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Comment: Re:Evolution at BYU (Score 1) 100

by smoothnorman (#46019315) Attached to: New Object Recognition Algorithm Learns On the Fly
that reply is of the "but Einstein believed in God" sort. whereas i stated that religion is based on faith and faith is inconsistent with science. i did not state that someone who currently is willing to believe that a god is possible (even probable) cannot do good science; just that they cannot hold this belief in the face of contrary evidence, which is to say faith. faith accepts no evidence and cannot be placed aside for evidence. so "real science" (as you introduce the term) is entirely inconsistent with "real faith" (as you introduce the term). they are philosophically orthogonal concepts.

Comment: Re:Evolution at BYU (Score 1) 100

by smoothnorman (#46018211) Attached to: New Object Recognition Algorithm Learns On the Fly
"testimonies"? ...is that some specialized mormon terminology like being 'sealed' rather than married? i've read endless screeds about how one can make religion and science happily co-exist. but in the final analysis, it can't happen; at least not with standard faith-based religions. science essentially demands that nothing can be taken on faith; and religion essentially demands that anything important (the root of one's philosophical tree, if you will) must be taken on faith. if you're a faithful you cannot be a clear-minded scientist. i know this will be tediously countered, but faith is anti-science, and faith is the basis of religion.

Comment: shape at the end of the recursive series (Score 2) 87

by smoothnorman (#45956335) Attached to: CES 2014: 3-D Scanners are a Logical Next Step After 3-D Printers
so if one scanned what was printed, printed that, scanned that and printed for N cycles (optionally including a grind-it-up for media source for the next generation) then the series convergence no matter if one started with the venus-de-milo or a sierpinski-tetrahedron would be a sphere?

Comment: should've tried Twisted (Score 2) 186

by smoothnorman (#45946207) Attached to: How Reactive Programming Differs From Procedural Programming


...Twisted/python is perhaps a more sensible established comparison for event-driven, or not. besides... "business logic"?

Comment: matryoshka dolls (Score 1) 715

by smoothnorman (#45940211) Attached to: How Good Are Charter Schools For the Public School System?
"now even the charter schools are broken! we need to create a safe learning environment that takes a step away from the current entrenched system!" this is paraphrased, but that exact sentiment was shouted at a recent county meeting in my area. in short: we need to charter school the charter schools. so what was begun as an external effort to break the teachers' union (which may, or may not have got a bit too powerful; but i'll tell-ya, their salaries sure doesn't reflect that) is now a enfeebling case of: if i don't like something about the system, lets fork it -- each child in their own school system! one superintendent per student! this is hyperbole of course, but i'd council fixing the system at large rather than running from it to create a new system to screw up.

Comment: Re:going after GMO is like banning screwdrivers (Score 1) 510

by smoothnorman (#45873091) Attached to: Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island
that wouldn't be a category error (as it's typically defined) and no one here are assuming that not "killing outright" is a sign of harmlessness. sometimes all that requires is a persistent form of ignorance. ("..the boy as Ignorance and the girl as Want. The spirit warns Scrooge, "Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased")

Comment: Re:going after GMO is like banning screwdrivers (Score 2) 510

by smoothnorman (#45873057) Attached to: Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island
you have that backwards. cross-breeding is more "shot-gun" than selectively inserting genes (which many here would equate with GMO'ing). when Lord Snagglebottom wanted to cross-breed his sheep to get a longer coat, he didn't let any of the offspring breed that didn't have the desired trait. and he had to do a helluva lot of that until -and *if*- he ever got something like he wanted. whereas if he could isolate the gene for long coat he'd get a much more immediate and direct result *if* it's possible (with a single gene product).

in terms of cross-breeding the most direct approach was to -wait- until nature fortuitously produced the variant and then breed that "true". like the Dachshund dog or the "Golden delicious" apple. but you see, we humans, we don't like to wait, and that's why we're on top of the "gene pool". technology is neither good or evil, but impatience is part of its motivator.

Comment: Re:going after GMO is like banning screwdrivers (Score 1, Insightful) 510

by smoothnorman (#45872951) Attached to: Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island
how about cows bearing the genetic material of a snake? pretty scifi, eh? almost certainly the product of an eeevil mad scientist? nope: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/01/how-a-quarter-of-the-cow-genome-came-from-snakes/ http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-03/snake-genes-27hitchhike27-into-cow-dna/4451308

the first category error in this whole imbroglio is presuming that the word "natural" has any clear meaning.

Comment: Re:going after GMO is like banning screwdrivers (Score 0) 510

by smoothnorman (#45872863) Attached to: Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island
i wasn't conflating hybridization with genetic modification. that tomato strain was genetically modified, by plasmid insertion, -then- cross-pollinated with most other major strains. or... are you willing to say generation 1 of GMO is GMO whereas generation 3 isn't? what if the wind blows a GMO crop's pollen to a non-GMO? (as has been provably happened) does everywhere the GMO crop touches become GMO... and forever-after in all germ lines? it's complicated. there is no single definition of GMO, legal (as opposed to scientifically based), or otherwise, even in Europe where most folks think the matter is somehow perfectly resolved. as for "unchecked fashion" you're already too late, you're alive in a sea of GMO and you'll never be able to point to where it is and where it isn't. and it's by *nature* an expanding influence - such is evolution.

Comment: Re:going after GMO is like banning screwdrivers (Score 2, Insightful) 510

by smoothnorman (#45872629) Attached to: Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island

Comment: going after GMO is like banning screwdrivers (Score 4, Insightful) 510

by smoothnorman (#45872319) Attached to: Anti-GMO Activists Win Victory On Hawaiian Island



Comment: what determines Slashdot article initial expansion (Score 4, Interesting) 102

by smoothnorman (#45483691) Attached to: Bionic Eye Implant Available In US Next Month
(for example) "Bionic Eye Implant Available In US Next Month" starts out closed/shuttered/compressed/whatever yet several even more esoteric Slashdot articles are initially presented with a full accompanying paragraph to read without an initial click to open them out. i'm just curious what determines this state(?) clearly it isn't number of comments.
The Internet


Posted by timothy
from the concentrated-benefit-diffuse-harm dept.

When you go out to buy, don't show your silver.