Get your facts straight. Two party systems are an outgrowth of a one-vote-per-voter system, the number of parties and voting system have nothing to do with the strength of democracy, and we don't even live in a democracy - it might be at best a 'representative democracy', but it is functionally more like a republic. None of that is my opinion, just poly-sci 101 and the math behind voting systems.

In a one-vote-per-voter system, a vote for a third party erodes support the the most closely aligned major party - thus all 3rd parties are necessarily fringe. Pick a different voting system, get a different result. Any of the more complicated voting systems have common results where 'compromise candidates' (i.e. middle ground) will win out. You don't just get the more moderate sounding candidate from the two extremes.

What does all of this have to do with music? Everything. The #1 selling song at Christmas is... just the most commonly purchased song. You vote with your wallet. You are not limited to one vote, or one song. If you cared, and had enough cash, you could make most any song the #1 selling song.

What happened here is that a minority of people like crappy pop, and they buy whatever the latest crappy pop is. The vast majority of the population buys music they actually like, but their 'votes' get diluted among all different genres of music. Most of the time, it doesn't matter, because good music and popularity are only slightly correlated, and may in fact be anti-correlated if you happen to dig the indie scene. Once per year, though, someone does a big press release about how crappy-pop-du-jour is outselling everything else. It may only account for a tiny fraction of total sales, but it is the #1 single. People got tired of it, and shouted it down, which they could do by picking a compromise - RATM.

Everyone who wanted *anything other* than crappy pop used one 'vote' on that song, and Bob's your uncle. That didn't change what else they went and bought - it just skewed the stats about #1 singles in an attempt to make certain advertisers STFU.

You can do that when buying music - the cost of one extra 'vote' is low enough that people who are pissed at Simon are happy to spend a bit to spike his wheel. You could do with voting for politicians, too - all you have to do is make it so that a compromise vote doesn't hurt your 'main party' candidate. Voila - 3rd parties start showing up with moderate views, the wackos still get left out of the final picture, and pretty soon, you get people voting on the merits of a candidate instead of their party affiliations and campaign promises you know they are going to break anyway. You'll still have a small number of dominate parties, but you'll have real 3rd, 4th and 5th options, and an overall decrease in cognitive dissonance among politicians.

And less crappy pop music. Or not, but one can hope.

Interesting that you should say that - the traditional biologists, by and large, don't think of doing things like this. Bioinformatics is a catch-all for any number of different disciplines, all in relative infancy, and almost always pioneered by people outside the traditional biology arenas.

I studied biochemistry in college, with a ton of extra math, physics, and computer science. Then I did a PhD developing DNA diagnostics for flu (awarded by the chem department, but I was a full time programmer and part time bench chemist).

My first paper was applying Shannon informational entropy theory to big alignments of flu DNA to look for conserved regions. No one around me had a clue what the hell I was on about. The code I wrote for that paper is still used by the Flu Division at CDC.

The only place where this article went wrong was in assuming that traits are trivially mapped to sequences. In practice, it almost always turns out to be extremely non-trivial, and in flu it almost doesn't work at all (the biologist figured out the easy cases years ago). Never the less, most really good science starts with some assumption that looks to be extremely over-simplified, and turns out to be very predictive.

There is going to be a lot of room for hackers and coders in the biological sciences in coming years - computer science has solutions to problems the traditional biologists haven't even realized are problems yet. Data storage and retrieval to support high-throughput sequencing labs, new algorithms for large-scale data analysis, instrument networking for lab automation. The job postings will go up just as soon as the biologists figure out that they have a problem...

That's just one way to navigate.

Growing up, my sense of direction was *way* below average - too much time reading books in the car instead of paying attention to my surroundings. Living in Denver, I could always find west by looking for mountains, but it doesn't take long to figure out that that isn't a reliable way to set your compass anywhere else.

I hiked a lot, though - trails don't run in cardinal directions, so I got good at looking for landmarks, even in unfamiliar surroundings.

Now, I find that I can point to my destination, regardless of where I am starting from. Even if I don't know the roads I am driving or the trails I am hiking, I've got a very good idea of which general direction I'm supposed to be headed. However, I have to really concentrate to tell you verbally which direction that is.

That's a pretty useless skill in downtown areas, because of the preponderance of one-way streets and construction that prevent you from going the way you think you should be. It is incredibly useful elsewhere, though.

Aww, *hell* no!

I've got a problem with lists like this - they do point you in the right direction, but they don't tell you *why* you want to go that way.

First, my credentials. Me, a PhD in chemistry, but I write scientific software for a living. Her, dual BS in Computer Science and Applied Math and a masters in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and a job in the aerospace industry. We lived together for nine years and we've been married for 3. We're about as geeky a couple as you are likely to find -- and that has almost nothing to do with our relationship. It does influence our favorite topics for conversations, but not much else.

Your relationship isn't going to be like any other. Not because you are geeks, but because it involves two unique individuals. There will be 'rules' that you learn to play by, but they won't be my rules, or the parents rules, or the rules that people who have been together for 50 years play by.

Think of a relationship like a box - an empty container to start. You can fill it by giving of yourself, or you can take from it what your partner has contributed. You'll do both at various times, but remember this - too much take and not enough give from either party will empty it back out, leaving one or both of you very unhappy and wondering where you went wrong.

How you fill it is up to you - find out what is important to your partner, and make an effort for her. If she cares about you, she'll do the same. Lists like the parent made are good places to start, but don't stop with other people's advice - figure out what really matters to your wife.

You won't get everything exactly right all the time, but if you've built a trusting, loving relationship, and kept the box full, you'll get past the rocky patches without major injury to either party. For example, early in my relationship, my wife was sometimes too subtle about what she really wanted. I wouldn't catch the hints, and she'd end up very upset and I'd end up clueless and hurt. After it happened a couple of times, I finally just asked her to do a very simple thing for me. If it was a really important topic, I asked her to say 'This is really important'. She doesn't play that card very often, but when she does, I swallow my arguments and do my best to accommodate her request. I wasn't meeting her needs because I didn't know what they were. We are both much happier since we started doing that, and those requests are becoming more infrequent, because we are learning to recognize each others needs better.

That's what works for us, but find your own way. If you are both willing to work at getting it right, your marriage can be the best thing that ever happened to either of you.

Wow, biased much?

The Slashdot community prides itself on things like understanding statistics - so let's try to understand this one a little more objectively.

This article is media hype piece, about a study by an opinion polling group, asking questions about topics that are scientific in nature but tend to have political spin put on them every day.

I submit to you that by itself, the 55% statistic means *nothing*. Here's why.

If this were a scientific study instead of a public opinion survey, Slashdot would be ripping that number apart because the comparison is extremely non-scientific. For instance, compare scientists vs non-scientists by level of education. I strongly suspect that you'd find that the distribution of political orientation for those with an advanced degree was very similar between the science and non-science groups. Whereas you won't find any 'scientists' with only a high school education - you can't go into the sciences without at least a bachelors degree, and that will usually land you a lab tech position.

From there, you need to start comparing how each of the various demographics feels about politically charged scientific issues. But those statistics, too, are useless without understanding the political situation and correcting for education levels, etc.

This is a 'social sciences' sort of study, and its findings deserve to be scrutinized just as much as any other, because it suffers all the same sort of flaws as the vast majority of those sorts of studies. Do not be blinded by the fact that it deals with physical science topics.

This study, and the parent comment, show that you don't even have to lie with statistics. Just publish some crappy numbers with no real statistical rigor applied to them. If the numbers are sensational, or even leading, other people will do the job for you.

1. The majority of scientists are liberals.
2. I am a liberal.
3. By (1) and (2), I am like a scientist.
4. Scientists are always right.
5. By (3) and (4), I am right about every opinion I have.
6. We disagree.
7. By (5) and (6), you are wrong.

QED? Not so much.

You're thinking too small! Try clipping along at 1/3 of the speed of light or so. All good *in space*, but I dare you to try that in the Earth's atmosphere!

If you think too much of *anything* won't kill, you, try adding a whole lot more.

I live in Denver, and have always preferred the Post. I get all my news online. Interestingly, I have heard of InDenverTimes multiple times - all from the Denver Post website.

Here's the thing - they wouldn't have needed any more publicity than that, if they would have had an angle. But their whole story is 'we're going to put news on the web' which has been done before. They had some of the old Rocky staff, but the Post hired a couple of the bigger name columnists, so they didn't have an exclusive on that.

If that's all you've got going for you, why would I pay five dollars? The problem is not the lack of publicity, it is the lack of *buzz*. No one had any reason to check that site out.

n/t

I do not speak for the Slashdot gestalt. When I write 'outdated business model', I mean 'founded on pre-internet artificial scarcity'. That doesn't mean free, it just means *both* the supply and demand curves shift quite a bit, and the places in the system where there are profitable opportunities shift. This applies to the MPAA, the RIAA, the scientific publishing industry, and a whole bunch more.

Scientific publishing, in particular, makes money from both the author and the reader. They got greedy, claiming that they are the only way to distribute to the end reader, and that they are also the only way to set up a peer review. Both assumptions are wrong, and are now easy to get around, thanks to the internet.

If a business model was profitable, but now it is not due to advances in technology, it is outdated. Its time has passed. It is an ex-business model. It is pining for the fjords. It has gone to the great golden spike in the sky where all technologically inflexible business models must eventually go.

You picked a perfect example to illustrate my point. Pre-19th century, if you wanted a sweater, someone had to knit it. 21st century, if you want a handmade sweater, someone has to knit it. But the supply of handmade sweaters, which take a long time to knit, is far outstripped by the demand for sweaters.

There are those of us who, recognizing the lost opportunity cost of spending hundreds of dollars for a handmade sweater, realize that we can get a machine-made sweater for a fraction of the cost. We substitute a similar product.

The price of handmade sweaters is a supply side problem. The price of machine-made sweaters is a demand-side problem. The business models for these things are radically different due to the introduction of technology into the process. Handmade clothes are an art form, and are priced appropriately. Machine made clothes are a commodity and enjoy shatteringly larger profitability due to economies of scale.

Building a business model centered around high demand for high priced sweaters is just silly. It *would* have been a viable business model prior to the industrial revolution and the amazing rise of the textile industry, but it won't work now. It is outdated. That doesn't mean it isn't a business plan - it's just a silly one that won't work any more.

Scientific publishing will change. The publishers will find a way to adapt their business model and continue to publish, or will flail about with an outdated business model and they will perish. As in science, so it goes in scientific publishing: Publish or Perish.

This is a major blow to an industry with an outdated business model. Scientific publication is starting to move beyond the need for the middleman, and I am extremely glad to see it happen.

That said, the major publishers will scramble to try and patch this hole in the business model, and they will probably make the overall situation worse before it really starts to improve.

Oh well. Got to start that process at some point. Go MIT.

Falcon's got it right. Even if we manage to come to a complete, encompassing scientific view of the universe, you could still argue that there is a God, and because he is all-powerful, he made a scientifically consistent universe.

This is the point where logical reasoning breaks down. You can always add God back into the equation. You cannot prove or disprove God with logic or science.

Ockham's Razor suggests that "the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory." In this case, God is unnecessary to explain the world we see around us. However, that's just an observation - not really a hard and fast rule of science. That's all the further we can go to prove or disprove the existence of an all-powerful being.

You either believe or you don't. Anyone who tells you they can prove or disprove God has failed to study enough philosophy, or is lying to you. No exceptions.

No. We can't even *try*. And for precisely this reason, creationism is not science.

Strip away everything else and science comes down to these steps.

1. Posit a falsifiable hypothesis.
2. Design an experiment to test it.
3. If you fail to disprove it, it might be true.

Any argument that can be boiled down to '$DIVINITY did it!' fails at step one. By definition, God, miracles, etc. fall outside the bounds of science. You can't disprove them. You can *try* to reason about them logically. Everyone who has ever tried has ended up caught in a circular argument. This includes all statements made for *or against* the existence of a higher power.

This is why talking about science and religion in the same breath is utter nonsense. The two have no overlap, unless there is a God, and he is deceiving us at every turn just to be an asshole (the true believers will tell you he is testing your faith).

This 'grand deceiver' is the fallout of following Descartes' "Je pense donc je suis" to its logical conclusion, and the foundation for all of western philosophy until Sartre hit reset by deliberately ignoring everything that came before him. (See sig for more).

Religion comes down to one question. Do you believe? No logic, no science, no reasoning it out. So, do you believe?

Pascal's Wager helps to explain part of the enduring popularity of believing in God, despite a lack of empirical evidence. If you believe, and there is no God, nothing happens to you - this is the existential viewpoint. If you disbelieve, and there is a God, you are screwed - this is the religious viewpoint.

Me? I think Marcus Aurelius had it right. Worry about this life. The next will take care of itself, one way or another.

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

You could be right about that. And any company who pulls that sort of crap deserves exactly what is coming to them.

Also,

Bingo!

My wife just took a new position, because her last boss was an idiot. He was a passive aggressive micro-manager, puffed up with his own self-importance, *at least* 15 years out of date technically, and long since regulated to the most irrelevant corner of the company.

By the metrics discussed here, though, he'd have looked like the hero! *All* had to run though him - customers, suppliers, management, co-workers - if you talked to someone without including him in the conversation, he'd flip. He threatened to fire my wife (and a few more people since) for doing their job without his constant oversight. Unfortunately, while everyone knows about the situation, my wife was the first to report it to HR, so they can only now start to think about taking action against they guy.

Counting the number of communications makes the people who send one word, no value added emails and attend a lot of meetings they don't need to be at look good.

Also, it completely misses your crack team - the 3-4 people who you can hand a problem to, and know that they'll have it solved by next Tuesday, no questions asked. When those people shut their office door, you leave them alone, because you know they are working miracles, and you'll only get int their way.

Web analogy - Google and page rank. Rule number one is that you never trust the page to tell you how important it really is. Pages with all the right keywords and a bunch of links are one of two things - the best of the best about a topic, or an SEO linkfarm. So you take those things into account, but you do so with a *huge* grain of salt. To augment it, you go looking for other supporting metrics - what do other people think?

The HR department has just automated a human approach to the problem - they took one piece of evidence that the human brain can wrap its head around, and made the computer count that. You want to do informatics and data mining right, you need to learn what the computer is good at, and start looking for deeper patterns that are hidden by masses of data too large for the human mind to encompass.