Domster

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Favorited Great Firewall of China crumbling from within on Boing Boing
Favorited Great Firewall of China crumbling from within on Boing Boing
Commented on Scientists mostly don't know what a "theory" is, but should they?
Falsificationism alone isn't enough of a demarcation criterion. Consider crystal healing. Crystal healing is certainly falsifiable under certain conditions: you do a double-blind test. Provided the practitioners have a concrete theory of their practice (that's the bit Popper didn't like...
Commented on New Zealand's copyright minister starts screaming when asked whether it's fair to cut people off from the Internet on the basis of three unsubstantiated accusations of copyright infringement
I've the vaguest of impressions that the minister in charge of the Internet might see things differently.Uhh, well, David Cunliffe was at the meeting. And held the same position as Judith Tizard. So, no, unfortunately....
Commented on New Zealand's copyright minister starts screaming when asked whether it's fair to cut people off from the Internet on the basis of three unsubstantiated accusations of copyright infringement
Cory, I suspect Mark was exaggerating when he said she "yelled" at them, and that you're exaggerating further when you say she "screamed" at them. There's certainly absolutely no mention of raised voices of any kind in Colin's report on...
Commented on US State Department's surveillance tech exhibit
@Teresa: That's useful for amateur spying, but anyone typing anything remotely sensitive would have been using a Tech III ribbon (ink-based, not carbon, color coded blue, not orange), which does overstrike. Thus the need to get technical. I love my...
Commented on Apes, legal personhood and the plight of Nim Chimpsky
Uncle Geo sez: Personally, I'd challenge anyone to say our kids don't also learn by imitationI'll take up that challenge: "our kids don't learn by imitation". At least, not for important parts of language acquisition, such as grammar. The fact...
Commented on Human mission to an asteroid?
What is a "voice-second"? A measurement of time, or of distance? What's wrong with using light-seconds?...
Commented on Weekend Mayhem: Come Play <i>Team Fortress 2</i> With Boing Boing!
The easiest way is to connect to a manual IP/port is to use the 'favourites' tab of the server browser. Just hit 'add a favourite' and it'll prompt you for the server details. That way, you don't have to enable...
Commented on New Zealand's DMCA is as good as it could be -- I was wrong!
Aha! I feel vindicated - http://preview.tinyurl.com/4s3hok . Thanks for the update, Cory. It's pretty awesome to see someone issue a retraction with dignity. The MP who proposed the act is my local MP, Judith Tizard (New Zealand has MMP), so...
Commented on New Zealand's DMCA is as good as it could be -- I was wrong!
Aha! I feel vindicated - http://preview.tinyurl.com/4s3hok . Thanks for the update, Cory. It's pretty awesome to see someone issue a retraction with dignity. The MP who proposed the act is my local MP, Judith Tizard (New Zealand has MMP), so...
Commented on UPDATED: New Zealand bends over and offers up a DMCA to America with a shy, desperate smile
I don't understand how the Copyright Amendment Bill has anything to do with America. Americans don't have a copyright on really stupid laws - even if they did implement them first - and we New Zealanders can't use them as...
Commented on Arrests in fake Craigslist "everything must go" ad rip-off
@#5: In this case, it's neither surveillance nor privacy invasion. And I'm not sure what you're asking, because something being empirically bad would imply it would depend on the circumstances. (Because the consequences - what you'd be studying empirically -...
Commented on Aussie comedy duo explain subprime meltdown
National treasures indeed. New Zealand is still mourning its loss (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Dagg)....
Commented on Father Ted fest pictures
I'd like to link to the aforementioned Graham Linehan's blog, "Why That's Delightful". It really is. http://whythatsdelightful.wordpress.com/...
Commented on Fusion reactor Google Talks video
Good news everyone! Farnsworth rocks....
Commented on Homemade Obama "hope beacon" with LED light thingies
What is with the lolcats language on that first poster? I think you're supposed to finish the sentence with "a posse" when you read it....
Commented on Tear-free onion engineered
Is it British usage?Very common in New Zealand, by my account, and quite common in Britain according to Oxford. "Oriented", to my addled Kiwi brain, sounds like it should mean Asiafied....
Commented on Global arms transactions, visualized in interactive map
@#4 New Zealand's arms, meanwhile, seem to have been dumped in the ocean a few hundred kilometres off the East coast....
Commented on JaseZone's social networking chain-letter
FTA: "Is the shape of your life as revealed publicly part of the commonwealth, and in the public domain?" Yes. And so it should be. The idea that what's public is public is the same one that gives us photographers'...
Commented on Photos of Australian Tesla coil enthusiasts
You know, in the Southern Hemisphere, Tesla coils are wound the other way due to the coriolis effect! That's what makes an Australian Tesla coil different from a North American one. The garden path sure is a fun one....
Commented on Individual, isloated Sgt Peppers vocal and instrumental tracks
@Fnarf: I sure do have a citation. How about the legislation itself (Copyright Act 1994), which states: "Copyright in a sound recording or film expires: (a)At the end of the period of 50 years from the end of the calendar...
Commented on Hang your books from the rafters
Should be fun in an earthquake....
Commented on Individual, isloated Sgt Peppers vocal and instrumental tracks
@Devophill: Nope, nine years. As in 2017. As in, fifty years after 1967. Where I live, sound recordings (and films, photographs) enter the public domain fifty years after the recording was made, or made available (the latter of the two)....
Commented on Individual, isloated Sgt Peppers vocal and instrumental tracks
Only 9 years until it's public domain. That will be a day to celebrate....
Commented on TV star publishes bank details in anti-privacy editorial, gets ripped off
#2: "This is no longer coincidence and crosses over into irony, right?" No, it's certainly not irony. It may be "just deserts", a fitting punishment, funny, appropriate, incongruous, surprising, or all of the above. But it's not ironic. Ask yourself:...
Commented on Happy Public Domain Day!
I'm lucky enough to live in a life+50 country (and, also fun; a plain ol' 50 for film and photography). Is there anywhere that gives a neat countdown to which works are becoming available in the public domain in the...
Commented on Great Firewall of China crumbling from within
I don't think he can, Sensual Otter. That's "just" a blockquote, and so you only get one CSS background-image. To add another, you'd need to wrap the blockquote in a non-semantic tag (yuck) or use javascript (bleugh)....
Commented on O Canada! The Canadian DMCA version of the national anthem
You want a refund, I want a french verse. Tomaeto, tomahto....
Commented on Photo-sharing for pictures taken where you are not allowed to take them
Man On Pink Corner:It's always sounded completely ridiculous to me, considering how little energy a camera flash puts out compared to the room lights. Which is why such paintings aren't displayed or stored under room lights. Many museum exhibits, for...

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Takuan commented on Scientists mostly don't know what a "theory" is, but should they?
might I recommend these three books? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Science_of_Discworld...
bardfinn commented on Scientists mostly don't know what a "theory" is, but should they?
Domster: I never said that the definition of science I put forward was based on "Falsificationism alone ..." I never said it was based on "... a defence of induction" or "... empiricism alone". I said, and I quote: "... real science involves producing a falsifiable hypothesis, testing it repeatedly, and getting peer review and replication of the results of experiments." There are THREE parts to the statement, and you have addressed only TWO, and each of those SEPARATELY. You state that "So, our demarcation must involve more than just "science happens by observation", or "science is based on empiricism"."...
bardfinn commented on Scientists mostly don't know what a "theory" is, but should they?
---doopdedoojustbeinghelpfulProseMaTron3000---- So intelligent thou seem'st, pr'aps the equal of the mightiest of philosophers who, these many centuries have argued endlessly and without worth on the triviality of paradox and nuance. Did I not suggest the need, by alternate means, to confirm the shallowness thy formal logic doth betray? Wouldst thou an hypotheses given, continue unto intuitive failure? Better to find out why than to play the fool upon errand. Wouldst thou continue Bayesianism and Kolmogorov Complexity given the limited significance these actually may ensign? Wouldst thou neglect the null hypothesis by proclaiming it trivial? Dost thou find a science only...
abb3w commented on Scientists mostly don't know what a "theory" is, but should they?
JOB007: Did not I suggest the need to confirm by alternate means the shallowness of thy formal logic? Yes, with your reference to "multiple meanings, paradox, and the shallow nature of words and metaphor". This is why the preferred testing is by Minimum Description Length Induction, which requires mathematical expression. If you have a paradox in ZF, publish already. JOB007: Wouldst thou continue a hypotheses given intuitive failure? Possibly as part of semi-exhaustive search; encountering the Banach-Tarski sphere dissection leaves one with much less respect for intuition. If someone has taken the trouble to examine a conjecture, express data via...
lukus commented on Scientists mostly don't know what a "theory" is, but should they?
For me, I tend towards thinking that art largely involves a subjective exploration of the universe and that science largely involves the objective exploration of the universe. Perhaps truly objective exploration is impossible - in which case, perhaps the quest for objectivity is key to the sciences? Is this where philosophy steps in? From this perspective, a psuedo-science would fit somewhere between these poles - either because it can't, or won't, measure up to the traditional tests associated with scientific enquiry and objectivity. I'm not a trained scientist - my head stuffed on your mantle piece isn't likely to be...

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