I like to point out that the error-rate is not the error-shape. There are many times we can/should prefer a higher error rate with errors we can anticipate, detect, and fix, as opposed to a lower rate with errors that are unpredictable and sneaky and unfixable.
Yes, let's not have cars. Self-driving ones will just increase availability and might even increase instead of reduce resource expenditure, except for the metric of parking lots needed.
I enjoyed reading "Foundation" recently. The total lack of female characters was jarring to say the least. Worth the read if you haven't. Not much like the AppleTV series.
The point was more that the female characters turn up in books two and three. Three in particular.
If you like SF you can't go wrong reading all of Asimov IMO. The entire Robots/Empire/Foundation series is fantastic. It doesn't mean you can't also read other, "better" SF either. Asimov's main SF work will take a few months to read at most.
Are you referring to the literal planet rather than a woman? That character felt particularly of self insert fantasy (oo a hot 20 year old in love with the aged professor).
Regardless, stopping at the first book is a good recommendation. Asimov demonstrated he didn't understand what made his own work interesting. Granted mystery boxes are hard, but he took an immediate about-face on psychohistory and retconned any bit of intrigue with rather vanilla stuff. The first book is outstanding.
I read books because I enjoy them. I enjoy reading about hot 20 year olds and big breasted women in space actually. Women are allowed to have 50 Shades, I'm allowed to enjoy books too.
You are. And I'm allowed to read into the author's psychology when they wear it on their shoulder. And I'm also allowed to critique the author when they misunderstand their work and write rambling, uninspired sequels that ruin the original work.
Lucas and Disney couldn't help but copy even these bad parts of Foundation in the Star Wars prequels and sequels.
I've never understood this. The beauty of recorded media is authors cannot ruin or revoke their work, assuming no actual censorship, of course (copyright can also be a problem). Just ignore the subsequent works if you don't like them. This is the first time I'm hearing about people only reading the first Foundation book but it's definitely worth doing some quick checks before dedicating one's finite time to reading/watching/listening to anything.
The trilogy, prequels, and sequels are all "canon" and retcon the most interesting concepts of the original book as ruses, conspiracies, and lies. This is unambiguously a ruining of the original because the author went out of their way to mute the concepts rather than explore them.
The first book Orwell wrote is pretty good as well. Down and out in paris and london. It's a good picture of life in the slums at the time, and much more raw than other accounts - Orwell seems to have simply recounted his experiences.
It's a bit low for Asimov to just say Orwell was slumming it like a modern hippie. He was slumming it like in the olden days, and starved for weeks.
The criticism is that an aspect of the work is jarring. In my life, women feature. I can't think of any shared enterprise in which I have taken an interest where they do not. So for me it is jarring when in 3 separate short stories there are none. (Why? Is it a choice? Is it limited by author ability? Something else?) It damages the hell out of suspension of disbelief at the minimum.
The film Amélie "Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain" is not a racist screed. In fact it is a hugely entertaining and charming movie I do not hesitate to recommend to just about anyone. Set in Monmatre, the homogeneity of the heritage of both the characters and extras is jarring because Monmatre is just not like that. If you know Monmatre noticing this will crash right through your suspension of disbelief in the story. You will recover. Still absolutely worth the watch.
Foundation is still worth the read despite the glaring and obvious fault.
Your assertion on whether the work is or is not misogynistic is something you can perhaps discuss with someone else. I am sure there are two schools of thought on the point, but it is not at all relevant to this criticism.
Tiger woods. I can't think of any tennis player who has been in the top 100 for the past few decades who didn't commit to it totally as a young child. Start tennis at 10? Too old. Swimmers. Has anyone stumbled into sporting greatness from being outside the top 5%? Or 1% when they hit adulthood?
So what is being said? A huge amount of elite success is in the hardware, i.e. the body &/or brain. These go through rather large changes between ages 10 an 18. Puberty. This shakes up the ordering among those who showed enough promise to have already committed to becoming elite.
What am I missing here? Seems like this research is nothing more than "Kids change through puberty, the nature and sizes of the changes are a bit of a lottery for each kid." Much like the the genetic factors are also a lottery so you can't reliably predict who is going to be great from the results of their parents. (But if your parents are both 5ft, the NBA seems an unlikely destination for you).
Dennis Rodman grew up overshadowed by his sisters' basketball skills, and then had some unheard of growth spurt of 8" after finishing high school. He hadn't even played much high school ball.
Both Dennis Rodman and Hakeem Olajuwon are not 5ft, they are very tall and athletic. That combination is more important than basketball skill attained at 18 years of age. These attributes differs from tennis, or chess. Being elite at being both tall and athletic probably changes the most over puberty?
Basketball is probably not a great example since just being enormous gives you a huge chance of making it to the NBA, which I guess is just another form of being a prodigy.
Sure, and if we keep going back in time to perhaps the greatest American athlete of all time, Jim Thorpe - he'd handily be beaten by elite high schoolers today.
Basketball is a general purpose sport. The Claude of it can win. Some other sports such as gymnastics would need something more like the AlphaZero of it to win.
> Basketball is a general purpose sport. The Claude of it can win.
There aren't too many pro-ballers shorter than 5'10" (177cm), and definitely no dominant ones.
If we're defining "general purpose sport" as a sport in which people of all shapes and sizes are able to achieve greatness, then I would say soccer or golf fit that definition better.
Men's soccer in the 2010s was dominated by 2 of the best players in history: Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. There's a 7 inch height difference between the two. Ronaldo is powerful and muscled, Messi is lithe and graceful. Both played in approximately the same position on the field, in the same era. Both were brilliant.
What is being said is not simply that people who engaged in a certain activity since childhood do not become top performing adults. Obviously that happens a lot. But rather that the top child or youth performers are not reliably the ones that turn into top adult performers.
Think of 5 relevant attributes of your body for playing something well.
Guesstimate where they were on the population bell curve when you were 10.
Guesstimate if these would have been on a different spot on the population bell curve for that attribute when you were an adult. Would you have guessed it when you wee 10? Would others have guessed it about you at that age?
Puberty changes you in unpredictable ways. Do we need a study to know that?
Everyone committing to tennis before they are 10 are elite, you wouldn't do it otherwise. Who is the best player of that elite set changes given the great puberty shake up.
That was covered just fine IMO. The reaction seems to be "so what?" I think that's a valid reaction. It's a long article to state something obvious, that the important thing about being on your way to greatness is having great talent and training to win starting at an early age, not winning before reaching a certain age.
I had an LLM first pick five figure skaters, and in the follow up query tell me which had wild success before age 12, and only two of the five fit that category, but each started learning at 6 years old or earlier. The other three seem like child prodigies in retrospect to me.
How does it affect things across the economy for fuel purchase? Haven't seen a study. It would incentive-ise price cutting to increase sales, especially by the independent operators, by essentially advertising the lower pricing for free, is my guess.
On Scoot (Budget Singapore Air) they let you bring your external phone batteries on the plane but do NOT let you use them. You have to rent one of theirs.
Skyphone installation by the airlines led to "flight mode" because the horror of not paying is far more important than safety.
All of this fake, useless theatre undermines real security and makes us less safe while picking our pockets.
Fluids to bring down a plane? FFS every human is equipped with a bladder. Why was this charlatanism ever tolerated at all?
The intention/purpose of the limit on fluids was to prevent people from assembling liquid explosives inside the plane. The contents of your bladder would not help with that.
So if you drink some of the fluid in front of the goon instead of being instructed to pour the water out, that would show it's not explosive and everything is fine? Test for is this fluid water isn't complex chemistry right? So we're good to go, yeah? No.
It's an attack that never happened and wouldn't. It's nuts.
They should have banned underwear because the underwear bomber /did/ happen. But sure, that's awkward and would impact revenue, (I don't wanna go nude so I won't fly unless I have to), so the ridiculousness of doing so triumphed where it did not with water and shoes.
Lock on the cockpit door was worthwhile (unless the threat is a psychotic German copilot, worked bad then). Also the successful terrorist strategy had expired useless even before the end of its first use on 9/11 as passengers found out, realised new rules: fight back now, hard.
Bastards at Heathrow stole a sealed jar of Fortnum & Mason jam from me. For security! Because onion jam could blow up a plane. FFS. But sure, you could buy the same stuff once through security and take it on the plane at inflated prices. Where there was a financial incentive to do so and a secial interest to lobby for it, the idiocy stopped. In 5 meters.
The purpose of these moronic rules was /not/ what you think it was. It was just a sequence of moronic compromises around dumb ideas influenced by special interest. You can't respect it and respect your own intelligence. Security is actually important, do better.
The authorities can't admit they lied. Admit there was never any evidence that phones could interfere with anything on a plane other than the well being those around you. They can't admit they banned mobile phone usage but not skyphones because of special interest pressure.
They can't do this because it would destroy their credibility with the ignorant as much as it has with the informed, that would get a critical mass. So yeah we have "flight mode" and every single flight someone breaks it. It isn't remotely enforceable so it is just as well that connecting to cellular is harmless. (Planes also have expensive wifi instead of expensive skyphones now, so the financial incentive remains.)
Airplane mode was a figleaf to counter "your phone must be switched off" which was the old-school airplane mode enforcement.
Undermining security for little bits of money for special interest. The naked corruption of purpose could make you angry if you let it.
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