Cat

I personally find it more than "potentially" interesting. As the parent of a 13 year old daughter, I find it, and the accompanying article http://www.livescience.com/health/070827_girls_math.html fairly disturbing. My daughter is quite smart (not just bragging here -- she's in all honors or gifted/talented classes and gets straight A's) and has always shown an interest in science. But I've seen it decreasing over the past couple years. Maybe I'll print out these articles and talk about them with her.

Wow! Finally something interesting to read in the alfa thread! Does the concept of having a "soul" fit into this philosophy somewhere? I'm trying to get at what you think "happens" to us after God takes back the life he lent us.

Oh, but do you remember how there were a few curmudgeons who thought implementing UNDO was the biggest waste of NIs time? "No one needs undo", they said. "NI needs to be spending it's time adding functionality to LabVIEW, not useless bells and whistles. You all should just be more careful when you're programming. "

Okay, so then I need to apologize to hooovahh for thinking someone had called him an underling, and to crelf for second-handedly calling him nefarious and potentially irksome. And I definitely apologize for the worst insult of all: calling crelf "Senior Management".

And here I thought what was being suggested was some sort of nefarious plot by Senior Management to make the Underling do his dirty work. Tho considering the Senior Management allegedly involved, I can't imagine he'd really want/need someone else to do that. He's always seemed willing to irk people all on his own. (Crud! I promised myself I wan't going to post to this thread anymore!)

Of course it can! Just like the financial industries keep themselves under control! Oh, wait...

Oh but that's so boring! It's much more fun speculating. Kind of like trying to make up figure out what the V I in V I Engineering stands for.

Personally I think it's kinda strange that AQs ideas don't just... automatically happen.

Bad news: out of the literally hundreds of ideas only 5 are "In Development" Good news: 1 of those 5 is rankied 24th in # of kudos. I'm assuming ease of implementation is also considered along with kudos. At least that's how I'd do it. So there's always hope! A little bit, anyway.

This is exactly what my "fudgeFactor" is. It was developed years before I started on this part of the project, so last time I was testing at that lab I insisted they take me thru the derivation. Turns out it was off by quite a bit (new sensors with different sensitivities, different gain settings, etc). So now I have a new, improved (and thoroughly documented) value to throw into the equation. But I still call it "fudgeFactor" because that is more interesting sounding than "refinement to the model".

Philosophically speaking, I agree completely. That being said -- we have some very smart people who work here who can come up with all sorts of in-depth analysis algorithms that I don't necessarily completely understand (I'm still puzzling over how our algorithm for a lofargram really works). They hand me an algorithm and I turn it into code. How do I know that algorithm isn't biased somehow? I don't.

Ack! I take that every day! But wait! I drink cases of wine, not 12-packs of beer. I'm sure I'm okay...

Because they aren't evil. It says so right here in a wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_be_evil so it must be true.

I have written code that has the exact term "fudgeFactor" for a constant. I have written code without an audit track. I've probably written code that if someone wanted to pay another LV programmer big bucks to analyze, they'd probably find some esoteric error in it somewhere. Well, okay, maybe it wouldn't be *that* hard. I have written code that included perhaps not quite the most professional comments, mostly made late at night (or early in the morning) after too much espresso, or perhaps getting a little over-the-top when completely fed up with a user's anal retentive requirements (I'm thinking about a dialogue box that has two options: T="Continue" F="I don't know. Ask me again." I would have gotten rid of it after the beta release, but the users love it. Most anything is funny after a week on a submarine...) Unless I missed it, no where in that article does it say the code doesn't do what it's supposed to do. No where does it say that the algorithm behind the code is incorrect or was used to "fudge" data. It does however sound like the programmer needs a little help with his/her self-esteem... I write software that people use to analyze data. I bear no responsibility for what they do with the results my software gives them. It seems that a scientist deliberately altered data -- regardless of what the code may have told him. That is wrong and extremely upsetting. But I consider that on a completely different level from someone writing "unprofessional" code. It would be a bit hypocritical of me to do otherwise.

(I can't believe that site hasn't been blocked by Big Brother. Yet.)

Wow. This is pretty powerful stuff. And certainly not what I learned in Civics class in highschool. So what happens if I make it onto a jury and then tell everyone they have a right to vote their conscience? Does the entire jury get nullified? Do I get dragged off to jail?

That all sounds pretty good! Which probably just makes your health issues more frustrating for you... That's why I mentioned the reduction in triglycerides with low-carbing. Do you know if your triglyceride level is okay? We're (obviously) wandering outside my level of research here, but intuitively I would think that high levels of blood fat would mean more of a chance to clog arteries...?

Sorry, this topic is not controversial enough for the LAVA Lounge. Where's that "Report to Moderator" button...?

Darn! You beat me to it! I'm surprised. That's definitely fair enough. Every American should have the option of having just as good health care insurance as their tax dollars are providing their elected representatives. I had a surreal conversation with someone a few weeks ago on this topic. She was adamently opposed to any sort of gov't intervention in the health care system in any way shape or form. I asked her what she would do if she lost her job and her health insurance and got sick. "Go live with family and have them take care of me" was the reply. Then I asked what she would do if she didn't have any family. She replied, "I would just go off somewhere and die." Well, alrighty then...

Exactly! The only thing I've ever field-dressed is a scarecrow, so how can I compete?!? I agree completely. There is the tree-hugger side of me that hates what we're doing to the environment and is happy that something is finally getting people's attention (or was, anyway). But there is a lot more of me that REALLY hates bad science and when it is used to manipulate public sentiment. If it turns out that's what's happening here, that will be a Very Bad Thing. But I've read a few other articles from other organizations who vouch for their own data as being separate from the data that is suspect. I hope Phillip is right and the big news orgs are just waiting on some sort of confirmation to start reporting this...

My SO thinks Sarah Palin is "hot" (not that he would ever vote for her) so she's kinda a sore subject with me. If it's true that there's been no mention of Climategate in any of the major news outlets, I do find it concerning. I could either think of it as a Big Leftist Tree-Hugging Conspiracy, or, what is probably even worse, blame it on the fact that global warming / climate change is becoming a boring topic that your average Joe no longer wants to talk or hear about. Unlike Sarah, who everyone wants to talk about. Because she's hot.

Having participated in a couple Diet Wars, I am leery to write this. Your cardiologist probably isn't going to like this suggestion, but here goes... There are a lot of people out there who benefit greatly from a low carbohydrate diet. I personally lost 40 lbs low-carbing, and more to your issue, dropped my triglycerides (blood fat) from 283 mg/dL down to 80. My dad, who was following a low fat diet, had to have emergency quadruple bypass surgery a few years ago. After his recovery, I finally convinced him to try low-carbing. His cardiologist was adamantly opposed, but as my Dad said, obviously a low-fat/calorie diet wasn't working for him. A year later Dad's cardiologist was astounded. He said my Dad's heart hadn't looked that good in ten years. Oh, and as an extra added bonus, Dad got completely off his high blood pressure meds, dramatically reduced his T2 diabetes meds, and dropped 20 lbs (yeah, Dad hadn't been in very good shape and could also have benefitted by getting his butt up off the couch every once in awhile. But I digress...). Here are a couple articles: http://www.annals.org/content/140/10/769.abstract http://inside.duke.edu/article.php?IssueID=93&ParentID=6949 But if you want to research the actual science behind low carbohydrate dieting, pick up a copy of "Protein Power" by Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades. Reading that convinced me that low-carbing was definitely worth trying. They also have a someone less militant plan than Atkins who seems to be just about selling associated products. Of course, as with all diets, 1) what worked for me, my dad (and lots of my friends) may not work for you, and 2) also as with all diets, if you go off of it, whatever good it's done you will stop. Cat (duck and cover)

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

FWIW, this wasn't my opinion, it was/is the opinion of a fairly conservative Republican. The radicals aren't tearing themselves apart, but they are disaffecting a lot of fellow Republicans who don't like what the face of their party is looking like today. Much like when wacko leftist radicals make all the rest of us moderate lefties look bad. And I'll have to say, your Obama comment left me with quite an interesting visual image.

Heck yes! Us lefties are pure as the driven snow and would never resort to such low-handed tactics. Seriously now folks, I think it's because here in the USofA the liberals are *supposedly* in power. The Republican party is being split apart by it's own terrified radical conservative side. People like my SO, who is a Republican (and I love him anyway ) are getting pretty disgusted with the scare-tactics rhetoric that keeps gushing forth from certain parts of the Republican party. Ditto for my best friend (what am I doing hanging out with all these righties?!). All those right-wing radicals are shooting themselves in the foot.