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The life’s work that proved Einstein right

bostonglobe.com

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Re: The life’s work that proved Einstein right

#21

Post by iand »

kmote00 wrote: post #8
CamperBob2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why reward the paper (or its advertisers) for abusive practices?

Did somebody hit you over the head with a tent-pole, CamperBob? What abuse are you possibly talking about? This story is a tremendous work of journalism, crafted by an author who really ought to get paid for his work. Or do you work for free too?

Don't you believe that there are degrees of obnoxiousness in advertising?

How would you feel if this tremendous work of journalism was only accessible after filling in a 20 page lifestyle questionnaire? Do you think that's ok if it means they are getting paid for their work?

Alternatively they could choose less obnoxious advertising that still enables them to earn a living without detracting from the reader's enjoyment.

Re: The life’s work that proved Einstein right

#22

Post by Jenya_ »

venomsnake wrote: post #20
deepnet wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Einstein's modification of Classical Newtonian Physics is still unparalled today.

In his time we also had Planck, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrodinger - whose contributions are as foundational and unparallel too. But nobody is the media is obsessed with proving Max Planck wrong. Or Schrodinger. "Will scientists finally prove XXX wrong", XXX is always Einstein.

yes, the others, if Heisenberg (or other German scientists) would be a bit more smarter then WWII may have ended differently and in that new world no one would be praising Einstein, for obvious reasons: http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/8491/did-heisenbe...

Re: The life’s work that proved Einstein right

#23

Post by imglorp »

kmote00 wrote: post #8
CamperBob2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why reward the paper (or its advertisers) for abusive practices?

Did somebody hit you over the head with a tent-pole, CamperBob? What abuse are you possibly talking about? This story is a tremendous work of journalism, crafted by an author who really ought to get paid for his work. Or do you work for free too?

I'd gladly micropay for everything decent I read. Just don't torment me with malspamvertising.

edit - on reflection, it's about the parasitic middlmen as usual. micropayments directly to sites and authors skirts that whole species.

Re: The life’s work that proved Einstein right

#24

Post by gfgjmfgjmgh »

kmote00 wrote: post #8
CamperBob2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why reward the paper (or its advertisers) for abusive practices?

Did somebody hit you over the head with a tent-pole, CamperBob? What abuse are you possibly talking about? This story is a tremendous work of journalism, crafted by an author who really ought to get paid for his work. Or do you work for free too?

From the official guidelines:

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

Re: The life’s work that proved Einstein right

#25

Post by CamperBob2 »

kmote00 wrote: post #8
CamperBob2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why reward the paper (or its advertisers) for abusive practices?

Did somebody hit you over the head with a tent-pole, CamperBob? What abuse are you possibly talking about? This story is a tremendous work of journalism, crafted by an author who really ought to get paid for his work. Or do you work for free too?

Cue dang to "detach this thread and mark it off topic." Aaaaany minute now.

To answer your question: yes, I'm paid for my work, but I don't have to harass my customers to make it happen.

Oh, wait. I'm not the customer in this case, am I? I'm the product.

Re: The life’s work that proved Einstein right

#26

Post by maxander »

Artoemius wrote: post #9
maxander wrote: post #5

Man, the days when a kid without particular academic accomplishment could just be "guided" to MIT by a teacher impressed by his intelligence and passion. Or when a dropout could just wander into a physics lab and land a job as a research assistant. Neither sounds remotely feasible in 2016- these days, the available human potential and ambition outstrips society's resources to actualize it, by an order of magnitude. C…

On the other hand, there were the days when you had to be born into the right social caste to have any chance for an interesting life at all, otherwise being doomed to a lifetime of menial labor. I really do prefer our current situation to 99% of the history of mankind.

Absolutely true- things are more competitive now in large part because a much larger segment of the population gets a shot at it. I'm not saying things are objectively worse on a social level, far from it... but they were more relaxed. We could have both.

Re: The life’s work that proved Einstein right

#27

Post by maxander »

Alex3917 wrote: post #10
maxander wrote: post #5

Man, the days when a kid without particular academic accomplishment could just be "guided" to MIT by a teacher impressed by his intelligence and passion. Or when a dropout could just wander into a physics lab and land a job as a research assistant. Neither sounds remotely feasible in 2016- these days, the available human potential and ambition outstrips society's resources to actualize it, by an order of magnitude. C…

Being at the right place at the right time is one of the most important skills in life. If you look back at these sorts of places across history, how often did they have systematized gatekeeping? Never. There's no shortage of these places and opportunities for any given field, you just need to cultivate the ability to surface them.

I think you'll find MIT's gatekeeping is extensively systematized. : )

Which is not to say that MIT admissions don't sometimes revolve around human elements, and moreso the process of landing RA positions, but the sheer number of people gunning for these opportunities its its own kind of gatekeeping. These human factors, the networking and outreach and so forth that goes into "surfacing opportunities," are fiercely pursued now, to the point that it becomes another hoop to jump through even past the grades and SATs and internships that we think of as the "system." One can certainly learn to play the game, but it'd be awfully nice if we didn't have to.

Re: The life’s work that proved Einstein right

#28

Post by jospoortvliet »

zepto wrote: post #11
Artoemius wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, there were the days when you had to be born into the right social caste to have any chance for an interesting life at all, otherwise being doomed to a lifetime of menial labor. I really do prefer our current situation to 99% of the history of mankind.

Those days are today: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/recruitm...

That was an awesome read. Thanks...
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