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From Slashdot | Should Scientists Date People Who Believe Astrology?

Sure, provided they are hot (Score:5, Insightful)

by Registered Coward v2 (447531) on Monday March 10, @09:40AM (#22699910)

But rememeber, you can fix a lot of things but you cant fix stupid

Re:Sure, provided they are hot (Score:5, Insightful)

by sm62704 (957197) on Monday March 10, @09:44AM (#22699998)
Homepage Journal

You can’t fix stupid but you CAN fix ignorant. Thinking someone is stupid because they believe something patently false is stupid.

Ahh… (Score:5, Insightful)

by nickos (91443) on Monday March 10, @09:47AM (#22700054)

so is disregarding someone because of their spiritual beliefs

There’s your problem - a growing number of people are realising it’s fine to disregard someone if they believe in supernatural nonsense. Especially if they’re beliefs include doing nasty things to women, homosexuals and non-believers.

Astrology != Spirituality or Religion (Score:5, Informative)

by glpierce (731733) on Monday March 10, @09:48AM (#22700056)
Homepage

Astrology differs from most religion and “spirituality” in one very important way (especially to scientists): It is testable. While there is no way to prove or disprove most spiritual things (including the existence of any god or the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God), we know that astrology is 100% wrong. It has been studied scientifically (because it makes testable predictions and claims), and the results always come back the same.

Try this page for a start:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/astrology.html [badastronomy.com]

From Slashdot | Game Developers Should Ignore Software Pirates

Copy protection works for software … (Score:5, Insightful)

by AHumbleOpinion (546848) on Friday March 21, @01:06AM (#22816088)
Homepage

Copy protection works for software. The error that most people seem to be making is thinking that if it doesn’t stop everyone it failed. That is not true. Reznor’s argument is only partially correct, only higher level pirates can not be converted. Lower level pirates can be, and they are more numerous. This also means that the most intrusive and questionable anti-piracy methods do not need to be used.

On numerous gaming forums over the years I have witnessed a recurring story. Kiddies saying: I burned a copy of my friend’s disc and it didn’t work so I went out and bought my own. Copy protection worked.

On a larger scale I am familiar with selling academic software in a university bookstore. I’ve seen required software sell 1/15th of what the required textbooks sold, software that was initially released without copy protection. The developer then added some copy protection, simple and easily defeated copy protection, a package that is known and had pre-existing cracks. It worked, the next quarter’s sales of the required software was nearly in line with required textbooks. Copy protection worked. I’d like to add that this was in a university environment, no shortage of people with the technical knowledge to crack the discs for someone else. Also, these were pretty inexpensive software packages, the textbooks came with coupons reducing the price to about $30.

Most pirates will pirate software if it is trivially easy to do so, regardless of a low price. If you erect some sort of barrier a large number of these will buy.

Trying to stop all piracy is futile. But not using simple non-intrusives copy protection does cost sales. There is an optimal point balancing protection and incompatibility, and it is not zero protection.

From Slashdot | IT Labor Shortage Is Just a Myth

Completely disagree (Score:5, Interesting)

by pavera (320634) on Monday March 10, @12:26PM (#22702796)
Journal

Sure there may not be a shortage of IT resumes on monster… But there sure is a shortage of people who can back up their resumes with actual demonstrated work/skill.

We are offering market wage, and we are hiring entry level people, maybe 1 in 30 of the people we interview actually demonstrates the minimum of critical thinking and problem solving skills needed to be a decent software developer. Our interviews are not concentrated on any one platform, we have stuff in foxpro, java, python, php, c++ and c#… So our interviews are focused on critical thinking and problem solving. We have a couple basic problem solving questions and 2 algorithm questions which we routinely ask.. This is stuff I learned in high school, or my 2nd year algorithms class in college. People who are professing CS degrees and 0-5 years experience are routinely getting these questions wrong.

Even the few people we have hired over the last 3-6 months have been disappointing in their ability to a) learn new languages, b) learn and follow best practices, c) demonstrate real troubleshooting/bug fixing skills. C is probably my biggest pet peeve, as a manager I don’t know how many times in the last 6 months I’ve had to go to a programmers system when they say “I’m getting this error and I don’t know what it means” and the error message very clearly lays out the problem, the line it is occurring on, etc…

Either CS degrees are seriously lacking in rigor since I participated ~ 8 years ago, or they are just rubber stamping people that shouldn’t be passing the classes.

From Slashdot | State Lawmaker Wants To Ban Anonymous Posting Online

Re:how about passing laws that have some… (Score:5, Insightful)

by Maxo-Texas (864189) on Monday March 10, @01:49PM (#22704486)

Among the larger financial supporters of the coalition against drugs in america

Tobacco Companies
Alcohol Companies
Private Prison Companies

We incarcerate more people than china.
We strip away a very particular group of people’s voting rights through selective drug law enforcement.
We have double the drug use of Amsterdam (where drug use is legal).

Re:how about passing laws that have some… (Score:5, Insightful)

by Maxo-Texas (864189) on Monday March 10, @02:19PM (#22705062)

I agree that it is off-topic (tho it was technically a tangent to the Ayn Rand comment) but not intended as flamebait.

I just recently saw a movie on the drug war and it was pretty upsetting (including fairly substantial and substantiated evidence) that the CIA under reagan (who I voted for) ran cocaine into america to support their revolution in central america.

The bits about private prisons was very disturbing. I’ve known for quite a while that we imprison people in the US at a higher rate than the rest of the world.

But to see an LA policeman relating how the CIA contacted him to ignore selected drug lords in an open public meetings (and to see the CIA director’s obvious distress) was pretty shocking to me so I guess it was waiting to spew out somewhere.

It pulled no punches– drug users were shocking dregs in some cases. But so are extreme alcohol and tobacco users.

We have so many bad laws related to this area- and now that they are tying “any drug sales == support for terror” they are able to ignore civil rights at increasing levels.

Then you get some cheesehead like this guy wanting to ban the equivalent of posting anonymous hand bills and it is extremely irritating.

From Slashdot | Bill Allows Teachers to Contradict Evolution

Doonsbury had the right idea (Score:5, Insightful)

by jollyreaper (513215) on Tuesday March 04, @01:30PM (#22637808)

Doctor: Before I give you this injection, I have to ask you an important question: do you believe in evolution?

Patient: Of course not! Why do you ask?

Doctor: You see, I have this flu shot here. If you believe in evolution, you will accept that the flu bug is constantly changing and evolving, thus your immune system will not recognize it and you’ll come down with the flu. With this shot, your immune system will be up to date on the latest strain.

Patient: And if I don’t believe in evolution?

Doctor: You’ve already had the flu once, therefore you’ll never catch it again.

Patient: But that’s not…that’s not…true?

Doctor: As a liberal and scientist, I would never want to force another person to accept my own views and beliefs, even if they happen to be manifestly correct.

Or to put it another way:

adventurer #1: I do not believe there is a bear in that cave.
[mauling, violence, blood]
adventurer #2: So you say. But your disbelief seems not to have dissuaded the bear.

Re:Science != Teleology (Score:5, Informative)

by Dmala (752610) on Tuesday March 04, @01:35PM (#22637914)

What I can’t understand is how this is even a debate for public schools. I went to a Catholic school through junior high and there wasn’t even a discussion about this. We were taught about evolution in science class, *and* in religion class we were taught that the creation stories were not meant to be taken literally.

From Slashdot | Google Street a Slice of Dystopian Future?

I used it in a class. (Score:5, Interesting)

by Ralph Spoilsport (673134)
on Tuesday March 04, @02:30PM (#22639038)
Journal

The lecture went “hahaha - we all know know about surveillance, right??? So, let’s pretend I’m tired of living here and I want to move back home. let’s look at realtor.com - I’ll need a place to live. Oh look - a nice house in the neighbourhood I want. Cool. click on that, and oh - look - the interior of the place is photographed. Nice kitchen - big bathroom. Ugly carpet, but I can change that. And that credenza? Urp - that’ll have to go. But that’s OK. Now - let’s see what the neighbourhood is like. Excellent. Google Street goes right by the place. so we’ll enter the address and look wher ewe are. Oh - we’re right in front of the building. nice - and look! The PEOPLE ARE MOVING OUT OF THE HOUSE. There’s the moving van parked right in front. Excellent! And there’s the neighbour - I recognise him because I used to live around the block from here back in the late 90s. Cool…”

At this point the class (a mass lecture of 150) got quiet…

“Oh, and look in his window! See that lamp? The guy who lived upstairs from me used to own that, and he gave to the guy who lives there. I remember that - it’s a nice lamp and it was a great day. We all sat around drinking beer. Oh - just like the guy down on the corner over there.”

We zoom down the street to the corner.

“Yeah - I recognise him - lousy stupid drunk. Really bad attitude. Never liked him.”

“So that was fun, wasn’t it kids? Dropping in on their lives, looking into their homes? Nice. so, now let’s open up a new tab and I’ll type in http://www.opentopia.com/hiddencam.php [opentopia.com] and look here - links to CCTs we can look through. Excellent. Click on this one, and look - we get CONTROLS- we can move and zoom the camera. Looks like we’re in some university, similar to this one, but it looks like a very different time zone. Hhhhm… Let’s zoom in on those kids over there. Look - one of them is picking his nose. Pig…”

The class got REALLY QUIET…

“And now, let’s type in a some search criteria, like “inurl: view/index.shtml?videos=one” and look - an entire list of open cameras. Let’s look at this one. Cool. People working in a call centre in Argentina. WORK YOU LOSERS! WORK!!! WORK HARDER!!! MAKE ME RICH!!! Hahaha! funny isn’t it?”

No one laughed. People were squirming as we went from one private scene to another.

“OK - so today we’re going to watch portions of some hollywood entertainment fodder. It’s called “The Truman Show”.”

They watched it with new eyes. They were guilty. They had sinned. We had gone from “isn’t this interesting” to the “global panopticon” with a visceral sense of what surveillance really is as we watched people work, scratch themselves, goof off, pick their noses, BE HUMAN BEINGS.

RESIST THE SURVEILLANCE STATE. TAKE YOUR SPACE BACK FROM THE GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE INDUSTRY.

It’s not that Google Street is evil, it’s not that a CCT in an airport is evil. It’s not that a CCT in a parking lot is evil. But in aggregate, it is evil, and Google is not helping.

RS

From Slashdot | Americans Don’t Care About Domestic Spying ?

Ugh. I can’t stand this kind of journalism. (Score:5, Insightful)

by Fantastic Lad (198284) on Tuesday March 18, @09:54AM (#22782626)

“Hi! I’m a Mac.” “And I’m a PC.”

You’ve all heard that one. –A very pure example of one of the most insidious and powerful advertising techniques in the biz. It’s not about this feature over that feature. It’s not even about the perception that one is cool and the other not. Nope.

The true intent of such advertising is never stated or obvious. What is the true intent?

To program people with regard to how they identify themselves to themselves. It’s not, “Hi! I USE a Mac.” –Which is powerful enough, especially when the human brain is lulled into low revs on the EEG meter as a direct result of gazing at a flickering CRT, Television viewing instantly puts every person into a clinically measurable hypnotic state where suggestion becomes defacto reality to the personality. Even when you know intellectually that owning a PC is no different than owning a can opener, that part of your brain is short circuited and a deeper part of your personality is affected, no matter how strong your personal resolve, by the emotional knowledge that you are not young and hip in whatever way is being provided as the benchmark. (In this case, by a Mac user who uses faux love and respect to deliver demoralizing comments and knife jabs. The latest in a long stream of sick tactics in the game of social power.)

What has this got to do with Time Magazine?

The article in question doesn’t report so much as it instructs.

It tells us the abuse and it tells us that we do not care. Humans are social creatures; on an instinctive level we need to belong to the group, and so we will generally adopt whatever behavior is prevailing just to remain in the tribe, to stay part or the pack. Time Magazine is perhaps the top selling magazine in the U.S. Everybody knows this on some level; if Time speaks, it does so as an important voice of our tribe. So when it tells us what we think, on a deep level, we listen and for those who don’t actively learn how this kind of programming works, we very often obey.

Abuser to the victim: “I’m going to rape you until you rupture, and you’re not going to complain. You’re even going to defend me against potential rescuers.”

Stockholm Syndrom; When separated from the rest of the world for even a short time, fear and the instinctive desire to survive, causes people to automatically try to learn the rules of the tribe, (in this case the culture of hostages and power keepers), and fit in so that they are not rejected by the tribe leaders. (i.e., shot in the head.) So when the rescuers did arrive, they were actively fought by the hostages themselves. Stupid, but that’s the human machine, and advertisers and media conglomerates know this fact well.

If Time Magazine wanted to serve humanity, it would not tell us what we think with endless polls and such. It would tell us what is happening in the world and would remain unbiased at all times. You know. Responsible journalism. Instead we get the popular kid telling us what all the cool people think.

-FL

From Slashdot | What Programming Languages Should You Learn Next?

Get the Little Schemer (Score:5, Interesting)

by burris (122191) on Tuesday March 18, @01:55PM (#22785492)

Like a lot of people have commented on this thread, it’s past time for you to learn a functional language. I’m not sure if it is true, but new CS students at MIT used to have to learn Scheme as their first language. Learning a functional language will transform your programming ability.

I recommend the book The Little Schemer [neu.edu] This book is like no other programming book you have ever used. It is a socratic dialog between you and the interpreter. Questions on the left, answers on the right. It is meant to be used with an interpreter.

Once you make it through this book you’ll be a much, much better programmer. You’ll also have an easy time learning languages like Haskell, which is used quite a bit in academia and is useful for real world software.

So buy a copy of the Little Schemer and download an interpreter, Dr. Scheme is pretty good, and get cracking.

From Slashdot | House of Representatives To Discuss Wiretapping In Closed Session

Re:But it is a matter of principle (Score:5, Insightful)

by Cadallin (863437) on Thursday March 13, @11:55PM (#22747814)

Sorry, I’m going to have to pull Godwin’s law here. I hope that I will articulate why it is justified.

The Bush administration have operated illegally. They have violated the law not just in spirit, but in word. They have pushed warrantless searches and wiretaps. This is not legal. They have advocated, and used, torture in the interrogation of prisoners. This is not legal. They have lied, and used said lies as an excuse to wage aggressive war. This is not legal. They have conspired to hide their actions behind a cloak of shadows, lies, and secrecy. They have refused to disclose the the extent of their actions to the duly elected agents of the People of The United States of America while under oath. This is not Legal.

International Law applies whether one agrees to it or not. As much of the top Nazi brass discovered. The Bush administration have used the same tactics: Brute Force, Fear, and a blatant disregard for law, human rights, and human dignity. Any who aid or abet such actions bears blame. They could have refused. They did not.

No. No Immunity for Traitors. No Immunity for Cowards. No Immunity for those aid the destruction of the rights and liberties of free men.

If there is to be any hope for Freedom, for Democracy, hope for any kind of legacy to leave for future generations, on these things must we stand firm.

Re:Attention: “security personel” (Score:5, Insightful)

by jollyreaper (513215) on Thursday March 13, @11:29PM (#22747680)

We would absolutely love it if you would get a tape and give it to wikileaks. Or Youtube. Or John Stewart.

Mod down? No, mod parent up. This would be fucking awesome. Bush did a little song and dance at the Washington Press Whores dinner last week, closed to the public. He was yucking it up about obstructing justice, talking about going back to the ranch and saying hi to Cheney whose standing there with all the documents he’s withholding. This is the same asshole who joked about not being able to find WMD’s, miming looking under the podium “no wmd’s here”, the same asshole who said “You are the haves and the have more’s; some call you the moneyed elite, I call you my base.”

We need to damn these fuckers with their own words. People have been deservedly killed for less; I think we can all agree that voting them out of office is a peaceable compromise.

Re:Attention: “security personel” (Score:5, Insightful)

by BAM0027 (82813) <blo@27.org> on Friday March 14, @01:01AM (#22748188)
Homepage

Nah, you can’t vote them out or impeach them. You have to wait for them to do something _really_ heinous, something that would impact a whole bunch of people.

Something worse than the 4,000 military personnel and the thousands of citizens that’ve died in Iraq.

Something worse than the civil liberties that’ve been compromised.

Something worse than the trillions of dollars that’ve been borrowed against future generations for a baseless war.

Something worse than the loss of funds to pay for education.

Nah, just wait for them to do something _really_ awful, like pay for sex.

From Slashdot | House of Representatives To Discuss Wiretapping In Closed Session

Re:Interesting proposition (Score:4, Funny)

by ClickOnThis (137803) on Thursday March 13, @11:56PM (#22747816)
Journal

Someone should tell Alanis she can add another verse to her song.

Someone should tell Alanis what the word ironic actually means. Oh wait, someone has — comedian Ed Byrne:

“There’s nothing ironic about being stuck in a traffic jam when you’re late for something. Unless you’re a town planner. If you were a town planner and you were on your way to a seminar of town planners at which you were giving a talk on how you solved the problem of traffic congestion in your area, couldn’t get to it because you were stuck in a traffic jam, that’d be well ironic.”

“Rain on your wedding day is ironic only if marrying a weatherman and he set the date.”

“A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break, that’s inconsiderate office management. A no-smoking sign in a cigarette factory - irony.”“Ten thousand spoons? How big is your sink, Alanis? What do you need this knife for - to stab the bloke who keeps leaving spoons all over your house?”

[Thanks to wikipedia for the quotes.]

Re:Interesting proposition (Score:5, Funny)

by AuMatar (183847) on Friday March 14, @12:14AM (#22747916)

Aha, but a song about Irony with no irony in it- now that’s ironic.