Re: Stupid, stupid move.
Marquee seems to work on most, blink only on FF (I saw Opera mentioned, but haven't tried it yet).
653 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Nov 2007
Some people just need to learn to adapt to change. What I found saddening was this:
“Microsoft needs to put some tutorials in this or it will frustrate a lot of people.”
“Microsoft will have some kind of introduction to this, won't they?”
So I'm guessing that you didn't let them watch the welcome video which explains how to use the UI then?
Sure, but science stays out of the arena of whether or not there is a deity. It doesn't publish papers on it, and people don't submit papers on it (of course, what they do in their own time is different). On the other hand you have AGW which has a mass of papers published on it, and the skeptics who, in many cases, refuse to even submit because they think that the whole thing is a conspiracy.
Do you know what would make their case? SUBMITTING A PAPER. Then, if it gets rejected out of hand, they can put it in the public domain, and people can look at it, dissect it, and ask why it was rejected, assuming there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it. If it gets accepted, congratulations, you're taking part in the scientific process, not just mouthing off to journalists and conference centres.
It's a complete and utter failure of thinking. Even religious people who are willing to look at it objectively should see this, it's bad, it makes bad assumptions, it has no falsifiability, and it is promoted in the most intellectually dishonest way.
However, what it does mean is that when arguing with creationists (which can be fun and stimulating in its own way [i.e. if they say something stupid that you haven't heard before, it gives you something to investigate]) this will become a new argument. It doesn't have to be valid, but it gives them some firepower to convince the layman who can't be bothered to read anything except creationist dogma like Behe. It promotes a misunderstanding of science that is detrimental to the spread of knowledge through the populace, which is why creationism is so dangerous in general.
If that's really a problem for you, download the games you want, burn your Steam folder to DVD, then just install the client on your laptop, copy across the games folders you want, done. If you want a new game, then buy the DVD, enter the serial code into Steam and install off the DVD.
Do you really think that Steam installs every game you own? The basic client comes with nothing installed, then you choose what to install, and if you don't have enough HDD space for the game from Steam, you don't have enough for the game from DVD.
No internet connection? You need to login long enough to get the game files onto your PC, then just start in offline mode, done.
You're being an idiot about something you've never used, and getting everything wrong. If you really hate Steam that much (when it's actually been designed and worked out pretty damn well, offers great deals on games, fast content delivery, and reasonably good social experience) then don't get any games on it, but there's no doubt that it offers more benefits than problems, unless you're using a computer in an area that is impossible to buy games in anyway.
that if there's new evidence that it should be admissible if it's important enough, and then time extended for the opposition to work out a response, but in practice I can't see it working. Imagine a case where someone knows they have a weak case, but they have lots of shady evidence. So they delay the trial over and over and over again by just proposing new evidence that seems like it might be relevant on the surface, but isn't really. If it's likely that they will end up with the death penalty (not trying to get into an argument about capital punishment) then delaying indefinitely is a bonus for them, but for the legal system, and the associated costs, it's ridiculous.
You could start adding rules about how many they can do, and how relevant each one has to be, but at the end of the day, that system is already in place, and it generally works quite well. If there's evidence that they failed to submit, then they should do so at the appeal, or get their arses in gear and submit it in a timely manner the first time. What they've done is to release something that, while it's in the public domain (sorry, replying to something further down), is probably not something that most jury members would know about, or have actively gone to find out, which some of them may now know of. They ignored the court, and basically stuck two fingers up at it, and for that they deserve to be punished, regardless of how the rest of the case goes. Just because you might like Samsung, or agree with them on this, doesn't make it all right for them to just ignore the legal system and practically spit in its face.
Sort of right, but it's simpler than that. If there was a being that was all-powerful and completely detached from our universe then it wouldn't be covered by science. There would be no reason for us to know about it. The real problem is, that as soon as such a being interacts with our universe it becomes measurable. So if there are claims of a god creating our universe, or taking part in miracles, or helping an army win a battle, or listening to prayer, or, say, sending his only son to die for us on a cross and satisfy a rather strange conception of justice (especially for an all-powerful, all-merciful being), then that god is measurable, or, at the very least, his actions are. Up until now, there has been nothing to suggest any divine intervention, so yes, your god may exist, and may be unmeasurable and unexplainable by science, but if he is, he's not the god of any major religion (close to Deism, but even then...).
Science does point to a cause for creation, very much like seeing a fried egg points to some frying event, however, just as I don't attribute a fried breakfast to god (rather to myself or my wife), I see no reason to attribute the creation event to your god, unless you decide to take a religious text as your evidence. In that case, why not just start praising Xenu?
So, what you're saying is, that when you can't report the issue online, can't email, and can't phone that they should just, what, guess you've got a problem?
Or is the fail that they don't want another landline, only a mobile number?
I'm not sure what you want them to offer you...
Depends on the original text. I'm pretty sure (having had several discussions with various people about the matter) that the word for soul in this context is entirely different from the word that is used to suggest god put his "breath" into humans to make them live. Many would hold that this is what is really meant by the soul and why humans are different from animals.
People who are nerdy and geeky tend to be a social misfit as a result (less interested in social interaction). They also tend to be more inclined to study more, and get more excited by the wonderful world of science. I'd rather people that spent their time studying in science than people who were fooled into it because it looked cool.
It was the most active media lobbyist?
"12.53pm: Blair says the strongest lobbying from a media group during his 10-year premiership was from the BBC over the licence fee"
How does that make it the most active? It just means that out of the other media groups, the biggest push came from the BBC in relation to the license fee. It doesn't say anything about whether they were most active (since it only talks about one issue), and it doesn't say it's the biggest lobbying group. Just that the biggest lobbying effort went into the BBC over the license fee.
I have a couple of hundred games on my Steam account, and MSE hasn't flagged a single one.
When it comes to dealing with the deepest recesses of Windows, I'd far rather that MS was the one writing the code with internal documents to help, than someone else dealing with undocumented functions. That doesn't mean MSE is the best solution, just that your argument that it should be shunned because a different coding department of the same firm wrote something that you think is bad yet you still bought is a pretty rubbish reason not to use something.
And here is the problem, as with a lot of emotive discussions on here. If you really want to actually help with a problem, you can't just state things as if they're true because you think they are.
What actual use are either of the following:
"If prices were low and quality high then the levels of copyright infringement (Note not piracy) would be greatly reduced"
"I assert lowering price wouldn't have this affect... it is a mindset thing not a case of being unable to afford it"
Neither is about the facts of the situation, they're just doing what politicians do every day, which is taking a stance based on opinion and carrying on.
Do you know how the music industry could actually work against piracy without investing lots? Just trial a really low cost service in one country and see if their sales figures increase, or if piracy declines.
The fact of the matter is, that there is no really definitive studies to tell one way or the other, and until someone produces something that does, then these comments are nothing more than opinion (wow, that sounds just like what I said on the death penalty comments, oh well).
At the end of the day, what do statistics on interventions actually matter? It's presumably something that can be improved, but if they cause significantly less accidents than human drivers (as I would expect to be the case) then it's got to be a good thing. I suspect that the biggest barrier to these is overselling it as a safe car, because as soon as it has its first "big" accident, which is inevitable, people will go overboard to criticise it.
I've often wondered about how a UK constitution could work. It would have to be put in a position where it overrides existing laws and sentences. It would be bloody messy, but if it's something that we truly believed was the fundamentals of life in our country, and core to our humanity, I don't see any other way of doing it.
I also find it difficult to argue for a "fixed" constitution. There are things that we do all agree on, but I don't think we all agree on them in the same manner. For instance, I think that everyone has the right to life, but those in favour of capital punishment wouldn't agree, and anti-abortionists would raise it, and who knows where morality will be in 200 years time? I mean, it's the same sort of problem that America faces with the right to bear arms. Regardless of whether gun law is good in the States or not, I don't see owning a weapon as a fundamental human right, and there are plenty of other things that some people might think were fundamental which I wouldn't agree with.
As a result, I've come to the conclusion that if I were to ever live to see a UK constitution, it would only work (i.e. not be rejected by the populace, or misused, or misapplied) if a couple of criteria were met:
1. It could change. It can (and would have to) be a very difficult process, but if something really is seen to not be relevant any more by the population, why should it continue to be fundamental to our laws?
2. It would have to be decided democratically. The people would have to have a feeling that they had direct input into it. How this would be managed I'm not sure, but it would require a referendum on the selected rights at the very least. I might not like the outcome, but I have faith in democracy, and am happy to accept the consequences of being in the majority/minority on issues, whichever it turns out to be.
3. It would have to have absolute authority. Once decided, it would have to be the very foundation of UK law.
Now, this is where I'm unsure whether or not it's actually workable, but I don't see it being feasible, and accepted under any other scenario.
"Those who made direct edits to pages of clients found that the edits "always stuck" 31 per cent of the time."
is just plain wrong. It clearly should be:
"31 per cent of those who made direct edits to pages of clients found that the edits "always stuck""
It's a little disingenuous to say it the first way, as it changes the whole focus of the article. E.g. almost 60% of people said that their edits stuck most of the time, with only 25% saying that their edits occurred less than half the time. Doesn't really seem like such an issue any more does it?
I see a lot of posts in this forum on both sides commit the same basic errors that the paper has been trying to correct - that you need a properly conducted study to assess these claims.
The problem, in general, I've always found with the death penalty arguments is that they are driven by this very human idea of "common sense". It's obvious to some people that the death penalty is a deterrent in some or all cases. It's obvious to others that state-killing makes the population more violent. The reason that you have conflicting views is because you've taken an opinion, and decided that because that opinion seems obvious to you (presumably with absolutely no basis in psychology, or in studies concerning capital punishment) that it must be right, and then you may even have gone cherry-picking to show why your opinion is right above all others. Since neither side is (mostly) basing their statements of fact on anything other than personal opinion, you end up with some useless information about what people feel, without having any idea of what the actual answer is in regards to the death penalty.
This is the same problem that features heavily in talks about video gaming violence. It's obvious to some people that kids who play games must become more violent. It's obvious to others that it has no long term effects. Throw in a few anecdotal examples of kids who never jacked cars until they played GTA, and the classic "I played video games all my life and I turned out ok" and you have a melting pot of anger and conflicting opinion.
Do video games cause increased violence? I honestly don't know. I'd like to think they don't, and I do think that I turned out ok, but there's still no really definitive answer on the issue, so I'll reserve my opinion until there is.
With the death penalty it's a little more difficult, because there's a moral aspect as well. Personally, I think it's wrong for the state to kill someone, but that really comes down to my views on morality, crime and punishment as a whole, and is heavily influenced by determinism. But when it comes down to whether or not it's effective as a way of influencing society or lowering crime rates, there's pretty even split on whether it does or it doesn't, and many of them have flaws, and there are an *awful* lot of factors that have to be considered whenever you talk about something like this.
I was talking to someone once who tried to argue that because the murder rate was far lower in the 50s in the States, it showed that society was gradually getting worse and declining morally (this was intricately linked to his beliefs as a Jehovah's Witness, which necessitated a declining society, but he's a really smart, learned guy, and I enjoy talking to him, however he did try and tie in this figure with abortions, atheism, and socialism). Of course, if you look at the data, there was a sharp decrease about 1945, and started rising as the new generation grew up. Now I don't want to make too many inferences so I'll let you piece it together yourselves, but I don't think it's coincidence that an event which took away large chunks of the most murderous age group in society matches up with a sudden drop in crime.
Things like inter-state migration, gun laws, increased gang activity, all these things can change the murder rate, so it's still a pretty open ended question, so can we please all stop stating what we think is obvious as fact? Or treating people who disagree with these opinions as if they're stupid because it's not obvious to them? Take Newtonian gravity. If we step even a teensy little bit outside of our everyday experiences, it breaks. This alone should show us that everything we think of as obvious, until it's backed up with *solid* evidence, is a lucky guess at best.
I apologise for the long post, but it is one thing that really annoys me.
The problem with this whole argument against the article is that you might have to fix shelves to a wall when you buy your own house (potentially even make a wardrobe or something?), you might have to fix your own clothes when you get a hole in them, you might have to, occasionally, cook some food. These are life skills that could be seen to be useful in day-to-day situations. How many people actually need to code on a day-to-day basis?
I guess the counter to this is that it helps with logic, but this is where you're missing the point of the article (and maybe Andrew didn't state it strongly enough in the article, or I'm just misreading him). Being taught a bit of HTML and CSS does not help logic skills. It maybe helps a bit with spatial awareness (nothing near as useful as an FPS I would wager), but not with the logical and mathematical skills that come with coding. The worse problem is that these are the very things that people find intimidating and frightening about coding, the things that make it seem arcane and confusing. What do you think the net effect is if we teach them something which has no relation to this? It just makes the other things more arcane.
At the end of the day, the skills that you get from coding at a lower level only come when you use a "grown-up" language. This doesn't have to be C, or C#, or even Java, but something as simple as Logo. Just something simple that controls a turtle, and that idea of you put something in, and something comes out. Later on this can be fleshed out with the concepts of control structures, and then OO. The silly thing is, this shouldn't be that hard. Kids are smart, and they're able to grasp this stuff (I mean even just grade it, so that the people that demonstrate understanding of the higher concepts get better marks etc.).
Maybe something like 0x10c in fact.
Since when did being part of a minority movement translate to being good? When people use the term "part of the herd" or "following the herd" it really pisses me off, because it's clear that instead of actually assessing whether or not they are right, and giving other people the reasons why they might be wrong, they're just happy justifying their position by saying it's a minority position.
Just because you follow majority consensus doesn't mean you're right, but it does tend to apply more this way than the other (e.g. evolution, shape of the earth, heliocentrism, age of the earth, and so on). Sure, minority opinion is right some of the time, and that's when it really has to be fought for, but it should stand on its own merits, and it's never because it's a minority opinion that it is right, that's just incidental. By suggesting that this is the most important thing about what you're trying to say, it just looks like you don't have anything else worth arguing.
Let's look at it the other way, what if not many people have the wrong conscience? Or have a miswired brain? But those that do agree with your viewpoint. Now for goodness sake try and convince me otherwise, because I'm quite happy to listen when people have something to say.
I just wanted to thank Derek for making an appearance, it's quite refreshing to see someone linked to the story putting in a stint on the forums. You're also one of those unique people who is clearly technical, but great at communicating (in the same way as, without wanting to make a dangerous comparison for your ego, Feynman was).
Thanks for the posts, also the divots are very cool :)