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Comment Re:He didn't say that (Score 1) 142

Well, I would strike the word "true" from the Socrates statement.

The problem with this is that all knowledge should be seen as tentative because we cannot separate the model we build from our understanding of what we are modelling. Every scientific theory is a model, and every scientific theory will probably be superceded by a different one at some point. So what we mean by truth in science is about predictive value, not about ontological value.

So for example, Newtonian gravity is true. It has predictive value. A very different understanding of gravity found in relativity theory is slightly more true, in the sense that it has slightly better predictive value. Sometime we will probably have an even more true, and yet similarly ontologically incompatible understanding of gravity.

As Heisenberg put it, E=mc^2 is nothing more than a quantified version of Heraclitus's statement that fire is the prima materia.....

Comment Re:BSD license was always more permissive, so grea (Score 1) 808

The article is interesting because it suggests that the big reason for the trend is the movement away from single-vendor open source projects. Vendors who want to control their own projects (MySQL AB, for example, now Oracle) LOVE the GPL because it gives them *control.* That control is lost with community developed projects, and so the calculus there is different.

I actually think that for community-developed projects, the BSD license is the way to go but for single-vendor projects the GPL is much better. In the end though the GPL also protects projects from proprietary forks when the pace of development is very slow. For projects where the pace of development is high, then the GPL offers really very little if any additional protection (as in Apache or PostgreSQL).

Comment Re:As a software engineer and a parent (Score 1) 240

I know it is very different for different people. If I don't have caffeine for a couple weeks, I lose my ability to function. For example, I can't show up anywhere on time.

I should have probably clarified I am functioning better than I would be if I was on prescription medication. The caffeine and the choices above really help. However during periods of heavy stress it isn't enough by itself. I have also had to learn to be comfortable with a lot more uncertainty than most people because I literally can't cope with the stress.

But again, I was medicated with a number of different medications for years I can no longer tolerate reasonably. So it is perhaps for the better.

As for your question
I avoid alarm clocks because I find that waking up suddenly seems to make my ADD worse. I use them occasionally but maybe a few times a year....

Comment Re:As a software engineer and a parent (Score 1) 240

The other tips I have that work for me:

1) Get plenty of sleep
2) Avoid alarm clocks when you can
3) Avoid too much time in front of the TV
4) Regular exercise and breaks from work help
5) ++caffeine......
6) I avoid too much sugar, particularly on an empty stomach

I have been able to manage better w/o medication on this regime than I could with medication before/

Comment Re:Will be interesting to see how the 4th Am. issu (Score 1) 268

No doubt that such counts as a search if the GPS device records such a location as per Karo v. United States.

However, the question that Knotts explicitly left unanswered was something different, namely whether surveillance of public spaces can ever be sufficiently pervasive to raise 4th Amendment concerns independent of the general lack of protection of public space. This sort of dragnet surveillance was explicitly not decided in that case or indeed any case since. And while such dragnet surveillance doesn't really fit into 4th Amendment search jurisprudence, part of the issue is that it is sufficiently recent that courts haven't had to confront the issues involved.

Comment Re:Will be interesting to see how the 4th Am. issu (Score 2) 268

The issue that was raised in Knotts was the specter of exactly this sort of surveillance. The court ruled in Knotts that one did not have a reasonable expectation to privacy when in public *but* distinguished this from some sort of hypothetical dragnet surveillance of public places, saying explicitly that this was not at issue here and that the court could decide it later.

In other words, while occasional surveillance of suspects may be permissible, the court has said explicitly that full tracking of everyone in public is not settled law.

Comment Re:As a software engineer and a parent (Score 2, Interesting) 240

As a techie and a parent with ADD I am a little more concerned. There are strong reasons to think that TV time is linked to ADD, and I don't see why computers would be different.

Indeed I have been using redshift on my Linux laptop now for a bit over a week and have found my own ADD greatly helped by the software's color shifting, suggesting to me that the color balance (too much blue in particular) may be partly to blame. We already know this affects other parts of the human brain and can affect sleep. However my experience is that at least for those of us with genetic predispositions for ADD (my dad and my grandfather both have or had it), the color balance may in fact be a factor.

The fact is, the pace of change is very high and it takes years or decades to notice the effect. I think we are generally better holding off and exposing kids later, and also drastically reducing the amount of screen time (whether computer or tv) that kids get.

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