Re: [luv-talk] Fake Wikipedia entry on Bicholim Conflict finally deleted after five years
Quoting Russell Coker (russell@coker.com.au):
One thing that's always annoying is when people make wild claims offering no evidence at all and then criticise people who reference Wikipedia.
There are much better and saner criticisms one can make of Wikipedia. One is that many pages are crazy-quilt junkyards of maniacal detail-freakery. See xkcd parodies thereof: https://xkcd.com/214/ https://xkcd.com/739/ https://xkcd.com/444/ https://xkcd.com/446/ Another is that some of the articles are pretty much incoherent and utterly fail to cover their subjects -- possibly as a result of camel-like committee editing. (Old saying: A camel is a horse that was designed by a committee.) Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor's_fallacy I happen to be a mathematics guy, and a Bayesian, so the really awful explanation at that page really pained me. Here's what I wrote about it on a mailing list: Quoting Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com):
Here's some examples of that sort of thing, generally called the "Prosecutor's Fallacy" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor's_fallacy#Conditional_probability
By the way, intending no criticism whatsoever of you or Ray, Terry, but the explanation of that concept at Wikipedia is truly dreadful. I expect most people reading it will think 'Well, it's complex math stuff; I can't expect to understand it.' That's a pity, because it's not that difficult to explain -- I think. I'll have a try at it (borrowing from http://www.dcs.qmul.ac.uk/researchgp/spotlight/legal.html): If you know it's the midnight hour, you can determine the chance that it's dark outside (i.e., pretty certain). If you know it's dark, you can also calculate the likelihood that it's the midnight hour (non-zero but small). The point is that the odds of A given that you know B is NOT THE SAME as the odds of B given that you know A. Take that scenario to court: The prosecutor speaks as if he/she is calculating the odds that the defendent is innocent given the DNA evidence presented (B given knowledge of A). _However_, what he or she actually _presents_ are statistical calculations about how likely the DNA evidence would be present, given that the defendent is innocent (A given knowledge of B). And, the point is, these are just not the same thing at all, and calculating one 'conditional probability' tells you absolutely nothing about the other. In the UK court case mentioned on http://www.dcs.qmul.ac.uk/researchgp/spotlight/legal.html, prosecutors sought conviction of defendent mother Sally Clark (whose two babies had died) by having an expert testify that the probability of two cot deaths occurring in a single family was 1 in 73 million. To restate, the prosecutors presented the odds of two cot deaths in a single family, given that the mother is innocent of murdering them (A given knowledge of B). Unfortunately, that is not a relevant calculation: They needed to calculate the calculate the ENTIRELY DIFFERENT AND UNRELATED probability of the mother being innocent of murdering her children, given occurrence of two cot deaths in the family -- B given knowledge of A. (That actually ended up being an extremely unlikely 1 in 2 billion chance, completely the opposite of the picture that prosecutors had painted. Ms. Clark was unjustly convicted based on this entirely bogus probablistic argument. Her convictions were overturned after two appeals, but then quite understandably she then drank herself to death.) Yeah, and now I can anticipate the question: So, Rick, if you think Wikipedia's explanation of the Prosecutor's Fallacy is so wretched and opaque, and you are sure you can do better, why aren't you editing the page? I might. If anyone else wishes to do so, I give my blessing to anyone who wants to borrow any or all of the above.
On 4 January 2013 16:30, Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> wrote:
One is that many pages are crazy-quilt junkyards of maniacal detail-freakery. See xkcd parodies thereof:
https://xkcd.com/214/ https://xkcd.com/739/ https://xkcd.com/444/ https://xkcd.com/446/
http://xkcd.com/285/ http://xkcd.com/333/ http://xkcd.com/446/ http://xkcd.com/545/ http://xkcd.com/548/ http://xkcd.com/978/ etc The last one is especially relevant :-)
Quoting Brian May (brian@microcomaustralia.com.au):
The last one is especially relevant :-)
Reminds me of an incident during the first Windows Refund Day initiative of 1998-1999: My wife and I walked up to the IBM booth at the first LinuxWorld Expo and Conference in San Jose and politely asked if they had any information about how, if feasible, to get a refund on the cost of bundled MS-Windows copies acquired with IBM ThinkPads, that were unused and unwanted. They referred me to a page on the subject on... linuxmafia.com. Yep, IBM Corporation referred me to _me_.
On Sat, 5 Jan 2013, Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> wrote:
They referred me to a page on the subject on... linuxmafia.com. Yep, IBM Corporation referred me to _me_.
That's hardly surprising. None of the problems that have been pointed out with Wikipedia are new. People haven't changed much in 10,000+ years. The problems in question are all people problems. Paying people doesn't make things magically become better, it just means that you have a much smaller number of people while also having a few of the most unreliable people removed from the pool. The question is, does allowing everyone access (including lots of trolls and idiots) give a better result than having a select number of people with a smaller (but non zero) incidence of trolls and idiots? It's probably worth considering that if people from this list were to be hired to answer technical questions then who might get a job and who might be excluded. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
Russell Coker wrote:
That's hardly surprising. None of the problems that have been pointed out with Wikipedia are new. People haven't changed much in 10,000+ years.
Well, I hear they got taller...
On 05/01/13 13:40, Trent W. Buck wrote:
Russell Coker wrote:
That's hardly surprising. None of the problems that have been pointed out with Wikipedia are new. People haven't changed much in 10,000+ years.
Well, I hear they got taller...
I hear they got shorter... "Skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunger-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages was a generous 5' 9'' for men, 5' 5'' for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, and by 3000 B. C. had reached a low of only 5' 3'' for men, 5' for women. By classical times heights were very slowly on the rise again, but modern Greeks and Turks have still not regained the average height of their distant ancestors." http://goo.gl/dK6j
On Sun, 6 Jan 2013, "Geoff D'Arcy" <geoff.darcy@gmail.com> wrote:
On 05/01/13 13:40, Trent W. Buck wrote:
Russell Coker wrote:
That's hardly surprising. None of the problems that have been pointed out with Wikipedia are new. People haven't changed much in 10,000+ years.
Well, I hear they got taller...
I hear they got shorter...
"Skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunger-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages was a generous 5' 9'' for men, 5' 5'' for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, and by 3000 B. C. had reached a low of only 5' 3'' for men, 5' for women. By classical times heights were very slowly on the rise again, but modern Greeks and Turks have still not regained the average height of their distant ancestors." http://goo.gl/dK6j
That article is about people who are malnourished being shorter. It's the same now, people who had good food and a good social environment when they were young are on average taller than those who didn't. Genetically there's been no great change, it's just a matter of how many people are lucky enough to have good food and a good environment. There's a lot of fairly dubious stuff about how nice things supposedly were in hunter-gatherer societies. For starters I can't imagine a society where a woman left her tribe to live with her husband's tribe being any good in terms of the treatment of women. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
On 09/01/13 00:11, Russell Coker wrote:
On Sun, 6 Jan 2013, "Geoff D'Arcy" <geoff.darcy@gmail.com> wrote:
On 05/01/13 13:40, Trent W. Buck wrote:
Russell Coker wrote:
That's hardly surprising. None of the problems that have been pointed out with Wikipedia are new. People haven't changed much in 10,000+ years.
Well, I hear they got taller...
I hear they got shorter...
"Skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunger-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages was a generous 5' 9'' for men, 5' 5'' for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, and by 3000 B. C. had reached a low of only 5' 3'' for men, 5' for women. By classical times heights were very slowly on the rise again, but modern Greeks and Turks have still not regained the average height of their distant ancestors." http://goo.gl/dK6j
That article is about people who are malnourished being shorter. It's the same now, people who had good food and a good social environment when they were young are on average taller than those who didn't. Genetically there's been no great change, it's just a matter of how many people are lucky enough to have good food and a good environment.
Yes that's completely true, it's a dietary issue, not a genetic one. But the common perception appears to be that we are physically larger than our ancestors and that this has been the trend over time. However archaeology suggests that only now are we returning to the size of our pre Neolithic ancestors.
There's a lot of fairly dubious stuff about how nice things supposedly were in hunter-gatherer societies. For starters I can't imagine a society where a woman left her tribe to live with her husband's tribe being any good in terms of the treatment of women.
Yes socially I think only an extreme patriarch would find it attractive. But many hunter gatherer cultures understand the finite nature of environments and how to live sustainably within them. I think this is what the author was nostalgic for in the referenced article.
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013, "Geoff D'Arcy" <geoff.darcy@gmail.com> wrote:
There's a lot of fairly dubious stuff about how nice things supposedly were in hunter-gatherer societies. For starters I can't imagine a society where a woman left her tribe to live with her husband's tribe being any good in terms of the treatment of women.
Yes socially I think only an extreme patriarch would find it attractive. But many hunter gatherer cultures understand the finite nature of environments and how to live sustainably within them. I think this is what the author was nostalgic for in the referenced article.
The thing about hunter-gatherer societies is that there is a more direct link between population and sustainability. If your tribe has a certain area that can feed a certain number of people then you have clear choices to keep the population down or declare war on surrounding tribes - which would be more likely to reduce the population of your own tribe than increase the available land. As we start to exceed our resource capacity we have slower signals, prices of some foods increase, more food is imported, some people change what they eat, etc. It will be well past the point where things get really bad that the average idiot realises that there is a problem. But the up-side is that educating women and giving them choices is the best way of controlling the population. There aren't a lot of women who really want to have more than two children if they have the option of a career, education, and leisure time. I can understand Americans and other people from less developed countries having some nostalgia for hunter-gatherer societies. But people in more developed countries such as Australia really shouldn't. Unlike Americans all Australians have significant health care which makes life a lot better for us than for ancient people. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 11:39:03AM +1100, Russell Coker wrote:
Unlike Americans all Australians have significant health care which makes life a lot better for us than for ancient people.
that'll probably be fixed after the next election. and if you want to help, just vote for Tony Abbott via your local Liberal candidate - he's wanted to kill off Medicare and the PBS for years. with very little effort, we too can have a run-down grossly underfunded third-world health-care system for most of the population and a pretty-good but absurdly over-priced one for the rich (and those fortunate enough to have health insurance paid for by their employer). even better, your health insurer and your employer gets to decide what kind of health care will be covered based on their financial needs rather than your medical needs. something to look forward to, hey? craig -- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>
Hi, On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 11:39 AM, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au>wrote:
The thing about hunter-gatherer societies is that there is a more direct link between population and sustainability. If your tribe has a certain area that can feed a certain number of people then you have clear choices to keep the population down or declare war on surrounding tribes - which would be more likely to reduce the population of your own tribe than increase the available land.
Moi, as a long term resident of , and very frequent traveller to far flung villages in PNG can categorically state that you are so wrong it's not funny. Rgds BW
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013, Brent Wallis <brent.wallis@gmail.com> wrote:
The thing about hunter-gatherer societies is that there is a more direct link between population and sustainability. If your tribe has a certain area that can feed a certain number of people then you have clear choices to keep the population down or declare war on surrounding tribes - which would be more likely to reduce the population of your own tribe than increase the available land.
Moi, as a long term resident of , and very frequent traveller to far flung villages in PNG can categorically state that you are so wrong it's not funny.
Some analysis of the food supply in Victoria suggest that our state is not producing enough food to feed it's inhabitants. Some suggest that we are doing OK now but will not be able to produce enough food in some years in the future. It's difficult to determine the numbers with all the trade and some inefficiencies in production. It's also not easy to determine how things could be changed if there was a food shortage, EG changing dairy farms to wheat farms improves useful food but isn't always easy or possible. No-one really cares about this because it's believed that we can rely on money from manufacturing and managing mining companies to import food. Victoria has an area of 237,629 km^2 more than half that of PNG which is 462,840 km^2. In a hunter-gatherer society the area of the country doesn't matter much (countries as we know them don't even exist for H-G), a H-G is unlikely to buy food from the next village let alone the products from other states and countries that occupy so much space on out supermarket shelves. Now there have been cases of H-G societies destroying themselves by using all of an important resource (EG Easter Island), but it should be easier to spot such things as they are happening when it's on a scale where everyone knows everyone else in the village and knows what they are doing. It's easier for first-world people to believe that growth can be sustained forever. We just use the infinite supply of oil and the infinite developments of new agricultural technology to increase food supply etc. Also there's little direct result. A tribe of 150 people in an area will have to make some significant changes if they expand to 300 people, which is a real problem when there's no unoccupied land. A family in Australia that doubles in size just buys more houses. Knowing someone from another country is such a wrong way of supporting an argument that's it's not funny. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
Quoting Russell Coker (russell@coker.com.au):
Now there have been cases of H-G societies destroying themselves by using all of an important resource (EG Easter Island), but it should be easier to spot such things as they are happening when it's on a scale where everyone knows everyone else in the village and knows what they are doing.
Not the right example. The Polynesians who settled Rapa Nui / Easter Island circa 800 A.D., probably from Mangareva, brought all their agricultural methods with them, and by 1300 A.D. the island was being intensively farmed: yams, sweet potatoes, bottle gourd, sugar cane, taro, and bananas. They also had extensive sets of chicken houses. (Unfortunately, they also brought with them the Pacific rat, which was then a key factor in triggering their subsequent problems by killing off the native palm tree forest.)
Hi, On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au> wrote:
Knowing someone from another country is such a wrong way of supporting an argument that's it's not funny.
I _lived_ with these wonderful and diverse people...sometimes for many weeks at a time , many times over a 6 year period, and in some case so did my 3 young kids and wife. We were PNG residents based in Lae. We did it on their terms and in their context. Vanimo, Wabag, Tari, Mendi, Kainantu, Mt Hagen, Garoka, Wau, Salamua ...... I put it to you that you are pontificating from a first world perspective with little or no knowledge of the realities in this world. Your blurt of "facts" here is narcissism and self interest of the highest order. Suggest you read this excellent piece to get some clue: http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/the-last-laughing-death/470/ Descriptions of village life and the social context are some of the best I have read on the subject. BW
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013, Brent Wallis <brent.wallis@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au> wrote:
Knowing someone from another country is such a wrong way of supporting an argument that's it's not funny.
I _lived_ with these wonderful and diverse people...sometimes for many weeks at a time , many times over a 6 year period, and in some case so did my 3 young kids and wife. We were PNG residents based in Lae. We did it on their terms and in their context. Vanimo, Wabag, Tari, Mendi, Kainantu, Mt Hagen, Garoka, Wau, Salamua ......
I put it to you that you are pontificating from a first world perspective with little or no knowledge of the realities in this world.
Do you plan to tell anyone anything about what it's like in PNG or just continue claiming authority while not providing any information?
Your blurt of "facts" here is narcissism and self interest of the highest order.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism You might want to read the definition of narcissism and then consider whether bragging in a message where you accuse someone else of narcissism is sensible.
Suggest you read this excellent piece to get some clue: http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/the-last-laughing-death/470/
Descriptions of village life and the social context are some of the best I have read on the subject.
It's an interesting article. But it doesn't seem to have anything to do with Geoff D'Arcy's following statement which we are discussing: # But many hunter gatherer cultures understand the finite nature of # environments and how to live sustainably within them. I think this is # what the author was nostalgic for in the referenced article. To summarise my previous messages in a way that's easier to discuss, I believe that Malthusian checks on population are inherently delayed by the modern inter-connected society where money can be borrowed from other countries for food imports. [1] Such delayed results avert catastrophy in some situations (a single bad harvest won't kill anyone) but also allows the system to operate with little excess capacity over large regions (which has the potential to go badly wrong). [2] I also believe that the Malthusian limits become less apparent to individuals as the society becomes larger and more complex and the distance between food production and consumption increases. [3] I have made three specific claims which could be refuted and numbered them for your convenience. If you have any specific knowledge of PNG which relates to them then please inform us. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
Hi, On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 8:38 PM, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au> wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013, Brent Wallis <brent.wallis@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au> wrote:
Knowing someone from another country is such a wrong way of supporting an argument that's it's not funny.
I _lived_ with these wonderful and diverse people...sometimes for many weeks at a time , many times over a 6 year period, and in some case so did my 3 young kids and wife. We were PNG residents based in Lae. We did it on their terms and in their context. Vanimo, Wabag, Tari, Mendi, Kainantu, Mt Hagen, Garoka, Wau, Salamua ......
I put it to you that you are pontificating from a first world perspective with little or no knowledge of the realities in this world.
Do you plan to tell anyone anything about what it's like in PNG or just continue claiming authority while not providing any information?
I have a firm belief that privacy = freedom. Some of us in this world do not feel the need to brag via some no-name blog. Nor do we feel the need to promote such in our email sigs.
Your blurt of "facts" here is narcissism and self interest of the highest order.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism
You might want to read the definition of narcissism and then consider whether bragging in a message where you accuse someone else of narcissism is sensible.
You are a pusillanimous little il-informed turd! You and your ill-informed rat brained wantoks are what ill's us in this world.
In short: Fuck u you bigoted no-name know-it-all inexperienced ass-hole! BW
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013, Brent Wallis <brent.wallis@gmail.com> wrote:
Some of us in this world do not feel the need to brag via some no-name blog. Nor do we feel the need to promote such in our email sigs.
I've had my blog URL in my .sig for a number of years. This is the second occasion that I've been criticised for doing so. In both cases it was after a hostile discussion, presumably heavily based on someone's need to flame me for something. I've also had a number of people thank me for my blogging after following the link in my .sig. This is most common when someone asks me for help on a technical matter and then finds other useful technical information in my blog. By convention a .sig is 4 or fewer lines that are slightly less than 80 characters long in which the author of a message can put whatever they wish and as long as they aren't offensive there's no other requirements. My .sig is 2 lines that are significantly less than 80 characters and the content is useful to some people and of no relevance to the rest.
You are a pusillanimous little il-informed turd!
You and your ill-informed rat brained wantoks are what ill's us in this world.
In short: Fuck u you bigoted no-name know-it-all inexperienced ass-hole!
If you want to have a discussion of narcissism then one thing you REALLY don't want to do is to flame people who disagree with you. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
Hi, Russell, that was no flame. Just a seriously passionate reality check. I challenge you: Some time this year, I and a couple of others plan a reprise in the PNG highlands. If you can pay for your own airfare to Port Moresby then Lae, then I invite you to join us. All other costs will be covered, except if you decide to leave early. The trip will be: Moresby, Lae, Salamua (by boat then back to Lae),then by road to Garoka, Hagen...then what ever communities beyond that will accept us. BW On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 9:20 PM, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au> wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013, Brent Wallis <brent.wallis@gmail.com> wrote:
Some of us in this world do not feel the need to brag via some no-name blog. Nor do we feel the need to promote such in our email sigs.
I've had my blog URL in my .sig for a number of years. This is the second occasion that I've been criticised for doing so. In both cases it was after a hostile discussion, presumably heavily based on someone's need to flame me for something.
I've also had a number of people thank me for my blogging after following the link in my .sig. This is most common when someone asks me for help on a technical matter and then finds other useful technical information in my blog.
By convention a .sig is 4 or fewer lines that are slightly less than 80 characters long in which the author of a message can put whatever they wish and as long as they aren't offensive there's no other requirements. My .sig is 2 lines that are significantly less than 80 characters and the content is useful to some people and of no relevance to the rest.
You are a pusillanimous little il-informed turd!
You and your ill-informed rat brained wantoks are what ill's us in this world.
In short: Fuck u you bigoted no-name know-it-all inexperienced ass-hole!
If you want to have a discussion of narcissism then one thing you REALLY don't want to do is to flame people who disagree with you.
-- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013, Brent Wallis <brent.wallis@gmail.com> wrote:
Russell, that was no flame. Just a seriously passionate reality check.
If that wasn't a flame then please cite an example of something that is a flame. A "reality check" isn't "fuck you". It would be more likely to contain information on what you consider reality to be and how it differs from someone else's ideas. So far you haven't provided any such information. So far the only thing that I have been able to determine from your messages is that you believe that you are entitled to have me agree with you and that you consider my failure to do so as some form of attack. You don't seem to understand the fact that other people won't be convinced by your appeal to authority. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
Hi, Do you accept my challenge or are you just a vacuous chicken shit. Even Knob Brown has placed his neck on the the line. R U willing to do the same? BW On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 10:09 PM, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au>wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013, Brent Wallis <brent.wallis@gmail.com> wrote:
Russell, that was no flame. Just a seriously passionate reality check.
If that wasn't a flame then please cite an example of something that is a flame.
A "reality check" isn't "fuck you". It would be more likely to contain information on what you consider reality to be and how it differs from someone else's ideas. So far you haven't provided any such information.
So far the only thing that I have been able to determine from your messages is that you believe that you are entitled to have me agree with you and that you consider my failure to do so as some form of attack. You don't seem to understand the fact that other people won't be convinced by your appeal to authority.
-- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
Sounds like its going to be a pleasant trip.
Quoting Brent Wallis (brent.wallis@gmail.com):
Hi, Russell, that was no flame.
Brent, it really was. Even on a purely tactical level, you should be aware that descending to pure name-calling, scatalogical vitriol was a bad move, as observers will tend to conclude you have no rational arguments (even if you do, and were merely venting pique for a moment).
Dear Russell, On 11/01/2013 9:20 PM, Russell Coker wrote:
On Fri, 11 Jan 2013, Brent Wallis <brent.wallis@gmail.com> wrote:
Some of us in this world do not feel the need to brag via some no-name blog. Nor do we feel the need to promote such in our email sigs.
I've had my blog URL in my .sig for a number of years. This is the second occasion that I've been criticised for doing so. In both cases it was after a hostile discussion, presumably heavily based on someone's need to flame me for something.
I once defended you, never mind I have since learnt my lesson as that will never likely happen again. People are entitled to have opinions without having to justify such opinions with Wikipedia or other references. If you don't agree with the opinion, then feel free to refrain from attacking the person with an opinion that differs from your own -- find your own proof and keep it to yourself; on the whole I am not much interested in your opinion these days.... Thank you AndrewM
On Sat, 12 Jan 2013, Andrew McGlashan <andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au> wrote:
I once defended you, never mind I have since learnt my lesson as that will never likely happen again.
That's fine. Being defended by you would be a bad sign.
People are entitled to have opinions without having to justify such opinions with Wikipedia or other references.
They are not entitled to their own facts though. If something is a matter of opinion then my opinion that Wikipedia is a useful resource is just as good as your opinion that it isn't. If you want us to take you seriously then you can't claim that things are a matter of opinion but that your opinion is more important than that of the vast majority of both members of this list and scientists who disagree with you.
If you don't agree with the opinion, then feel free to refrain from attacking the person with an opinion that differs from your own -- find your own proof and keep it to yourself; on the whole I am not much interested in your opinion these days....
There is no personal proof. There is a correct proof and an incorrect attempt at a proof. You are obviously very interested in my opinion, that's why you started this thread about me. http://www.narcissistic-abuse.com/wikipedia.html Sam Vaknin has written the best critique of Wikipedia that I've ever seen. However please note that he is a self declared narcissist (and the only person afflicted with NPD to write books about it) and he has stated that he will always lie when it's in his best interests. If you read Sam's critique you will see some obvious inconsistencies, he complains about history being edited and also about copyright infringements being available in the history - he can't have it both ways. http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/i-psychopath/ Sam is also the subject of the documentary "I Psychopath" which is worth watching - and it's free. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
Sorry, you failed to put in a direct Wikipedia link, so here's some help for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Vaknin
Quoting Russell Coker (russell@coker.com.au):
The thing about hunter-gatherer societies is that there is a more direct link between population and sustainability. If your tribe has a certain area that can feed a certain number of people then you have clear choices to keep the population down or declare war on surrounding tribes - which would be more likely to reduce the population of your own tribe than increase the available land.
When my wife and I were recently on the island of Puerto Rico (originally a nickname; Spanish for 'rich port'), I was reading a good history of the island that started with the original human inhabitants, the Taino.[1] The Taino were an agricultural society, part of the Arawak group of peoples (and languages), and had a fairly high level of civilisation as an agricultural society. Over hundreds of years, the Taino fought a strategic retreat against another people, the Carib (source of our name 'Caribbean'), who followed them up from Central America and disputed various islands with them. As a youth I heard the Caribs described only as 'fierce' but was not told the context: It turns out that they were primarily hunter-gatherers, and had relatively little agriculture. (The women did some agriculture.) Hence, they needed large amounts of land on which to hunt and fish, leading to conflict with agricultural neighbours. The Carib were notably more patriarchial than the Taino, and more socially separate from their men, but were reported to wield more societal power than their Taino equivalents, FWIW.
I can understand Americans and other people from less developed countries having some nostalgia for hunter-gatherer societies.
Can't imagine why. On the other hand, I've always felt that Hobbes's phrase 'Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish, and Short' (describing the human 'state of nature') would make an excellent name for a law firm. ;-> [1] Many Taino language elements persist, including the Puerto Ricans' own name for the island, Borinquen, from the Taino Borikén, translating to Land of the Valiant Lord.
On Sat, 5 Jan 2013, Russell Coker wrote:
with Wikipedia are new. People haven't changed much in 10,000+ years. The problems in question are all people problems. Paying people doesn't make things magically become better, it just means that you have a much smaller number of people while also having a few of the most unreliable people removed from the pool.
The question is, does allowing everyone access (including lots of trolls and idiots) give a better result than having a select number of people with a smaller (but non zero) incidence of trolls and idiots?
Hah. Because we're a big bureacratic organisation, we use a lot of commercial enterprise quality software. This simply means that you pay lots of money for a poorly tested, poorly designed product with no community behind it, and no real help from the venduh. But the manager who asked for the purchase gets to cover his arse and add zeros to the end of his yearly budget empire. This post brought to you by the commercial Linux distributers, and the letters O, R, A, C, L and E, and Z E N O S and S, and E, B & S, and I, S, U, P, P, O, R & T amongst most of the other letters in the alphabet. (A case where I have found it is good to pay some extra money to not have to deal with the masses is paying $10 extra to avoid the jetstar clientelle. And there are other examples - I just can't remember them) -- Tim Connors
Tim Connors wrote:
Hah. Because we're a big bureacratic organisation, we use a lot of commercial enterprise quality software. This simply means that you pay lots of money for a poorly tested, poorly designed product with no community behind it, and no real help from the venduh. But the manager who asked for the purchase gets to cover his arse and add zeros to the end of his yearly budget empire.
Reminds me of a monastery thread recently where the general sentiment was Debian on whiteboxen beats RHEL on HP because "I waste less time talking to them before having to fix the problem myself."
They referred me to a page on the subject on... linuxmafia.com. Yep, IBM Corporation referred me to _me_.
Did you follow your own advice? :) -- Lev Lafayette, mobile: 0432 255 208 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt
On Sat, 5 Jan 2013, Brian May wrote:
On 4 January 2013 16:30, Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> wrote:
One is that many pages are crazy-quilt junkyards of maniacal detail-freakery. See xkcd parodies thereof:
https://xkcd.com/214/ https://xkcd.com/739/ https://xkcd.com/444/ https://xkcd.com/446/
http://xkcd.com/285/ http://xkcd.com/333/ http://xkcd.com/446/ http://xkcd.com/545/ http://xkcd.com/548/ http://xkcd.com/978/
http://xkcd.com/1157/ (Randall reads LUV?) -- Tim Connors
participants (12)
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Andrew McGlashan -
Brent Wallis -
Brian May -
Craig Sanders -
Geoff D'Arcy -
Lev Lafayette -
Mike Mitchell -
Rick Moen -
Russell Coker -
thelionroars -
Tim Connors -
Trent W. Buck