial woes.
Well, that, and Maduro's insistence on printing money in an attempt to make up for the revenue shortfall, which has resulted in a disastrous hyperinflationary spiral that rivals Weimar Germany or modern Zimbabwe.
Chavez was a charismatic charlatan, who was able to provide Venezuela's poor with a whole range of "free" benefits only because oil revenues were at historic highs during his reign (again, driven purely by supply and demand - although rampant speculation by commodity traders had a significant hand in that). Maduro, by contr
Elsevier has been paywalling scientific research - most, if not all of which was paid for in part or in whole by taxpayers throughout the developed world - since 1947. It's way past time that what amounts to its systematic theft of what should be completely public data came to a screeching, grinding, clattering halt.
Yes, yes, it's also been responsible for any number of unethical practices, including offering Amazon gift vouchers to researchers who agreed to give the company a 5-star rating on the platform, and publishing sham journals, but that's not the main reason it deserves to die. Nor is its campaign to persuade governments and academic institutions alike to shut down open access publication of scientific research, not just by lobbying for legislative restrictions, but by filing lawsuits against universities for allowing their academic researchers to publish open-access copies of their own research papers on their employers' servers.
No, Elsevier deserves to die because it has deliberately misused its virtual monopoly on academic publishing to prevent both researchers and the public from reading an enormous library of published studies, access to which is vital for new research to be conducted in a staggering number of disciplines. It should die because it insists on standing in the way of progress.
If the UC system doesn't allow Elsevier to bribe it into reversing its decision to divorce itself from the company's extortion-based business model, I suspect the remainder of the USA's public universities will swiftly follow its lead. I certainly hope they do - because every other college and university on the planet will undoubtedly follow suit.
The very next step after that should be that the state and national governments which provided funding for the researchers whose articles are still locked behind Elsevier's paywall demand the company surrender them to the public domain.
And fuck Elsevier's shareholders. They've been gorging at the public trough for far too long, as it stands...
Sure enough, unfamiliar music is a distraction. Unfamiliar anything is a distraction.
OTOH familiar music doesn't demand your attention, but it does cover external noise and provides a rhythm to work by.
Most everyone I know who listens to music at work uses familiar playlists. Even letting YouTube, etc. chose the music will play familiar music.
No studies of the effect on concentration of familiar vs unfamilar music have been done, afaik.
OTOH (and this is purely anecdotal, of course), as a writer who is also a musician, I can't listen to music of any kind when I'm writing. Familiar, unfamiliar, with lyrics or without, it distracts me to the point where I can't concentrate effectively, because the musical part of my brain keeps diverting my focus to elements of whatever I'm listening to (melody, counterpoint, individual instrumental lines, etc.). It can be as familiar and simplistic as a nursery rhyme, and it will still reliably interfere with my writing process.
The style of music will impact everyone differently.
The current mood of the person and the tasks to accomplish will also alter the impact of the music.
Simply going with "lyrics that can be understood, lyrics in another language and no lyrics at all" is an incredibly short-sighted choice of parameters for such a study.
Because judging an experiment's design from a xerox of a xerox of a dumbed-down-in-the-first-place press release about it lends your critique something more than a little short of credibility.
Then again, this is Slashdot, so I'm going to go with Door # 2...
reactions that based on some reactionary ideology that's far from uncommon online (The Force Awakens sucks because a lady with latent Force powers beat up a couple of guys with a space stick).
He then responded to that assertion by opining:
You know, I'm not sure anyone actually believed that. I think it's entirely a contrived excuse, or so oversimplified as to be wrong.
No. No, it's really not.
While The Last Jedi was still in theaters, some unemployed basement-dweller spent considerable effort to create a de-feminized fanedit of the movie.
If you're still determined to defend your thesis, you might first want to visit the Reddit discussion page about what has come to be known as the Chauvinist Cut. Or you could "treat" yourself to mundanemike's fawning SJWs lose their mind over THE LAST JEDI: THE DE-FEMINIZED FANEDIT review of the CC (the Youtube version is the same video he posted to the Daily Caller website, btw). Be sure to at least read the commments that other incels have posted praising his review's "takedown" of SJWs.
I could cite a Godzillion examples of similar foaming, reactionary rants about the original movie, the Chauvinist Cut, and the campaign to downvote it on Rotten Tomatoes, but all you really need as evidence is Bleedingcool's 2017 story about the Facebook troll who claimed to have written a bot he used to massively downvote The Last Jedi on RT to understand that your skepticism is baseless.
Posting a software fix for this "very rare" occurrence - that has happened in at least 155 reported instances in New Zealand alone, according to TFS - isn't going to do Lime any good, at this point. It's going to face product liability suits, personal injury suits, and class-action suits (despite the laughable prohibition against filing or participating in class action suits in Section 5.8 of its User Agreement, and other language restricting its users available forum for remedies to binding arbitration, and - rather hilariously, IMnsHO - attempting to limit Lime's maximum financial liability for any injury a user might suffer to a princely $100) that are unquestionably going to be financially ruinous for the company.
Fatally so, because it's a venture-capital-funded startup, and the lawyers for Uber, Google Ventures, and other firms that have financed it to the tune of more than $300 million thus far are undoubtedly going to advise their respective management teams that it's now time to cut their losses, write off their investment in Lime, and apply the losses to offset taxes on companies they've funded in the past that are now producing actual profits, rather than liabilities.
The thing that gets me is how the idiots running Lime's software development team decided that rolling out untested code to their deployed fleet of vehicles could in any way have been considered a good idea. I mean, it's one thing for Mark Zuckerberg to flog his coders to "move fast and break things." Bugs in Facebook's code have no potential to physically injure or kill its users. Motor vehicles operated by biological humans on non-virtual streets, in real-world traffic conditions. are a completely different matter. They entail a whole different order of risks: both to their riders' lives, physical health, and safety, and to the company's own existence, should it be found legally liable for any injuries suffered by the former due to its employees' negligence.
And it almost certainly will be held liable. All a plaintiff's lawyers have to establish is that the code that caused the brake lock-ups had not been sufficiently-well tested (if, indeed, it was tested at all) before it was rolled out to the fleet of scooters that Lime's customers paid it to rent, and it's "Game over! Thank you for playing," because I can't see any court in any country ruling that the company's attempt to duck liability for its negligence via the ham-handed provisions of its User Agreement as enforceable, or in any way reasonable or fair.
Disclaimer: IANAL. If Lime's broken-ass software has caused you to sustain an injury of any kind, I strongly advise you to consult an actual, admitted-to-practice-before-the-bar-type barrister about it - preferably one who has a long record of winning product liability cases against companies with a history of employing predatory user agreements to try to prevent their customers from holding them responsible for their negligence...
guruevi stated position of the scientific community on the currently-unfolding global climate change as:
Our current model predicts a massive change, we don't know what that means or what will happen, but we probably have to do something
Mmm... sort of.
The thing is, we do, in fact, know what that means, and what will happen, because it has happened before, at the end of the Permian Period, when a massive increase in greenhouse gas emissions created a cascade of events that eventually caused 70% of terrestrial species and as much as 96% of marine species to go extinct over a period of no more than 100,000 years.
What we don't know - because the increase in CO2 levels at the onset of the P-T extinction occured much, much more slowly than is the case in the current event - is how quickly what happened a quarter-billion years ago will happen in the current era. Back then, it may have taken as long as 20,000-50,000 years for CO2 to accumulate to sufficient levels to cause the ocean to warm up enough to melt the massive deposits of methane clathrates in its abyssal depths. That - along with the melting of arctic and antarctic permafrost - released an enormous quantity of methane into the atmosphere over a very short time. In turn, that sudden, massive, global methane release had two effects that were catastrophic for land species and downright apocalyptic for oceanic ones. First, the oceans abruptly became both acidic enough to dissolve the shells of bivalves, nautiluses, crustaceans, corals, and other exoskeletal creatures, and, at the same time, their upper layers also became highly anoxic to a sufficient depth to smother pretty much all the icthyoid and gelatinous ones. Secondly, temperatures on land soared to levels that killed off those species that were unable either to migrate to more suitable climes, or that were dependent for key parts of their food web on the species that had succumbed directly in response to the increased temperatures.
We also know that, even though the Great Dying began with a snap ice age, by its end, global temperatures had increased beyond the pre-ice-age average by approximately 10 degrees Centigrade. That was enough to completely melt the planet's ice caps, which led to a significant increase in global sea levels (by as much as 100 meters) and downright biblical floods, as a consequence.
Because CO2 persists in the atmosphere for 20,000 years or more under current conditions (and which will likely stick around still longer as the world's rain forests and wetland environments - which are critical CO2 sinks - continue to disappear), even once we, as a species, achieve zero net CO2 emissions (assuming, of course, that we ever actually do so), the climate-warming effects of the accumulated atmospheric load will continue to push global average temperatures upward for quite literally thousands of years to come.
And, given that the Arctic is already experiencing unprecedented methane emissions, both from deposits released by melting permafrost and from what does, in fact, appear to be melting clathrates at relatively shallow depths, the same kind of abrupt, massive atmospheric methane infusion that caused peak extinction in the P-T event may occur considerably sooner in the current one than climate models of even a few years ago predicted.
So, in broad terms, what is going to happen is well-known. The currently-unanswered questions are: how soon will it happen, and what will happen to our technological/industrial civilization as a result?
So, here's the good news, such as it is: although the climate - and the global ecology that depends on it - is going to radically change, and the e
No, they don't. They propose different hypotheses. The set of validated (by measurement, observation, proof, experiment, reasoning picked apart) hypotheses is what constitutes a theory.
You're so close to being right.
The distinction between hypothesis and theory in science is not a clear, bright line - and, for the most part, scientific theories are always subject to revision in light of new evidence.
That's because the scientific method is not about proving anything other than that a given hypothesis cannot be true, because experimental evidence proves it incorrect. It doesn't matter how many experiments have lent support to a given hypothesis in the past - all it takes is a single one that conclusively demonstrates that it's wrong to invalidate it. It then is discarded in favor of the next-best alternative (regardless of whether that alternative is an older hypothesis that has not yet been proven wrong, a revised version of the same hypothesis, or is a brand-new, minty-fresh one that is consistent with all the evidence to date).
The graduation of a hypothesis to the status of scientific theory is a gradual process, and one that can happen only by (wait for it!) consensus. The greater the number and variety of different experiments that fail to disprove it, the more the scientific community comes to agree that a hypothesis should be considered as reliable enough for practical purposes to deserve to be treated as if it were correct.
The thing is, though, that status is never set in stone. Take Newtonian physics, for example. For three centuries, Newton's theories withstood experimental efforts to disprove them so reliably that they came to be regarded as actual laws. (And, I hasten to add, they're still reliable enough to be treated that way by engineers for quotidian, practical purposes.) But then Einstein proposed his General Theory of Relativity, and Newtonian physics went out the window - at least at astronomical scales. It was an actual revolution in scientific understanding of how physics works in our universe, and general relativity achieved the status of theory in what was pretty much record time, because every experiment that attempted to disprove it at the macro level failed miserably.
But it broke down at the nano scale. There, accumulated observational data poked progressively bigger holes in Einstein's theory, until it became undeniable that Something Else was going on.
Enter quantum mechanics.
Einstein hated it - and it wasn't because it contradicted his own theory. It was because the notion of what he called "spooky action at a distance" offended his sense of order. Uncertainty, superposition of states, entanglement (the "spooky action" to which Einstein's sarcastic comment referred), and the fundamental randomness of the nature of the universe at the smallest scale bothered him so deeply that he famously thundered, "God does not play dice with the universe."
But he was wrong about that. At the quantum scale, as an ever-increasing body of experimental evidence has established, randomness and uncertainty are inescapable - to the point where, at the Planck scale, the current model of quantum theory holds that "virtual particles" actually blink into and out of existence in such profusion that the fabric of reality itself consists of a so-called "quantum foam." (That bit has not yet been tested by experiment, mostly because we simply don't yet have the tools to conduct direct observation of such incredibly tiny phenomena. In fact, given the ever-increasing effects of quantum uncertainty as we approach the Planck scale, it may be physically impossible for us ever to directly observe and measure those virtual particles. The best evidence of their existence in the real world may forever remain indirect - which doesn't mean the model is wrong, or that won't earn the status of theory, however.)
There's an ever-growing mountain of evidence that both general relativity and quantum mechanics accurately model
Insulin has changed significantly over the years, and the prices for newer products are therefore higher. The newest generation of insulin is far safer and more effective than the stuff being made back in the 1930s. If you want some of the older stuff you can get it way cheaper in many markets.
You're purposefully misunderstanding one of Kiuas's key points here, presumably in order to pimp your "free-market capitalism must not be questioned" philosophy. The fact is that the 200% average increase in the price of insulin over the past 2 years applies to the "newest generation of insulin" - Novolog, Lantus, etc. - and all but Basaglar (which is a "biosimilar" to Lantus) - have been on the market for well over a decade. There is ZERO reason why their prices should increase, because the costs to manufacture and distribute have not increased (other than via inflation, which remains at near-historic lows in the western world) over that period.
It's greed that's driving the increases. Period.
You can wave your hands all you like. It doesn't change that simple fact.
Why that greed has been so amplified in recent years is the real question. I think the current USA administration's attitude towards regulation and oversight has a great deal to do with it. So does the quest to attract institutional shareholders (the only kind that's left, if you discount day traders). The careerism of MBAs, whose future prospects are tied to delivering sufficiently "enhanced shareholder value" to their present employers to make them attractive hires for other employers (presumably at higher compensation rates, with better perks), is likely also to have played a major part in those extortionate pricing decisions.
The market for insulin in the developed world is a growing one, as Type II diabetes has become endemic in its population - but achieving executive superstardom requires producing significantly-greater-than-average profitability to make you stand out in the crowd. Jacking your products' prices up by 200% over 2 years achieves that goal relatively painlessly - for your stockholders.
And the fact that your competitors immediately follow suit only makes it more imperative that you continue to extort ever greater profits from the consumers of your product whose only choice is to pay your Danegeld - because insurance company "formularies" (lists of drugs for which they will pay) deprive the consumers they insure of the choice to switch to a different medication.
Not that that would make any real difference to those consumers, because every alternative choice has also tripled in price...
Slashdot Mirror
According to the National Safety Council, texting while driving is by far the most dangerous way to use a phone while driving - but even talking on the phone distracts drivers so badly that they can miss up to half of hazards as important as red lights and pedestrians crossing the road in front of them.
Note, too, that their tests have established that texting only while stopped at red lights still leaves drivers distracted for nearly half a minute after they put their phones down and resume driving.
That's why I only use my phone for turn-by-turn navigation by voice when I'm behind the wheel - and I input my destination and start the directions before I leave my driveway or the parking space from which I depart.
When I'm driving, I let all calls go to voicemail, as well, because none of them can possibly be as critical as the task of driving defensively. I take my responsibility for controlling a ton or more of mass moving at high velocity among other such vehicles (that I always assume are being driven by irresponsible cretins) as seriously as if my life, and the lives of my passengers, other motorists and their passengers, and pedestrians and bystanders depended on it.
It's also the reason I merge onto highways at the current speed of traffic on that road - because entering a freeway at a lower speed than the vehicles already on it is dangerous. That's why I survey traffic conditions on the road I'm entering as I'm negotiating the onramp, rather than blindly assuming that the other drivers will courteously leave me room to merge and graciously adjust their own speed to accomodate mine.
They won't.
You should always assume that every other driver on the road is actively suicidal - and determined to take you with him. It's the only way to be even marginally safe.
Other than taking off and nuking them from orbit, that is ...
Krishnoid enthused:
Finally, a real-live chimera!
Multiple human chimeras have been identified in the past, going back to 1953 ...
Joce640k inquired:
Can't they adopt one?
People who have never actually looked into the reality of the adoption process ask that question as if by reflex.
In the USA, the average time it takes to actually adopt a child is seven years from the time you first submit your application. And the cost to adopt varies widely, depending, in part, on which state the prospective parents reside in, and whether the child they adopt is a resident of that state, a different state, or another country.
Greece actually passed a sweeping adoption reform law last year that has considerably reduced both the cost and the legal complexity of adoption of Greek children by Greek citizens, so it's now easier and less expensive there than it is in the USA. But there are still many people who insist on their own, biological children for a whole range of reasons, including cultural tradtions, religious custom, and personal, psychological issues.
My point is that, while it's an easy question to ask, it's a lot harder and more complex to answer it than most people even begin to imagine ...
Freischutz quoted TFS's headline:
Mitch McConnell: Democrats' Net Neutrality Bill is 'Dead on Arrival' in Senate
Then went on to observe:
This is what the Democrats need to do, go down the list of popular bills congress should pass, send them to the senate so the electorate can watch them go down in flames thanks to Mitch McConnell. Lather, rinse repeat until the 2020 election and shine the spotlight on Mitch McConnell every time he shoots one of these popular bills down. Make him the poster boy for the demise of every reform, every popular bill imaginable. It's the best way to make his 'no to everything, it's my way or the highway' policy work against him. There are tons of people on both the right and left wing who want to seen net-neutrality anchored in law and for either Rep. or Dem. politicians to be against net neutrality is not likely to be a vote winner on either side.
The problem is that there really aren't "tons of people" who want to see net neutrality anchored in law (as opposed to mere regulation) - although you're right about it being a bi-partisan issue.
In fact, the problem all along has been getting ordinary, non-technical people to understand the issues net neutrality was originally adopted by the FCC to address. They don't understand computer internetworking. Nor do they want to understand it. Technology scares them - and, despite the enormous number of stupid people with smart phones in the world, they mostly want it to stay in the background, where it belongs.
And it's not that they're entirely wrong about that, either. The only experiences the majority have with "technology" are bad ones - the kind that force them to seek technical support. Which, let's face it, is about as welcome to the ordinary schmoe as a visit to the dentist.
And often just as painful for them.
So any issue that requires them to learn about stuff they don't want to have to know about is a non-starter as a political issue, regardless of how crucial the policies that shape it may be to everyone.
Unfortunately, average Americans hate the thought of having to read anything more demanding than a McDonald's menu. Those who approach them with the clear intent of educating and informing them on technical issues are anathema to them. It doesn't matter whether the subject is net neutrality, online privacy, personal computing security, or the advantages of any given browser over any other browser, because they're every bit as enthusiastic about hearing from Jehovah's Witnesses as they are about listening to technological policy advocates.
It sucks for thee and me, because those determinedly-passive consumers are the ones who choose our legislators - and they, in turn (most of whom are no more technically inclined than their constituents), are the ones who actually determnine the shape of these policy issues about which we care so passionately ...
scdeimos inquired:
Why fuck around replacing Steam's DRM .dll files or emulating Steam's DRM master server when you can just buy the same games DRM-free from GoG and Humble?
Say what?
Every major titleI've bought from Humble basically amounts to a redemption code for Steam.
If you're talking about indie games, sure, you can download and play many of those as stand-alone, no-DRM-check, offline purchases. But all the marquee titles require you to have a Steam subscription in order to download and play them.
I'd prefer that not be the case, but I see no sign that Steam will be going away any time soon. So, unless civilization collapses and the Internet goes bye-bye in my lifetime (which is unlikely, given my age and lifestyle), I'm not particularly worried about that.
And, as for using DRM cracks, unless you personally know and trust the cracker, you should take it as a given that any crack you download will thoughtfully include one or more malware add-ons for your inconvenience.
The good old days of cracking groups competing to release the first, best crack of a new title are long gone. Now it's a commercial venture, where ransomware gangs and botnet herders hire crackers to code bait for trusting idiots to voluntarily download and install their malwarez ...
gweihir inquired:
Why again is their stuff popular and not an obscure 3rd rate-choice as would deserve to be on merit?
Because, up until late last year, it was impossible to play marquee games - especially MMORPG's - on Linux, and OSX only runs on Apple's overpriced, proprietary hardware.
Nor would Adobe's DTP and graphics programs run on Linux. The same is true for Avid's ProTools DAW. Those are the industry standards for graphics and audio recording professionals.
And, yes, I'm aware there are perfectly cromulent DTP, graphics, and DAW programs that run very well on Linux - but those are not the programs in use by professional, commercial production houses. To play with the big boys, you have to use the toys the big boys use.
Oh, and MS Word is the publishing industry standard, too, so there's that. (Yes, yes, LibreOffice, right? Wrong. LibreOffice documents saved in "Word format" render all kinds of fsked up in both the Mac and Windows versions of Word, which is what every publishing house of consequence uses. So does every freelance editor I've ever worked with. Once again, the industry dictates what tools you can use, if you want to write professionally.)
Believe me when I tell you that I hate being locked in to Redmond's crapware OS - but I live in the phenomenological universe. I therefore acknowledge that there are things over which I have no control. Like the omnipresence of stupid people with smart phones, they're just unavoidable aspects of 21st century reality.
Being forced to use Windows because the industries in which I work and play have dictated I use it (or the only alternative - and I sure can't afford the Apple tax) is just something I've learned to accept.
Albeit resentfully ...
the_skywise inquired:
What files should I check for? How can I remove it myself? All this hue and outcry about hundreds of thousands of installed backdoors but Kapersky won't say what files to look for?
Kaspersky has made available a downloadable tool to determine whether the MAC address of your machine is on the list of addresses this malware targets:
https://kas.pr/shadowhammer
What you have to understand about Advanced Persistent Threat malware in general is that it is all designed to be exceedingly hard to detect, and as difficult as possible to remove, so there aren't any files you can "check for," nor is there a real possibility that you can remove it yourself.
Although Kaspersky has attributed this particular piece of nastiness to a "hacker" (which is very probably a whole team of nation-state programmers, rather than a single individual) code-named BARIUM (the all-caps designator leads me to suspect that the name was bestowed by the NSA), who has been responsible for creating other, successful APT attacks in the past, the good news is that, although the original infection module was apparently very-widely-distributed (I'd go so far as to predict that every ASUS computer that was connected to the Internet prior to its discovery was infected), it was actually targeted at a specific set of around 600 MAC addresses. If your machine was not on that list, that piece of code might still be lurking on it somewhere, but it will not have downloaded and installed the really nasty back-door downloader and additional modules intended for the machines which it targeted.
As the owner of an ASUS Zenbook, this is a threat I take seriously - but the fact that it seems to have actually been aimed at a specific set of presumably-high-value target machines indicates that mine was most probably not among them. (I'm just a novelist, without any connections to the intel community, or any community likely to be of interest to such a penetration campaign - and I sure as hell don't have enough money to make it worthwhile to target me for financial reasons!)
We will learn more next month, when Kaspersky will release their full report on what it's calling ShadowHammer at an international security conference in Singapore. (That delay is likely to allow ASUS and/or Microsoft time to develop and distribute countermeasures, since the full report will, as is typical of Kaspersky's reports on APTs, undoubtedly include a sufficiently-detailed analysis of this malware to allow other bad actors to duplicate it, and/or create variants of it that could widen its reach to machines from other manufacturers.)
Unless you're a spook or a diplomat who drives an ASUS machine, it's probably not a direct threat to you, personally, though ...
mhotchin stated:
These people are *wilfully ignorant*, and their actions put *other people* in danger.
Would someone with points please mod the parent post +1 Insightful ... ?
Andtalath proposed:
So, basically the question is, are you ignorant?
You're close.
It seems to me the real question is, "Are you deliberately, proudly ignorant?
I'd put the flat-earthers, the moon landing hoaxers, the biblical literalists, and a myriad or three of other, similar-minded advocates of fairy stories and flat-out, made-up shit in the same, splintery box.
And drop the box into the Marianas Trench ...
Damn - I forgot to check the "post Anonymously" box.
My bad ...
Antique Geekmeister reminisced:
I can attest that it's been 45 years. I can remember the original Blackmoor and Grayhawk books being used by a gamemaster at a local game store. Part of the original fun of the game was the gamemasters, trying to juggle the maps and adventures to create a narrative and the players taking that narrative to places the gamemaster had never envisioned.
Blackmore? Greyhawk?
Hell, I still have my original, white-box set of the three brown pamphlets!
Come to that, I still have my velo-bound copy of the Chainmail rules ...
(Posting as AC only so as not to undo prior upmods in this thread.)
--
Check out my novel ...
The September 1999 cover story for the late, great Boardwatch Magazine was my interview with Sir Dystic, which took place at the house in the Oakland Hills he shared with a half-dozen other members of the Cult of the Dead Cow.
Note that the link points to my own website, because no other web archive of the magazine from that period exists, afaik. But here's the Caltech Library citation for the article, in case you have any doubts about its provenance ...
jenningsthecat pointed out:
Another risk in laser eye surgery is extreme dryness. My eyes are already on the dry side - damned if I'm going to gamble on having to depend on drops for the rest of my life, in addition to the posibility of poor night vision, or worse if the procedure goes sideways.
I can't even wear contacts - even when I ignore the irritation, all the ones I've tried cause my eyes to get gummy and blurry. I've resigned myself to wearing glasses, (and getting hosed because of it), for the rest of my life.
There's a very common procedure that Lasik surgeons perform on their patients (at extra cost, of course) where they install lachrimal plugs in the tear duct drainage channels. They keep the surface of the patient's eyes moist by preventing both natural and artificial tears from draining into the sinuses.
If you are uncertain whether you want to live with such an implant, you could have the collagen-based punctal variety installed. They work exactly the same as the permanent, silicone-based ones, except that the collagen dissolves in a few weeks. If you liked the results you obtained with them, you could opt to have silicone punctal plugs installed (as a separate procedure, at additional cost, of course), or try intracanalicular plugs, which are inserted more deeply into the drainage duct (and are thus less likely to fall out), but which can, in rare cases, cause nasty complications.
Since you already suffer from dry eyes, you're probably wise to pass on Lasik itself, but lachrimal plugs may help alleviate the dryness, and any Lasik-qualified surgeon will have lots of experience in installing them ...
I averred:
The only even-faintly-legitimate source you cite is cepr.net, which is a self-described "progressive" think tank.
Prompting Can'tNot to object:
I'm shocked. I know that the Center for Economic and Policy Research has been described by others as progressive, but I can't imagine them describing themselves that way. That just isn't done.
Technically speaking, you are correct. However, On CEPR's About us page, under the heading Affiliations, they list only one link, to EARN, which describes itself as "a nationwide network of research, policy, and public engagement organizations fighting, state by state, for an economy that works for everyone."
So, although you're correct that CEPR does not explicitly describe itself as a progressive organization, the fact that their only affiliate link is to an organization whose mission statement is an unqualified commitment to one of the key goals of U.S. progressives (and one that is absolutely not shared by any rightist organization), that seems to me to be a sufficiently-clear statement of an underlying progressivist philosophy on CEPR's part to leave no doubt about their willingness overtly to embrace it.
But, you are correct that they don't explicitly state that they consider themselves to be a progressive organization, so, in fairness, I'm compelled to withdraw that statement, and I thank you for pointing out my overreach in that regard.
FWIW - I identify as a "radical centrist" - and given that, when I lived in the SF Bay Area, I was called a fascist on more than one occasion, yet, now that I live in the heart of Trump country, I've been called a commie more than once, I think that self-ascribed "radical centrist" label is pretty much bang on ...
rsilvergun opined:
Chavez took the oil money and used it to modernize his country instead of pocketing it all for himself. That's up there with George Washington turning down the position of King of America for WTF moments in the history of leadership. And yeah, I'm sure Chavez did a lot of awful things to get in and stay in his position. Venezuela was a hell hole before the oil money, but the fact that he didn't just keep it all for himself and his cronies (they way the Sauds do) deserves praise.
I think comparing Hugo Chavez with George Washington is just a little off the mark.
And to say he "modernized" Venezuela is equally wrong. (The Telegraph article I linked to mentions in passing that the streets of the town in which Chavez was born are still paved with dirt, for instance.) What he did do is to subsidize he country's poor - especially their costs for food and fuel - using state oil revenues, which won him their love and undying support. It's probably fair to claim that he was less corrupt than the House of Saud, but, then again, that's not really saying much.
Chavez was a very clever authoritatian. Maduro is simply a thug - and a particularly dimwitted thug, at that ...
drinkypoo opined:
America is responsible to a large extent for what is happening in Venezuela and has long been the driving force in regime change in Iran, often through extremely direct intervention. We can't fix China (although we could stop enabling them so much) but we are responsible for much of the mess in the other countries you mentioned.
Let's see now:
According to Wikipedia, venezuelanalysis.com has been funded by the Venezuelan goverment since it was founded in 2007 (when Hugo Chavez was president), despite claiming on its website since 2014 (after Maduro took over) that it is funded exclusively via donations from its readers. And the wife of its founder, Greg Wilpert, was appointed Consul General of Venezuela's New York consulate in 2008. So, it's hardly an objective or disinterested source.
Wikipedia's article on mintpressnews.com highlights several ongoing controversies over issues of journalistic integrity (including falsely attributing co-authorship of an article on nerve gas attacks on Syrian citizens to a respected journalist who denies having co-written that article, and who has repeatedly demanded her name be removed from it, as well as falsely reporting an annual Shiite religious pilgrimage to Kerbala as a "march against ISIS"). The publication's masthead prominently features conspiracy mongers (including a strident proponent of the false and defamatory claim that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged, with actors hired to play the part of grieving parents, and that no children were actually killed there). Its sources of funding are undisclosed, although Mnar Muhawesh, its editor, now claims to be its sole investor, and that it is self-financing, via ad revenue (an extremely dubious claim, as anyone who is familiar with the paucity of legitimate advertising income available for online-only journalism ventures will attest). Her claims in this regard are impossible to verify, because, since 2015, she's made it impossible to contact her.
The only even-faintly-legitimate source you cite is cepr.net, which is a self-described "progressive" think tank. But the actual link you provide is to an editorial piece, which is, by definition, an expression of the author's personal opinion, not actual reportage.
In sum, you give us two propaganda outlets and an opinion piece in support of your argument that the USA is the party most responsible for "repressing" the people of Venezuela.
Now, I'll grant you that we embargo oil imports from Venezuela, in continuation of a policy that dates back to the G. W. Bush administration. That, in itself really doesn't affect the country's economy, because it has plenty of other customers elsewhere. What does, very much, affect it is the crash in world oil prices over the past 3 years or so - and that is entirely due to Arab countries (led by Saudi Arabia) overproducing. So, supply and demand is the cause of Venezuela's financial woes.
Well, that, and Maduro's insistence on printing money in an attempt to make up for the revenue shortfall, which has resulted in a disastrous hyperinflationary spiral that rivals Weimar Germany or modern Zimbabwe.
Chavez was a charismatic charlatan, who was able to provide Venezuela's poor with a whole range of "free" benefits only because oil revenues were at historic highs during his reign (again, driven purely by supply and demand - although rampant speculation by commodity traders had a significant hand in that). Maduro, by contr
It's about time!
Elsevier has been paywalling scientific research - most, if not all of which was paid for in part or in whole by taxpayers throughout the developed world - since 1947. It's way past time that what amounts to its systematic theft of what should be completely public data came to a screeching, grinding, clattering halt.
Yes, yes, it's also been responsible for any number of unethical practices, including offering Amazon gift vouchers to researchers who agreed to give the company a 5-star rating on the platform, and publishing sham journals, but that's not the main reason it deserves to die. Nor is its campaign to persuade governments and academic institutions alike to shut down open access publication of scientific research, not just by lobbying for legislative restrictions, but by filing lawsuits against universities for allowing their academic researchers to publish open-access copies of their own research papers on their employers' servers.
No, Elsevier deserves to die because it has deliberately misused its virtual monopoly on academic publishing to prevent both researchers and the public from reading an enormous library of published studies, access to which is vital for new research to be conducted in a staggering number of disciplines. It should die because it insists on standing in the way of progress.
If the UC system doesn't allow Elsevier to bribe it into reversing its decision to divorce itself from the company's extortion-based business model, I suspect the remainder of the USA's public universities will swiftly follow its lead. I certainly hope they do - because every other college and university on the planet will undoubtedly follow suit.
The very next step after that should be that the state and national governments which provided funding for the researchers whose articles are still locked behind Elsevier's paywall demand the company surrender them to the public domain.
And fuck Elsevier's shareholders. They've been gorging at the public trough for far too long, as it stands ...
mileshigh opined:
Sure enough, unfamiliar music is a distraction. Unfamiliar anything is a distraction. OTOH familiar music doesn't demand your attention, but it does cover external noise and provides a rhythm to work by. Most everyone I know who listens to music at work uses familiar playlists. Even letting YouTube, etc. chose the music will play familiar music.
No studies of the effect on concentration of familiar vs unfamilar music have been done, afaik.
OTOH (and this is purely anecdotal, of course), as a writer who is also a musician, I can't listen to music of any kind when I'm writing. Familiar, unfamiliar, with lyrics or without, it distracts me to the point where I can't concentrate effectively, because the musical part of my brain keeps diverting my focus to elements of whatever I'm listening to (melody, counterpoint, individual instrumental lines, etc.). It can be as familiar and simplistic as a nursery rhyme, and it will still reliably interfere with my writing process.
YMMV ...
DontBeAMoran opined:
The style of music will impact everyone differently. The current mood of the person and the tasks to accomplish will also alter the impact of the music.
Simply going with "lyrics that can be understood, lyrics in another language and no lyrics at all" is an incredibly short-sighted choice of parameters for such a study.
Did you read the actual study, or just TFS's warmed-over rewrite of NewAtlas's almost-indistinguishable-from-the-original summary of the Lancaster University press release about it?
Because judging an experiment's design from a xerox of a xerox of a dumbed-down-in-the-first-place press release about it lends your critique something more than a little short of credibility.
Then again, this is Slashdot, so I'm going to go with Door # 2 ...
lgw selectively quoted pseudofrog thusly:
reactions that based on some reactionary ideology that's far from uncommon online (The Force Awakens sucks because a lady with latent Force powers beat up a couple of guys with a space stick).
He then responded to that assertion by opining:
You know, I'm not sure anyone actually believed that. I think it's entirely a contrived excuse, or so oversimplified as to be wrong.
No. No, it's really not.
While The Last Jedi was still in theaters, some unemployed basement-dweller spent considerable effort to create a de-feminized fanedit of the movie.
If you're still determined to defend your thesis, you might first want to visit the Reddit discussion page about what has come to be known as the Chauvinist Cut. Or you could "treat" yourself to mundanemike's fawning SJWs lose their mind over THE LAST JEDI: THE DE-FEMINIZED FANEDIT review of the CC (the Youtube version is the same video he posted to the Daily Caller website, btw). Be sure to at least read the commments that other incels have posted praising his review's "takedown" of SJWs.
I could cite a Godzillion examples of similar foaming, reactionary rants about the original movie, the Chauvinist Cut, and the campaign to downvote it on Rotten Tomatoes, but all you really need as evidence is Bleedingcool's 2017 story about the Facebook troll who claimed to have written a bot he used to massively downvote The Last Jedi on RT to understand that your skepticism is baseless.
Not to mention naive ...
Posting a software fix for this "very rare" occurrence - that has happened in at least 155 reported instances in New Zealand alone, according to TFS - isn't going to do Lime any good, at this point. It's going to face product liability suits, personal injury suits, and class-action suits (despite the laughable prohibition against filing or participating in class action suits in Section 5.8 of its User Agreement, and other language restricting its users available forum for remedies to binding arbitration, and - rather hilariously, IMnsHO - attempting to limit Lime's maximum financial liability for any injury a user might suffer to a princely $100) that are unquestionably going to be financially ruinous for the company.
Fatally so, because it's a venture-capital-funded startup, and the lawyers for Uber, Google Ventures, and other firms that have financed it to the tune of more than $300 million thus far are undoubtedly going to advise their respective management teams that it's now time to cut their losses, write off their investment in Lime, and apply the losses to offset taxes on companies they've funded in the past that are now producing actual profits, rather than liabilities.
The thing that gets me is how the idiots running Lime's software development team decided that rolling out untested code to their deployed fleet of vehicles could in any way have been considered a good idea. I mean, it's one thing for Mark Zuckerberg to flog his coders to "move fast and break things." Bugs in Facebook's code have no potential to physically injure or kill its users. Motor vehicles operated by biological humans on non-virtual streets, in real-world traffic conditions. are a completely different matter. They entail a whole different order of risks: both to their riders' lives, physical health, and safety, and to the company's own existence, should it be found legally liable for any injuries suffered by the former due to its employees' negligence.
And it almost certainly will be held liable. All a plaintiff's lawyers have to establish is that the code that caused the brake lock-ups had not been sufficiently-well tested (if, indeed, it was tested at all) before it was rolled out to the fleet of scooters that Lime's customers paid it to rent, and it's "Game over! Thank you for playing," because I can't see any court in any country ruling that the company's attempt to duck liability for its negligence via the ham-handed provisions of its User Agreement as enforceable, or in any way reasonable or fair.
Disclaimer: IANAL. If Lime's broken-ass software has caused you to sustain an injury of any kind, I strongly advise you to consult an actual, admitted-to-practice-before-the-bar-type barrister about it - preferably one who has a long record of winning product liability cases against companies with a history of employing predatory user agreements to try to prevent their customers from holding them responsible for their negligence ...
guruevi stated position of the scientific community on the currently-unfolding global climate change as:
Our current model predicts a massive change, we don't know what that means or what will happen, but we probably have to do something
Mmm ... sort of.
The thing is, we do, in fact, know what that means, and what will happen, because it has happened before, at the end of the Permian Period, when a massive increase in greenhouse gas emissions created a cascade of events that eventually caused 70% of terrestrial species and as much as 96% of marine species to go extinct over a period of no more than 100,000 years.
What we don't know - because the increase in CO2 levels at the onset of the P-T extinction occured much, much more slowly than is the case in the current event - is how quickly what happened a quarter-billion years ago will happen in the current era. Back then, it may have taken as long as 20,000-50,000 years for CO2 to accumulate to sufficient levels to cause the ocean to warm up enough to melt the massive deposits of methane clathrates in its abyssal depths. That - along with the melting of arctic and antarctic permafrost - released an enormous quantity of methane into the atmosphere over a very short time. In turn, that sudden, massive, global methane release had two effects that were catastrophic for land species and downright apocalyptic for oceanic ones. First, the oceans abruptly became both acidic enough to dissolve the shells of bivalves, nautiluses, crustaceans, corals, and other exoskeletal creatures, and, at the same time, their upper layers also became highly anoxic to a sufficient depth to smother pretty much all the icthyoid and gelatinous ones. Secondly, temperatures on land soared to levels that killed off those species that were unable either to migrate to more suitable climes, or that were dependent for key parts of their food web on the species that had succumbed directly in response to the increased temperatures.
We also know that, even though the Great Dying began with a snap ice age, by its end, global temperatures had increased beyond the pre-ice-age average by approximately 10 degrees Centigrade. That was enough to completely melt the planet's ice caps, which led to a significant increase in global sea levels (by as much as 100 meters) and downright biblical floods, as a consequence.
Because CO2 persists in the atmosphere for 20,000 years or more under current conditions (and which will likely stick around still longer as the world's rain forests and wetland environments - which are critical CO2 sinks - continue to disappear), even once we, as a species, achieve zero net CO2 emissions (assuming, of course, that we ever actually do so), the climate-warming effects of the accumulated atmospheric load will continue to push global average temperatures upward for quite literally thousands of years to come.
And, given that the Arctic is already experiencing unprecedented methane emissions, both from deposits released by melting permafrost and from what does, in fact, appear to be melting clathrates at relatively shallow depths, the same kind of abrupt, massive atmospheric methane infusion that caused peak extinction in the P-T event may occur considerably sooner in the current one than climate models of even a few years ago predicted.
So, in broad terms, what is going to happen is well-known. The currently-unanswered questions are: how soon will it happen, and what will happen to our technological/industrial civilization as a result?
So, here's the good news, such as it is: although the climate - and the global ecology that depends on it - is going to radically change, and the e
cthon stated:
No, they don't. They propose different hypotheses. The set of validated (by measurement, observation, proof, experiment, reasoning picked apart) hypotheses is what constitutes a theory.
You're so close to being right.
The distinction between hypothesis and theory in science is not a clear, bright line - and, for the most part, scientific theories are always subject to revision in light of new evidence.
That's because the scientific method is not about proving anything other than that a given hypothesis cannot be true, because experimental evidence proves it incorrect. It doesn't matter how many experiments have lent support to a given hypothesis in the past - all it takes is a single one that conclusively demonstrates that it's wrong to invalidate it. It then is discarded in favor of the next-best alternative (regardless of whether that alternative is an older hypothesis that has not yet been proven wrong, a revised version of the same hypothesis, or is a brand-new, minty-fresh one that is consistent with all the evidence to date).
The graduation of a hypothesis to the status of scientific theory is a gradual process, and one that can happen only by (wait for it!) consensus. The greater the number and variety of different experiments that fail to disprove it, the more the scientific community comes to agree that a hypothesis should be considered as reliable enough for practical purposes to deserve to be treated as if it were correct.
The thing is, though, that status is never set in stone. Take Newtonian physics, for example. For three centuries, Newton's theories withstood experimental efforts to disprove them so reliably that they came to be regarded as actual laws. (And, I hasten to add, they're still reliable enough to be treated that way by engineers for quotidian, practical purposes.) But then Einstein proposed his General Theory of Relativity, and Newtonian physics went out the window - at least at astronomical scales. It was an actual revolution in scientific understanding of how physics works in our universe, and general relativity achieved the status of theory in what was pretty much record time, because every experiment that attempted to disprove it at the macro level failed miserably.
But it broke down at the nano scale. There, accumulated observational data poked progressively bigger holes in Einstein's theory, until it became undeniable that Something Else was going on.
Enter quantum mechanics.
Einstein hated it - and it wasn't because it contradicted his own theory. It was because the notion of what he called "spooky action at a distance" offended his sense of order. Uncertainty, superposition of states, entanglement (the "spooky action" to which Einstein's sarcastic comment referred), and the fundamental randomness of the nature of the universe at the smallest scale bothered him so deeply that he famously thundered, "God does not play dice with the universe."
But he was wrong about that. At the quantum scale, as an ever-increasing body of experimental evidence has established, randomness and uncertainty are inescapable - to the point where, at the Planck scale, the current model of quantum theory holds that "virtual particles" actually blink into and out of existence in such profusion that the fabric of reality itself consists of a so-called "quantum foam." (That bit has not yet been tested by experiment, mostly because we simply don't yet have the tools to conduct direct observation of such incredibly tiny phenomena. In fact, given the ever-increasing effects of quantum uncertainty as we approach the Planck scale, it may be physically impossible for us ever to directly observe and measure those virtual particles. The best evidence of their existence in the real world may forever remain indirect - which doesn't mean the model is wrong, or that won't earn the status of theory, however.)
There's an ever-growing mountain of evidence that both general relativity and quantum mechanics accurately model
jellomizer opined:
Google is a good search tool, but it isn't a research tool.
Google begs to differ ...
c6gunner misstated:
Insulin has changed significantly over the years, and the prices for newer products are therefore higher. The newest generation of insulin is far safer and more effective than the stuff being made back in the 1930s. If you want some of the older stuff you can get it way cheaper in many markets.
You're purposefully misunderstanding one of Kiuas's key points here, presumably in order to pimp your "free-market capitalism must not be questioned" philosophy. The fact is that the 200% average increase in the price of insulin over the past 2 years applies to the "newest generation of insulin" - Novolog, Lantus, etc. - and all but Basaglar (which is a "biosimilar" to Lantus) - have been on the market for well over a decade. There is ZERO reason why their prices should increase, because the costs to manufacture and distribute have not increased (other than via inflation, which remains at near-historic lows in the western world) over that period.
It's greed that's driving the increases. Period.
You can wave your hands all you like. It doesn't change that simple fact.
Why that greed has been so amplified in recent years is the real question. I think the current USA administration's attitude towards regulation and oversight has a great deal to do with it. So does the quest to attract institutional shareholders (the only kind that's left, if you discount day traders). The careerism of MBAs, whose future prospects are tied to delivering sufficiently "enhanced shareholder value" to their present employers to make them attractive hires for other employers (presumably at higher compensation rates, with better perks), is likely also to have played a major part in those extortionate pricing decisions.
The market for insulin in the developed world is a growing one, as Type II diabetes has become endemic in its population - but achieving executive superstardom requires producing significantly-greater-than-average profitability to make you stand out in the crowd. Jacking your products' prices up by 200% over 2 years achieves that goal relatively painlessly - for your stockholders.
And the fact that your competitors immediately follow suit only makes it more imperative that you continue to extort ever greater profits from the consumers of your product whose only choice is to pay your Danegeld - because insurance company "formularies" (lists of drugs for which they will pay) deprive the consumers they insure of the choice to switch to a different medication.
Not that that would make any real difference to those consumers, because every alternative choice has also tripled in price ...