Posts by Danyl Mclauchlan
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Based on your logical falacy, if "science" can't show how or why something works, then it simply doesn't work.
Yeah, right.
Science is omniscient, I'd always suspected as much after being brought up on a cerebral diet of Dr. Who, Star Treck and Lost in Space.
LOLScience isn't a bunch of guys with white hair and white coats jealously guarding what is and isn't true - it's a system in which you attempt to objectively and impartially determine whether or not something you believe is actually true or not.
To take homeopathy, lot's of people <i>believe</i> it to be true but when subjected to impartial observation it fails every clinical trial it's subjected to.
Science isn't a way of deciding <i>why</i> something works, although you can come up with an explanatory hypothesis and then attempt to falsify it - it's a way of objectively determining whether or not something works at all.
To take another example, people used radiation therapy to treat cancer patients for decades before they knew about apoptosis, tumor supressor genes and the actual molecular mechanisms of the treatment - but they were able to scientifically determine that it really worked.
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(has any one actually had an ipod that hasn't broken within 12 months?)
I think it's a problem of perception - people still don't understand that they can't treat their iPod like their old walkman or discman - they need to treat it like their laptop.
And I think the little iPod nano's are awesome.
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Maybe it's just me, but Cuba looked pretty ruined before Castro got anywhere near it, unless you were a Mob stooge or part of the dictatorship's apparatus.
Indeed - Cuba ain't perfect but then you compare it with it's regional neighbours - Haiti, Honduras, the Dominican Republic - it starts to look pretty good.
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As far as the census goes, I'm still waiting for jack-booted Stats Nazis to kick my door down because I never have, and never will, answer any questions about my ethnicity (until they slip "mongrel" in there somewhere), and will continue not to answer any questions about my sexual orientation or religion.
Which is ironic, since you freely volunteer this information online rather frequently.
The whole US census sampling thing is comes up in one of the early Sorkin era West Wing episodes: 'Mr Willis of Ohio'.
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At least it's not a terrifyingly nationalistic anthem. Other countries expound on their plans to overrun the world.
'All other countries have inferior potassium . . .'
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North, South and Stewart
Stuart? Screw them! I'm singing 'guard Pacific's double star' from here on in.
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Cultural cringe doesn't get much worse than listening to our anthem in English - I vote we just switch over to the Maori version wholesale. It's much cooler, esp when sung overseas.
Say, what is 'Pacifics Triple Star' anyway?
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Dim, it's calling your integer 'value' that scares me most about that code.
Good point - I've been using good old $perl for too long.
Danyl, you weren't at the GOVIS conference by any chance?
No - I work in a biology department and mostly go to biology and biotech related conferences.
On the other hand I'm not going to spend all my spare time rooting spyware and viruses out of my family's computers
I'm always surprised by these slashdotesque 'I gave all my friends and family Ubuntu (or whatever) and they love it' stories really surprise me. Great that it works for some people, but if I tried to give my friends and family Linux it would go something like this.
Me: Here you go - your computer should be a lot faster and you won't ever have to worry about virus's or spyware.
Friend: Great! Let's kick up Civ IV and see how well it runs!
Me: Errr . . . -
Duh - correct link here
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I would like to respond to a few other comments above, in particular Danyl's as we are at the coal face of supporting Linux desktops and servers in corporate environments.
The short version of my response is...your information is outdated.
Maybe - I haven't done IT support for many years now, and maybe the end users are a lot more savvy and quick on the uptake. However, I work at a university now and having seen some academics left utterly helpless after switching from Mac to PC and been unable to grasp the whole 'two button mouse' concept I'm dubious about the ability of a large user base to make the switch to a unix environment.
Y'all have seen this, right?