Rather than watching the new movie, you could also watch another film based on a play based on the book, which doesn't shy away from some extended soliloquies about math and creativity and stars David Jacobi in a truly amazing performance. Definitely worth it, and likely a much better portrayal of Turing.

And that's precisely why there's no great advantage for MOST people in the U.S. to switch to metric. Many other countries made the switch back when aristocratic scientific elites could tell people "what was good for them" and force an admittedly simpler and more consistent system onto the masses, even if it really didn't make lives simpler except for scientists and engineers.

Nowadays, in the era of electronic calculation and asking Google to convert things for you, it's not even a significant advantage for scientists and engineers to use a 10-based system. The conversions you use often are easily remembered and punched into your calculator or if used very often, a convenient spreadsheet can be used. If you don't use conversions very often, you can just look them up when needed.

The only argument for any measurement system now is international consistency -- and while that's a strong argument for those who deal internationally, it doesn't tend to affect most ordinary Americans in their everyday need to measure and judge sizes of things, so it's a hard sell.

That said, you overstate your case:

Umm... Perhaps metric never evolved a common unit there (e.g. decimeters) because it's really unnecessary? Just like you don't need specific units between inches and thousandths of an inch (3 orders of magnitude), metric folks somehow manage to deal with 2 orders of magnitude quite easily without an intermediate unit. And, think about how Americans tend to use inches, feet, and yards, and you realize that they're not all really necessary. Either I care about a relatively exact measurement, in which case I say something like 92 inches, or I don't care about that sort of precision and say "about 8 feet" or "about 2.5 yards.". The latter expression is less common except in specific circumstances, since most people tend to ignore all intermediate units between feet and miles except if they need them and find them useful in everyday work (yards, furlongs, chains, etc.). Anyhow, it's similar in metric -- you have the unit of rough precision (cm), the unit of estimating medium-sized lengths (m), and the unit of significant distance (km). How often do you need a measurement that is vague enough that it can be expressed in feet but needs to be specified with enough precision that yards (along with a few simple fractions, like 1/2 or 1/3 or 1/4 of a yard) won't do?

What possible reason do you have to laugh at the metric system, other than the rather arbitrary feeling that you specifically want a measurement unit equal to about 1/3 of a meter? The metric system DOES have superior consistency in nomenclature and conversion, but you haven't offered any real reason to disparage it....

I find your interpretation of my post odd given that I *explicitly* noted that "I agree with you to some extent." I do agree with a lot of what you said, and I wasn't really looking to disagree.

That said, to me your term "stepping stones" implies a stepwise progression going in the right direction, as when one uses stepping stones to cross a creek or something -- that term usually indicates something that is used to progress toward a goal. My point is that these "placeholders" can also function as impediments toward progress, thus being the OPPOSITE of stepping stones.

Perhaps we agree, and that's great. But I was trying to add something on that was not explicitly stated in your previous comment and in fact seemed contradictory to the implications of your terms. And if I indeed "described exactly" what you think some of these terms mean (thanks for your agreement), then hopefully I've added something to the thread.

Random history of science note -- what you say about Copernicus is a myth and a complete misunderstanding of his theory, which basically required just as many epicycles as geocentric models at the time.

Copernicus -- and Galileo later on -- insisted on circular orbits, which still required plenty of epicycles and didn't actually simplify the math as much as the myths claim.

It was Kepler and his elliptical orbits (which Galileo rejected) that actually got rid of the need for epicycles permanently. Once one bought into Kepler's ellipses, it actually made heliocentrism more reasonable. Copernicus's model was just swapping one set of epicycles for another.

That description isn't really accurate, since dark matter and dark energy add important corrective factors to many models, and many scientists spend lots of time trying to model more things involving them... They thus are moch more formalized and manipulated than most " placeholders."

I agree to some extent....

Yeah, this goes off the rails a bit. I'd hardly call things like aether and phlogiston "stepping stones" -- they may have been initially, but they became over theorized and explanatory elements in their own right, and they ultimately led to a lot of wasted theorizing and going down blind alleys looking for explanations for things that weren't perhaps even real problems.

The issue with "placeholders" is that they turn a set of unexplained observations into a THING -- they reify or hypostatize it. But because this newly created "thing" has a bunch of unknowns, it may not be a single "thing" at all -- it may be a bunch of things that have some relationship or only tenuous relationships, or they may be derived from various observational inconsistencies that are only seen as "problems" because there are flawed assumptions in the underlying theory.

But the very act of grouping these various problematic observations together and giving them a name may introduce a bias to the way we think about these observations. And ultimately, like phlogiston or something, they can serve as significant impediments to getting to a better theory. I'm not saying there's a better way to do science, but it's important to realize that the nature of theorizing involves steps like this -- creating core concepts or assumptions and running with them for a while. But regardless of how contingent we may think of "dark energy," the fact is that by identifying it as someTHING, it influences the way we think about potential models in ways that we may not be completely conscious of... But 200 years from now people may look back and think of us all as idiots for not seeing the bigger picture.

Sure they were, but perhaps not in this millennium. The last tape drive I bought was in 1995 or 1996, and it was definitely advertised in a run-of-the-mill computer magazine or consumer product guide, which would also advertise games and such. Back when floppy disks were your only other reasonable option for backup, tape drives were a reasonable consumer option for home users with more than a few dozen worth of floppies of data to store.

But then zip disks became a thing for a while, and by the late 90s, CD burners became common enough and cheap enough that home users could take advantage of them.

Not to be too morbid, but that assumes that all possible lives are "worth living" and that death is never a preferable choice to living.

Many, many people make choices to die, whether by suicide to relieve pain or because of terminal illness or even for a cause (whether they are a "patriot" with a medal pinned to their chest or a "terrorist" depends on the perspective of those judging). Or, as the stats show, many people commit suicide while in prison as a method of escaping further punishment.

The penalty of execution is not merely the removal of life, but the removal of a CHOICE to continue life (or to end it). In fact, prisons often remove the option either way -- either they take life in execution or they try their best to prevent suicide if prisoners attempt it. (In fact, in most cases prisoners who are suicidal are required by law to be treated as requiring medical care, and prisons who fail to attempt to prevent suicide may be legally responsible if inmates die.) Either way, the choice of life will likely be taken away here.

I'm assuming you mean this post to be modded funny (i.e., ironic)? Otherwise, I think you're overlooking some major problems in how language actually works.

Exactly how do you define this language other than referencing its own terms? And if you do so, don't you think the lawyers will start arguing over the meanings of the definitions, or the meanings of the definitions of the definitions, or the [insert infinite recursion here].

For a practical historical example of this process, see Jewish law and rabbinical interpretations of the Torah. There's the original text, and then there are commentaries that explain the text, and then there are commentaries that explain the commentaries. And the process is never-ending.

And the problem with the Constitution is NOT that we don't know what what the Founding Fathers meant. Sure, there are some places where there's ambiguity or where we could argue about how a particular 18-century principle would apply to a 21st-century context that couldn't exist in the 18th century. But, with a few exceptions, we actually have a pretty good idea of what the terms used in the Bill of Rights meant at the time. If you object to change, the problem isn't the language -- it's our legal system, which draws its authority not only from written law but from court precedent for interpretation. Some parts of the Constitution simply don't mean what they originally did -- not because we lack understanding of what they originally meant but because legal precedents have gradually shifted the meaning. And overturning those precedents would in some cases essentially require trashing a century or more of jurisprudence and all of the precedents built on top of it.

In sum -- interpretation is always an inexact science. And no matter how exact your laws are, new situations will crop up or social values will change, and interpretations will adapt, no matter how much the language authorities try to crack down on meaning shifts. It's a systemic and social problem, not a purely linguistic one.

Sounds incredibly boring to me. Anyone who reads fiction (let alone poetry) would find this language completely ridiculous and lacking any useful expression. Real people would likely abandon it immediately or at least come up with their own puns or synonyms or whatever.

Okay, for a start -- please define a basic common word in your "readily quantifiable, without ambiguity" style.

For example, please define "chair." I'll even make it simpler and not insist that you define metaphorical uses -- just come up with a "readily quantifiable, without ambiguity" definition that precisely defines the kind of "chair" that people sit in.

I'll wait.

And then after you're done, I'll build something that doesn't fit your definition exactly, and I'll sit it in -- and then I'll sell it as a "chair" to people. Guess what? Your precise language is overridden by popular use... like any real-world language.

Even the French Academy (with its immortels) couldn't stop "Le Big Mac" from joining the French popular language. You really think you could ever nail language down like this??

Well, as TFA says:

There's a lot of research and science on this already. The only people who seem to be confused are Oklahoma politicians, corporate executives, and some Oklahoma geologists who are employed or influenced by politicians.

This is a state that went from 1-2 earthquakes over 3.0 per year to OVER 1500 such quakes in 2009-2014. So, something significant has changed (an increase of over two orders in magnitude is generally not just average variation), and it seems to have changed right around the time that people have started pumping a lot of stuff deep into the ground.

If these are NOT manmade, it's one heck of a coincidence....

It does matter whether it's good or bad, and it seriously is a reason why many of these managers should be fired.

There are numerous scientific studies showing the benefits of breaks, downtime, doing leisure activities, naps, etc. during the workday -- resulting in greater productivity than if workers don't have such things. Managers who insist that workers be productive continuously are actually decreasing their productivity.

Same thing with forcing people to work 7 days per week. Same thing with vacation time. There are a number of studies showing that if people take a few weeks or even a month off from work per year, they more than make up for it in increased productivity after the rest.

I realize that many managers are stupid, but this kind of stupidity is costing their company productivity and thus MONEY. It may be the norm, but it does matter that it's a stupid policy that not only harms workers but often harms the managers and their companies too.

Oh, and guess what -- added stress and fatigue causes injuries and health problems, often leading to more extended leaves due to sickness that end up costing a lot more. What's a big expense for most companies? Health coverage. Not only are you decreasing the effectiveness of your workers during work hours, but you're driving up one of your biggest costs in terms of additional healthcare.

It's inexcusable. Some high-powered companies in finance, law, as well as hospitals with doctors doing crazy shifts, etc. have started to recognize that it's really bad to have your workers coming in 7 days per week or working days at a time. It leads to inferior work and thus some corporations have started actively trying to get people to stay home on Sundays or whatever. (Think I'm kidding? Here's a story from the New York Times about financial firms adopting policies trying to get workers to stay home on the weekends.)

Managers who refuse to acknowledge good scientific studies showing how to make workers productive are bad managers.

(This is not to say that "Easter eggs" are always a good thing or a good use of time or resources. There are many reasons they can be problematic, as others have pointed out, like unintentionally creating problems in the code or whatever. But objections should be founded on reasons relevant to the project or security or whatever, not on bad managerial science.)

Yeah, I'd agree with you if it was 1995, or even 1999. The mid-90s was a time when the first lawsuits and things happened to try to remove things from the internet. They didn't work. Anyone closely involved with the law after the year 2000 or so should know better. In 2015 to make a statement like this actually believing it to be true -- it just shouldn't be reasonable for an educated person (Feinstein has a degree from Stanford).

So, either (1) she's making a suggestion that she knows is impossible for political reasons, (2) she's senile, or (3) she's ridiculously ignorant of what goes on in the world even compared to most people in Congress. But one thing we can't do is excuse her because she's old and clueless -- she's a major public figure and an educated person, and that excuse expired about 15 years ago (right after Al Gore "invented the internet").

I agree with you that GP is being a jerk. On the other hand...

While I absolutely agree with the ideas behind the ADA, in practice it has led to some serious legal abuse. Google "ADA extortion" or something like that, and you'll find dozens and dozens of stories about people -- who often aren't really disabled and go around threatening small businesses with lawsuits in the name of the ADA. Often the accommodations demanded by these folks would require a complete reconstruction or redesign of a building just to make a bathroom a few inches wider or something, so the businesses often "settle" with these thugs, paying out thousands of dollars rather than the tens of thousands or more they might be required to do.

There are many, many of these people who have made a living (i.e., hundreds of thousands of dollars) going around suing or threatening to sue over ADA accommodations. Granted, in some cases they lie or misrepresent the ADA to trick businesses into settling. At other times, they follow overly-strict or selective interpretations of the ADA to force lawsuits. Not saying the ADA should be repealed, but it probably could use some serious tweaking and the precedents around it need some serious attention to get us to a reasonable state.

In any case, these sorts of cases are a huge problem. Heck, if you search for it, you'll find organizations of lawyers complaining about it among the top links.

And when crazy lawsuits have multiplied so much that lawyers are complaining about it, you know something has gone seriously wrong in the legal world....

That's not what I said. There are cases where CPS admits -- after investigation -- that they found "no evidence" of abuse or neglect.

Yes, and that's what they do. But that doesn't change the fact that they are basically admitting that 1/3 of child removals are done without any substantiated evidence.

Don't get me wrong -- if a child seems in imminent danger, perhaps CPS needs to step in. But the policy with CPS nowadays seems to be "take kid first, ask questions later," which if you're a parent who hasn't done anything wrong seems... well, wrong. Doesn't it?

Okay, yeah. I know there are other things wrong in the world. But the topic of TFA is kids not going outside enough. One reason they may not be outside as much is because parents can't always be around their kids, and nowadays society seems to be saying if you can't personally supervise your kid until he/she is 16, you can't have them out of your sight (like outdoors). The abuse of people with mental illnesses and other "wards of the state" is another significant problem, but I'm not sure it's particularly related to TFA.

"Being there" and "taking care" of a kid also involves gradually giving them the freedom to make their own choices and do their own things as they grow. If you don't do this, you end up with kids who never learn to take care of themselves and are still living at home in their late 20s or 30s.

Anyhow, this needs to be based on age and maturity level, obviously. But nowadays we can't trust a 10-year-old to play outside with a 6.5-year-old younger sibling or to walk home from a park together (and yes, the parents ultimately were found responsible for neglect), nor can we trust an 11-year-old alone in a car for a few minutes while Mommy goes into the store.

Etc., etc. Sadly, these stories are not uncommon. There are things like this that come up on a regular basis across the U.S., and if you search a bit you can also read some of the harrowing stories of parents who are force to spend months or years struggling to get their kids back or living under draconian state "supervision" by CPS when they do.

Yes, as parents, you need to supervise your kids when they are little, and then you gradually allow them more freedom. It's called "growing up." But nowadays, people call the cops if they see a kid younger than 16 without a parent around, and CPS comes knocking.

You don't think that's extreme?