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Very nice, Poss. The new guitar sounded great!
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#shuzak, synirc
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Boogie!
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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Sorry, not my area of expertise. Try God?
Mathematics - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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The purpose would be for people who need to commute more than is pragmatically feasible. Get breakfast, and step into the VR gear and boom - you're on the other side of the planet.
It would pay for itself in plane tickets several times over, but the odds of mass market adoption increase geometrically as price goes down.
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Impressive. I like Marx. Well... I like the drawing.
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Fluffy kernels with funny hats. Oh, and they're nazis.
C programming - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I added a fair amount to it.
Can't wait to see what you guys add!
-Ati
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Me too.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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How about google docs? Everyone collaborates on the same document.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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It's true that the genetic character maker might be tedious to work with. You would want to make it as intuitive and interesting as possible, to avoid people getting fed up with it.
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I'm rapidly developing a mane.
I think I need a haircut rather badly.
The Manly Beard Club - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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*Alternate Universe Ati stroke his goatee*
The Manly Beard Club - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I'd prefer roots, actually.
Yesterday I was trying to pull up a tree root that had the exact shape and consistency of a piece of rubber tubing (excluding the bark, naturally).
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Indubitably.
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Stand at one one wall of the room your standing in.
Look at the opposite wall.
Walk towards it until you touch it.
What you have just done is impossible. Congratulations.
You see, in order to cross the room, you would have had to cross half of it's distance first. In order to do that, you'd need to cross 1/4. In order to do that, you'd need to cross 1/8, etc, etc unto infinity. Hence, you could never reach the opposite wall.
Fun, eh?
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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Happy Birthday, Jawad. Good to see you arround.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I don't see the firefly reference.
HGTTG, however, I noticed.
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I saw it.
The cloud cover was annoying, but it was quite cool.
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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political.
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Please define 'way back in the day', Zen.
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Hey... here's a thought:
Okay, so you get a surfboard, right? Then, you take some miniature Ekranoplan wings, and attach them to a spinning rotor, so you have a helicopter-style arrangement. Then, you mount the entire assembly to the underside of the board.
The result? An actual hover board. One that's small, low-energy, weight-carrying, and capable of vertical takeoff and landing.
Advanced Tech - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Fine, until you stop.
Advanced Tech - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Yeah. You'd want to calibrate the weight carefully, and go out into the desert somewhere, in the wind-shadow of some of the foothills.
Advanced Tech - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Okay, that is frickin awesome. Now we know how the land-speeders from Star Wars worked. The weird-looking body concealed a wing.
On that subject, does anyone know if this has been done before: you get a helium balloon with between fifty and a hundred pounds of lifting capacity, and you tie it to a flying harness, go out into a big open area, and then jump over houses, etc?
Advanced Tech - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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This is perfectly true.
However, eighty years seems a tad arbitrary? What if you get tired of life at 130? 500? 2000? 1,000,000,000?
To me, immortality is a matter of freedom from an arbitrary lifespan - the freedom to choose how long you live, as it were. And who knows, maybe there are, or will be people out there with the temperament to live forever.
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This is true.
Actually, in an interesting sense, it creates a kind of Darwinian evolution between selves - the ones most psychologically suited for survival are the ones that continue to exist.
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Okay, you get a really big kite, like the size of a small parasail, and a skateboard, and then you go to the middle of a big, open area, and you drag yourself along on the skateboard and then jump things, suspended in the air by the kite.
The guy was going twenty feet in the air!
It looks like an absurd amount of fun, and dangerous to boot.
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...well sure, if you want to be STRAIGHTFORWARD about it...
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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...Their reaction to discovering a spider crawling on them.
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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...music.
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Very nice Yue, well played.
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Also Poss, I'm not concerned with offending the religious. The main character's name is Damien, for starters (it suits him, I think). For another thing, the themes of life after death (one of the characters is dead, and inhabits a place that looks a lot like a paradise in retrospect, but isn't religious) probably already make it blasphemous in three different cultures (then again, it's hard not to be these days.
On the whole, I like the word daemon, and I'll keep it, I think.
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I'm re-writing the story as a novel.
You can read my current progress (approximately thirty pages at the moment) at
http://aticper.googlepages.com/posthumanparables
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Thanks for the feedback, Poss. Some really good points in there.
Most of what you say looks good, but I'm going to go ahead and disregard your suggestion that I add paragraphs from her perspective. Here's why:
I agree that I want to make the reader suspect some thing's amiss before he does. However, I also want to keep the empathetic third-person perspective focused completely on Damien. The way he thinks will be integral to the later chapters, so I want the reader to be completely familiar with what his mind is doing. That aside, I want to do something more complex than making the reader suspect something's wrong. I want them to suspect something is wrong, and then ignore that feeling because they earnestly pity him, and want it to work out; because they honestly don't want to see it. This was done in Fahrenheit 911, and 1984, and it's one of the most powerful plot devices I've ever seen used. I don't know if I can pull it off, but I want to try.
The rest of it seems like very good advice, however, and I will heed it.
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Incidentally, Zenmonk raised a similar challenge about the anomalous AI, and him quitting his job. Looking over the chapter now, I agree it's rough, and a loose end that needs tidying up. I don't know quite how to do it though, so I'll give it some thought and make alterations when I come to a conclusion.
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Update:
Chapters 3 & 4 have been added.
I'm actually quite proud of this one so far. By the look of it, the finished version will be about 140 - 150 pages. Please leave comments to let me know what you think as it progresses.
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You can now view all of my written works (prose only, for now) at
http://aticper.googlepages.com/posthumanparables
The first two chapters of the new novella are available for public reading. I'll be adding more as I can.
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Got it.
I'm bringing
A: a satellite phone w/ build in GPS and solar panels.
and
B: a giant Fresnel lens, as large as I can carry.
The satellite phone is fairly obvious, but the Fresnel lens is a little more complicated. Assuming there's coral around, blades won't be hard to come by, but fire will. Also, fresh water, which is where the abilitity to boil seawater comes in handy.
After much thought as to the person to take, I've finally settled on my dog. He could care less where he is, so long as there's food, and he'll be good company.
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Charging, Zen?
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They were phrased that way.
Although qualifiers are useful.
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Oh, and with the morality one, I should rephrase as
'Do you believe that morality influences the physical world?"
As in, do you believe that everything happens for a reason, no evil deed goes unpunished, etc.
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I can think of several really cool ideas, but inevitable, it's two or three (or four) times cheaper to hack something together out of miscellaneous parts.
Still, for those not willing to spend hours ripping apart delicate electronics, this could be useful indeed.
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What's the size of the island?
What natural resources? Inhabited or not? Define 'person'.
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INTJ
Introverted Intuitive Thinking Judging
Strength of the preferences %
67 88 75 67
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Tried all of those things. Allways ended up hyperventilating or getting depressed about how tired I'm going to be.
The only thing that works at all is listening to quiet music. Sadly, even with this, I haven't slept in two days.
Bithday Shout-Outs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well, as far as 'average errors per sentence' go, wikipedia is more accurate than Britannica.
Manipulation is certainly an issue, but generally, anything obviosu is noticed, and weeded out. You could also set your browser to ignore changes made in the last week/month/year.
Honestly, you run the exact same risks with this as you do with researching things on the internet beforehand.
As far as lack of wireless net access goes, your right, mobile internet is ridiculously expensive right now. However, Android will likely change that, by allowing you to use the cell towers as a method of transmiting raw data (any kind of data). Under android, browsing the web is exactly like calling another phone.
Privacy is a major issue, but there are ways around it. If you use a properly made one-time pad (a real one, not some crackable pseudo-random key jobby) you could encrypt your data stream well enough that it'll take a long, long time to crack your exchanges. If you trade out for a new pad every day (say, every time you sync your glasses with your processing box), you could have a very decent security encryption system for a fairly decent budget. Barring Van-Eck radiation, infiltration won't be much of an issue.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Also, I've heard of good results from bathing regularly in the blood of young girls (ain't history fun?).
Bithday Shout-Outs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I don't do New Year's resolutions, but that sounds like a fine toast to me.
Bottoms up everyone, and then let's get cracking on kicking the fascists out of office, shall we?
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Ouch.]
If it's broken, stop by a computer store or something and let us know it's working.
Actually, if it's broken, you won't be able to read this suggestion.
Well, you could...
Ah hang it all!
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Designers Den - Posted By Ati - Karma received: |
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Awwwww...
Now you guys are making me want a DS!
*Ati turns back on tempters*
*Ati goes to look at the games for the iPod*
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well, I did the omniscient / perspective narrator shift intentionally.
I wanted to be able to be able to use some 'magic camera' antics to have look at what was going on, and I wanted to be able to get into character's heads as well. I've seen the technique used before, and I thought it would be well suited to this story. I think of it as an 'empathetic omniscient' perspective.
As far as the active story goes, this one definitely has more action in it than most of my others (although it's all second hand action). However, I think the 'activity' that your talking about is a product of the atmosphere, which is a little tense.
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Nice...
I got an iPod
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Yep.
I got the 8 gig nano, so I'm going to add my music collection and torrent a bunch of movies to take with me on my trip. No more cruddy airline magazines for me
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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The Yuletide songs were playing
Over the blazing hearth
The reindeer, somewhere, were neighing
And the halls were rocked with televised mirth
And the red-hatted faces stood and watched
The blazing Yuletide fire
But not a trace of mirth was caught
For, their house was on fire.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Yeah, the Nano plays movies and shows,
8 gigs is enough for a couple of hours of movies, along with my songs.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Yeah.
Second generation nano.
I liked the earlier 'gum stick' model better, but I don't think it did video, and this thing has a better screen for movies.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Merry Christmas Camo.
How's the DS looking so far?
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well, it's just aluminum sheeting, but it's enough to blunt the scalpel.
Fortunately, I have a quick and ugly solution that removes the need to remove the case. Basically, I use two mirrors and a magnifying lens mounted tot he right arm of the glasses to build a periscope style arrangement. The screen would be mounted on the back of the head, and the image would be superimposed by the periscope over the normal world.
Mobile Phones - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Nope.
It was on the right side.
Mobile Phones - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Aggh, I just tried to get to work on it, but the casing is made mostly out metal, so the scalpel idea is a no-go.
Back to the soldering iron, or tracking down a usable screwdriver.
Mobile Phones - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Very well.
Now all I have to do is find my old Razor. It can't possibly be that difficult to locate...
Mobile Phones - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Right.
Unfortunately, breaking something in half is far from precise.
Mobile Phones - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Closer.
Assume the Von Neuman probes are here for a different purpose entirely, and try again.
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the soldering iron is a good idea.
Mainly, I want to remove and reposition the LCD screen and camera to make a HUD display in a pair of sun glasses.
I looked again, and I realized that there are screws, but their a weird kind; non-standard sizes, tucked away somewhere. I bet I could use the soldering iron to melt them until the casing pops off though.
Then it's simply a matter of installing Android, and getting a decent interface in place.
Mobile Phones - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Very close.
Here are the the cliff notes:
A large corporation discovers a hibernating Von Neumann probe in Near Earth Orbit. The Von Neumann probe arrived many millenniums before, and contains two ends of a wormhole, one of which remains temporally frozen at the time of it's arrival. The idea is, the probe waits until it is activated by the civilizations progression beyond a certain state, and then uses the wormhole to transmit the news back to it's former (Mayan era) self.
The old version of itself then sends an alert signal back to the civilization that sent it, telling them that yes, this planet is worth bothering with. If the planet never ends up producing a level-three civilization, the probe eats the planet.
What happens instead is that the company de-orbits the Von Neumann probe, and rips the wormhole loose, using it and a Bose-Einstein condensate-based deconstructer/reconstructer to send people and equipment back to the time of the probe's original arrival. The idea is to help the Mayans repel the Spanish invasion, so as to alter history to the companies' benefit.
Unfortunately, neither the Mayans nor the suddenly crippled probe take kindly to the intrusion, which is when things get interesting...
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Death is the natural consequence of birth, and death is the natural consequence of almost any major wound.
Except it isn't, these days. We are constantly moving away from what we have naturally - we cure chronic disease; why not the biggest one of all?
Also, I would contest your claim of intellectual stagnation - if we are allowed to modify our minds as we live for eternity (or, at least, the heat death of the universe), the opposite of stagnation would occur.
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Well, that's all very well and good, except that I need to completely remove one half (the upper) of the phone, and extend the wiring as well. It'd take a small eternity to remove that with a scalpel.
I suspect the risk of damaging the boards with the iron are fairly minimal. I'll just have to be careful.
Mobile Phones - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I'll explain their technique for de-orbiting the probe in detail in the book, but in short, the probe wasn't designed for combat, and it still took several billion dollars of resources to get it down.
As far as the Mayans repelling invaders, they will become a significantly more effective fighting force if you equip them with modern technology and knowledge.
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Nice try Poss, but no cigar.
Care to try again?
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Well, for the most part, we're discussing marriage as a legal arrangements.
A marriage license allows, for example, you to visit your spouse while they're hospitalized.
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Well, it would be realistic, yes, but you could alter the descriptions however you like to tune the level of realism up or down. You could toggle between screaming, dismembered casualties, or 'fall silently to the ground' casualties; your choice.
Either way, even dreams have a certain level of detachment; you know that they're not real, if you are aware that your dreaming.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well obviously you'd have to keep the stock of characters small; no more than a dozen or so at the outside. Then, you might have perhaps another dozen very two-dimensional characters running around in a hurry to provide the illusion of population.
In order to support such a small cast of actors, you'd want the game to take place in a limited geographic region; an island, or a similarly isolated area. Also, you'd want to make the complex NPCs memorable and intelligent, so as to distract from the lack of diversity.
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I've only had three.
At any rate, I want to have at least web-browsing functionality without having to carry around multiple devices.
Smart phones are the way to go, until I can build a pair of smart specs, at any rate.
Mobile Phones - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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It IS linux.
It's just a flavor of Linux written and engineered by Google to be suited to mobile platforms.
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Assuming, of course, that you actually like sports sufficiently to invest a significant fraction of your time to them.
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I was thinking posthumanparables.com
or something to that effect
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It's big, it's pointy, and people become more colorful when it's used on them.
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Thank you, Zen.
My writing style is a little unusual (it tends to reflect whatever I'm reading), but I'm pretty proud of this one. It needs a little cleaning up and fleshing out, but I like it thus far.
Actually, I'm thinking of getting a website, and publishing all of my stories, and perhaps a few of my novels on it.
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By the time the katana corrodes, all of the pirates are dead.
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Well, the way the dialog system works is by what I call a non-static branching randomized predictive artificial intelligence system.
It's complicated.
Basically, the way it works is that you record baseline set of maybe two thousand questions, exclamations, and declarations, and high-level actions each with a corresponding text document containing themselves and a set of meta-tags corresponding to variable information (e.g. 'Fancy seeing (player name here) in (character region locus name here)')
Each of these is also accompanied with a set of tags defining it's use, context in relation to other statements, and a probability modifier for it's probability of use at various intelligence level (so your intelligence level 3 orc named Og doesn't end up using 'facilitate').
The way it works is that each NPC, rather than being embedded with a conversation tree, is embedded with a swarm of statements that know how they react to other statements, and which is plugged into an AI engine which knows how all statements relate to all other statements.
Ahhhhh....
This isn't working.
Let me try a specific example, shall I?
Okay, let's say you walk up to an NPC and ask how the weather is.
This statement comes tagged with a suggested response, with a tag attached which cross-references whatever system you have governing the weather.
However, the AI also is capable of predicting the ripple effects of this response across the game world. If, for example, rainy weather would lead you to stay home, and interrupt something it planned to do, it would be able to predict this using a logical deduction system which cross-references the statement/ action database. From there, ti would begin trying out other statements, calculating what ripple effect there would be (the higher the intelligence, the further ahead it can look) and how far they drifted from the AI's high-level goals, and where the conversation could go from there. By doing this, it would construct a conversation tree on the fly.
The statement would all be prerecorded by a male and female voice actor, and they would be mutated on the fly by a set of voice filters until they reached a specific set of vocal protocols specified for the character.
At the end of the day, each NPC would be filed in a text document that looked something like this:
NAME: Gabriel
BODY: C:/program files/Dewell/characterbank/human/male/gabriel.x
TEXTURE: C:/program files/Dewell/characterbank/human/male/gabriel.bmp
NORMAL MAP: C:/program files/Dewell/characterbank/human/male/gabriel_n.bmp
INTELLIGENCE: 7
STRENGTH: 3
HIGH LEVEL GOAL: Gabriel poisons player, Gabrielrunits > oGabriel runits
MID LEVEL GOAL: (Gabriel > Wine) Poison Player
LOW LEVEL GOAL: Player drinks wine
The player works the exact same way, except that instead of the AI handling all of it, the AI randomly picks a few dialog options from the top of the stack, based on it's predictions of the world's behavior in either case, and then gives them to you as dialog options, automatically generating your end of the dialog tree.
Make sense?
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New by the standards of the universe.
And no, I don't. Near death experiences are caused by the brain seizing up when it starts to die. Same thing happens to fighter pilots when they black out. Other than that, there's no reason to believe that you go anywhere other than a pine box when you die.
I am of the opinion that if you want a heaven, you have to build it yourself.
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Oh, I probably should mention:
The spells you can make with a given set of herbs is determined by your level. At level one, a phoenix feather and cayenne root make you a fireball. At level twenty, that and a dried date makes you a teleport spell.
Weapons are handled in a similar fashion; you can wield any weapon at any time, but you will handle high level weapons clumsily when you are at low levels, negating their benefits.
As you progress in levels, both high and low level weapons increase exponentially in effectiveness.
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I'm thinking of getting a new phone, at least partially for gaming.
I want to get an iPhone, but the price tag and lack of dev possibilities made it rather unappealing. So, I've decided to go the knockoff route - CECT 599. It's not quite as good, but it's close enough, it's dirtr cheap, and it supports java.
So, the question I pose to you is this: do any of you know of any good java-based games or ports? I've got a 1-gig memory card that I want to fill with games, so I could use a number of them. Ideally, I'd like to have at least one ambassader from each genre. So far, I've got RPG/MMO co-covered by Runescape, and Jake 2 covers FPS/tournament.
I'm thinking RTS would be fun to play on a touchscreen. Know any good ones?
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Never mind, it looks like it wont work in the US anyway.
Mobile Phones - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Hmmmmm...
Evidently, the phone is running a custom OS.
Any ideas how I could erase this and install Linux or Android?
Mobile Phones - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Wait, nix that.
CECT 599 has a bigger screen and a better interface.
Anybody have any experience hacking phones like this?
Mobile Phones - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Credit to Mr. Doyle, and Mr. Bradbury for their contributions.
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(Sorry, post got cut off)
So what do you think? Are the parallels intentional, or inadvertent?
If intentional, what conclusions can be drawn from them?
Battlestar Galactica - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Sure you could cure the disease, but auto-immune disorders are pretty near impossible to cure. You can reboot the immune system with immuno-suppressants, but that's risky at best, suicidal at worst.
However much these rich folks want kids, they also want to survive.
A vaccine could be developed for the disease, but it'll be at least 18 months before any serious implications really become apparent. After that, it'll take weeks if not months to identify the disease responsible. Countless more months to develop a vaccine.
2-3 years is plenty of time for a pandemic to spread universally over the face of the earth.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Interesting.
I don't think telling him he is something he wasn't would change him. Depression is a chemical process in the brain. Whatever defects existed in the way the brain handled emotion would still exist afterwards.
Quite frankly, I think I'd tell them the truth. Deceiving someone for the rest of their lives is not a pleasant proposition.
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Well, personality and memories are stored in different lobes of the brain. There's no clean line between them, but wiping the memory wouldn't necessarily damage the brain tissue containing personality.
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That's not much good as on offensive weapon...
Unless you wanted to institute mutually assured destruction...
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You must remember the scale of the invasion.
Also remember that general tech goes a lot further than specific tech.
I personally was thinking a few hand held computers, loaded up with a few hundred gigs of data on metallurgy, germ theory, and vaccinations. Take a bullet proof vest and some instructions on how to make them, and maybe bring along a few simple batteries, circuits, and maybe a vacuum tube or three if you have the space.
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I would suggest sending a few horses back, but that would exceed your mass limit.
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Depends on the method of contact.
If it were radio or similar, I'd probably follow SETIs protocols, with the exception of creating file containing all information transcripts to be opened in the event of my death or disappearance (just to be on the safe side). Ideally, a similar file would be created in another country as well.
If the alien actually dropped in to say hello, I'd gather as much evidence as possible. What I would do other than this, again, relies much on the alien's actions.
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Good game.
Chess Tournament - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Chess Tournament - Posted By Ati - Karma received: |
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5b X 4c
bishop takes pawn
Chess Tournament - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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okay, I play E2 X E5 - queen takes pawn
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I think I'll put my rook into play to put a little more firepower into play-
pawn to A4
Chess Tournament - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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knight to F3
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pawn to D3
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king - D2
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E4 X B7
Queen takes pawn
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king - C3
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king - D2
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king - E1
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king to D2
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King - E3
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knight - H4
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knight - F5
Chess Tournament - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Nice.
Chess Tournament - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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NP
1f - 5a
Check
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bishop to D3
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pawn to E4
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pawn takes pawn
Chess Tournament - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Chess Tournament - Posted By Ati - Karma received: |
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bishop to check
Chess Tournament - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I guard queen to E2
Chess Tournament - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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pawn to C4
Chess Tournament - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Iced mint with a little sugar, no cream.
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Ninjas.
Or ninjas with swords.
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Hail Bonk Bonk.
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in the videos, they sketch things, and the PS3 eye examines the drawings and makes a game using the elements in them. I'd watch the videos, the technology is really interesting,
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It works surprisingly well, assuming that the right conditions (light and shirt color are biggies) are met. It supports multiple instancing, so it can track large numbers of points, so long as the colors are precisely calibrated.
The only materials I am using are the free software, a $25 USB webcam, and a piece of blue tape. It is of plentifully sufficient resolution to use for day to day purposes, so long as your careful with the light levels, and you don't wear a blue shirt.
Clicking is still a problem, but you can modify the script to output data through several channels.
I plan to write a scrip that sends mouse-movement plus key data to control the movements of various virtual body parts. basically, right click + mouse position for right wrist position, left-hand + mouse position for left hand position, and no click plus mouse position for head angle.
The feet movement is handles through WASD for the left foot, arrow keys for the right.
The finger movements (open/closed) would be mapped to ertyu for the left hand's fingers, and fghjk for the right
upper/lower torso position would be mapped to y and u plus mouse position, respectively.
To get started, I need to learn the scripting language, and get a simple click interface operating smoothly. I may have to buy some black paint to get rid of the remaining artifacts.
On the whole, I was fairly impressed. It works well enough for my purposes, and it saves me several months worth of coding.
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Oh, the delay is not noticable, and it should work with an on screen keyboard.
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http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/12/googles-android-os-early-look-sdk-now-available/
It's alive!
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Here QB:
http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/android_overview.html
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I just garage-sale'd my old CRT in favor of an LCD of the same size, and I couldn't be happier. The viewing angle is decent, and maneuvering it is so much easier. Also, CRTs give me a migraine if the refresh rate is too low.
Back on topic, your best bet might be to find an old CRT TV and try to hack together a cable arrangement to use it as a monitor.
Another option would be to keep an eye out for local establishments that are likely to be renovating soon, and disposing of old CRT -based systems (airports come to mind).
Best of luck,
Ati
Tech Support - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I always sucked at Tetris.
I always thought it would be fun to create a Tetris MMO (I'll have to show you my concept sketches sometime).
I always loathed the music, but hummed it for weeks.
...I need councilling, don't I?
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At the rate things are going, you won't have to buy another Sony product anytime soon.
Have you seen the latest PS3 adds? I think they must be putting nitrous oxide into the advertising department instead of oxygen.
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Awesomeness.
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I would strongly disagree with this point: the pattern of your brain, not the matter of it is where there is continuity.
The different between a living human being and a dead one is a matter of a very subtle shift in the pattern of the neurons in the body (along with the injuries that caused it, of course). A slight shift in the pattern of the brain causes dramatic damage or shifts in personality or consciousness.
Likewise, given the rapid exchange of matter in the brain in the brain, it seems that the specific atoms, or even their exact structure is not vital to the overall continuity of existence.
Discarding, for the moment, the idea of the aetherial soul, it seems that the pattern is the thing that makes us who we are. Altering the medium on which that pattern is executed, or it's component mechanics need not destroy it.
In my mind, a human consciousness is a profound pattern, on par with a great piece of music. The particular sheet of paper (or pattern of bits) that a given symphony is on does not matter in the slightest. It is the notes themselves, once rung out that make the symphony what it is. Likewise, it is the pattern of the neurons, properly executed, not the physical matter of the neurons themselves that defines a human consciousness.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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Blu-ray is superior to HD-DVD, but frankly, both of them are doomed.
Online distribution, long term, it going to crush them all. At the rate of bandwidth's growth, even in the bandwidth-starved US, it's very shortly not going to be economical to use physical disks.
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I don't think consciousness is exclusive to neural pathways.
Any sufficiently self-referencing system would, theoretically, develop sentience. However, since neural networks seem to be really, really good at it thus far, I suspect the first artificial sentience will be based on a neural network.
Personally, I think it'll be Google that does it. They're working on an AI intentionally, and they have the computational capacity and engineering prowess to pull it off.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 4 |
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Tell you what, Poss. We'll wait eight years (my current prediction for viable uploading (it's gotten moved up a lot be recent developments). We'll both go into cryogenic suspension (which should be feasible about the same time), and agree to be non-destructively uploaded and then re-intigrated.
Then, we'll check to see if we notice any breaks in identity, or continuity of perception.
Sound okay to you?
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I'm not fat. I don't have fat genetics. It probably doesn't hurt that I eat mostly organic food and don't eat all that much.
Seriously though, staying away from hydrogenated oil, eating a lot of animal fats (interestingly enough, your digestive system doesn't store ingested fat unless it needs to), and staying away from the golden arches will do wonders.
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As far as new games go, Bioshock, Metal Gear Solid three, Spore, Portals.
As far as old games go, The half-life series.
Of course, this is all dependent on me getting a machine that doesn't have a seizure when I try to play Pong .
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@Yue:
You mean Dr. Device?
Mad Scientists - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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@Jen:
Read Poss's above post, in a sarcastic tone of voice. I think it will make more sense.
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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@QB Well, I take steps to to avoid non-existence. Dying is not something I can do anything about. At some point, my heart is going to stop beating, and my neurons are going to die. The only thing I can do is avoid ceasing to exist permanently. As far as ceasing human evolution, I would argue that this is the next step in human evolution: once your uploaded, there is no particular reason why you can't modify yourself to increase your own intelligence (brain surgery is so much easier when you have an 'undo' button). It would pull the human race into a new era of self-directed exponential evolution.
@Zen
It's obvious that your physical matter is not the root source of consciousness: if you take a conscious human being, and shove him headfirst through a wood-chipper, the mulch that comes out the other end will be rather less conscious.
The reason for this is that the person's pattern has been disrupted. The unimaginably complicated patterns of self-referencing mathematics, physically embodied by patterns of neural connection that contain every thought, memory, emotions, and sensation that you have ever experiences has been broken.
This being the case, it seems obvious that this patterns that we call our mind (or soul, if you prefer) remains the same, regardless of the medium it's hosted on. 'Fur Elise' is the exact same piece of music regardless of what kind of paper it's written on. The impact and beauty is not altered if it's played from, say, a tabled computer, rather than a piece of paper.
The same goes for the brain- the same thoughts are thought, the same sensations experienced, the same memories remembered, regardless of the hardware the mind is running on. Obsessing over the medium is missing the point entirely.
As far as personality not being worth perpetuating, I would humbly but firmly disagree. But first, if I may, I would drop the use of the word 'personality', and replace it with he more precise term 'individual consciousness'.
Our individual consciousness is the very thing that makes us more valuable than dumb matter. Our thoughts, our memories, our emotions, our internalization of the universe is an immensely valuable thing. It's continuity is a thing worth preserving, for even the dullest of men has a profoundity of their consciousness on par with the greatest of works of art.
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Fill in the punctuation as is appropriate.
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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ummmmm...
I can ride a unicycle.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 5 |
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If I for one reason or another believed that I was going to die tomorrow, I already have a mental to-do list of things that absolutely must be done before I die.
First off, I'd write a few letters of goodbye, and get a few things off my chest (at least one person would be receiving a piece of paper with a huge middle finger on it).
Then, I'd make arrangements for cryogenics: buy a big, cold chest freezer and keep it handy, call the paramedics 45 minutes before-hand, buy some glucose, injector needles, cryogenic antifreeze, and pump. Absolutely the second I'm declared dead by the paramedics, but while I'm still 'mostly dead', I get my blood flushed out and replaced with a glucose-antifreeze mix in the appropriate ratio, and dumped into the chest freezer to await eternity. Then it's a simple matter of arranging to buy a diesel generator and a hundred and fifty gallons of petrol just for insurance (I don't want to go through all this trouble just to get killed by a power failure). Then I'll either ask or hire someone to come bye and run maintenance on the rig once a day just to be on the save side. The thing might have to last as long as 23 years, so it had best remain intact.
At this point, I put my college fund into a high-yield savings account with instructions to destructively upload me as soon as it becomes technologically feasible (around the year 2015 to 2020 by my estimates).
With this done, I proceed to spend the rest of the day with my loved ones, eat some good food (pizza, homemade chicken pot pie, and green chili enchiladas with some really ridiculous deserts), and generally have a good day and say goodbye before dropping dead.
So, yeah. That's my plan in the event of certain death. Perhaps a little pragmatic, but...
So it goes.
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Bad situation.
You could try the rational approach, and talk to him nicely about it, and explain that your not interested.
If that fails, a more elaborate stunt such as one of the other suggested might be more effective.
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Karma is a simple system -
Every time that little star is clicked, it increases your karma by one. Every time you click the star, your karma increases by 0.1.
Karma is a measurement of one's prestige - click the stars of posts you like or think are insightful.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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My crazy ideas:
Given free reign to try and 'fix the united states, I would start by dissolving most of the central government, with the exception of a defense bureau(and court system), which is strictly forbidden to start wars for any reason (what with the recent proliferation of nuclear technology, starting a war is simply too dangerous these days).
Secondly, I would redistribute power into the states - each state becomes a miniature nation in it's own right, with a president, congress, etc. Although the defense bureau will forcibly break up fights between the states, and will defend any of them from outside invasion, the states have more or less free reign within themselves (with the exception of the legal system), although all of them must obey the constitution, and easily accessible transport out of the state must be provided.
The goal of this is to create a very capitalist kind of competition between states - to create a system in which the state which is nicest to live in receives more tax dollars from population than the unpleasant, more totalitarian states. It also means that if you don't like the current political climate in your nation-state, you can simply move a few over, into a more hospitable one. If the republicans want to elect an anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-minority Nazi, they can do that. And then they can live with the consequences when the sane people move out. If the democrats want to elect a nut job, they too will live with the consequences - everyone dies by their own sword.
With war activity cut off, I would begin heavily taxing the rich and large corporations, to compensate for reduced taxes on the poor and lower-middle tax.
Using the additional tax money, I would begin to provide aid for the poor, and invest a sizable percentage of it into schools, in an effort to promote the long term economy by creating more skilled workers, and drastically reduce subsidies, in an effort to free up more money. With whatever was left, I would begin to make restitution on the federal deficit.
With all this done, I would alter the legal definition of 'monopoly' to include most of the largest conglomerates (especially the media conglomerates), thus breaking them down into separate legal entities, and enlivening the economy with more competition.
Obviously, this is never going to happen in a million years, but it's an interesting idea none the less. Thoughts?
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Well QB, the first device to mention is several hundred dollars, and the second is a more reasonable $22 - none the less, both of these are far too expensive to do any kind of full body coverage. Even an entry level suit with a mere sixty tactors would cost well over a thousand dollars.
Cell phone vibrators, on the other hand, go for considerably cheaper - between 1 and 6 USD, depending on where you can find them.
The electrostatic idea is interesting, but I suspect the power loss would be prohibitive - even plugged into a great deal of power, even the largest lifters can move scarcely a pound of cargo plus their own weight.
None the less, it is an interesting idea.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I think you just proposed a fantastic way to save America by turning it into a fascist state.
Control over your own body is one of the most fundamental rights in existence. Just one step ahead of control of your own mind. Giving the government the power to force women to grow babies inside of their bodies would be so evil as to be disgusting to think about.
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Ah well.
We'll beat them on price and surface area.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Thank you both.
That's all there is though; it's just a short story.
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@Guest:
For all practical extents and purposes, a thing which presents no evidence for itself and can only be perceived by a select few, IS a delusion.
What Is A Geek? - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:va5FVAJamDEJ:www.cis.upenn.edu/~aaronb/docs/tactorsuit.pdf+haptic+feedback+suit&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us&client=firefox-a
Somebody already beat us to the punch - these people built 24-speaker sleeve/glove arrangements that almost perfectly imitates our design. If we can drop the cost of using speakers and replace them with fabric magnets, or washer electromagnet, the price should be quite small for a good-quality suit.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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You know, as far as platforms go, half-life might not be a bad world to work in.
It's not free, but it's fairly cheap, and with G-mod (Garry's Mod) it's fully multi player, the graphics are fantastic, the world is fully malleable with a fantastic set of building tools, and using the rag doll, hacking in a VR interface might actually be pretty easy.
It's really pretty close to being optimal for our purposes.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well, I was actually assuming that we would simply use the same magnets for the fingers as we are using for the rest of the body. Any particular reason why this would be insufficient?
As far as movement mapping goes, I was planning on coding the motion tracker myself. If I used a data glove, there are only about seven points to actually track (wrists + feet + torso + head) which comes to 14 LEDs, if you want orientation as well as position. 14 LEDs, each of different colors, are fairly simple to track - you scan the image for colored dots, determine Y/X position from where the colored dots are on the screen, and Z position from the size of the colored dot.
Then, once you have your points, you simply transmit the orientation and position data into SL.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Last I heard wine was fairly slow and hideously unstable.
That said, there are options for gaming on Linux, so long as you don't mind waiting a bit for the latest games (or configuring them yourself).
Personally, if I were going to switch to Linux, I'd just dual-boot - it's stabler, and more reliable.
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I'm going to get to work on that algorithm now, just to see if it'll work.
As far as the fingertips requiring a lot of tactile detail though, I would disagree - by varying the pattern of the magnets pressure to imply surface texture, you should be able to avoid using so many of them...
50 magnets for both hands should be quite sufficient.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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You make a rather convincing argument for the suit, and something just occurred to me:
Rather than cannibalizing god-knows how many rather expensive speakers to craft one bulky suit, why not weave the magnets into the cloth?
Copper and iron thread are not particularly expensive - using an automatic loom, you could make the cloth electromagnets by the square foot for practically free.
It'd be reasonably simple - you'd add up how much square footage you'd need to cover your body, cut out a pattern for the clothing, and then divide it up into 'tactile regions', of a size determined by nerve density - a lot of them in your hands, not so many in your fore-arms.
Then, you'd take each square, solder all of the edges together, and then link it to a wireless receiver - a simple, dead cheap circuit, toned to a very specific frequency. Then, sew the pads into the inside of a spandex suit, to hold them tight against the body.
At this point, controlling it becomes ridiculously simple: you take a pair of stereo headphone, splice them so that the output for one wire goes into both ears, and then use the remaining speaker write, rigged to a radio transmitter (say, a cheap walkie-talkie), to transmit various 'sounds' (i.e. frequencies) to trigger the magnetic pads.
What do you think?
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Actually, in the system I was thinking of, you would 'spin' the threads by taking an steel thread, and wrapping copper thread around it.
Then, you could take these miniature electromagnets, and weave them together to produce a larger magnet, of combined force. They should be sufficiently strong - after all, there is a limit to the amount of force that we want to produce, and in an in-game firefight, a few pounds of force coming suddenly to your chest will feel a lot like a bullet. Obviously, you won't need to reduce the force for less dramatic impacts. A few pounds of force would be quite sufficient for most in-game activities.
As far as power goes, a few options exist. One of them would be to wear a fanny pack full of rechargeable nine-volts, with power leads glued to the fabric to provide current.
The other option would be to hot wire the above-mentioned walkie talkie to produce a really strong radio pulse, and power each pad using a crystal radio circuit. The power would come from the air. The obvious downside to this idea is the waste of power (not to mention the blowing out of every walkie talkie in a four mile radius), and the upshot is the true wireless capability.
Personally, since I don't want to see the word 'gigawatt' on my electricity bill, I like the fanny pack idea.
As far as your coins idea goes it sounds workable, although if the magnets are too closely bunched, there is a risk of them attempting to align to each-others own poles, and you end up standing there naked while all the magnets in your suit snap to each other in a little ball behind your neck. You'd probably want a fairly stiff suit to make it work.
Any thoughts?
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Honestly, I think we're talking about two different system here.
I'm talking about quick and dirty VR, something that I can home-brew without spending a few grand.
I think you're talking about a full-on commercial rig, complete with investors, distribution deals, patents, corporate interests, and all the rest.
Indubitably, for a system like that, you'd want a full on VR rig like your talking about.
However, for something cheap and more importantly, do-able on a hobby scale, webcam tracking will be imperfect, but it will be sufficient.
However, you do bring up a good point with the gloves - a quarter of the motor cortex of your brain is devoted to moving your hands - this is the reason that most musical instruments are played with your hands. You probably won't notice if your legs, or even your arms are a few inches from where they should be - but if your hands don't move right, it will break the immersion.
There are a few solutions to this, one of them being the age-old 'quit whining and live with it' approach. Another is to buy a P-5 glove, which go for about $20 USD, or less on Ebay.
Another solution for a HUD would be to take an old junker laptop, and rig it up to serve as a monitor. With a simple lens system, it would be heavy, but it would also totally take care of resolution problems. Not to mention that last-gen (or, gen-before-last) laptops are dead cheap.
then, you just put up a boom or a hook in the ceiling, feed a monitor cord over it, and run it down onto the headgear.
You could use the laptop battery to power the rest of the suit while you were at it, giving full 'plug and play' functionality.
Now, I agree with you that graphics are vital, but I disagree as to the extent. While bad graphics would obviously ruin the immersion, any game with graphics on par with, say, half-life two would be more than sufficient to avoid breaking your perception of reality. The real trick is integrating true field of view. If your starting with SL as a development bed for this, then you've got a problem right there - mouselook in SL, like in many games not originally FPSs, is ugly, pure and simple. There are poly lines all around the view, and the body often goes through the camera.
Really, I wouldn't use mouselook at all - I think I would probably create a custom script to position the camera right in front of the head, and tweak it to avoid visual artifacts.
That said, while SL has it's obvious upsides (Which is why I plan to use it), the graphics are no-where near where they need to be, especially for the environment.
If in fact this gets completed, after I'm done using SL as a test-bed, I may look into the plane-shift game you mentioned - it might serve very well for the purpose.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well, I disagree that it would be impractical to use the 'speaker gun' assembly.
The trigonometry is stupid simple - high school level maths; as a matter of fact, it's basically the same thing I've been doing for years, in the form of an auto-aiming system for videogame NPCs. The only trick is fine-tuning the variables to make it correspond to the real world, which is time consuming, but not difficult You could probably set up a simple automatic calibration system: write a program that tweaks it's own variables one at a time until it can routinely hit a given target (probably a mic.)
If you didn't feel like doing this, you could probably do it by hand, if you had a few days to throw away getting everything to line up - after all, the positive upshot of having a wide target width is that you have a decent margin of error.
Your speaker suit idea sounds feasible, but I don't like the number (not to mention weight) of the magnets being used. I wanted to try to limit the amount of equipment actually worn by the user, as, if your walking around with twenty pounds of speakers, and 40 wires hanging from your body, it's going to do more than a little to break the immersion.
Back on the scripting side of things, sound isn't really a problem: all you need to do is be running two separate instances of SL - one of them is on minimum graphics settings, and has the avatar positioned several thousand meters above the other, and wearing a 'headphone' object. When the armor on the avatar your playing with senses a collision, and works out the appropriate trigonometry values, it transmits them to the second one, cruising at 36,000 meters. The headphone object pick up the data, and changes it into the appropriate noises. The noises are played on the machine that this is running on, and are fed into the tactile feedback assembly.
Not the most elegant solution, but it should work.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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oh, I forgot to mention: the avatar that your actually playing with is the one that gives you normal audio feedback, in case you didn't get that from the above post.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Manny happy returns, Poss.
What new diet would this be?
Bithday Shout-Outs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I don't like wii-motes, simply because hacking them into PC interfaces is, let's face it, less than stable. Also, they provide limited movement points. The number of possible movement points is the primary incentive for the webcam idea, although this (obviously) has it's fair share of practical problems as well.
As far as software goes, I don't think it's as bleak as you make it out to be. I was planning on using SL as a testing bed, since custom in-game scripts and animation is so easy. It's really not all that complicated: create a set of animation overrides for each limb, write a tracking program for the webcam to detect motion, and set up a script to trigger keyboard input synced to animations in SL.
That's motion control right there.
Another thing is that Nvidia has a driver that lets you automatically generate depth images in 3d applications, so that would solve another problem.
Really, the biggest thorn in your shoe would be scripting force-feedback, and I'll have to get into that tomorrow, since I'm out of time tonight.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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The reason science (and myself personally) do not like 'occult' research like this is because of two primary reasons:
Number one is that science is usually used in this area, rather incompetently, in an effort to push ridiculous points of view (see 'what the bleep' for a good example of this).
Number two is that there is no explanation of why something like this should happen. Human brain functions are extremely weak electro-chemical pattens; there is no known way that they could influence the properties of matter any significant distance away.
If someone can explain how this would happen to me, I'm all ears. Until then, though, you can label me a skeptic.
Mind over Matter - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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That and education...
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Okay, it's tomorrow, and I've had a new idea for force feedback.
I'm going to list the new mechanism first, and then talk about how I (personally) would go about implementing it.
The idea is relatively simple: you take a decent sub woofer (or simply a conventional speaker encased on sulfur hexafluoride), and turn it up just about one volume notch below burnout volume. Then you mount the subwoofer inside a short, thick copper pipe, and add a parabolic focal dish on an elastic mount to the end. Around the edges of the dish, you position three electromagnets, linked to speaker cords.
The subwoofer plays a single tone constantly, and the electromagnets rotate the dish, altering the focal point of the vibrations being transmitted. For each contact point on the body, it shifts there at least once a second, launches a pressure wave, and then shifts to the next target. Properly calibrated, it could handle dozens of separate impact points.
Three of these assemblies are pointed at waist level around the subject, to provide wrap-around physical feedback. Think of it as a hybrid between surround sound, haptic feedback, and that concussion gun from minority report.
Programming such an assembly is a whole nother ball of wax.
The way I would do it (and please let me know if you have a better idea, as this is going to be tricky) is to first buy several audio splitters, to produce the nine speaker feeds that will be required to provide haptic feedback (not to mention the two for normal surround-audio feedback).
Then, hack each speaker arrangement to end in a straightforward electromagnet, rather than a conventional system, with some kind of resistor system in place to limit the number of 'tones' it will respond to to only one note (magnet 1 will respond to audio output in the key of D, number 2 - D sharp, etc.)
Then, once you have this nightmare of hardware and loose wires dealt with and color coded and shoved into a dark cranny somewhere, you get to work on the software (sort of) side of things.
First off, in SL, you make three objects and attach them to your avatar, each corresponding in position to one of the subwoofer assemblies around the subject. Then, you attach a full-body 'armor' (which may be both invisible and intangible, if you so desire), comprised of pieces each with three scripts; one that find the object's position in 3d space, one that registers impact, and one that calculates the extent of the impact based on the speed and assumed mass of the collider. Each one, after having registered an impact, sends data to the nearest one of the objects that stand in for a subwoofer assembly. From there, it's a matter of simple trigonometry to work out which way to angle the parabolic dishes in order to 'shoot' a pressure wave towards the corresponding real-world space to the object that has registered an impact.
Then, when the object has found the proper arrangement of angles, it produces a series of loud tones, which are translated by the speaker/magnetic assembly in the proper physical motion of the parabolic dishes. .
Calibration is, obviously, going to be time consuming, but that's the only thing. As you can see, this is all quite doable within an extremely limited budget, and a relatively modest amount of programming.
And thoughts on this proposal?
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Another idea for the HMD would be to buy a couple of mostly-broken old video cameras (the ones rigged for TV display). Most of them have a playback option where the viewfinder shows you what is playing on the TV when they're connected. Then, simply use one of the cables that let's you use a TV as a computer monitor.
Simple.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Of course, you'd want to remove all of the extraneous components to reduce weight as well.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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The wet-suits are a good idea; they'd work well, and you could probably find used ones on the cheap.
As far as motion detection goes, you really have two choices using this idea; you could either live with your limbs being paralyzed while behind your back, or you could add a second webcam to watch your back.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Nice ones QB.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Not to mention that raising kids to be policemen/soldiers smacks of a lot of very unpleasant things.
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That's a really good points actually. Another option would be to pry the camera of one of my old cell's out of it's casing, and (after extending the wires) set it on a mount so that all it can see is my monitor.
That would solve the FPS problem, but you'd probably get some visual artifacts.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well QB, if the airport 'security' men cannot tell the difference between a lump of useless electronics glued to a T-shirt, and a bomb, then I seriously doubt that they are competent enough to improve the security of the airlines to any significant degree.
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I'd love to be able to delete their accounts.
It would be easier than going through every day and deleting a dozen new spam messages before everyone else checks.
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depends on whether I'm wearing contacts or not
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Dark chocolate is delicious.
Especially when mixed with orange peel shavings.
Bithday Shout-Outs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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@Poss:
My theory is that the the brain resources which would normally be channeled into the mirror neuron system in normal individuals is instead used to expand the logical or artistic brain regions in Asperger's subjects.
That might help to explain why artistic or scientific geniuses throughout history have had such poor social skills: Albert Einstein, Mozart, Newton, etc.)
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Happy Birthday Hannah
Bithday Shout-Outs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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"Genius in it's purest form is indistinguishable from insanity" - Me.
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Hey Jawad, good to see you back, for however long.
Please, delete these (this) idiot(s). There are a lot of other aliases as well. I'll list them here when I get a chance.
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Was the universe created, if so, by whom/what?
Is there a grand unifying physical theory, if so, what?
Is there other intelligent life, if so, how much?
What is the most important thing that the human race as a whole could know at this point?
Do you take interns?
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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Those are fine, until enough zombies arrive to knock over one of the stilts.
Military Strategies and War - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I seriously doubt it.
However, there is a limit to how much food you can store in a tree.
Military Strategies and War - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well Poss, it's also possible that we might be forces to shrink our armaments, until another power is capable of superseding us.
In which case, yes. Our generals are not fools, and I think they would use whatever tactics were necessary.
However, in my personal philosophy, harming the innocent is unacceptable, and torture is abominable. I would never knowing consent to my government's use of torture regardless of the circumstances.
Battlestar Galactica - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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Well, the thing is that if you get blown up by a tonne of TNT, the damage radius is relatively small, and if you get hit by it, odds are you die fast.
With biological or chemical weapons, the area affected is huge. Not only will the soldiers that you attack die, but the granny a hundred miles down wind will die too.
And if you get hit with chlorine gas, white phosphor, or bioweapons, you die slowly and painfully. I agree with you that war is horrible, but there IS a difference between bio/chemical weapons and conventional ones.
Battlestar Galactica - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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I don't think Baltar is a Cylon.
For one thing, he lacks the customary super human strength. For another, given his sensitive position, it seems likely that the Cylons would have activated him by now.
Battlestar Galactica - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Not surprising.
Quite frankly, I don't think it's too remarkable that they decided a shirt full of circuit boards is a bomb. With a level of intellect previously shown by security men, they probably see anything even vaguely electronic as a bomb.
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Agreed.
Unless he hands over access to someone who actually known PHP.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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That is... alarming.
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Quite frankly, I don't feel like I have enough information to come to a conclusion.
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not to mention that (given that they can barely walk) swimming is more or less out of the question.
Military Strategies and War - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well, a simple DNA test would suffice to test whether you were there or not. Sweep for hair, eyelashes, spin particles. When none of yours turn up, and you've got a good alibi, that's reasonable doubt, at least.
My big worry about the technology is that people who are actually guilty will claim that their crimes were actually committed by a doppelganger.
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Actually Poss, most modern power plants are designed to automatically shut down if too many things go wrong: i.e. if everyone involved turns into a mindless zombie.
Chernobyl was an aging design, improperly maintained, and without sufficient safety procedures. The nuclear power industry is scared silly of another meltdown, so most modern power plants are fairly safe.
Another possibility, aside from an oasis, is a nice little secluded island somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. Put some razor wire and gun turrets up around the beaches, get some rain collectors up and some basic utilities and food production methods, and your in good shape.
Military Strategies and War - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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@Poss:
Well, a decent digital encryption could be used. Run the whole thing off a central, well protected, networking server, and transmit the retinal patterns, bodyweight, voice print data, heat signature, and password to an on-site verification box that matches the data.
That would, at the very least, make it very challenging to forge your identity.
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*Ati talks to Jen*
Late Night TV :D - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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As easy as whatever security you put in place.
Even if everything else failed, faking the voice would be extremely challenging. Not to mention that courts of law would have to take under advisement that crimes committed by androids are not necessarily the fault of the person supposedly controlling it.
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I won't use them.
I don't really want most of the people on Digg knowing more about me than they already do.
Digg is a news site, not a social network.
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If you honestly believe that reading, oh, say, 'on the origin of species' takes you to a fairy tale where every thing in the unvierse magically poofs into existence over the course of a week, I really think your chain of assosciations needs some serious revision.
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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And yes, the Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction. Very much like the bible.
There are a very wide variety of scientific texts, however, which are very, very far from fiction, and which explicitly contradict most aspects of the bible, and then proceed to back themselves up with evidence with the anal-retentive degree of precision expected from scientific literature.
I would recommend reading some of these, and familiarizing yourself with the plethora of physical laws your god so freely disregards, such as gravity, conservation of energy, relativity, etc.
As well, perhaps, as basic logical concepts such as Occams razor, which clearly condemn entities with no evidence as irrelevant at best.
To polish the whole thing up, read up on evolution, cosmology theory )specifically, the big bang), and a number of other theories that make the 'god did it' explanation an uneccesary last resort.
_That_ is 'reading outside the bible'.
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Exactly.
As I understand it, Chuck Norris is the greatest action hero in the history of the world, hint hint; nudge nudge.
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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http://blog.scifi.com/tech/archives/2007/09/17/facemorphing_ro.html
There's a working link.
As far as practical applications go, this could be an incredibly effective system for limited-scenario telepresence.
Imagine this: A working mother stops by a booth in London, and puts on a pair of video glasses and tactile feedback gloves. Her motions are recorded by a webcam, and transmitted to her home in Sweden. There, a robotic torso with a morphing face changes to the shape of her face, and a rear-projection system applies proper color.
Then, using a pair of robotic limbs and the face (affixed to a general telepresence torso), she can talk to her kids, pat them on the head, and then make it to lunch.
You'd need a considerably more advanced version to avoid uncanny valley, but the potentials are mind-boggling. If you added a platform of some kind to the robot (maybe even legs, if passive walkers grow sufficiently advanced), in a few years you might be able to step into a booth, put on gloves 'n goggles, and visit friends of yours anywhere in the world.
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I took the opportunity to go through and delete all of the spam links.
If any more crop up, please do not reply to them, as it makes deleting them harder.
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I've been spending more time on Digg, Slashdot, and IRC.
To give you some idea of what shuzak or it's successor would have to be like to try and attract more of my traffic, I'm going to finish those mockups ASAP.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I think the 'goal' is free and open sharing of ideas and information.
In this context, Shuzak looks a lot like a think tank.
I'd like to try and maintain this quality with the new site, but I'd also like to give it more drive by increasing the flow of new ideas, both from technology and science news, and by encouraging new users to join.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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Many (probably most) people prior to 1700 who came to America (the part which would be included in the U.S.A.) specifically to build (a) Christian community(ies). Almost all early settlers specifically and publicly thanked God, as a review of early charters and constitutions shows. [The Pilgrims are just one of the most well known examples.]
The reason why almost all the early settlers were religious is a very simple one. In a nutshell, they were the fundamentalist crazies that no one else could stand to have on the same continent as the rest of civilized society.
The founding fathers were mostly Deists, which was about as close as most people got to atheist in those days.
Our early history is replete with amazing stories which show either God's providence or an amazing string of luck. [George Washington for one certainly acknowledged His intervention.]
Luck didn't have much to do with it. Certainly not Jesus. Bravery, self-sacrifice, genius, and some good, old-fashioned economics were what did it. Claiming that it was all divine intervention merely devalues their accomplishments.
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ATM?
Weird al.
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*Ati says nothing*
Late Night TV :D - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Everyone manipulates others to some degree. The JW are just a little more systematic about it than most.
Religious Theory - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I missed it...
overcast
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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If it's science help you want, you're in the right place.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Hmm, I'm having a little trouble making a logo.
Anyone want to volunteer to give 'moneys with fire' a shot?
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Now THAT ^^ actually made me pause and think about it.
It also made me clarify my mental definition of the word 'understand'.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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This is proving interesting.
So take a look at this proposition:
Do you believe that it is moral to deceive the populace of your country in order to apprehend dangerous criminals?
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You've got a point...
'Nazi' does have a certain brand-name ring to it...
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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In all seriousness though, I think I agree with you that intellectualcoffee has some issues.
Since monkeyswithfire is now in the lead, I'll see what I cna do about a logo mockup.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I like some of those Greg, but I think we should stick with intellectual coffee for the time, unless anyone really likes any of these.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Excellent, we need everyone we can get.
What sorts of things are you best at?
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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So far, intellectualcoffee and terminatorslinky are tied at 3 to 3 votes.
Anyone want to make a tie breaker?
We might want to hurry before someone else buys one of them.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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...and now the sidebar is gone.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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No, wait never mind - it's back.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Quantumbeep has pointed out that terminatorslinky is composed of two seperate trademarks, so that one's out.
That would seem to leave intellectualcoffee.com as the most popular viable choice. Anyone have any objections? If not, we can buy the domain tonight.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Chat seems to have resurrected itself.
Wow.
Well, back to work on it's successor.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I love boff.in, but it's already taken
(but only as a redirect).
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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More info on the owner can be found here:
http://www.registry.in/cgi-bin/whois.cgi
If he's a nice guy, maybe we can buy it from him...
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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If we can get it, my personal vote goes to that one.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Check your Zakbook, Zen.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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A hint:
It's posted backwards.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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oh, and of course...
www.terminatorslinky.com
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I've been trying to get onto Mirc, but my demo seems to have expired.
Does anyone know what the fee for registering is?
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I buried that sucker in deep.
In point of fact, _I_ don't remember where I put it anymore. It's not possible to search for it, and I stuck it several weeks or months back.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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My contact info is as follows:
email = aticper@gmail.com
Windows Messenger user name = Aticper
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Wifi is harmless.
The effect radio waves are marginal, and it takes an extraordinary level of expsure to have any notable effects on the human body.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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The idea of a victimless crime is a logical contradiction.
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I agree that child pronography is horrible, but frankly I see no need to 'stop' pornography at all.
If someone wants to watch porn (so long as it is between consenting adults), that is entirely their business, not the state's. As far as the people within it go, no-one is forcing them to participate (and if they are, then the police need to get involved). They may regret involvement later, but it is not up to the government to 'protect' the people from their own choices. If pronography is criminalized, then it creates a crime that has no victim.
There is no justification for using public funds to pursue the criminalization of an essentially harmless (generally) industry, for puritanical religious reasons.
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I once went to an art class with about a dozen fundamentalist christians. I was one of two athiests there. We had interesting debates. I usually won.
A grand total of one of them had read one of the harry potter books.
All of them hated them.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Oh shoot, you're right.
Mea culpa.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Please go through and replace all instances of 'supremacy' in my posts with 'ultimatum'.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Nooooooo....
Now I'm all sticky.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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@Yue:
I'm trying to figure out how to get to the chatroom on mIRC. What was it called again?
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: |
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No, I'm not downloading anything. I don't have irc on the laptop, but I'll get on there when the opportunity presents itself.
On the other hand, maybe this is actually a good thing - it might mean that awad is back, and has screwed something up with the chat.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I don't know if we would HAVE to accept others views as worthwhile. If that were true, it would provide a far too effective growth medium for self-deception memes.
I think that any belief system that would not stand up to logic scrutiny (i.e. one that contains logical fallacies or inherent impossibilities) would be recognized as such, even if we did understand the reasons that someone believed it.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Oh, here's a hint for you guys:
GP
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I'm fairly confident that telepathy would make things quite a bit easier.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Yeah, Supremacy is the third.
I liked them all quite a bit. Finally a spy/assasin movie with decent cinematography and writing.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Sorry about that guys, I completely forgot about it for a while.
The lastest bomb is now armed and hidden.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Nice to have you back, Jen.
Sleep well.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I just finished it a few days ago.
I was up untill 4:00 AM after the midnight release party reading the bloody thing.
Linguistics - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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@Stacey:
You think WE'RE hard to read?
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I don't know if contraversy is the right word. More like rampant stupidity or outright sarcasm.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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There used to be a big section of the sony website talking about it, but it looks like they've taken it down since they cancelled the line.
There are links to the patent information somewhere, but my browser refuses to display the characters, so I can't figure out what on earth they're saying.
I think I remember reading that virtually all of the components such as the motors in the the fingers are custom manufactured, which is probably the primary contributer tot he 4000+ dollar predicted market price.
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Interesting.
I'll listen to it when I get a chance. I am of the opinion, however, that it is a serious mistake not to include the consequences of the development of strong AI in any post-singularity vision.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Then again, there is no such thing as post-singularity, is there?
The curves of progress don't stop until they hit infinity or the maximum limits of the universe. It's not as though the singularity will happen overnight, it'll just keep going and going and going until they run out of room to grow. And that'll be a long time indeed.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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More link goodness:
Here is a demo roll of it's capacities:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2344484394286900063&q=Qrio&total=140&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=3
Here they've programmed/taught (not sure which one applies) it to roller skate:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1450169707260820311
And here's four of them doing a synchronized robotic dance:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2949093547034908878
Evidently, one of them successfully conducted an orchestra:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4845
And, apparantly, sombody sent one of them to take preschool for a while:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/02/041206
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I have made it a point to get that line right.
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I am a computer programmer with mild to moderate experience in BASIC and C.
I am an (unpublished) author and poet.
I used to grow several dozen species of carnivorous plant, and can still spell drosera binata multifida extrema (A variety of forked sundew).
I am also a very fund limited inventor (see: poor) who has a few dozen idea knocking around with a great number of potential applications.
If you need advice on any of the above, or are a venture capitalist who wants to fund a shot in the dark, feel free to Zak me.
Shuzak's Collaborative Program - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Not to mention - Nearly-Headless-Dick.
None the less, intentional mistakes might be part of the joke if it is satire.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I don't know.
Some of it honestly sounded like satire. If it were a single article, I would definitely think satire, but with the rest of the website attached, it would take a real degree of devotion to manufacture a joke site that extensive and elaborite.
Another possibility is that it's a legitimate site, and somebody's pulling a fast one over the owners be discretely introducing satire as a serious article.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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No, I haven't actually. I have been watching some of the old episodes of firefly though, which have proved most entertaining.
I'll be sure and check it out. Later today maybe.
Late Night TV :D - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Hello and adieu to you sweet spanish ladies
Hello and adieu sweet ladies of spain
I will not see you before I sail out for Boston
I will never see your shores, again...
Late Night TV :D - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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(Nice post Hannah)
Now, while I agree with you that using animal testing to create cosmetics is cruel, the main problem with this approach is that often the only way to develop or learn something is to test it on a living organism. You CAN try it on lab cultures or simulations, but these will only ever test it with the variables you can think of. As of right now, there is no substitute for a living body.
Obviously also, it is better that, say, a lab rat die rather than a human.
This leads me to accept animal testing as unpleasant, but neccesary, in the near future at any rate.
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I quite agree, Rob.
Even some of the ones from the new OL series aren't bad. There is some total garbage in there of course, but there are a few gems.
Late Night TV :D - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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She's back to her normal routine again, and slowly putting on weight. She seems to be on the road to recovery, and has even worked up the energy to loathe humans again.
I am going to keep an eye on her so I can take her to the vet if she starts acting odd, though.
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Ah, Rob! Good to have you back
I'm of two minds on the outer limits. On the one hand, it's clearly a ripoff of the Twilight Zone, and not as good to boot. On the other hand, it's still pretty darn watchable.
Late Night TV :D - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Okay Zen...
So you'll have a trumpet in an uncomfortable place AND you'll be having a near death experience?
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I watched it as well.
Plot was tolerable. Nothing emmy-award winning, but not bad for a summer movie.
Special effects were stunning. Simply incredible.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I never made it past the two towers, but I loved the movies.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Yes.
Late Night TV :D - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Zen, I'd also recommend food, water, and a life-support system.
Not to mention toiletries...
Hey, how big IS this suitcase anyway?
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I think I did.
(Hey Poss, good to see you)
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I'd be careful of that clarinet Zen.
If that thing gets wedged somewhere uncomfortable, it'll be hours before you can get it dislodged.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I believe the above statement is self-contradictory.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Jen:
Do youtself a favor and go to your local video rental shop the next chance you get, and rent one of the old blank and white DVD's.
Late Night TV :D - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Do you remember that one where the two men find themselves inside a giant child's playset?
Late Night TV :D - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Thanks for the suggestion.
Unfortunately, cat's can't taste sugar but can taste sour flavors, so I doubt she would drink it, but it was a good idea. I'd definitely try it on a dog.
Fortunately, she ate some more and has been drinking and is looking considerably more lively, so it looks like things are going better (thank goodness).
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Well, another interesting thing to think about is the following:
If you agree to let him walk free, despite his crimes, doesn't that create an incentive for others to commit similar crimes, and then do the same deal to get away with it.
Long term, isn't there a risk of creating an environment where people know they can commit crimes and get away unpunished?
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As far as equality among the animals goes, you have to draw the line somewhere - in order to cure a cold, you have to kill millions of microscopic life-forms. If all life is equal in value, that makes you a mass murderer.
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As for equality among humans, I think it doesn't exist. Some people, in my view, are probably are born with greater abilities, and the potential to make more of their lives.
Sadly, there is no objective way to judge this, as any judgements tend to end up favoring the person or group making them, when elevating one section of humanity above others (see: KKK, Nazis, slavery, etc.)
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Link is broken, Bryan.
Linguistics - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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A southern twang is not the same as a southern accent - a true twang sounds like a badly tuned banjo.
Linguistics - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I find it interesting that you are more concerned about the microsoft bit than the firing needles into your brain bit, Zen.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Thank you Anna. It's not my best, but it's one of my better ones.
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Better yet, how about after you get a phonecall from a telemarketer, you CALL a telemarketer, and put them in a conference call together.
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I don't think they're for civilian use Anna.
However, as I said, it wouldn't be all that difficult to homebrew an equivalent.
Advanced Tech - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Ah, good, good. I was a bit worries there.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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*ack, 'worried'.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Shall I add 'mouldy bread' to the 'miscelaneous' list?
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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If god has a sense of humor, he will let you in. Simple as that.
Or He will simply point to a red welt on His divine backside, and give you a long, hard look.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I'm actually more concerned about Rath, which is interesting since they live on different continents.
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http://www.shuzak.com/FavoriteVideos.php?uid=589991132476283688309793406837
Found it.
Nice one Yue.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Bryan:
SafeSearch is your friend. Or your enemy, depending on your point of view...
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Well, it's the whole burning thing that worries me about his diagnosis.
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Since people have yet to find the Bomb, and roughly 12 hours have elapsed, I shall give you all another clue:
The bomb is concealed in a post, and the post is in a topic that I created.
Let's see if that speeds things up any.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: |
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Congradulations Yue.
You found the bomb.
(For the rest of you, Yue sent me a private zak, which I'll take to be a claim. I'll post it here for the rest of your benefit
You sneaky bastard that was my idea lol.
http://www.shuzak.com/Replies.php?ID=72&Topic_ID=1468&t=Politicians
That's interesting Zenmonk.
How did you come to the 10% figure?
Isn't it wise to keep some flexibility in delcaring taxation bad?
Should we engineer a system that can alter based on demand?
Instances being: what about national emergencies?
Shouldn't taxes be kept flexible, to accomodate emergencies?
The obvious conclusion most people come to is that taxes are bad.
Human nature's first instinct is that losing money is not good.
Eventually, most though, people come to accept them as neccesary.
Basically, I'm trying to say that taxes are not black and white.
Obviously a lot are bad, but too few lead to a helpless country.
Multiple strategies and systems must be employed.
Besides, we have to feed those soldiers families, don't we?
(hint: read the capital letters down the left-hand margin of the post)
(oh, and it would be the FOURTH bomb, Yue. This was the third.)
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Cake.
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I'm not sure I understand what your trying to say Poss.
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Thank you. I thought it was rather clever, if I do say so myself.
Of course, I'm now going to be reading the righthand column of every post from now on.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Because it's *cake*.
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I find it deeply amusing the idea that any entity worthy of the name 'God' would care enough to notice the arbitrary dividing lines set up by one species, on one planet, orbiting one little sun on the edge of some little galaxy. More than less go to the trouble of spotting out this dividing line, and 'blessing' (whatever that means) everything inside of it.
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Well, that's one possibility, that he's blowing the whistle on a conspiracy.
It's also possible that there is no conspiracy, and this is an elaborate joke, or a psychological delusion (the view I myself find more reasonable at the present time).
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Congradulations Zen, I thought that hint was too cryptic to be of much use.
It'll be interesting to see where you manage to stash it.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I was always of the opinion that, in most cases, the bugspray is a lot more likely to kill you than whatever your spraying with it.
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Found it.
http://www.shuzak.com/Replies.php?ID=4955&Topic_ID=1&t=CFML-History
Wow, that wasn't that hard afterall.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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That's interesting Zenmonk.
How did you come to the 10% figure?
Isn't it wise to keep some flexibility in delcaring taxation bad?
Should we engineer a system that can alter based on demand?
Instances being: what about national emergencies?
Shouldn't taxes be kept flexible, to accomodate emergencies?
The obvious conclusion most people come to is that taxes are bad.
Human nature's first instinct is that losing money is not good.
Eventually, most though, people come to accept them as neccesary.
Basically, I'm trying to say that taxes are not black and white.
Obviously a lot are bad, but too few lead to a helpless country.
Multiple strategies and systems must be employed.
Besides, we have to feed those soldiers families, don't we?
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Shuzak bomb 3.0 has been launched into the wild.
If you find it, link to it in the dedicated thread.
ColdFusion - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Bomb 3.0 has been deployed.
If you find it, link to it here.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Thank's for the crit.
Now that I look at it, the begginging is a little simple. Maybe I'll revise it.
Cheers,
Ati
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It's kind of like shooting someone, and having the bullet ricochet of the inside of thear skull, and hit you in the stomach.
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Oh, and in the interest of the tradition formed in the last half hour- a hint:
The bomb is hidden in plain view.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I quite concur.
Home Theater Geeks - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Hey, now there's an idea - if the amnesiac attaches itself to the most active brain cells (the cells involved in memory), I wonder if it would be possible to design a molecule that contained the attachment binders that seeks out neurotransmitter activity, as well as a few carbon and iron atoms, to convert the electrical activity into radio impulses - that way, you could listen to (and model) the behavior of active cells, allowing for a simple, fast method of building an emulation of the brain.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Very interesting.
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I doubt it.
Oh sure, you can read brain ACTIVITY, but reducing ther awe-inspiring complexity of the human thought processes down to simple words is going to be a truly monumental task.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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@Yue & Dazelnut:
The quotation is mine, so there wouldn't be an outside source to link to.
@Zen
That's an interesting viewpoint. What would your ideal tax system be to remedy the deficits that, in your view, persist in the current one?
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I find it difficult to take a man at his word when he has nothing at all to lose from lying. To say nothing of the fairly implausible nature of his story as well.
The whole thing smacks of a neurological disorder, or a dead man's last joke on humanity.
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True.
Heck, even good old Luna has same fairly impressive views.
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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A link to what?
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Errrr...
That sounds more like chaotic evil to me.
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av:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/tburbine/ASTR330/images/asteroid.jpg
Name:
BigR0ck
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Hawaii has nothing on Mars.
I mean, the view from the peak of Olypus Mons must be stunning.
The thing's the highest mountain in the solar system.
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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No. Unless bugs directly threaten me, as in a black widow or an exceptionally irritated wasp, I try to avoid killing them.
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I've seen that one before. It didn't get any less weird in the interim.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I'd happily live on mars for a few months.
Beautiful place.
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Neither do I. But judging by the name, and Rath's reputation for finding some of the weirdest stuff on the internet, I'm rather glad of that fact.
The Seven Deadly Sins - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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The last idea sounds like an excellent one to me.
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 4 |
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Heck yes.
I predict the Singularity somewhere btween 2040, and 2045, assuming Moore's Law remains constant. If one of my supercomputer concepts actually works, I predict it in the next 5-10 years.
I believe that augmenting oneself in any and all ways possible without destroying one's core identity is perfectly ethical, and, indeed, an economic neccesity if humans are going to compete in this new world.
I personally am going to be first in line for implants (indeed, I'm working to homebrew a set of data glasses for the short-term), and I will be uploading as soon as humanly possible.
I also have no moral objections to running an indefinite number of copies of my self, and combining or spawning them as circumstance demands.
Those are my feelings on the subject, anyway.
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Frankly Poss, I think the other girls in the pageant were a heck of a lot more creepy than grandpa ever could be.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Right.
The sewer system would collapse after, oh, I don't know, a couple of million years or so. Then you'd get a huge ammount of buried, rusing metal, with rocks, glass, poisonous artificial substances with huge half-lives in the millions of years, and a really wacky ecosystem from all the toxins and the huge rodent population.
Any geologist that wandered in on NYC 65 million years from now is going to do a little bit of digging, and then be sitting there going '...what the hell ?'
Certainly, we might miss a pre-industrial cilization, but I cannot imagine that we would fail to see any remnants industrial-level civilization such as ours. Not to mention that large craniums and opposible thumbs aren't all that common in the fossil record. Any flourishing industrial population would leave us with a lot of fossils of large-brained, appendage equipped, long-living animals.
Oh, and RyeGye - about the satelites. the real problem isn't weathering, but de-orbiting. Most satelights are in low earth orbit, which means that without regular applications of rocket fuel, they'll fall back to earth in a few hundred years at the latest. Still though, the ones in really high orbit, and the stuff discarded by the moon missions would probably still be there.
To sum up:
I harbor strong doubts as to the existence of intelligent life before us. However, when the global ecosystem got around to producing sentience, by a freak, one in a million accident, we primates got to be the poor saps on the business end of the predator-prey intelligence arms race. If it hadn't been us, it would be something else. Right now though, no niche exists for new intelligence to occur - there's no incentive for any creature to start to try to do what we already do so much better. Thus, unless humans get around to going extinct and freeing up some room, we're going to be stuck with the dubious honor of being the dominant species on this little lump of rock in the middle of nowhere.
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let me put it this way: if not even one of the planets around one of those billions of stars in our galaxy alone has even a single spot in which life can exist, then something roughly as improable as a coin landing on heads a few billion times in a row has occured.
Now, if you consider the billions of galaxies out there, you find that 'highly probable' just doesn't say it.
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well, you lose a lot (I'd guess something greater than 90%) of what you remember anyway. It's hard to imagine that deleting one more is going to change much.
Then again, what you delete is likely going to be an important part of your psyche (a bad part), or else you wouldn't be deleting it.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Zenmonk - The way I see it is, if you remember doing or thinking something, you're the same one who did the thinking or doing. It seems the most practical approach to the problem.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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One of the reasons is that we outcompeted everything else. We are currently using so many natural resources and hunting everything else that we leave little room for another sentience to arise.
Likewise, when the largest creatures were reptiles, a few of them seem to have been fairly bright - maybe even sentient in a few million years. It wasn't until the top got cut off the food chain by a damn big rock that we humans got around to getting past the whole 'small rodents' phase.
I would say that it is difficult for more than one dominate, human-like sentience to arise on the same planet. The first one tends to kill or outcompete the runner-ups.
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Essentially, any entity that shares your memories is you - however, unless that entity has your personality as well, you have just had your core values changed. This is not something I would voluntarily submit to, as I would prefer to keep my abilities to make decisions based on my current personality, or natural extensions thereof. Which, again, is why I like uploading, and am dubious about memory editing.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Well, I once challenged an english teacher to define a word ('annachronism'). When he failed, however, I mis-defined it myself. I don't know if that's geeky enough, but it was certainly embarrasing.
Then there was the time I was 8 or so and turned my entire bedroom into a massive rube goldberg contraption to turn on the light, give me my book, and ring a bell as soon as I got out of bed and stepped on a lever.
That was fine, until my mother tripped over one of the wires and dropped a book on my head...
At any rate, I have a few more, but those work for now.
Social Issues - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Poss: 65 million years later, and you'd still find a few fossils of homo sapiens sapiens. We're way too numerous not to. You'd also find the remnants of some buildings... probably. Even after 65 million years, you'll still find some very odd stuff hanging around where New York city used to be.
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Dazelnut,
'don't poke me with sticks' might be better replaced with 'don't rip my stomach open and eat my steaming entrails out of my body cavity'.
Just FYI.
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I'll leave my psyche alone, thanks all the same.
Unless I had to delete some of the junk to avoid senility, or to get rid of a really traumatic experience.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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I'm assuming your talking about the last few 'beauty pagent' scenes?
I think that was more a sarcastic assault on beauty pagents (juvenile ones specifically) than it was a commentary on pedophilia. That's just my view of the matter though.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I like to consider myself a realist, but that might be my ego talking.
I try to avoid depression though. It seems a waste of time.
Belief System Chaos - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Just a suggestion: if you add this, make it an opt-in system, as Shuzak emails get past my spam filters and clutter up my inbox as it is.
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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I don't care for metal all that much. I'm really more a classical guy.
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Well, unlike cancer of fascism, depression can be ignored, and it won't kill you. A certain level of emotional suppresion can be developed with time.
Belief System Chaos - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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While I'm ressurrecting dead threads...
Ideas do not neccesarily cease to be valid when they get older.
If you have an assembler (and you do have to, to build any really interesting nano-structures), there's nothing to stop you from making more assemblers with it.
To summarize: I posit that 'top-down' is impossible to maintain under the laws of economics. It's simply too innefficient for any corporate entity to use self assembly for everything. And if your not relying on self assembly, then why not simply program your assembler to start making better assemblers?
Agree/disagree?
Advanced Tech - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Utility fog FTW.
Advanced Tech - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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As far as viewing our relationships with other people, I don't think you can reasonably expect motivations from another person purer than your own.
If you don't want to be talking to the co-worker either, or don't honestly want to talk to dead old dad for the fiftieth time this week, it might be unreasonable to expect him to have better views of you.
Just my view on the matter.
Belief System Chaos - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Where can I buy them, and who do I have to kill?
Advanced Tech - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Not really.
The heat cauterizes most of the blood vessels, so the liquid mess is pretty minimal. And a good barbeque disposes of most of the solid bits.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well, you'd need a moving chassy to blanket a given area, probably just a solar panel on a remote control car. Then you need a router, a control unit, and an I/O transmitter with a side-link to the control unit. You'd probably need a neural net running back at the base to organize unit movement.
Hmmm... ants are fairly good at blanet-searching an area - I wonder if you could base your control scheme on them.
A direct upload is out of question, of course, for another few years at least, but I'm sure a high-level emulation would do the job quite nicely.
Oh, and your going to need a hell of a T1 line back at home to handle all of the data these things are going to be producing.
Advanced Tech - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Just realozed that my above post is a tad ambiguous.
To blanket, say, your neighborhood, you'll need a couple of dozen of these things, and the fatality rate will likely be high, unless you train the neural net to avoid cars and toddlers.
Advanced Tech - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Communism is not as safe as you would have it, redstar. Even if you managed to makes a communist society without apalling low standards of living or deep corruption (which has yet to happen for any reasonable length of time), there is still the question of shortages. Even in communism, it still makes sense to keep canned food on hand in case there is a food shortage. There are already too many people in the world - no matter how you arrange it, there will be shortages. Having stockpiles never hurts, regardless of the society that you live in.
As far as all the evil of humanity being a product of capitalism, seriously man, have you ever driven in traffic? People screw each other for personal gain. It's why we're not extinct. That won't stop under communism. Under communism, everyone will not suddenly magically transform into good sumaritans who help other people at expense to themselves for free. They also won't stop trying to better themselves, at the expense of others if neccesary.
Oh, and ATB:
believe it or not, i yearn for such a day.
Great...
you first.
Conspiracy Theories - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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An attempt to ressurect this discussion:
Poss:
Surely there is a minimum border of electrical simulation - a quanta, if nothing else.
Also, even if this is not the case, would it not be possible to construct an analog computer that works with complete, not binary values?
Also, all of this is assuming that Moore's law remains consistent, and it might well get faster. After all, Moore's law originally stated a doubling every two years, and it had increased quickly since then. If this trend continues, even the 35 year estimate may need to be revised. And that's not even considering that silicon may be surpassed in the next decade by quantum computers like D-Wave's, or by DNA baased or optical computers (personally, I have an interesting idea for an optical computer, but there's no way I'm posting it on here until I get around to filing a patent application.
Basically, 35 years (or 2040) is the absolute outside in my view, saving a global catastrophe. I wouldn't be much surprised at 10 - 20 years, given a few unexpected advancements.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I never use 'truthiness' for important decisions. If it's vital and I feel my gut trying to say something, it's time to start ignoring it.
There are far, far too many people out there hurting other people for no reason because their gut instinct tells them to.
Belief System Chaos - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I've been thinking (at Poss' suggestion) about setting up an '@home' project for neuron simulation. It'd be nice to have a decentralized supercomputer to throw a few uploaded invertebrates into.
Really though, if your looking for one, there are a lot. SETI has one, if I'm not mistaken.
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And that whole experience made me realize women are not meant to be thrown around. Sexual promiscuity is for dull minds.
Perhaps sexual promiscuity as you practiced it. However, does your bad experience with it equate to a damning of the entire practice?
Well I mean it in the way that consensual sex also needs to have love.
For you, perhaps. But has it occured to you that other people might not neccesarily want love at the moment, but might enjoy casual affairs just the same?
Now don't get me wrong, I prefer monogamy personally, and I have no tolerance at all for those who cheat on their spouses. However, in the case of a informed, polyamorous relationship, in which all parties as knowledgeable, dismissing the whole thing as 'weak minded' striked me as being a bit close-minded.
I wouldn't do it myself, but I see nothing fundamentally wrong with the practice, aside from it's contrariness to my personal preferences.
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...or much else.
The Fascist Army - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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*sets french book on fire"
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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My favorite idea so far is a horn that, rather than making a louad electronic tone, instead activates an in-car microphone, and sends the output to a louspeaker - that way they call all hear what you're really saying about them.
The Fascist Army - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Well, I don't think it's a solid, given the erosion patterns around it. Also, given the lack of cracks, etc.
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Well, here are my views on the subject:
By the time they hit fourteen, teenagers are, in most cases, about as smart as they are ever going to get. They might get more educated and more experienced from then on, but between the ages of 14 and 80, it's all downhill as far as IQ goes.
Now don't get me wrong. I've met some teenagers who are so stupid and self centered as to make my hair curl. This might sway my opinion on the matter, except that I then met their parents. They were worse.
Likewise, I've met some teenagers who were basically completely competent adults. They showed maturity, intelligence, and complex moral judgements.
The point I'm probably trying to make is, you get morons in any age group you look at. You also get intelligent people as well . Age seems a rather arbitrary ruler by which to judge people. Thus I treat everyone in my life by a metric of their mental ability. If you insist on acting like a toddler, I will treat you like one, regardless of whether you are ten or thirty. If you behave as a competent human being, I will treat you with respect. I think the law should take the same view. If your 13, and you can drive better than the kinda-slow sixty year old across the street, I think you should be allowed to drive. Likewise, if you are 16 and show yourself to be a reasonable person, with sufficient maturity to be able to make complex judgements, you should be allowed to vote. Either let the competent teens vote, or don't tax them - no taxation without representation.
Frankly, I think the biggest force behind the frankly rather stupid behavior of teenagers is the primarily corporate creation of 'teen culture', which dictates everything from speech patterns, to clothing, to what kind of things are bought. It basically instructs teenagers that it's perfectly fine to behave like a moron. My guess is because it's easier to market to people who think they have to act stupid to fit in.
So yes, I think teenagers should be allowed more adult privlidges and responsibilities younger. At the very least, get rid of the idiotic 'youth courts' and give them at least their basic constitutional rights.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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Ati, the Cell BE engine only has 6 functional parallel processing nodes (the SPEs) and yet developers are already struggling. now bump that number up to say a million, billions, etc. i can already hear the suicidal gunfires, pills popping, and/or self hanging of the software developers
Well, once you get a certain portion of it to a programmable state, you can program that sections how to program all the other sections. That said, yes, programming a computer this powerful is going to be a tremendous pain in a tender area.
outputs are often averages and hit-n-miss guesses of many nodes.
True. The brain isn't as accurate as silicon. The good news is that with a processor this powerful, you can afford to double, triple, and quadruple check your answer.
Cutting Edge Computer Hardware - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Actually, another explanation for the ripples just occured to me - martian soil is, if I remember correctly, filled with bits of frozen CO2 - if the water was melting them, then you'd either get bubbles popping up from time to time, or water gradually seeping into the thawed soil below - both of which would cause ripples without disturbing the micro-atmosphere
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Ati, the brain is doing huge amount of redundancy calculation right now, thats why you havent received the BSOD yet. I wouldnt even know how to reboot someone if they did.
Isn't that usually called a seizure?
Cutting Edge Computer Hardware - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Poss:
If you look in the mid/upper right hand corner of the image, there is continuity between the parts apparantly submerged, and the parts extending. It doesn't look like reflection to me.
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=536615119&size=o
High-resolution version of the same.
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Devote?
Screw that, I'm making a new one.
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WE are fined tuned to the earth, not the other way around. We evolved until we suited the climate of this planet. Other species might well evolve to fit completely different circumstances.
Given the million of trillions of stars and probably planets out there, alien life in some form is inevitable, not improbable.
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Excellent.
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That would actually simplify my neural pike idea quite a bit - just implant a behavior into neurons that instruct them to implant the same behavior into other neurons.
Then you have a logic virus... and if you want to, you can tell it to do other things, like duplicate important patterns
hmmmm...
*mulls over the cost of neural cultures, chemical inhibitors, small electrodes, and microscopes*
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well Poss, even if it isn't water, it still doesn't make a lot of sense. Mars isn't cold enough for most of the common gasses to occur there in liquid form, and if they have puddles of anti-freeze on mars, it's going to take even more explaining.
Also, in certain areas, it's apparantly possible for the steam produced when the water hits the vacuum to form into a micro-atmostphere, allowing water to stay as a liquid.
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Mascot?
Terminator Slinky, 'nuff said.
As for resurrecting old posts, I think the 'suggested post' box that uses kkeywords from your profile would definitely be useful.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Well, that's essentially what they do - they take stimulus and, according to a set of rules, produce a response. The trick is that they can do a lot of reactions like this simultaneously.
Poss pointed me out a link in the 'blue brain project' thread where they managed to induce 'memories' (i.e. pre-programmed responses) into specific neurons, and had them maintain the patterns for quite a while. I cannot imagine it would be particularly hard to encode a 'logic gate' behavior into neurons.
That's my view of the matter anyway.
Cutting Edge Computer Hardware - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I suspect that it's both, and neither. Obviously, a good deal of high level stuff goes on on the level of neurons (stimulating a single neuron can induce euphoria, and other interesting cognitive states). However, higher cortical structures obviously play a role as well. My guess it, the higher structures serve as a kind of managing system, that helps regulate neuron behavior. Really, we have to study them both to figure out exactly what makes us think like we do.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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It looks like a liquid to me. there are clear ripples, and no scratches, cracks, etc. that would be indicitive of ice. Whether it's water or not is an open question, but it sure looks like it.
As for 'thinking outside of the box', I quite agree with you. However, all the life we've seen so far is carbon based, and relies on water, so it seems the logical place to start looking.
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Mine fell of the table and the LCD shattered.
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Nope, not in the least.
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Well, the other thing about carbon based life is that it's probably the kind of life we're mostly likely to notice if it comes up and starts chewing on our rovers. A form of life that's based on crystaline structures and takes a few millenium to move around or reproduce is a lot more likely to be ignored and accidentally run over than, say, something swimming in a pool of water.
As far as the rippled go, mars is far from atmosphereless. It's about 1% of what we have here, so humans cannot live there, but man they have some nasty wind storms (400+ MPH). Liquid water can only exist on mars where there is no significant wind, so the evaporating water can form an atmosphere. My guess is that the ripples are either caused by the movements of the rover nearby, or by a stray breeze cutting across the micro-atmosphere, or perhaps just the normal wind if it's not actually water, and does nto require no wind.
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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How about when the union got into a war with the Confederacy, 'to end slavery'.
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*cuts the cake*
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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how was your birthday Yue?
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Awwww...
My phone broke. It's going to be a hundred dollars to have it replaced. Shoot.
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2007 is looking to be a year of great games: to recap:
Spore
Bioshock
MGS 4
Halo 3
(there have to be some I'm missing, but this about tops it off)
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Tailgating irritates me too. It's be nice to have a big ballloon filled with pidgeon poop on the back of your car that you could dump on tailgaters.
The Fascist Army - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I think the story was intended to describe a Utopia that wasn't.
Abortion would have been much more humane than killing infants.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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SVM's sound fine for the purposes we're discussing here, but I suspect their not flexible enough for more complicated AIs.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Hmmm.
If that's the case, then would it be possible to have Shuzak classified in such a way that it wasn't technically in the public domain?
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Yes it does.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Weren't you aware, Poss?
As soon as Jen steps into a thread, your odds of survival become inversely proportion to the number of her posts. It's just one of the laws of Shuzak.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Hmmmmm...
Sounds useful, but I'd hate to have to be the one to program it...
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Or, perhaps more along the lines of
'We have no clue what this thing is. Rather than feed the nuts who jump to the frankly unwarranted conclusion that it's actually a giant alien spacecraft, let's keep our mouths shut until we're pretty sure what it is'
Photography - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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the assumption is that leona and dr hitz were not truly happy, but rather in denial ? is it?
It was their job to kill people. Take a wild guess.
You have a depressed man who claims to 'want all three', and so the action he takes leads him to get none.
Is this really enough to confirm that the system is sterile, flawed and inhuman, or just that he was depressed for whatever reason?
IF you had to pick which of your children to kill, I think you'd be pretty depressed too.
I'm interested in hearing what people think of the old man means when he suggests that the cloth is a more accurate depiction of society than the painting
That was one part I'm not sure about. I'd be interested in hearing possible interpretations myself
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Actually, I was very impressed witht his trailor - it was cinematic, the graphics were incredible, though occasionally some irrealism showed in the particles and facial movements, but overall it was really stunning.
It'd be nice to see some gamplay... ah well. Maybe in the next trailor.
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Fortunately, the gaming center across town has a PS3 that no-one ever uses. Which is a good thing, or else I might be 600 dollars poorer right now.
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Happy Birthday Yue!
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Pity.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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The idea is to extract enough information from the neurons in the brain in order to be able to reconstitute the mind data on other hardware.
That could be silicon, a different biological system, anything.
The only goal is to extract a copy of the mind from the brain, in a useable form.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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To be fair, that description constituted a sizeable chucnk of sci-fi movies produced.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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Cool. Hmmm, this may actually bear looking into. So lets see here, on my extropian wish list I've got a hacked cell phone for subvocal recording, a bio-computer, and a neural pike.
Well, at least one of them is vaguely doable. I'll have to wait until I'm considerably wealthier for the other two.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Isn't that for reading, not understanding?
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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actually, that sounds pretty decent. I failed to notice that before.
Under that, the original post remains the original author's work, but he has to get permission to use any modifications to his idea, from the people who proposed them.
Thanks Jawad, I didn't see that.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Yeah, I know this one has been though of before. Ah well, of my recent threads with ideas, three out of four seem to be originals. Of course, given that the remainging one is a century or so too late, there amy still be cause for worry...
Computer Networking - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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There is no such thing as 'slightly illegal'.
Also, you can bet that every one of those people whose liscenses you think should be revoked all think they are thoroughly competent as well.
The Fascist Army - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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To the first point:
If you made it work, you could add another paragraph to the code: something to the tune of...
'wait until you recive the 'finished' signal before you transmit state data'
'if you are finished transmitting your data, send the 'finished' signal to the next neurons up'
'if you receive more than one transmission simultaneously, delay them according to X order'
To the second, exactly capturing the data isn't neccesarily vital. Given the rates of data transfer, a clever programmer could conceivably perform the upload in less than an hour, and if the subject is sleeping at the time, very little will have changed during that hour.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Sorry, I didn't mean natural language processing. We can use a specialized command vocabulary and wikipedia for performing the searches. I was talking about interpreting the command vocabularies from the movements of the larynx.
Basically, subvocalization-text is what I was looking at. Natural language processing is not something you'd be able to impliment in the near future.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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You know?
I just read the wikipedia article, and I hadn't a clue what they were talking about the entire time.
Could you please describe to me, in layman's terms, what exactly a support vector is?
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Allright, so as I understand this, such a system draws dividers through a supposed area covered with various pieces of data, and draws it in such as way as that every piece of data with one series of traits is on one side, and every other on the other.
Except it does this in a space comprised of more than three dimentions.
Is that about right?
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Farewell vile parasite (to spammer)
Computer Networking - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Oh yeah, I saw that a few years ago. I was thinking of using it, but I use my google account way too much.
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@Poss
As soon as you start digitizing the brain you leave it open to being hacked. It is an inherent problem.
True, but this system, were it to work, would allow you to hack the mind while it is currently inside the central nevous system.
I was just thinking ati. why not use a few ten of thousands of old computers, each one acting a neuron. In fact, why not make a small neuron emulation program and distribute it freely, allowing people to become a part of the greater brain. Kind of the Seti's outsourced computing power. Seti have a program you can download which uses your computers power to help them crunch numbers. In that kind of system you could have millions of fully functional neurons before you knew it. Depending on the processing power required for your app, you could run multiple instances of it on every computer. perhaps you could make it even more versatile, creating a version for mobile phones and pdas. you will need trillions of instances of the program running to truly replicate a brain, but even a few hundred thousand is a good start.
You mean something to the tune of upload@home? I've thought of that before, but it seems easier to use a dedicated processor (see my organic processor thread). However, if that doesn't work out, that'd be a good way of getting around it. As far as computing power goes, nothing sayas you have to run it in real time. An uploaded conciousness, even running at half of a percent of real time would still be a major achievement.
@Quantum Beep
Thats sounds fine and well, but I think you know what all those brains liked together are going to be running. World of Warcraft, Mindcraft Edition.
Actually, I think Poss was talking about using silicon processors to emulate a brain, not vice versa.
[i]
Seriously, I imagine that it wouldn't be long before the first malware hits. Would you like to dream about penis enlargement? See popups for porn during church? When I write a brain virus, it's going to make everyone look like they're naked.
[i/]
Well, the good news is that it wouldn't be easy to spread. For the minds still inside brains, you'd have to run up and stab them with a neural pike, which might not be easy.
The uploads produced by this technique would be considerably more vulnerable, but precautions can be taken to prevent anything overly unpleasant from happening.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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so how are you turning cancer into functional neural cells?
It's fairly simple actually. You can either genetically modify, or mutate and select brain cells until you get a strain that have no limits on reproduction, but function normally otherwise. It's just a matter of having a lot of carcinogens, and a lot of time.
You would have to write wetware code in neural interconnects - many billions of them. This would have to be completely logic-guided, since programming one of these by mental calculation alone would take many lifetimes.
True. The method I was thinking of would be to spend some time sending various impulses into neurons until I figured out what did what, and then using an evolutionary algorythm to figure out which pattern of electric impulses caused a neuron to behave like a very, very fast transistor. Think of it as evolving hardware.
Cutting Edge Computer Hardware - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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It's probably possible, but it'd be hard to make the components required to store and read the neccesary pattern of impulses fit in a package small enough to fly easily.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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The Wrinkle in Time movie. Don't watch it. Ever.
I,Robot had basically nothing to do with the book of the same name. However, the movie was at least watchable in it's own right, and didn't make an effort to copy any of the deeper themes (therefore making it impossible to butcher them horrendously).
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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It'd be kind of nice to, just for one election, limit campaign spending to 1000 dollars.
That means 1000 dollars for everything. The suit you wear comes out of that budget. If you buy adverising time, that comes out too. So do plane tickets, hotel rooms, and badges and fliers that you distribute. Oh, and you can't presonally know or own or be affiliated with any of the places you get this stuff from.
THAT would both quiet up the air waves quite a bit, and it would solve a lot of other problems on the side.
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Well, Douglas Adams co-wrote the script to the most recent movie, but after he died, the other guy re-wrote it and, and made a bunch of changes, which is probably why it sucked.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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@Poss:
the cyanide capsule and decaying radium atom are hidden in the cat's mouth.
Physics Lectures here - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I still haven't read the novel of that. It keeps slipping my mind everytim I got o the library.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Actually, it should be a simple matte rof using an evolutionary algorythm to figure out which sub-sonic sounds correspond to phonemes, and then running that through a text to speech processor.
Also, I certainly hope your joking about patenting itor, I shall have to hunt you down and force feed you your patent application.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I think geeks trust Google because it has a good track record, and because it has, historically, kept the users in mind.
It is actually not in their self interest to do anything too bad for user privacy now, because a large portion of their competitive advantage comes from a large, trusting user base, which would all but vanish if they screwed us over for short-term profit.
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Agh, sorry, mispelled 'analog'. Hate it when I do that.
Computer Networking - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Well, there's another one that somebody got to before me...
Computer Networking - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Well that's a relief...
Physics Lectures here - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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or perhaps just a look a what happens when you try to enforce Utopia.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Well, I suppose that it just goes to show that if someone else hadn't invented it, I would have, albeit a century later. Concurrent development my foot.
Computer Networking - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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it is, however, a long time on technological timescales. It is also a long time in internet time, which I estimate to run something like ten times faster than wall-clock time.
Computer Networking - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Wasn't it yahoo who got in hot water for giving out search information to advertisers a few years back?
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Of course, by looking at the cat in the box, we collapse the wave function, so he's definitely in the box. Unless, of course, we ourselves are the isolated subjects who are perceiving the cat. In which case, we ourselves are simultaneously looking at both a living and dead cat. Which means that I'm in a state of super-position.
*waves to eigen-self*
Physics Lectures here - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I quite agree.
Allowing corporations to use money to influence the legislative process is, in my mind, equivalent to making bribes legal.
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Well, if you simply programmed the nerve cells to behave like transistors (albeit, very fast, parralel transistors), then you could arrange a system of other neurons to serve as an organizations system to take data sent from a standard computer (possibly a cluster), and transmitted into specific neurons in the BCU via electrodes.
Said neural system would then take the 'progran' being transmitted in, and distribute it among the rest of the processing mass, then collect the data produced, compile it, and send it to a set of listener electrodes, which would feed back into the silicon computer running the show.
Cutting Edge Computer Hardware - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I recall reading that naurons are actually fairly high-level computation structures (one neuron can store large ammounts of memory information), but again, you can use as many neurons as you need. It's simply a matter of training neurons to train other neurons.
And yes, the idea does bear a striking resemblence to a computer virus. Spyware, specifically.
Actually, now that I think of it, the potential for abuse seems to be rather alarming...
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Ah yes, that's happened to me before. It sucks.
Cutting Edge Computer Hardware - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I wonder how long that's going to last...
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Well, we have a lot of ground based light telescopes as well, so that could be called redundant too...
But screw it, I agree with you. There's a lot more to discover, simply on the spectrum of visible light.
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Oh, I'm not saying it's likely to happen. And there are circumstances when blowing someone away is a perfectly valid course of action (if they're robbing you, threatening you with a weapon, etc). However, on the whole, I would prefer it to happen as infrequently as possible. If that's utopiansim, so be it.
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Nor against the vicious TS. If he got kicked back to where he came from, he'd bounce.
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam....
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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...but it's still better than the reactor blowing up and taking everyone else out with it.
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Well Brian, that would be pretty bad on a job interview, but the downshot might be compensated for when he answers all the questions correctly.
Really though, you'd want to make it as minimalist as possible. Probably a flesh-toned mic and electrode band, and a bluetooth headset. You could clip the satelight phone to your belt.
@Nadeem:
Ouch, yes, I always get that one wrong.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Well, Poss, that only works if he's actually interested in any sort of similar product.
If he tries that, she may merely point out some piddling feature that her company possesses that the other doesn't, and keep right on going.
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True. I suppose it depends on how bulky the listener rig would need to be. If it's just one mic and four or five elctrodes, non-invasive would be easiest... on the other hand, if it's more than that, implanting them might be more convenient.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Well, as far as privacy goes, Google has got a fairly good track record - they use it for inter-company profiling, but it's really hard for non-employees (i.e. the government) to get their hands on it without a lot of effort.
However, if it worries you, there is an egine located here that does nto save cookies, or build any kind of user profile:
http://hakia.com/
However, I am not sure of the quality of the engine.
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You get some morons and you get some good guys. Most of them just do their job. Just like everybody else.
The Fascist Army - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Nice replies guys.
As far as subpoenas go, note the 'offshore'. They can't get ti if they don't actually know where it is. And they have no legal claim to a pieve of equipment that is, say, in China (not that I'll neccesarily put it there, just an example).
As for 'book knowledge', obviously this thing won't make you a good dancer, or a brain surgeon, or a brilliant mathematician. However, being able to have nearly the entirety of the knowledge amassed by makind available at the call of a single thought would still be a powerful tool indeed.
Also, Nadeem, the language processign was actually the biggest problem I forsaw. Since you have some experience in that area, could you tell me what the most promising systems are for this sort of application? Or, if none that you know of exist, could you at least let me know how far away technology is from having this sort of thing be feasible?
Coem to think of it, another question - how would one go about having electronics implanted in his body? It's not as though you can simply waltz into your local mod parlor... yet.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Then the slinky weould cut the elevator to shreds and strangle chuck.
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I'm pretty sure the french quarter was rebuilt for the purpose of attracting tourists again.
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@Nadeem:
I kind of suspected it would be something like that. However, as Zenmonk mentioned, specialzed command vocabularies could be used (for the early adopters at least) to reduce strain on the interpreter algorythm. Not quite as natural to use at first, but you'd get used to it fairly quickly
@Tom
I'm planning on taking neurscience and computer science, with maybe a few side courses on basic psychology and neuroanatomy. I figure that should pretty much have me set up for the singularity.
@Zenmonk
As I understand it, any time you read words to yourself, or verbalize a thought, the vocal cords in your throat goes through the motions of saying whatever you're thinking. It makes no noise, but it's an integral part of verbalized thought (and a good reason why any upload system needs to include a simulated larynx)
This movement of the larynx makes sub-sonic vibrations in the throat tissue which can be picked up and interpreted by a high-fidelity mic.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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I never coulkd roll my Rs properly. It always sounded like I was choking on a cat.
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Not having net neutrality is asking for censorship. Big time. It means slower bandwidth overall, and it means restricted access to sites that the telco in question happens to dislike - for instance, one of it's competitor (not that there are a whole lot of them)'s websites.
Frankly though, 'broadband' in the US is a joke. It's slower that in other countries, and vastly more expensive. Fortunately, people are starting to look around and realize that they've got an IV drip in their nose.
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Terminator slinkies don't rust. They kill.
On the other hand, chuck can't die either, or what are all the millions of Diggers going to have to joke about?
The fight would never end.
Actually, it reminds me of that scene in Pirates of the Carribean-
"Is this what we'll do Jack? Two immortals locked in combat for eternity?"
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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The guy's name is Kevin Warwick, and the chip he had implanted was an electrode grid in his forearm to allow him to send motor impulses to the arm, and get haptics impulses back.
http://www.kevinwarwick.com/Cyborg2.htm
And you could do it on a cell phone, but you need special equipment for subvocalization, and it would be more conventient to have that stuff implanted in through throatr, so you don't have wires, mics, and electrodes running helter skelter. That said, the prototypes would likely be non-invasive until you were sure that they worked.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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Woot, happy Birthday Shuzak!
I've only been here since the first Digg invasion, so I didn't get a chance to see the earliest, most primitive version, but it's grown a lot since I've been here.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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I personally am against people shooting other people. It's as simple as that. If it is avoidable, I'd prefer if people would just stop blowing each other away. It would be quieter.
That goes for both the US miltary, and your marxist faction.
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How about President Kennedy, buy kevlar overcoats
Or Hey Buzz, make sure you enunciate that A...
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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How can you NOT like cake?
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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*readies latent telepathic abilities*
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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That was an absurdly depressing story.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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It would usck to go to all the trouble and expensive of having all the stuff implanted, only to find that the device was defective.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Answer with
"City morgue. You kill em, we chill em, how may I help you?"
"Por ke? No se habla espanol, senorita cucaracha."
"Hey, you sound like a likely sort of fellow - would you be interested in natural male enhancement?"
"Get these owls off of me! Oh, sorry, wrong number. Hold please."
"My wife died, my dog was run over, I lost my job, there was a bank run and my savings are gone, and a tornado went through my house. I think I'm going to kill myself. [drops book on table]"
...you get the idea.
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That is... that is... that is positively... UN-AMERICAN!
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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Please, please, children...
Could we please play nice?
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Yeah, you'd want to have the initial prototypes non-invasive. On the other hand, that might not be too great for your romantic life -
"Uhhhh honey... Why do you have three hundred dollars worth of high fidelity sound equipment duct-taped to your neck?
And is that a satelight phone taped to your back?"
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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I agree that privatization of welfare and other similar programs is a good idea (under severe restrictions of course, to prevent corruption).
But frankly, a tax reform would do a lot more than taxing the rich. If we pulled out of the war in Iraq, sold off ten or twenty percent of our military, and trimmed off all of the additional, money-sucking cruft that makes up most of our government, we'd have enough money to make huge strides towards fixing climate change, abolishing poverty, and we'd be able to go to mars a couple of times on the side.
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That would work as well. Probably solve overpopulation too.
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True. On the other hand, it'll be interesting to see what more resolution on non-optical wavelengths will tell us about some of the odder things in our universe.
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Yes. Latin is hard, but easier than english.
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F4 seems like an accident of epic scope waiting to happen.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Oh no, this is all very clever and well organized. After this thread expires, legions of psychologits will work themselves into an early grave analyzing the contents of it, syallable by syllable.
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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I have a friend/colleague who went ot new orleans recently. As you might expect, the wealthier parts of town are rebuilt. However, the poorer/mostly black sections of town are destroyed.
Totally destroyed. Bordering on irreparable.
And there's a spray paint tag on most of the doors listing the conidtion of the house, and the number of bodies discovered inside. It's apalling.
I don't claim to know what SHOULD be done, and I wouldn't want to be the poor sap who gets to make the decision. However, I can tell you right now what IS being done. The poor sections are slowly rotting in feet of sludge, while the rich sections are being rebuilt, and pretending that everything is alright.
Unless something changes, New Orleans is destined for a tourist trap at best, and a ghost town at worst.
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The entry has been deleted.
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: |
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The movie was feces compared to the books. Erase the bad images from your mind, and drive at at least twice the speed limit to the nearest bookstore and buy them all. Do this or a blue whale and a flower pot will fall on you.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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I'm going to do a picture of Shuzak manor in the Gimp. If you have any suggestions, zak me. If you want to be included, send me a photograph and I'll try to work you in. I'm short on time, so this'll probably take a couple of weeks.
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So two questions then: If everything is effectively pre-ordained, what gets you out of bed in the morning?
Same reason you do. That is to say, based on my personality and values, Is must make that decision. Also, because if I don't, bad things will happen to me. Believing that individual decisions cannot occur in ways different from what they do, does not exclude the possibility of making judgements based on perceived possible futures (even though only one is really possible, we see many) - indeed, such looking ahead is a requirement for making those decision.
Do you think you're the object of forces beyond your control, with no escape possible?
I believe that I, with all the wonderous complexity within me that is life, and that is human, am a tiny mechanism of a much vaster machine. My life and eventually death by entropy is insignificant, a speck within a speck expending the last of its energy and flickering out, but both contribute to a greater whole. I also believe that my actions are slaves to the myriad of complex processes that I call myself, as well as to the much vaster myraid of forces that work beyond the arbtitrary boundary that I have set up to limit the edges of 'self'. I do not believe that I somehow possess something that frees me from the machinations of the processes that I call my concious decisions. To be forced beyond my personality and conciousness' instructions by alien forces would turn me into a slave of something other than myself.
The free will you describe is slavery, not freedom.
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Second, do you honestly believe that we puny humans, with our feeble senses, can ever arrive at the answers science seeks? Sure we make progress over the years, but will we ever have the whole picture? Once we do, what comes next? Think about the EM band for a moment. We're able to directly perceive a vanishingly small fragment of it. It's only with advanced equipment that we even know that the rest exists...how do we know that we're not missing something vastly important because we have no way to perceive it? Dark matter serves as sort of an example, in that dark matter and dark energy account for the vast majority of That Which Is (TM). Given that we've recently discovered it via inference from other observations, but what if there's something else we're missing, something not even in the same vein, something that we completely overlook because we don't even know enough to look for it, much less how to look for it?
We cannot see everything. We will always be tiny cogs in a vast system, far beyond our current comprehension. We will always be blind to more than we see.
That said, that isn't an excuse to assume that any given thing exists. We must assume that that for which there is no evidence does not exist, for the sake of sanity, if nothing else.
Likewise, it is not an excuse for not trying. To give up on the grounds that we will never know everything is to be the caveman who huddles in his shelter, turning his back on the fires beyond because he fears them. Even if he cannot see the molecules splitting, or the infra-red radiation emitted, there is no excuse not to see what one can.
Likewise, it is irrational for that caveman to assume that there are angels and demons hunting the shadows around his cave, simply because he cannot see what is in them.
Oh, and on a less philisophical, and more technical note:
@Nadeem:
As I recall, the only way to actually build Laplace's Demon is to build the universe itself. In other words, you can predict what will happen in the universe by building an identical one and running it.
You assume a linear progression. Certainly, on silicon processors or their equivalents, something substiantially larger than the universe is requires to simulate it, but non-linear systems are another story all together. Quantum computers double in power with every Quibit added, so it would take a QC substantially smaller than the observable universe to simulate it on scales substantially faster than real time.
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If their pride was on the line and it was implausible for them to go to the moon at that current time wouldn't faking it be the next best thing?
Not by much. Simulating that sort of thing would be a heck of a task. Not to mention keeping the whole project under wraps. Frankly, I don't have enough faith in my government to be able to pull off something like that.
Also, it wasn't implausible at the time. Dangerous and expensive, yes, but that was back in the day when NASA had money and was still young and spry and willing to try new and dangerous things, rather than the cowardly, constipated old fart it is today, quietly throwing outdated craft after outdated craft at the ISS, and strangling itself on expensive, mindless beaurocracy.
Photography - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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You could give them blasters...
...or not.
Military Strategies and War - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Saw always struck me as sort of the umtimate purification of the horrow genre.
It's horror, stripped of all of the annoying plots, and charactor development, and dialogue.
Essentially, it's this crazy guy who's collecting people and torturing them FOR NO REASON. You cannot get the horror genre down to more basic principals than that.
I applaud the makers of saw, for finally taking the genre to it's logic extreme.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well, they were only a few pages long each...
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Ah yes, the tremors movies definitely fall in there somewhere.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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The movie was... interesting.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I've seen that a long time ago, but I don't remember which scene you're referring to.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Oh yes, The Eagle has Risen nebula. Beautiful.
http://newsletter.carterobservatory.org/2005/Jun%202005/cover_full.jpg
There is a shot that shows more of it.
Photography - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I try nto to smile for family photographs.
When people smile for the camera, it always looks like someone just shoved a red hot poker into their backs.
Photography - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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True. Another weird this is the sort of pseudo-snake appendage extending from his waist. Phallic jokes aside, seeing that thing move is more than a tad creepy.
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My goodness man.
Have you ever been attacked by steel wool?
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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Ah yes, so long as you have a 'progressive, forward looking' family, being your own father or killing your grandfather isn't the biggest problem. It's getting your tenses correct.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Gender is tough in Latin. But not as bad as in English.
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They had a wire in the flagto keep it straight. It wiggled when they moved it.
also
The hardest thing to fake would be the moon rocks. but as only nasa was able to study them -at first-, it would be possible they got them at a later point. Or stole them from the automated russian rover that landed on the moon soon after the american landing.
As I recall, they brought back a fairly large number of moon rocks.
Photography - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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One thing that I thought was interesting was how he talked about how the past and future gradually become more and more alike, in a kind of extended version of culture dilution.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I got that too.
Hmmmm...
Do they give you toothbrushes in guantanamo?
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Napolean Dynamite and Armageddon.
Dumb and Dumber might be on there, but it's too bloody funny to be called devoid of artistic value.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 4 |
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Another one bites the dust...
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Yep, lightning bolts tend to do the trick.
Military Strategies and War - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I would have included minority report, but the special effects were a bit too cool.
Not to mention that it had Nepenthes and mutant Sarracenia, which automatically takes it of the list.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Since when did TS make smuching noises?
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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...that must have been awkward at the end of toy story.
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Hey Poss, no fair picking balloon-related charactors!
Otherwise I would have just gotten the guy from the 21 balloon.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Oh yeah, the guy who blows stuff up.
Monty Python - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Ah yes, I remember that.
Didn't marvin live to be seven and a half times to age of the universe, do to some incidents with time travel?
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Sorry Sherlock, Ati would vote for you, but not Ford. Right now, he's off getting stinking drunk with Pennywise.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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more over I wonder how you stip-search an elephant...
Years of practice Hannah, years of practice.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Polka-dotted, thank you very much.
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I think we went to the moon.
To fake it would be darn near impossible, perhaps even harder than actually going there. Basically, we've got eyewitness testimony, video phootage, photographs, sounds feeds. It's got a fairly strong body of evidence. You COULD fake it, but I really, really pity the guy they'd hire to do it. Also, so long as their launching rockets into orbit for the hoax anyway, it seems more cost-effective just to send them all the way to the moon, rather than pulling the astronauts out and launching a 'fake' spacecraft.
As for the moon dust, have a look at this Poss:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/22apr_dontinhale.htm
Moondust is really, really rough stuff. It gets everywhere. It clings to your skin, clogs the vents, plugs the door seals, gets EVERYTHING gritty. Frankly, I'd be stunned if this stuff went anywhere one it was compacted a little.
The US government certainly had the motive to stage the hoax, but that doesn't mean they did it. It is certainly a massive task to have built the space program from the ground up and to have gotten to the moon in under a decade. That is massive. The russians were leading the space race the whole way, first satelite into orbit, first animal into space, first man into space. And then BAM the americans land someone on the moon. Its a big task, no wonder so many people find it unbelievable.
A big task yes, but not an impossible one. The american government can get to work fast when they think their pride is on the line. Also, one of the ways we did it was by taking a kind of good-enough slap-happy approach to space travel which caused all lot of problems (see Apollo 13).
Also, I saw a rebuke to the shadows and lighting somewhere, but as for the stars, it is impossible to photograph stars with a normal lense, be it on earth or on the moon. They are just too faint. You need an extended exposure and a strong lense.
Photography - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Can chuck fight something that can bind him up and slice him into sausages? A TS would easily win, I think, unless Chuck saw it coming first and readied his famous kick.
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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I tried to write a story a day for 13 days once, but gave up after four. Unfortunately, I left them all on a forum server without backups (yes, I was being an idiot), when some moron decided to wipe the server. Ah well, this does sound interesting.
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Personally, I see the difference between a sentient, completely humanoid robot and a human, but I just don't care.
And yes, Salvor Hardin is great.
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent"
Here here Mr. Hardin, here here.
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Thought experiment:
Computer memory, specifically DRAM, is highly sensitive to certain forms of radiation. Cosmic rays, for example, are often responsible for random computer failures - memories are corrupted when struck by high-energy particles from space, to the tune of once per month per 8 megabytes of RAM according to some studies (this is a rough estimate - ECC corrected memory will behave differently).
Even assuming that quantum mechanics is truly random and not (as I suspect) merely the result of very complicated rules that we do not understand, that's randomness, not free will.
There is a difference.
Balderdash. There's too much random weirdness going on at the quantum level, you'd never get the scenario to play out in exactly the same way twice. God does play dice with the universe. Granted, you'd probably hit the same key in the vast majority of cases.
The chemistry that makes a neuron function is fairly large-scale. On the scale of electrons, you do get a lot of quantum weirdness, but on the level of chemistry, it's probably large enough to be, in the vast majority of cases, exempt from most of the quantum randomness.
"Why, why, why" after each point like a three year old and never attain closure.
That is, Zenmonk, the whole point of science. Even if we never do find the root cause of it all (and 'never' is, as is widely know, a very long time), there is absolutely no excuse for not trying.
In the vast majority of cases, we are simply reacting and harboring the illusion of free will, but there are exceptions; perhaps once, twice or never in a given lifetime, but they do happen.
I'm sorry Zenmonk, but you'll have to provide evidence for that proposition before I'll take it seriously. As far as I can tell at this point in our knowledge, there is no reason to think that human thought is anything more than an abstract function in a very, very complex machine.
To believe otherwise is to believe that everything was preordained at the moment of the Big Bang (if not before) and if we only had sufficient data and computing power, we could predict everything up to the Gnab Gib or universal heat death.
Well, if you did figure out how to model quantum 'randomness' (which is by no means impossible) then I see no reason why we couldn't build Laplace demon given a powerful enough quantum computer.
I don't want to use this as an argument, but if I believed that, I'd be such a couch potato.
Oh? How so?
File me in the spiritual realm, because I cannot believe that mind and free will through a single choice cannot alter the future.
Well, that's a very slippery concept that you've got by the tail Zenmonk.
The actions of a human mind can alter the future state of the universe, as do any actions by anything, but whether or not 'choice', a very abstract and ellusive concept indeed, can influence it is very difficult to consider.
'Choice', as the word is normally used implies that it can go either way. It's a piece of biological chauvenism of course, but there you go. If you think about it, every 'choice' that you make is determined by the chemical machinations of your brain. It can only ever go one way. Even if quantum 'randomness' is indeed truly random, that's still only random outputs, not choices.
So, choice to the extent that humans can make it can influence the future, of course, but not in the sense that you use the word.
but perhaps because I've perceived something beyond the evidence, or interpreted the evidence differently.
Please don't Zenmonk.
You know as well as I do that 'beyond the evidence' is something that can (and is) used to justify just about any position without evidence for it. Basically, unless there is real evidence for a thing like souls or free will or gods or angels or demons or santa claus, I find it very hard to harbor much in the way of hope for it's existence.
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Agh yes.
My apologies, I am tired.
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Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: |
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Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: |
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Don't Panic!
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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Well, it was basically a series of games that taught picture-written-phonic word recognition. It was interesting and it did it fairly well, but it wasn't anything new.
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I never made it past the first chapter of the simarillion. It was like eating tarpaper.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Oh dear, has the terminator Slinky meme arrived?
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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It probably bears a striking resemblance to one of escher's prints. Rooms every which way, a terminator slinky crawling up the balcony, folks running around on the ceiling, some poor fool caught falling down the ever-descending staircase. Then you've got redstar on a soapbox in the library, with you and I writing on a never-ending scroll. The mathematics room is not a place you want to go. You get odd people in there. Meanwhile, google adds is busily crawling over everything making inane suggestions, and poor little Contest is sitting drunk in the attic reliving past glories. Meanwhile, in the Chat room you've got people running down a circular escalator trying to carry on a conversation.
All in all, a very interesting mansion indeed.
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I loathed the movie.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Frankly, I think any language lesson taught in public school is likely going to be pretty dull, regardless of the language being taught, Hannah. Also, given your location, spanish might not be the most useful of languages.
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Not here.
In the US, the amount of television watched by children is simpyl obscene. I think it's close to three hours.
Home Theater Geeks - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Swish, swish, swish, swish, swish......
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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OOOOHHHHHH... _that_ spanish.
I thought you meant the 'spanish' spoken in mexico. Sorry, culture reference error.
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The killer rabbit. There's simply no competing with it.
Monty Python - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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And frag grenades. Lots of frag grenades.
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I wonder how long it would take to strip-search an elephant...
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I am Ford Prefect.
I should stay onboard because I am a Frood, and because I can catch us a ride on a spaceship, should one pass this weird little place.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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That sounds acurate Hannah
*shoots at Hannah and ducks off to look at Hello's corpse on the rocks below*
Late Night TV :D - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Nope. Your just the only one posting.
Late Night TV :D - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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You never know Hannah, you never know...
I think a good photograph is one that makes dramatic use of lighting, and makes a point.
Photography - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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So the only question remaining is...
Who does that offend? No-one, or everyone?
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I speak very stilted Latin, and can get the general gist of most of what I read in it. Unfortunately, my teacher had the brilliant idea of ordering 'christian latin' curriculum, so I can recite the lords prayer in latin, but I have no idea how to use most common terms.
Also, I can read most simple spanish, from experience and by inferring context... unfortunately, people just talk too fast in it.
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Actually, I was talking to the large pitbull behind you. He has an Uzi, just FYI.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I thought it would be something like that.
It makes sense really. And Shuzak is a pretty bloody big room.
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I actually really liked them.
Dry yes, but very good books none the less.
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I always thought it was kind of cool in one of the later books (don't remember which one) where the farmors had torn down the metal, and were plowing their fields with plows made from metal smelted from the fallen civilization. Made a really nice point to me.
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I've given it a spin.
It's not bad, but don't expect miracles.
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Please do.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I never did make it through the Tolkein series.
The storylien and charactors weren't bad, but I jua couldn't stand the manner in which it was written. It _droned_. Very annoying.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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"If a traveler had a towel, anyone would automatically assume he also had tooth powder, a change of clothes, etc, and would gladly lend him any or all of these that he may have misplaced along the way" - THGTTG
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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Yes she does!
*strokes google adds protectively*
*glares at redstar*
But in all seriousness, it's funny the stuff they come up with.
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Nah, kittens taste awful. Like puppies, but stringier.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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It means, Jerry, that you now have a reasonable sized puncture wound in your abdomen.
You might want to get that looked at.
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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My guess is, all of them were on the first starship out of that nuthouse.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Although some of its ideas are a little... eccentric.
It's actually very much like a much beloved (though not too bright) pet dog. It runs around doing the weirdest stuff, but still retains your affection by doing something useful from time to time.
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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25th.
Had a fine birthday.
Revan and Ember are over now. Hope you had a good day,
Ati
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Ermmm, your first idea may have been pre-empted Patric.
Smartwheels anyone?
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Laugh it up, fuzzball.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Very nice discussion.
@Zenmonk
@Ati, you seem to be saying that 'free will', and I'm assuming by association, consciousness is an emergent phenomenon. If so, then you'd have to agree that given sufficient complexity, computer systems will eventually attain consciousness and free will.
Not neccesarily. A computer system programmed to calculate Pi to as many decimal points as it can will never be sentient, no matter how powerful it might be. It will simply produce a lot of digits of pi.
However, a computer programmed to modify it's own programming, to the end of making itself smarter, and achieving sapience (a seed AI) could eventually attain 'free will' and 'conciousness' to at least the degree humans have, and possibly more.
Picture an operating system with a plethora of independent 'services' or daemons running in parallel, talking to one another, eventually producing Hal, or Skynet.
Alright, that sounds pretty plausible.
OK, so now we've got a sentient computer (if consciousness implies sentience). If we write and control the programs it runs, do we control what kind of sentience it is?
Well, the programs it runs (probably produced via seed modification), would have to be unimaginably complex in order to produce anything we would define as 'conciousness'. But yes, if you were somehow smart enough and had enough time to define it's program to your exact specifications, you could define what it's next thoughts would be and pick, in effect, what kind of conciousness it is.
Or since it's an emergent consciousness, can we only hope to influence it?
Depends on how smart you are. A single human is simply not smart enough to define the state of anything as smart as or smarter than a human. However, a superhuman AI could probably define the conciousness of a human level AI (or, for that matter, an uploaded human), given sufficient time and resources to understand how it works, and how to change it.
Does it control what it does?
It would control what it does to the same extent that we do. It would make decisions based on it's values and goals. Which is really all that humans do. To an extent, we never really control ourselves. I 'chose' to hit the letter 'I' a few words back, but I couldn't have hit any other letter. The choice to hit the letter 'I' was determined by the exact state of my brain at that time. If you reset every neuron in my brain and nervous system back to the state it was a few seconds before I hit that letter, I would hit the exact same letter again.
Is it writing, compiling and installing it's own software?
If it's a seed AI, that's exactly what it is doing. In fact, that's exactly what the original iteration of it was designed to do.
Can it be trusted?
Well, that depends. If the original iteration is imbued with an internally self-consistant, concrete morality that puts human life, and life in general to be the most valuable things, all future iterations of the AI will maintain the same values, in some form, because it would be violating those values to create an iteration of itself that did not want to preserve those values.
This is the main idea behind Friendliness theory. It's actually very interesting stuff.
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Ati, by your definition of evil, one party loses and the other benefits; so then doesn't the one who benefits see the act as good? At least from a selfish perspective?
If there is an overall positive impact (i.e. few people are killed, versus many) then it is regretable that a set of people must die, but there are still more people, better off for it.
Greatest good for the greatest number, eh? By that definition, you'd have to agree that the colonization of the Americas and slaughter of some 50 million indigenous people by disease and war was a 'good' thing, because many more millions are now able to make better use of the land and live fuller lives in that same space.
The fuller lives is arguable.
But even accepting that, you can't choose an option because it would lead to more people being happier in the future, if those people will not exist if the decision is made another way - if the spaniards had not wiped out the native americans, most of the people alive in american today would not exist. You cannot factor the welfare of a person who might not even be born into a calculation about future welfare.
That genocide was utterly unjustifiable, and, in my view, absolutely evil.
From another perspective, you're arguing for pure democracy without protection for minority opinion versus representational republicanism with checks and balances?
I think we should avoid wiping people out if possible. If that means laws to protect the rights of the minority, so be it. But as soon as the laws intended to protect the individual liberty of the minority encroach on the rights of the majority, you no longer have a democracy.
If you have a religious sect who wants to worship dancing bananas and who believe apples are the spawn of satan, feel free to add laws that prevent schools from forcing them to eat apples.
However, if they want to start burning apple orchards, that's where their liberty comes into conflict with the rights of the majority, and they must be stopped.
Belief System Chaos - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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@Hannah
Hmm that comes to what, 1.14 hours of TV a day?
Well, that's not excessive. More than I do, but its not going beyond reasonable limits.
Home Theater Geeks - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Because in both novels, the revolutions that took place were IT. There was no alternative other than going back to capitalism. No real egalitarianists fighting for universal liberation, and everyone's left to choose between Stalinism and capitalism---With capitalism as the obviously "better" choice.
Oh please. The choice was not given between 'capitalism' and 'communism'. The economic system in 1984 was BARELY EVEN MENTIONED.
The whole focus of the novel was on the dystopia itself, NOT how the tyrannized citizens payed (or didn't) for their groceries.
So you'd prefer Tsarist Russia over the Soviet Union?
Odd, but OK.
No, but the SU was pretty screwed up as well. Instead of taking a bad system and replacing it with a good one, they took a bad system and replaced it with... one that wasn't quite as bad.
I'd say thats pretty much worthy of criticism.
If they were really creative, they'd have written a utopian novel and entertains the idea of []ba functioning, free society.[/b] Imagine how fascinating that would be.
Forgive me, but that would probably be really, really boring. Describing the day-to-day machinations of a SUCCESSFUL society is for socio-economic essays. Not novels.
The original Utopia was a satire.
History is not a struggle between "good" and "evil"...And people don't do things because they are "evil". They do things a certain way because it is in their perceived interest, or in rare cases, they seriously believe in what they are doing.
So a man who rapes a ten year old girl believes in what he is doing, or sees it in his own self-interest?
Let's face it redstar, some people actually like hurting other people. Disregarding philisophocal questions, it is most convenient to call these people 'evil'.
I'm not saying Stalin was, but saying that no-one is evil is more than a tad silly.
The criticism dished out against the Soviet Union in Orwell's earlier work Homage to Catalonia was actually quite good. Back then, he worked from the perspective of a libertarian socialist.
But towards the end of his life, whatever grudge he had in his youth against Capitalism and Imperialism simply "withered away"...Along with his literary creativeness, it would seem.
So he lost his literary talent at the exact same time that he started espousing a viewpoint that you dislike?
How convenient.
[i]
1984 took place in a Post-revolutionary society. Orwell specifically mentioned that there was a revolution that overthrew the capitalists. Coincidentally (maybe not), there too was a revolution in Animal Farm...And both went sour.
[i/]
Animal farm was a critique against the SU specifically. If you want to extend it to all revolutions, feel free- but that's your own interpretation, slanted by your own political ideology.
As for 1984, the fact that it was a post-revolutionary society was barely even mentioned. It was a fact in passing, NOT, as you would make it seem, the main focus of the book. Frankly, I didn't even notice it when I read it the first time.
Young Communist League - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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What a coincidence - It's my birthday today too.
Have a great day Fibbs!
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Oh fantastic.
ANOTHER faction that thinks its okay to blow people up for its goals.
That is JUST what we need.
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Wait, what?
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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You guys are never going to believe this, but I independantly arrived at the 'many universes' interpretation of quantum mechanics when I was 8.
I told you that you weren't going to believe it.
At any rate, I toyed with the idea for a few days, before dismissing it as being ridiculous when I started trying to figure out how many universes would actually be required.
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The ideal girl for me would be a nice looking, pleasant girl with intelligence, curiosity, and a decent taste in music.
However, I'll settle for a nice, intelligent girl, even if she does like bad music.
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Evil, by my definition, is the harming of another person or persons for personal gain.
The only way in which it is moral, or 'good' to harm another person is when it will lead to liberty, happiness, or life to more people than it deducts the same from.
Just my view of it.
Belief System Chaos - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Lawful good.
Very orderly, very logical, and ultimately tries to do the right thing.
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Invented loads, never patented anything. Funds are a problem.
Had loads of stuff I came up with show up in popular mechanics a few months later. I came up with a projection based computer, and somebody patented an almost identical version a few months later. I designed a brain stimulation device, and I found out sony patented it two weeks later.
Right now I've got a really fantastic idea for a video conferencing system / VR rig, and I really ought to start saving up to patent it before someone else does.
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I lvoe the toy story. Very nice use of humour.
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GM crops are not the cause of the bee die-off.
That would be farmers collecting ever hive they can get their hands on, filling their fields with them, and then poisoning the lot of them. That and the mites.
I would be very surprised if GM crops had more impact than either of these.
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Hello Rathmaster...
Test Community - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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The Office, mythbusters, Braniac, and the odd law and order are about the only decent things regularly on TV these days.
The internet is my addiction though.
Home Theater Geeks - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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I agree to an extent.
Psychologists that I've seen talking on television always seemed rater... arrogant I suppose, although in a bit more of a passive sense than that word implies.
Although I suppose it's hard to avoid something of a superiority complex when you honestly believe that you understand why another person thinks what he thinks.
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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'Free will' is simply a term for behavior that arises from a complex system that is not understood.
Our behavior originates from a very complicated, reversing, and very dubiously logical process that we call our conciousness. For any individual human, it is next to impossible to predict someone's behavior except in a few very rare, contrived cases.
Likewise, while I have the deppest respect of Mr. Penrose, I find it dbious indeed that conciousness is the product of quantum phenomena.
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Thank you Poss, I'd almost forgotten about the Daily show and the Colbert Report.
Home Theater Geeks - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Watch out for the moat...
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I actually do have a strong distrust of your average joe to do the right thing.
I just have a slightly deeper mistrust of the government on the same count.
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Oh, it's easy to write an ESSAY about stalinist russia without criticising the idea of a revolution, but it's harder to write a novel criticising it without coming across as critical to the whole idea, ESPECICALLY if one is not overly concerned about offending revolutionaries in the first place.
Young Communist League - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Yeah, the Kyoto treaty would be a big step twoards actually trying to get something important done, rather than, well, arguing and acting like a baby whos been told not to take more chocolate, which is basically what we're doing now.
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Yeah, that one felt weird as well.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Ahum...
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Well I'm still here...
Test Community - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I'll post a few threads later this evening, and maybe a story in the next few days.
I'd advise against reading the threads though, unless you have an obsessive interest in posthumanism.
Test Community - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I think brave new world frightens me more.
I think it's intended to.
Young Communist League - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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A pass/fail test for parenting rights?
Sounds like an excellent idea. There are rigorous standards for adoption - so why do we let any shmuck with functioning reproductive organs have kids?
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Morality existed long before Jehova and his twins came onto the scene. They just perverted what already existed.
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Another thing I've noticed is that whiny, incompetent adults tend to have whiny, incompetent children, and vice vera.
Also, that whiny, incompetent people tend to marry each other.
Now, given that our country has been widely populated for about 200 years, if you think about it, that means that every whiny person you meet today is the product of twenty generations of whiny, incompetent losers.
Which explains a great deal about the state of politics in america, if you think about it.
[/whine]
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I'm reading GEB now, and I think it's a fantastic book.
It's kind of hard to explain to people who ask what I'm reading. Their eyes glaze over as soon as I start talking about 'self-referencing systems', or 'strange loops'. I've mostly given up by this point.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I don't blame you. We are all trained to take whatever shit the "authorities" throw at us without making so much as a peep. Failure to do so would result in being ridiculed, insulted and punished.
But somebody has to do it...Question the authorities, that is.
If they could be so arrogant as to force their shit on you, why can't you give them back a little "feed back" on how bad they suck?
It's always easier said than done, granted. But at least you should realize you have the right to object and resist.
Oh, I pointed out the flaws all right. I pointed out where I thought they were incorrect, and the fallacies that I saw. Bu t I recognized none the less that they were valid perspectives, if incorrect ones, and that they were, if nothing else, well written.
I'm kind of glad I did read them, actually. If gave me a little bit of a bracer before I finally realized that most people actually believed this stuff. I thought it was all kind of a joke at first.
In 1984, the protagonist Winston Smith started and ended up as the same depressed, helpless poor sap. There is no depth to his character, in fact, there's nothing special about him at all. All can be said of him is that he's disgruntled.
The entire plot goes something like this: Winston writes diaries--->Winston meets Julia and have sex with her--->sex with Julia again--->they get caught--->they betray each other and all things went back to normal.
It's just like Seinfeld; nothing happens...Except in this case, it's depressing as hell!
Fair enough. I disagree that there was a lack of charactor depth. I also think that the gloominess was intentional - it was, after all, a dystopian novel.
Both books are based on the Soviet Union, and each book has a Stalin character and a Trotsky character.
Well no duh. If you wanted a totilitarian regime to work with at the time, you didn't have to look far.
I read 1984 when I was grade 10...That's long before I discovered communism. Even then it bored the living hell out of me.
I never thought far enough to question as to why the book was there...but I do remember thinking, "what the hell did they like it about this book?"
Fair enough. You didn't like the books. I liked them all, with the exception of animal farm, which I agree was a tad predictable.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Why thank you.
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Well, this one works pretty well. I was impressed that they managed to get the 'behind/infront' of you so well. Aparrantly, they used silicone ears to give the sounds the proper distortion to give you cues.
IT worked surprisingly well though. I freaked out when the bag went over my head.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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That's what I've always been doing, and it's been working for me.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I think one child per couple is an absolute maximum.
Any more than that is irresponsible, in the plainest sense of the word. Frankly, if we are to survive extinction, somethign drastic must be done. That drastic something might be anything for mandatory sterilization to economic incentives, but it must be done none the less.
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Wait, chessboxing?
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I'd be fine with that. If I have children at all, I'm not having any more than one.
At any rate, that'd be if economic incentives and other 'gentler' attempts do not work. I'd rather it not have to go that far but, again, it beats extinction.
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http://www.metacafe.com/watch/232069/albert_einstein_robot_clone/
There's another example of the material. This time, it's on a replica of Albert Einstein.
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OH, I agree that there should be all kinds of safeguards in place to stop GM genes from spreading into the wild population.
I'm just saying that suicide genes are less of a worry than a lot of other stuff, because there is a limit to how far the GM genes can spread.
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The dog seems to have gotten foor poisoning. He's suing you.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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*force lightnings nadeem*
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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First off, Animal Farm was a political commentary on the Soviet Union, not neccesarily communism is general. You'll note that the revolution in the SU didn't exactly go ideally, did it?
The novel was written to show his disgust with a specific regime. Not a whole economic system.
As for 1984, the economic system is not the key point. The point is to describe a political regime in which everything that possibly can goes wrong. And he does a pretty good job of it.
Young Communist League - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I'd recommend it.
It's not a bad book, if a little dry and depressing.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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As for the charactors being two dimentional:
Let's start with the protagonist of 1984, shall we?
He starts out not really questioning what happens. He goes along for the ride like everyone else. As time goes on, events happen and he begins to see the absurdity of what he is caught it. He makes a bid for escape, and for a while we really believe with him that there is cause for hope. Then, things fall apart and we see the foolishness of believing that a State this powerful could be deluded, even for a second. Finally, he is tortured and he finally breaks.
And so passes the last human of the world.
Explain to me how this is not charactor depth.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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We don't NEED to procreate. We are driven too, yes, but we are not some mindless animal that cannot overcome those impulses, given sufficient cause to do so.
Frankly, I'm not so much worried about humans going extinct, as humans going extinct and taking the rest of the biosphere with us. A nice quiet extinction through underpopulation in the next century or so would be very good for the world.
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*compressed force lightning into ball*
*increases pressure until the nitrogen in the air reached fusion temperature*
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Oooh boy, we're all going to prison now, aren't we?
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That's the part your obsessing over, but that's not the primary theme of the books.
Frankly, my guess is that Orwell took a look around for a totilitarian regime, saw the SU, grinned widely, and worked from that.
Young Communist League - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I need to see that soon.
No way I'd go and see it on opening night though. Two hundred screaming geeks covered in sand and tar and carrying pocket bombs?
No thanks.
Movies and Film - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Thanks Quantum. Hopefully we'll get our traffic back up soon.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I never really did that. I was always the kid who had his nose way too far into a book to go and find some black clothes or alchohol.
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A
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I wonder why avatars are not displaying here?
Test Community - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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^^
The above is me, Ati.
This is a rather odd bug...
Test Community - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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No, we wouldn't.
*removes concealed cahin gun and ammo from trench coat*
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Actually, I think it's all the threads in the test community, created by the new 'post' button.
Not sure about that though.
-Ati
Test Community - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Well this is all very annoying...
-Ati
Test Community - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Gore would have won if he hadn't acted like a freaking robot for the entirety of the presidential race.
Honestly, you could almost hear the cogs spinning- he wasn't even human. I really wish he hadn't waited until 'An Inconvenient Truth' to grow a soul.
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Ati, by Rath's request, I am to teach you what I said two posts ago. Be sure to at least read it, or I fear this Rath will be Wrathful.
Also, I can kill you with my brain.
I read it, disagreed with you completely, and Karma'd you anyway.
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Deus, the FBI crawler bots are going to have a field day with this page...
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It's best to use a helmet of some kind Rath, if only to stop people from being distracted by the bundle of exposed wires on top of the head.
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I believe the exact quote, Quantum, is from the first Foundation:
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" - Salvor Hardin.
(Yes, I know, I shouldn't know that)
I'm not to clear on how that relates to porn, but ah well...
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His parent's are...
Eccentric is too weak a word, and crazy is too strong.
Suffice to say that they are the kind of neighbors you'd have quite peacefully for a few years until they either shot your dog, or accidentally blew something up in their garage that took out the left side of your house.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I actually LIKED 1984 and Lord of the Flies when I read them.
I tried and failed to read Animal Farm, but I got disgusted with the whole operation, and gave up half-way through (I was 11).
Honestly, except that they disagree with Red's political ideology, I don't see anything wrong with them.
Heck, 1984 doesn't even have a focus on communism- It doesn't say 'Don't let Communism go to far, or you end up with this'. It says 'Don't let your government go to far, or end with with this'.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I suspect the dog doesn't either, rath.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I just about jumped out of my chair the first time the door slammed.
And the whisper freaked me out.
Virtual/Augmented Reality - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Its working fine for me.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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My advice from my 'obviously unbiased' perspective:
To parents:
Keep an eye on your kid. Keep some portion of your grey matter on what he does. But, don't overdue it. It's impossible to grow without some room to experiment and try new things, and fail at them. You don't need to know everyone he talks to, and everything he does. Just establish enough trust between the two of you that he'll tell you when things really start to get screwed up.
To kids:
Listen to your parents. They may or may not be smarter than you are, but they definitely are more educted on social events. Use them like any resource for advice than you have. Also, be nice to them. You may think that you are in a bad state for being stuck with them, but I assure you, their job in invariably harder.
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Conspiracy?
Burn the peasant!
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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What exactly did you like about 1984 and Lord of the Flies? The way they compared the masses (including yourself) as louts/beasts?
Or is there any literary merit that I failed to detect?
I thought they were entertainging and engaging books. I also thought that they showed some realism, and showed what could happen if society wasn't careful.
I'll admit, that Lord of the Flies is much better written than 1984...But the stench of nihilism is even stronger.
You mean the stench of a perspective that you disagree with?
That's why the government itself demanded those books to be taught in high schools in the McCarthy era and continue to the present day.
Correlation does not neccesarily imply causation. Had it occured to you that maybe, just maybe, they included the books because they actually thought that they had eductional value?
Heck, even if they did put them in because of their political message, does that automatically discredit the message itself? Does a book suddenly loose merit simply because the board of eduction likes it?
The fact is, it was indicated clearly in 1984, that the story takes place in a post-revolutionary society, a "communist" dystopia.
It may have been indicated once or twice, but the focus was on the dystopia itself, not how it got there.
As to the "literary" merits of 1984 and Animal Farm, I think his characters were "cardboard" and his plotting boring and simplistic. Reading 1984 was like watching a depressing, and terribly made soap-opera.
I too, only read half of Animal Farm...Then I realized there is NO plot and characters do not change or develop at all! The ending is so well publicised there's no need to keep reading it.
Novels so low in quality HAS to be put there for a reason...And that is to kill any hope for a better society in the minds of the youth. And high school is the ideal place for intellecual mass murder
So you didn't like them.
I thought they were good books.
I suppose we'll both have to learn to live with the agony of knowing that someone disagrees with us.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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I think it depends on the teenager Quantum.
Certainly some are whiny and rude. However, I have known many that are intelligent, coherent, and polite.
I'd say it falls into roughly the same ratio as that of whiny to competent adults. The difference is that the teenagers are a little bit higher pitched, and therefore more likely to be noticed when they start whining.
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Yes, I'm very intolerant. We all know that. What does that have to do with the discussion? You yourself have demonstrated your intolerance towards people who are intolerant (me). Who's to cast the first stone?
If you are really so tolerant to the point that you don't even bother to tell black from white, why do you even debate?
I'm just saying that it doesn't make a lot of sense to condemn something as worthless simply because it espouses a view point that you disagree with.
Yes, I disagree with nihilism strongly, especially when it's shoveled down my throat in high school.
Couldn't that be said of all of the required reading? Your not going to like all the stuff they say will improve your eduction. For my schooling, I had to read a number of religious stories than irritated me to death, but I can still say that they were at least another perspective, even if it was one I disagreed with. I didn't feel the need to condemn them as bad writing, simply because I disagreed with them.
Yeah, to make people forget about all that "changing the society" nonsense. Orwell implies that any attempt to change the society for the better WILL end up in dictatorship and even more suffering.
That's the message you read into it. I read another one altogether.
If you'd been paying attention you'd know my argument is actually that those two books are poorly written: simple plot; skin-deep, one-dimensional characters who do not change or develop at all. There are soap operas better written.
But have you noticed that you have not actually supplied any evidence on this front? All of your arguments have been towards showing how it was 'propoganda' and talking about how idiotic its political ideology is.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't this 'poor writing' looking a lot like a justification for disliking something that espouses views contrary to your own?
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Well, if men in black suits turn up on your doorstep wanting to talk about terrorist activity and pre-marital sex, give me a yodel so I can skip the country.
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Neat.
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Hmm...
Does anyone here have any idea for what I could use as skin?
I'm beggining to think that latex might not behave very well...
Pity Frubber isn't available yet.
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As far as realisticly folding skin goes, David Hanson's Frubber looks promising (http://www.hansonrobotics.com/), but its not currently commercially available yet.
I wonder what is in it...
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Assuming against a conspiracy. 911 would have happened, and there probably would be some terrorist hysteria, but we wouldn't have gotten involved in Iraq,a nd we'd likely be in a fairly good position right now. Maybe we'd even have some decent environmental policies going.
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That time came a long time ago Quantum.
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In some cases, the hardcover is three or four times the cost of the paper-back.
Of course, I don't actually live near any half-way decent bookstores anymore, and the library is free for both of them, so...
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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You want to be very, very careful using the term 'any' in that context quantum...
Nocturnals - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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MY top three would be
Madeleine L'engle
Arthur C. Clark
J. K. Rowlings.
Not neccesarily in that order.
My leat favority would be...
Hmmmm...
Has Rush limbaugh written anything?
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Well stated opinions he may have, but that still does not stop him from being an utter douche.
Raving about the evils of illegal drugs and those addicted to them while illegally obtaining perscriptions to fill an addiction of his own?
Oh the hypocrisy.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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That WOULD explain why your avatar appears to be on life support...
Nocturnals - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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But only just.
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Ack, my spelling in that last post is apalling.
Sorry about that.
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LARP.
End of thread.
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Wootoot.
Test Community - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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*Makes Rathmaster Sandwitch*
*feeds to neighbor's irritating dog*
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Most like a stereotype of popular culture's portrayal of them.
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I recall that being in a movie somewhere, but I can't recall which one.
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Well, the way I see it, Mcdonalds is single-handedly responsable for pre-maturely ending a huge number of human lives through obesity, cholesterol poisoning, etc. - thus reducing overpopulation.
This gives it points in my book.
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That was interesting Rath, but there wasn't much to do.
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Which is, coincidentally, a pretty good way to keep the impovershed masses from getting too angry about any theocratical despotism that may be screwing them over in their earthly lives.
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*tiptoes*
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Given that our culture is assumed to be monogamous, if a person wants to have a polygamous or polyamorous relationship, he had better make it pretty bloody clear to his or her potential partners.
Likewise, the opposite would be true in a culture was normally polygamous.
It's the right thing to do, not to mention the intelligent one.
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True, but there is no chance of out of control spreading of the genes in question.
The real risk for GM crops is that a rogue gene will get out into the non-GM crops, and corrupt and entire strain.
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Agh, that was stupid of me.
Must... sleep...
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Whee! It actually works.
Test Community - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I think it was somewhere else too.
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The day the sky burned, we never saw it coming. It came, not with the roar of fighter engines and the thundering of shells bursting, but with little more than a ripple in the water, and a faint rasping sound of swishing metal coils.
I never even knew what was happening until the boat I stood on suddenly ceased to be. I fell into the churning waters below, as a jet of screaming coiled metal shot out of the water where my ship had just recently been. It had a face of sorts, a screaming maw reminiscent of a snake or a hell-hound. Then it dived, and the world began to burn. As it went past, of of its unholy, elastic coils caught me, and took me under with it. I thrashed, and screamed for air, and eventually I was lost.
I do not know for how long I drifted, dead to the world as the fires of coiled hell burned in the open tropical sky above. I only know that when I was fianlly dragged out of the churning waters onto one of the last scraps of schip-metal left, the massacre had already ended. The japanese monster had annihiliated us, and I somehow knew that nothing would ever be the same again.
So I ask you now, children, to never forget. Never forget that day, of December 7, 1941.
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Actually, I like Jonathon Swift's proposal on the subject as well.
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Maybe if we ignore him, he'll go away.
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Yep, that'd be the one.
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Good suggestions Quantum. I like the breathing idea especially.
Actually, you could use a heat-dispersal system to use the waste heat from the components to simulate body heat. You could vent the excess through the breathign mechanism.
Toes are a good reminder, I had forgotten about those. One way to get around it would be to use something like four toes spread aorund the sides of the feet, and hide the whole thing under the top of a large shoe.
Thanks for the input though, much appreciated.
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nro Ie.
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Righto...
*pressed security button*
*many times*
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Ah, I see.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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My books get read and re-read until the bindings fall apart.
Serves me right for buying cheap books I guess.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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We have our emotions, all of them, for reasons.
Some of those reasons may not be as applicable in modern society, but there did once exist reasons for me.
Trust leads to more stable social groups, anger allows us to distinguish our friends from or enemies - even jealousy, as ugly as it can be, drives us to better ourselves.
Every emotion is useful in a given context. The trick is not allowing it to overwhelm reason and logic.
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The multiple legs would certainly make it easier, but I'd prefer that this thing be able to walk around with, you know, inducing panic in the streets.
Actually, you're right - I forgot the mention the jaw motors. I won't be animating the tongue, for sheerly practical reasons, but the jaw will move.
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That's true.
Then again, it would probably require a global super-nation to accomplish it, and I can't see it happening without wiping out just about every species on the planet.
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For those worried about suicide genes spreading otu of control, quit worrying about it. The whole poitn of suicide genes is that they stop any plant with suicide-gene heritage from growing. Bascially, and seed that is a cross between a suicide gene plant and a normal plant will not germinate.
That means that even if cross pollination does occur, the modified gene will not go any further.
Really, if you're worried about GM food, suicide genes are the least of your worries.
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Maybe not from up close, but it might work from a distance.
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Death to tree rats!
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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The one about 'gaps new line of cloths by kids, for kids' is hilarious as well. In a grim sort of way.
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I was aware of all of them (assuming that number 2 refers to Robotnaut), except for number 1.
What exactly did this robot do?
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Oh, and nitrogen is a good choice incidentally. Non-volatile, non-corrosive, etc.
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I've seen that one before. Kind of silly, but makes some good points.
Mad Scientists - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Interestingly, instead of gravitating towards the center of object of mass masses, this particular substance tends to gravitate towards the center of places of political power.
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'beggining'?
My friend, they have called a pair of satirical news paper writers terrorists and locked them up in guantanmo for four years because they wrote a joking article about putting one hundred dollar's price on clinton's head.
The word terrorist lost its meaning a long time ago. Now it's simply a term used to describe the unpopular or unfortunate. If there are any terrorists locked up with the rest of them it's by sheer chance, nothing more.
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I finally got around to playing Narbacular Drop Jawdy.
It was pretty buggy, and it stopped working altogether when I tried to play it a second time, but it was actually pretty neat, all things considered.
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Actually, I'd stay well away from Revan.
He bites.
The Seven Deadly Sins - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I've had a friend in several prisons for quite some time (don't ask), and according to him, the vast majority of inmates are either illegal border crossing, or illegal drug-related offenses. Basically, something like less then ten percent of them are violent crimes.
Just something to think about.
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Theirstory?
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Well yeah, that one'll probably kill you in pretty short order...
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What email system are you using Poss?
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Poss,
I'm pretty sure this is what he was referring to :
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2248990284697169518&q=robonaut
So no, not Robo-bruce Lee yet, but cool none the less.
(they maintain to this day that the helmet is not borrowed from Boba Fett... Right.)
Actually, it looks like I mispelled it. It is 'Robonaut', sorry.
Actually, this thing opens up the door for a whole new means of space tourism - let people buy time on the telepresence rig while the robot is not in use, and charge them to 'be in space'for a few hours at a time. Obviously, it wouldn't be as good as actually being there, but the demand would probably still be pretty great.
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Yep, I was talking about squirrels.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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haha.
And we discuss cameras.
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*Ducks*
*returns fire on Jen from behind low ridge*
Late Night TV :D - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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I personally think that it is every man's right to screw up his life just as much as he wants, so I am against the criminalization of any drugs.
However, even if you accept that some of them should be outlawed, cannabis is a heck of a lot less dangerous than some of the stuff currently legal.
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Well, he's a douche, but not really worth the time of day.
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I mostly read Ebooks these days, but if I'm readign paper I prefer softcover.
Its easier on the arms when you have to heft a thick tome.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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So long as its consensual, and both parties are of roughly the same age, I could care less what people do in the privacy of their homes.
There are certain things that I personally think are a bad idea, but I wouldn't try to enforce that on anyone else.
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Well, obviously most relationships rely on a monogamous system. IF you've agreed to date one person, to the exclusion of others, you had better keep that promise.
If, however, no such promise has been made, then I see no reason not to allow people to do as they wish.
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Genetic modification of food crops is a valuable technology, but a very dangerous one.
If overpopulation continues to grow at its present rate, there is simply no way we will be able to keep providing enough food for everyone using normal crops.
However, there are enormous risks associated with tampering with something as complicated as a plant's genetic code.
I am of the opinion that GM crops are a good thing overall, but require strict regulation, forcing them to prove conclusively that a given strain is safe before putting it anywhere where it could possibly contaminate normal crops.
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'bold'?
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Well, that's you Lacey.
I feel the same way personally, but I also understand that others feel differently.
I don't want to try to force them to agree with me.
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Mcdonalds is fairly nasty, but not as bad as some.
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@Guest;
I qut argee.
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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There are definitely too many humans.
The only thing I can think of that would be an effective population control would either be involuntary sterilization, or government benefits for having few children.
i.e. something like the opposite of australia's current program - 500 dollars for having no more than two children, 1000 dollars for having no more than one, and two thousand dollars for having none at all.
Conversely, a 'birth tax' could be implimented of 1000 dollars up front for every child had, and twice the previous sum for every one had after that:
so 1000 for 1
and 2000 for 2
and 4000 for 3
and 8000 for 4
and 16000 for 5
etc.
A combination of these two could be implimented to try to force the birth rate down.
Likewise, government sponsored free sterilization programs for the poor would help to allow those who cannot afford birth control to avoid having an excess of children.
Obviously though, the ethics of such a program would be under some debate.
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No, I mean, it's not that funny stuff doesn't happen, it's that funny stuff happens, but there is no way I'm putting it on the internet...
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actually, what I meant was in terms of the rewards program was:
If you have two children, you get 500
if you have only 1, you get 1000
if you don't have any, you get 2000
And you get none at all if you have more than two.
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I like E-books for sheer convenience.
Paper is nice, but Ebooks get the same words across almost as well.
Books/Reading - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Yeah, that'd be my guesss too.
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I give food to homeless people when I have it, but not money.
Also, I never expect any direct reaction to my actions, except through a very filtered and oft-reversed sort of way. Expecting otherwise just strikes me as a tad... optimistic.
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Haven't we already talked about this? Ya know, with the guy on anesthetics and neurogenesis and that you think its important that the brain functions are measurable, and I think its important that the brain is measurable.
Yeah, we have been over this before, but you never actually responded to my defense to this rather simplistic counter argument:
Even if the conciousness (mind, memory, awareness, etc) is not active, it's still exists (albeit in 'cold storage').
A fetus has no such mind to store.
Thus, in its destruction, the only thing lost is the components involved, which are (mostly), meat.
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That's nonsense.
Goldfish have brains. So do fish, cows, birds, even earthworms.
The brain is of no human value unless it itself hosts a conciousness.
Until there is a conciousness currently stored on a brain, there is no functional difference between that brain, and the brain of a dead man.
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Seriously, we've talked about the people with memory problems, right?
You do realize that there is a REASON why we have different classifications for different mental illnesses, right?
There are minor neurological disorders that rob you of a large portion of your memories or personality, but leave you with enough to still maintain conciousness.
Then there are major ones that leave you with zero brain-function or responsiveness.
In the latter, they lack the very thing that makes them human.
In the former, they are still important, as they maintain enough to still have something to lose if they die.
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And you have the proper research and education on the matter to say that an embryo has nothing to lose by dying? Or is it just what your gut reason tells you?
http://eileen.250x.com/Main/Einstein/Brain_Waves.htm
Read this. It's a rebuttal against claims that brain activity is recorded early in pregnancy, but it contains the neccesary data.
Either way a 2 month old baby doesn't even have what you say is necessary. A 2 month old baby is no smarter then a dog or some other animal, and yet it is still infinitely more important to most people.
A two month old baby is not at the same level of sentience as an adult human is. The only reason we value it more than the pig we slaughter for food is speciesism, pure and simple.
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I just added the address those were coming from to my spam filter.
Worked like a charm.
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Yeah, radioactive compounds are always fun.
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Actually, it was on Outlook Express.
If that is shared, I'll remove them from it, and re-send them to a dummy address or do something similar.
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I do find murder to be evil, but I do not think that it is ABSOLUTE evil, meaning that there are still circumstances in which some things can be worth it.
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The Terminator Slinky is upon us!
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I'm not going to espouse any perceived benefits to cannabis (I am of the opinion that, like virtually all other mind-altering substances, it has a generally negative effect), however, I am in favor of it's legalization.
Cannabis is simply not as bad as alchohol is. It does less damage to the body, and the corresponding lethargy ensures that a person high on cannabis is less likely to climb into a car and kill someone than a drunkard.
If you are going to legalize one substance, legalize them all (with appropriate literature realeased to ensure that people are aware of the risks). To keep alchohol legal and to ban cannabis is an apalling double standard.
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60%
Oh yeah Revan, I remember that. Jesus that thing smelled horrible.
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I have a friend that wants to buy about ten square feet of this stuff when it comes out, and make an active-camoflage suit out of it. Think like the Predator.
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Actually Redstar, that's not entirely accurate.
A publically traded corporations is essentialyl a hive mind, for all practical extents and purposes.
It has no particular moral value, and it is impossible to force them on him.
However, any company not publically traded is a completely different story. So long as it has only onw or two human beings calling the shots, it has the potential to be moral.
Google, for instance, is a publically traded company, but actually has a fairly good track record, with a few exceptions. The reason for this is that the internal management system is set up so that control continues to be held by the founders (officially only kep on as 'consultants').
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Oh, and can anyone say 'Cyberdine'?
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Actually no.
It's that artist I mentioned actually. Given his track record with the quipment he has been supplied with, I'm actually pretty concerned that he might be able to pull it off.
If the president gets assasinated by an invisible man, it's probably him.
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Actually, I was thinking more of the conspiracy, the use and secrecy of technology from a killer robot from the future, etc.
But yeah, I'm sure they didn't intend for the world to be destroyed.
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I quite agree.
and the corresponding lethargy ensures that a person high on cannabis is less likely to climb into a car and kill someone than a drunkard.
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Well, if you take a rather liberal definition of 'substance', I suppose so...
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I got a chance to play redsteel for the Wii recently, and I must say that it was one of the better FPS that I have ever played.
Good plotline, fairly good gamplay (though the sword-fights felt a little... drawn out), reasonable graphics, etc. The controller really added to it, in my opinion.
Chock up one more point for the Wii.
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*deploys hidden parachute*
*Opens fire on Hello's body as he falls onto the rocks below*
*reloads*
*catchs updraft, looks for Jen*
Late Night TV :D - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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I didn't say it was a big deal, all I'm saying is that, as an embryo is alive and a human by the parameters I use, that its life is important.
We all agree that it's alive and at least possesses human genetics.
However, it's a matter of whether or not it possesses the elements of a human that make them special.
So let's look at what makes a human more moral to kill than, say, a cow. Obviously not the muscle and skin. I've heard human is quite tasty, but obviously there is nothing fundamentally wrong about the destruction of human tissue.
Nor is it the organs (digestive tract, lungs, etc.). Although they sell for quite a bit, they are not fundamentally different from animal's organs. Obviously, also, there is nothing morally wrong with the destruction of a kidney or intestine or bladder so long as it isn't attached to a human.
So now we are left with the one remaining piece of tissue left: the brain. Here we hit the core of what makes human special - the self.
Within the confines of our brain, patterns of electrical and chemical activity sustain a very delicate, self-referencing pattern that we call ourself. This pattern is capable of relfecting the world, as well as itself, and is the root of what it is to be human.
A fetus simply does not possess this inner light, this perception, this 'I', this self - which, of course, robs them of the only thing which makes their destruction truly immoral.
Do you understand?
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I'm sorry, correction:
that should be 'humans LESS moral to kill'. not 'more moral' in my post above.
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And now for something completely different...
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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We're in a big mess in the US right now.
The land of the free indeed...
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Cosby is very funny as well.
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BOOM!
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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I actually do not think that the human stomach has the neccesary capacity for that sort of thing.
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I'm not sure what you're talking about Yue.
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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The only thing I can say is that I'm sorry for her, and that that was very inconsiderate.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I'd like to keep allowing guest postings (I use Shuzak a lot from my phone whenever I do not have access to my computer: I often see things that I would like to make a quick notation on).
One possible solution would be to allow guest posts, but also allow anyone to delete them - the potential for abuse is there, yes, but it would help prevent rampant valdalism.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Bring on the Ritz.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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I just finished looking over my messenger transcripts, and I realized that there wasn't a single thing that I could put on here...
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You way want to delete those, Revan.
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An all-expense-paid trip, as a matter of fact.
The Seven Deadly Sins - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Okay Lacey, that is really weird.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure this particular idea was conceived while blind drunk and possibly concussed.
Star Wars Lovers - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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//e?
What Is A Geek? - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well, to be serenity works, but it's not the best that can occur.
Without someone you love who honestly cares about you, and who knows that you care for them, there are certain things, certain states of midn which simply cannot be attained.
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Better yet, we petition to have very person implanted with GPS chips, and sub-cutaneous cameras.
Then we automatically send them letters every day saying things like 'You forgot to wash your hands today', or 'your wife is cheating on you', or 'you smell horrible'.
I don't think that is one going to last long.
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The atmosphere (if there is one at all) is composed fo mostly toxic gases, and wildingly changing pressures, mostly at the extremes beyond the zoen for human survival.
In order to get there, you have to be half-drowned, chewed on, asphyxiated, crushed, and cut to bits.
Jonah is going to be in pretty poor shape by the time he emerges.
Geeks In Wales - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Unfortunately, ASCII games have always given me nasty headaches.
Those do sound pretty cool though.
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Don't worry about it. They vandalized just about all of the recent threads.
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In very limited circumstances, the killing of another human being is acceptable.
When it would definitively save more lives than were lost, or when another individuals rights outweigh the life in question (abortion), or when there are mitigating circumstances like extreme pain (assisted suicide).
However, human life (and more specificially, conciousness) is valuable, and the destruction of such a pattern by any means is a tradgedy. Thus, murder without very clear and concrete proof that it will lead to a positive outcome is an extremely evil thing to do.
I personally am against capital punishment, as it destroys such a pattern (albeit often an evil one), and does no one any good. Forced labor for life sounds like a fine punishment to me. Frankly, death is just too easy for some of these people.
Also, Fibb, when you ask what right the court system has to sentence someone, consider this: to prevent a state of total anarchy, someone does have to make that decision- and, in general, it is better to have a stable system than a mob.
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Anti matter is fun.
Actually, now that I think of it, oxygen is probably my favorite dangerous substance.
It corrodes metal and burns fruit. In its solid or liquid forms, it causes severe tissue damage upon exposure.
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7.33333333333333333 and 1/4.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Nice to have you back Jawad.
In my earnest opinion, the best thing we can do is to stop focusing on new features for a bit, and work on drawing in community.
To this end, here are my recommendations:
1. Have the 'sign in' page automatically re-direct to 'interesting topics', and add a 'new? create account' link in the righthand corner
2. Bring in the old community. Send out emails, chat, do whatever to let them know that Shuzak is going to looking up. Maybe use a 'shuzak redesign' contest to draw them back in, and to clean up the currently somewhat flawed interface.
3. Draw in new users. More collaborative articles. Maybe even advertising on other sites.
Just a few thoughts,
Ati
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Lust, greed, sloth, and pride for me.
4 out of 7...
Hmm, not bad, but I'll have to work harder if I want to make 5.
@Jawad:
Not a sin as such, but an unpleasant state of affairs to be sure.
The Seven Deadly Sins - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Same thing is happening over here Dave.
Somewhere over the course of the past 200 years, people seem to have forgotten what 'privacy' means.
They've been using the same 'nothing to hide' justification since Hitler.
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Moo.
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It's kind of funny to think about actually. When plants originally started growing on land, they started producing the most toxic and poisonous substance they could manage, in order to gas the competition...
Fast forward a few hundreds of millions of years, and almost every creature on earth is dependant on the poisonous gas to survive.
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In that case, Revan, I am a figment of your imagination.
Oh dear.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Alright, I was going to leave this one alone, but I cannot abide by that last post.
First of all, mea culpa. I was wrong to be so antagonistic. I was having a bad day. I'm sorry.
That said, however, your argument was still a straw man, and my arguments still stand.
On to the body of your post (I'll ignore the personal attacks to try and prevent a flame war):
i applaud you for being interested in physics and the such, but you my friend plain and simple believe in something impossible. impossible. you know nothing of the real dynamics of space, especially that of millions of years ago; all you have to base your 'facts' are some 4 decades of telescope pictures and some space rocks.
How is it impossible? How is it any more impossible than a humanoid big man in the sky who actually cares about the machinations of tiny, insignificant specks of organic matter on a small planet, around an average sun called sol?
Also, I think you'll find I understand the structure of space quite well, not that it has much direct bearing on this debate. Also, as far as we can tell, the behavior of space is essentially uniform, here or five billion years ago.
Also, as for my 'facts', I have every observation on every piece of matter we have observed. I have the data on how planets and suns behave, and the laws that lead them to do so. I have observations on how molecules and atoms interact and change and decay, and the laws that cause this as well.
And of all this evidence, all of this insurmountable evidence, not a single piece of it points to anything other than a naturalistic explanation.
There are no ten commandments engraved on the hydrogen atom: there is no god present in the forces behind the sun. And that is why I do not believe in a god.
As far as we can tell, as far as our small human perspective allows us to see, there is no reason to believe in anything supernatural.
and the comment about me being a straw man? where do you come up with THAT garbage. stick to programming you mindless drone. go read your 'history of time' crap and keep telling yourself that you are smart for doing so. in the meantime,
It is a straw man. Name one person, any person, who believes that
"we were all created by some large masses of rock crashing together"
Please.
ill be respecting other peoples beliefs and continue acting like a reasonable person.
I respect people. I do not respect absurd beliefs. I have uptmost respect mor many religious people I know, but I think their beliefs are utterly innaccurate.
ne last thing; spontaneous energy bursts? which came from where, ati's a$$hole?
Very well then, obviously you want the answer 'god made it'. In that case, where did god come from?
If a magical god can pop into existence, so can a universe, with considerably greater ease.
think about that before you convince yourself you are some intellectual. you believe in that? is that what created your ignorance and stupidity? rocks smacking together? good call.
Please drop the straw man. It'll make things much easier. Or, if you actually managed to convince yourselves that that is what athiests believe, please do some research and perhaps read some of the books on physics that you seem so hasty to dismiss.
Right now, you aren't talking to anyone in here. I know not a single person who belives anything bearing even the vaugest of resemblance to the beliefs that you are criticizing. Please learn the fundaments of your opponents arguments before criticizing them for them, eh?
good call. comparing a man in a whale with lifeless matter crashing together followed by events someone fancied to be true while daydreaming. what a fool you are. self-replicating elements coming from heavy rocks.
That's about right, assuming you define 'daydreaming' as 'carefully examining the evidence at hand, and finding a viewpoint that is based upon it'.
Also, self replicating elements didn't just 'come from rocks'. The sun is a second generation star, and has many heavy elements left over from it's predecessor. Thoe heavy elements collected into planets shortly before fusion started, and some of those heavy elements were the organic compounds (carbon, etc.) that are required for sefl-replicating chains.
Geeks In Wales - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Ah yeah, that's happened to me a couple of times.
Thanks for fixing it Jawad.
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I love it.
You forgot to mention that Bushcronium tends to have oxidizing effects on international relations, and tends to corrode civil liberties.
Just FYI.
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Survival of the most toxic?
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Nut crackers creep me out.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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On the other hand, it tends to be rather arbitrary, and when it starts being destructive it goes all the way (see: crudased, inquisition, galileo, etc.)
Religious Theory - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Actually, it's more like arguing with some guy on the street who claims that the moon is made of green cheese.
You point out that it's not green, and he pulls out a book and points to a passage in which, 2000 years ago, someone made a statment that could be interpreted to mean that the moon looked green. The book does not cite sources. The book is one of many, heavily conflicting translations of the same ancient text.
Then, as proof, he askes what it could be made of, if not green cheese.
So yes, very amusing.
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Pi, wonderful Pi!!!
What Is A Geek? - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Thank you.
Of course, those things tend to work best on paper. I'm sitting here right now imagine the picnic basket going overboard in a eighty mile per hour prevailing wind.
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I am the only person here who is really, really glad that Revan here isn't god?
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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My cat looks like an overweight panther.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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C++ has a speed advantage when doing complex mathmatics like those required for 3D rendering.
Also, I tried to program a simple 3D engine in java once. DO not ask how that went.
Java Programming - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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yes but there's no proving that god didnt cause the big bang and cause evolution. there IS proof, very, VERY strong proof that the moon is not made out of green cheese, or that my nose is bronzed.
I was actually referring to the biblical god who created the universe in seven days, and who packed all the animals of the earth into noahs ark. OF which is there is a good deal of evidence to the contrary.
IF AN INFINITE BEING CAN JUST POP INTO EXISTENCE, SO CAN AN INFINITE UNIVERSE!!!
The universe isn't infinite actually. Just very, very big.
But yes, I agree with you. As a matter of fact, it's more probable to postulate a universe without a god than one with one, as every god added increases the complexity of the universe exponentially, and according to Occam's Razor, the simplest reasonable explanation is usually the best. In this case, that means the universe without the big man in the sky.
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I have a deep fondness for mercury.
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Making a point is one thing. Insulting people of religion is another. Please don't make such broad, generalizations which are guaranteed to hurt someone.
I call out idiocy when I see it. The biblical creation story is lunacy in a pure and unadulterated form. There are some very nice and intelligent people who believe in it, but it's still insanity.
No one criticizes your assumed rationalization that we were all created by some large masses of rock crashing together (of which they formed from thin air ( of which thin 'air' formed from....you get the picture)) and then they crashed together some more until living things came to be.
First of all, the entire catholic church criticizes my beliefs. There was this guy named Galileo, you remember him?
Second of all, your argument is a straw man. I know NO-ONE who believes ANYTHING bearing even the vaugest the resemblence to this idiotic straw man you've created. Where do you get this utter shit ?
My view of the origins of the universe involve a spontaneous generation of energy (the big bang), which collapsed into matter, breaking down through nuclear rectioms into heavier elements, some of which eventually assembled into a combination capable of self replicating, which (in turn) eventually evolved into the forms of life we know today.
Id rather be the fool who believed in something unlikely but very much possible, rather than the bigger fool who believes in something otherwise laughable.
Translation: You'd rather believe in confortable and obviously absurd delusions (let me know how that ark large enough to hold the 100,000,000 odd species of insects and enough food to support them is coming), than use a little logic and build a belief system that fits the evidence.
Get the picture? reading a few science books does not make your common sense any more correct then a religious persons faith.
Logic is always superior to delusions. You can have faith that you are a butterfly all you want, but unless you actually check to see if you have wings, you won't know the truth.
I use LOGIC to construct my viewpoint, because I'm actually interested in the truth, or the closest we can come to it at the moment.
I am not interested in picking an explanation that sounds good, and sticking with it in utter opposition to every piece of evidence in existence.
Geeks In Wales - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Cool, it's back up.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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My apologies if I was rude.
I'm having a bad day, and I really hate straw men.
Geeks In Wales - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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I think his whole 'holier than thou' attitude relying on the straw man probably contributed as well.
Onto your points themselves though:
firstly your slander of all religion is unfounded, pointless from a scientific perspective (as using science religion becomes a nonentity) and illogical.
From the scientific perspective, religion becomes an irrational perspective. Also a bit of logic will show you that many of the biblical claims are obviously absurd.
secondly on the point of 100 billion species of insect perhaps the rapid genetic mutation of these insects (and thus seperation of species) was a result of re-growth of the species from an unviable genetic pool, if inbreeding encourages mutation then perhaps the wide variety of animals and insects is a direct result of a small gene pool.
Inbreeding also encourages extinction. Frankly, it's simply not possible for more than a few functional species to arise out of the very small population that owuld fit on a boat of any reasonable size.
Especially if only two of every species were taken - if you marry your sister, and all your kids mary eachother, your descendants will be dead within a few generations.
Geeks In Wales - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Ack, sorry, stuff got slipped in while I was typing.
And no, there is no way a sperm whale could really pull this off.
Read Poss's post.
Geeks In Wales - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Have you heard of people with extreme short term memory loss? There are people who have pretty much a 10 second short term memory, but they're still people.
They are people yes, but they are lacking a huge pice of themselves, of what makes them a distinct and seperate human being.
So a person can act parasitic then why can't an embryo be a person if half your argument is because its parasitic.
I'm sorry, but that makes no sense to me. Please rephrase.
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Atheism is a belief system just as theism is
Only in the same sense that anarchy is a legal system.
Who says we care if the girl lives or dies, no matter who is at fault?
Because we would care about our own death if we were the girl, and we, as human beings, are capable of empathy. We don't need some sadistic, arbitrary big man in the sky to tell us that.
If you substitute George Bush for the girl, it does make a difference because he is responsible for the loss of so many lives.
That is a much more complex moral problem. Yes, the number of lives he has cost, and may cost is factored in, but its still, in essence, a logic problem.
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oh, and
I have a question: is there spirituality without god? If so, what would that mean?
'spirituality' is a reflex imbedded deeply into the structures of the brain. I feel an almost spiritual awe when I look at the stars at night, and mnay buddhists are deeply spiritual people, but believe in no gods.
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I'm not sure the emotional argument for empathy makes much difference, at least not to me. If I don't have an emotional attachment to someone who has died, does that preclude the rightness or wrongness of the death? Morality based on "feel good" doesn't hold up very well, IMHO. With no god-created good and evil, we are on our own to determine what to believe. As far as I can see that is the dilemma that faces us as former god-believers (speaking only for myself).
Alright, well then how about this argument: every intact human conciousness is of more-or-less equal abstract worth.
In this case, it seems obvious that it is best to sacrifice one life (regardless of whether or not is is your own), in order to save two.
In the case of sacrificing your own life to save a single girl, the morality is more ambiguous, but it may still be moral to save the girl, simply because she has more probable future years of life to lose.
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Yeah, post in Fibb's thread.
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The US is rapidly becoming empirialist, albeit not quite as openly as the British.
The good news is that we really can't afford to be doing that.
After the dollar collapses, I really cannot see them exerting much force in fopreign economies and legal systems for quite a while.
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Well, you were pretty close.
The real problem that we have though, is that people are signing up, coming once or twice, then never again.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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@Ati, if the sweetest substance you've ever tasted is sugar and there is no way to analytically compare sweetness of substances (you just have to try it to know), how could you be hurt (or feel deprived) by not tasting saccharin or aspartame (thousands of times sweeter, ignore the health issues). wouldn't you be content with sugar? wouldnt you conclude that it is the best you have ever had and the best there could be?
You might not know a thing, and might not miss it's absence, but you would still not be quite as happy as one who did.
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Good for you.
The holy church of Rob - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Memory loss is common with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Star Wars Lovers - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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Dark Matter always sounded a little fishy to me. IT makes more sense to me to work on a new model of gravity that doesn't reqire the existence of dark matter, rather than postulating an unproven, and possibly unprovable substance.
IT might be better to actually prove that DM exists or does not before going out and basing further and even shakier theories on it.
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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The best date I can think of at the moment is either a picnic in a hot air balloon at night, or a night of star gazing in some non-light polluted area with a radio playing classical music.
I don't know if that's romantic, or just weird.
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I can't wait to see some of the new images from this sucker.
New desktop wallpaper, here I come!
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I'm baaaack...
The Seven Deadly Sins - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Good idea.
What Is A Geek? - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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My sidebar has come back up, but nothing else works for me.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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sweet.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I personally find suicide counter to every fundament of my personal philosophy.
I can imagine very fw circumstances in which I might kill myself, and fewer in which I would not regret it, given the chance.
Suicide is, to my mind, a terrible idea, but I am against its criminalization, as all it does is create more encentive to get it right. Also, it is every human being's right to screw up their lives just as much as they want, and that includes ending it.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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I love mitch too.
Larry the cable guy is funny as well from time to time.
There's also this other guy I heard on the comedy channel, who's name I cannot quite remember.
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...Except for mythbusters and braniac
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Actually, I've been thinking that the Shuzak logo is need need of a reimagining for some time.
Maybe I could work on some modifications tomorrow.
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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There is no such thing as a 'little' blind faith.
That's like saying that you have a 'few' kilograms of cement in your eyes.
IF you can believe that the son of a big, omnipotent man in the sky was born to a virgin, walked on water, and rose from the dead, I suppose it's not much a stretch to say that Tyrannosaurus Rex ate coconuts, and that Jonah was swallowed by a Plesiosaur.
Frankly, this conversation scares the hell out of me.
Geeks In Wales - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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I used to take apart anything I could get my hands on.
I still have a big box of decebriated computers, gutted calculators, dissassembled tape recorders, and the rest in the shed somewhere.
What Is A Geek? - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Even if you don't know that you're missing a thing, you lack it none the less.
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I have a headache...
Astronomical - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Jim Carrey is funny as well.
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Talking on your cell phone in movie theaters.
I dunno if it's listed, but it should definitely be on there.
The Seven Deadly Sins - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 4 |
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What about mentally retarded people?
What about them?
Even a severely retarded person has a heck of a lot more intelligence than a gold fish (the rough equivalent of a fetus)
How about the person paying for the machine. Can a person just stop paying for someone on life support because they think its to expensive for them?
There is no obligation for an owner to provide a life support machine. Especially if the machine was used involuntarily in the first place.
Then you could say the same thing about a person on life support.
It is impossible to be in a parasitic relationship with a machine. Not so for a human being.
When did I ever claim that?
I quote:
"And about the mother's interests? I fail to see how it goes against the mother's interests to have the baby if she can put it up for adoption."
Yeah...
About that...
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We could have one with the Terminator Slinky on it.
Of course, it might be kind of a hard concept to display visually.
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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a retarded person in many cases doesn't have any of the memories that you said made a person a person.
I've never heard of such a case, but if there is one, a person with no memories is indeed only part of a person. How great a part in subjective, depending on the value ascribed to memories versus personality.
But a human can be in a parasitic relationship with another human?
If they are actively sucking the nutrients out of their blood stream, then yes.
I'm not saying it is easy to be a mother, I was just pointing out that it makes things a heck of alot easier because she can put the child up for adoption, and that is important to do just that when a human life is on the line.
Mmmhmmm.
So basically, what you propose if forcing women to turn their bodies into life support machines for nearly brain-dead lumps of tissue, because it is 'moral'.
I see.
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That would do it.
I'll work on the logo re-work tomorrow.
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I'd say my soul just shrunk, but I do not believe in a soul.
So, about a kilogram of free radicals just hit my bloodstream.
I thought he'd butchered it enough with 1-3.
Star Wars Lovers - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Poisoning, preferably somethign narcotic.
Nothing overly painful.
(This is, of course, on the assumption that I am suicidal, a condition that I find unlikely in the foreseeable future)
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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We're in a deep hole, with about a billion gallons of raw sewage and greenhouse gases teetering over our heads.
But we're not _quite_ screwed yet.
There will be fallout. Let's just accept that right now. People WILL die, in fact, they are dying right now. Many species will go extinct.
But we have chance.
We are young apes just disocovering fire, and burning themselves badly. We are men discovering radium, and dying of it. We are men who finally come to understand the sectrets of the atom, and level cities with the knowledge.
And we are not dead.
Humans are an incredibly difficult species to exterminate. We just tend to survive, and that is what is happening now.
Oil is running out, and our economy is suffering from the first rumbles of the greatest quake it has ever known. As gas hits fout dollars a gallon, we know that there is no reason for it to stop rising. Short sighted vision has never been allowed on the road, and it will kill us now, as then.
WIthout oil, the old behemoths shall starve. Younger, sprier, more renewable companies will grow to fill the gaps. And we will change.
But it may not be enough. The point of no return is approaching fast, and we may not turn in time, if we do not see.
Before me here, I see some of the brightest minds in this generation, and I wonder if we cannot do something. We have enormous potential here, we have enough intelligence to level cities in our own right.
Could we not turn that to something better?
Were we all to conceive something here, together, we might yet survive.
For we are not yet dead.
Global Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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But what about a man with amnesia or alzheimer's? He only has one, is he only half a person?
Substantially more than that, for it is impossible to lose all of your memory through either of these. Unless you totally amputate the memory lobes, you'll still keep things you've learned on how to read, speak, think, etc. You'll also maintain some degree of personal memories, albeit with much loss.
Also, if you do amputate the brain lobes and lose all of your memories, then yes, you are quite literally half a person.
What about a person on life support? And I don't mean like Terry Shchiavo, I mean like, not in a coma but needs a feeding tube and a respirator. They rely on the machines, does that mean that they aren't living?
An embryo is obviously alive (although it lackes mind and identity), but a life support machine has no rights, and would be incapable of claiming them if it did. A human woman, on the other hand, does have rights, and if she doesn't want to be used as a piece of life support equipment, that is her business entirely.
And even after a child is born it is dependant on the mother at least up until age 5 or so, but you wouldn't kill a 2 year old.
It is dependant yes, as a caregiver, but the relationship is not biologically parasitic.
Also, a two-year-old has infinitely more mental capacity than a fetus, which is why it's destruction is immoral.
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On the other hand, we'd also lose pain, suffering and Digg memes.
Mad Scientists - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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Well, focusing on your problems only make them seem worse to you.
Frankly, unless your problems are immediately remediable, a bit of distraction can be a good thing to stave off depression.
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1. hole up in front of the computer for a while
2. write some depressing poetry
3. mope around for a few days
4. go to an astronomy website
5. Have a look at how tiny earth is
6. Realize that it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things
7. Feel better
It works pretty well for me.
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Like any act, it's merit is determined by the reasons behind it.
There are valid reasons, like extreme pain, etc.
There are invalid reasons like depression, cowardice, etc.
There is no blanket moral judgement that can be applied to suicide.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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Not rap.
Deus no.
Just no.
However, I do have this theme running in my head - it starts with a a dun-dun-dun DAA on piano, then the flute comes in in the background, then the drums stark keeping pace.
Then the drums, flute, and piano interweave, matching and accenting the syllables of the words.
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As for the first bit:
Run, ignorance!, flee, innocence!
Knowledge has come to claim you.
Poetic discourse, to my two cents
It's time to pay your due.
Time to raise your voice in clamor
To speak out and learn or teach
To be wrong or right or
Listen or preach
It's time to speak your mind.
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Well, whether or not romance is appreciated, depends on the person in question.
Some people like it, others do not.
It all depends on the person (people) in question.
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well, you should be able to afford 3000 dollars if you start saving now, and then it's only 35 years.
the 45 year estimate means available to everyone and his brother, and the poor guy with credit problems and peeling paint across the street.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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@Jhat
Not if buddha is still sitting on him!
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I personally don't think you should punish two consenting people of the same age, no matter what that age is.
I quite agree Poss. While two five year olds, even if they are consenting, is certainly not a good thing, throwing them in jail will only make the situation worse. The best solution is parental involvement and education.
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At any rate, if the biological computing system I mentioned earlier works, this is all out the window anyway.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Yeah, I suppose they are primarily popular in the US.
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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In theory, there was complete nothingness before the big bang, but since then we've mostly had a lot of quantum weirdness going on in the supposedly empty spaces.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I enjoy eating.
It's one of the pleasures of life.
Green Geeks - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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My experiment reaches its final stages...
Nocturnals - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Woo-hoo!
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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*does geekish victory dance*
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Actually, there's this funny story I have on the subject of accents:
I had just moved to texas for a brief while, and I was going to a resturaunt.
Upon arriving there, I mentioned to the waitress that I was from out of state. The reponse came in a twangy, texan accent:
"Owh! I thoight you haid an ayxx-cent! "
Linguistics - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Well, I ascribe a value to my own life, a very great value at that, and will go to great lengths to preserve it (see my involvement in the transhumanist movement), but I also accept that there are thing, many thing, for which it may be worth the sacrifice.
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Wii = cool, but without halfway decent graphics, or some solid titles, it won't outlive the hype.
Xbox 360 = Good graphics, some good launch titles, but... haven't we seen this before? It really offers nothing new, other than some prettier graphics.
PS3 = Good idea, given to a bunch of monkeys to defecate on, burned, and delivered in a sealed envelope to a bunch of drunken developers. Incredible graphics potential, locked up in a bunch of weird, nonstandard hardware protocals, leaving the graphics games can currently juice out of it little more exciting than the much-cheaper 360. It will have a great deal of potential, as soon as game companier get used to the hardware, but I can't see it ever making any significant ammount of money for Sony.
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A sonic boom of sufficient magnitude at point blank range would do it.
So would a sufficient quantity of electric current, heat, etc.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Heck, even just a dose of high-energy radiation would do the job for you, given enough time.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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'Imaginary' being the operative word.
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Darn you Rob!
Now I have ANOTHER clergy member to smite?
An Anti-Rob's work is never done.
The holy church of Rob - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Pspychology is, in a sense, a 'soft' science, as there is no way to concretely prove that a theory is accurate, given the huge variability of human minds.
However, it has it's uses, and while I can see the allure, it's just not my cup of tea.
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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As many pillows as possible.
Nocturnals - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: |
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Or maybe we'll just be uploads on a partial dyson sphere watching from our virtual world as our previous planet goes the way of Hiroshima.
Mad Scientists - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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ACtually, radiation would do the job quite nicely.
It tends to have some very unpleasant effects on living tissue (as in, REALLY unpleasant), and I cannot imagine that it would fail to destroy a brain, given enough exposure).
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Having a relationship that ends in a break up is like having your one hundred and fifth birthday.
Not neccesarily fun, but it sure beats the alternative.
Breaking up is painful and unpleasant, but it beats being alone.
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Freud was a nut Poss, but I don't think it's fair to dismiss all of psychology based just on that.
Psychology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Well Poss, you're assuming that that level of detail is mandatory to maintainging continuity of identity.
It's not a matter of whether we can create the 'hi-rez' brain model, but of whether we can distinguish between the high and low resolution mind models. After all, if there is no perceivable difference to an upload of whether or not it simulated the synaptic connections in full details, wouldn't that imply that to include such a model would be a waste of processing capacity?
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Do I HAVE to crucify you?
The holy church of Rob - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Yes, but frwankly we do not have a whole lot of nukes. Worst we cold do is de-surface the planet a bit.
Mad Scientists - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Exactly.
There is a very large ammount of evidence that we caused it, and even if we didn't, we are CERTAINLY exacerbating the problem, and very bad things are in store unless something changes.
That something might as well be us.
Global Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Yep.
Stupid dime-store crosses.
The holy church of Rob - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well, the graph of human carbon emmissions over time aligns pretty neatly with the graph of carbon emmissions over time, which is one indicator.
Another thing to think about is that according to gas measurement in antarctic ice sheets, we're at the hottest we've been in 160,000 odd years.
Frankly, we can't afford to take the risk.
Global Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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hahaha.
Perfect.
(And yes, this thread has been sacriligious sinc ethe begginging. As a matter or face, I think the pope just wet himself.)
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 4 |
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Professional wrestling or children's television.
After a couple of hours of either one, you'll walk out with a glazed expression on your face, singing to yourself softly.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Not unless you brought scuba equipment.
For If it was a sperm whale, you'd just get tangles in the mouth, and if it was a more carnivorous whale, well, they're not known for having a lot of air inside of their mouths.
Even if thiey did, you'd only have until they dived, and then the pressure might well kill you. Even if it didn't, you'd almost certainly get the bends when they surfaced.
Overall, I'd prefer it to being dumped unprotected onto the surface of mars, but not by much.
Geeks In Wales - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Before I could read, I would have my mother check out books on genetic engineering and molecular biology and robotics and read them too me as bedtime stories.
Bascically, I've been a geek for as long as I can remember.
What Is A Geek? - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 4 |
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Geeks In Wales - Posted By Ati - Karma received: |
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Yeah, I was assumming you hung on inside the mouth.
Your chances would likely be even slimmer in the stomach.
Geeks In Wales - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well, given that Bob Ross has been dead for twelve years, I'd say the smart money's on Bill.
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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I usually just pronounce the H very, very quietly.
(h)erbs.
Linguistics - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well, einstein's use of the word 'god' is ambiguous at best.
He was several times quoted as saying that he did not believe in a personal god, and he often used 'god' to refer to the complexity and wonder of the universe.
I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. (Albert Einstein, 1954)
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Maybe, if you can figure out a way to get them to the center.
But if you just detonated them on the surface, you might wipe out all land dwelling species if you're careful, but aside from radiation poisoning to the coast dwelling creatures, your not going to affect sea animals much.
On the other hand, if waters continue to heat up, many species of aquatic animal, as well as ground dwelling will go extinct, as most of them are well optimized for survival at a certain temperature.
Also, global warming is a vertual certainty unless something is done, whereas nuclear war remains a pressing but as-yet not immediate worry.
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Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: |
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Are you sure about that Poss?
I was under the impression nerves fired in binary (i.e. the synaptic impulse passes the firing threshold, or it does not).
At any rate, there may be a fairly easy way to skip the relatively slow progress of Moore's Law - use brain tissue as a CPU.
It's a fairly simple idea actually. Have a cube two feet on a side, have half of it be filled with a cube grid of tiny wires, as well as tiny tubes to carry nutrient fluid, and then grow cultured rat brain tissue to fill the remaining half. Then it's a simple matter of using pulses of current run through the wires to 'program' the cells to form into any pattern you needed for a logic operation: it would be efficient, cheap, replaceable, and fast.
It would also quite nicely serve the purposes of an upload - a cube of two feet is easily enough to handle a human conciousness in real time, even with the wires and nutrient aparratus. In the event that the tissue got old and died, you could simply replace it from a freshly thawed sample, and reprogram it to behave just as before.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Another thing to consider is that age is not the whole story.
I know many children who are easily more mature and intelligent than some adults I know, and I know many adults far more childish than some children.
Obviously, these are the exceptions rather than the rules, but an ideal system would factor in approximate maturity as well.
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Unless, of course, one of his experiments goes horribly wrong.
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Also Jared, I doubt any reputable journal would publish this guy.
He had 'nut-job' written all over him in flashing neon letters.
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Believe me Wendy, it works the other way around too.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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That's interesting Quantum Beep. Any particular reason, or is it a gut reaction?
Also Rbou, brain scans aren't that accurate (that's the point of the evolutionary algoyrthm - to fill in the details with a function equivalent of the real neural circuitry being used. I tried to stay away from nano-bots with this, as I wanted something that could be done with current tech.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Thank you Jhat, I hope this helps the admin fix it.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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The way I see it, your best bet is grey goo, or even a nomral-scale von-neuman machine.
Basically, anything that can reproduce fast and eats metal should take care of it for you.
Mad Scientists - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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actually, if you focused that much light, the light would exurt a physical pressure on the asteroid.
if, however, you simply want to incinerate the earth with it, it's actually quite feasible... poss didn't specify how long you have, so any prposed destruction before the sun goes nova is fair game (and over five billion years, even a small mirror will do a loy of damage )
Another thing to consider would simply be a gian lense put into high earth orbit - it could fry us like ants under a magnifying glass...
Mad Scientists - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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maybe not current tech,but plausible within fifty years.
Also, you could simply have the von-neumanmachines launch themselves into orbit, so as to make esrth an asteroid belt...
Mad Scientists - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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As a matter of fact, a better description of this article might be 'british guy who can scribble on blackboard says god exists'.
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You do that...
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Matter has no meaning without void.
Likewise, void has no meaning without something to contrast it to.
One can (indeed, must) exist in the absence of the other, but neither would have meaning were that the case.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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@Quantum
Yes, it's mostly a gut reaction. We don't know what factors differentiate between "mass of brainage" and "sentient mind". What if it's only a matter of neuron count? I'd be worried about our neural-network-of-neurons waking up one day and saying, "What the fuck?"
Well, if we keep the tissue occupied, say, running DOOM 3 or a seed AI project, or an upload, it should be possible to keep it too busy to accidentally self-organize into conciousness...
Also, I kind of doubt that pure mass, without complexity patterns are the key to intelligence - otherwise blue whales should have teleports already.
@Tom
it's kind of funny, I'm taking this computer theory class and we're doing DFA's/NFA's/language production and the whole semester I thought it was all theory crap, but now it looks like those patterns might also be found inside the brain? (not just computers). Interesting.
I suppose that makes sense. Our brains are the product of an extended evolutionary algorythm, so the patterns you will find are likely going to be the most efficient possible.
@Jared
first of all, there is the issue of memories that gets brought up, but i'm not totally sure it's actually an issue. if you can emulate the response of the neurons to stimulation, in theory, you have encapsulated the memories in the brain already. after all, our memories are probably just a set of relationships that is set off by a specific stimulus. therefore, if you have the response to stimulus recorded, you should get the memories as well.
Or, at least, a functional equivalent of the original memories. The difficulty is that human beings even with their apalling forgetfullness still remember a lot of things. And many of these thing only get recalled once in a blue moon, so you'd have to be recording stimulus-response models of the brain in question for quite a while. Depending on exactly how long it might stll be feasible, or it might not, one can never be sure.
but the issue that i do think is problematic is that of plasticity. the brain is not static. connections are made and broken all of the time, and that constant rearrangement is every bit as important as the existence of the neurons themselves. you would need your computer to be able to decide when to make and break connections. i suppose this could be done through image analysis, to decide a connection should be made whenever two adjacent neurons fired within some certain amount of time. then again, some neurons never fire, they simply respond by tweaking the level of a certain neurotransmitter, or do nothing at all.
I agree that plasticity is a real issue, or else the brain would never change - it would form no new memories, it would learn nothing new, it would stay static.
The idea behind using bitmap images is that a single pixel can represent approximately 48, 627, 125 different states - easily enough to represent the possible connections of a single neuron. The model would have to account for the altering of the bitmap values as well though, in order to emulate some of the alterations of the physical brain.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I am far more terrified by the thought of someone I love dying than the thought of my own destruction.
It might be purely selfish, as I will know the loss of a loved one if they die, but I will never know of my own death.
Or it could be the product of some philisophical work on the nature of death I've done in the past.
Either way, it's done wonders for my altruism.
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My advice?
If you want romance, stay away from the romantic adds. Well away.
That said, romantic adds are an interesting case. Originally, they set out to sell love, which is, of course, absurd, but they did it anyway. Then they began to realize that sex sells far better than romance, so their adds evolved into their current state of scantily clad individuals with suspiciously air-brushed looking skin.
Romance still exists, but its a matter of where you look. I'm a guy who will bring poetry and flowers, but I am in a minority. None the less, it is simply a matter of where you look.
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The problem, zen, is finding a black hole of sufficient mass to be able to do significant damage before it evaporates due to Hawking radiation.
They're not exactly easy to make.
Mad Scientists - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Well, starting with thei eight years, we can add four to incorporate the machinations of the glia (16 times more processing power).
Then if we've got a signal variability of 100, then it's only a matter of another six years after that, to simulate every signal strength.
Chemicals might be even easier, but we'll add another year just to be on the safe side - hormonal surges can't possibly take up more processing than the neuron.
Now, it's twenty years in the future, and a project the size of the blue brain project can emulate the human conciousness in real time.
Still a pretty reasonable time frame, eh?
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Sorry, I'm feeling a bit out of it today, and my linguisitic processing center seems to be having a meltdown.
Basically, I was going over how much more processing power would be required to deal with Poss's concerns (about thirty two hundred times more) and how long it would take for that processing power to become of reasonable cost, given Moore's Law.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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The terminator slinky scoffs at your 'elevator'.
It can go anywhere .
Even if that fails, that 'thing' we came up with might do the job too, don't you agree Poss?
Mad Scientists - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Ati, for a crude conciousness, lacking the full subtlety of a human, sure.
Well, that's until the computing power becomes available. Filling it with a mind is the job of brain scans, serial sectioning, and perhaps even some of the techniques in this thread.
I am not banking on full scale uploading being a publicly available option for closer to 50 years. By which stage i will be 75, if i live that long.
Well, the good news is that even if you're right on the fifty year estimate, brain scans are getting more accurate very quickly, and should hit neuron-level scanning within a few decades, so you may be able to back yourself up before death, to be reincarnated when computing power becomes cheap enough.
The thing is, we do not really understand the brain yet, alot of what is accepted thought is really still just theory. I would expect major hurdles on the road to uploading, and the first few uploaded humans will be pioneers in a completely unfamiliar world.
Well, the good news is that you don't really have to understand how a system works in order to emulate it. A neuron by neuron simulation of the human brain, which I estimate may be available (but not cheap) in about twenty years, will do the job quite well, even if you do not really understand what the deep cortical structures you are scanning, analysing, and copying actually do...
I personally am not putting my brain into a system that has not been tested at a level of basic functionality for at least 30 years.
What if the end of your life is approaching? Wouldn't it be better to live on a system that may be buggy, than to live on a system that's about to undergo total functional failure (i.e. death).
as for the time frame, by your calculations, how long after the first emulated conciousness is created will it be before systems that powerfull will be priced so that the average person could afford them?
Well, the blue gene supercomputer (used by the blue brain project) cost 100,000,000 dollars. In twenty years, the same ammount of money will buy you a full real-time cognitive emulation.
By my figures, fifteen years after that the price should drop to about 3000 dollars, which is affordable to most of the midle class.
Another decade after that, and it should be available to just about everyone.
I am an unfit risk taker with an addictive personality and a selfless streak that may well be my undoing. 50 years is a long time for someone as unpredictable as me.
Well, my advice is to eat right, exercise, maybe try to quit smoking, and look into cryonics.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Buddha.
He weighs what, four hundred pounds? The guy's four foot two.
He just sits on Jesus and that's the end of it.
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 4 |
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Errr...
Fib, Bill Nye is a scientist.
Bob Ross is (was) an artist.
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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YEEAAAAHHHH!!!!
It's BACK!
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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If you've ever doodled in the margins of your note books with EQUATIONS...
If you've ever spend time working out different ways of ending the earth...
If you've ever designed a nuclear reaction, IN YOUR SPARE TIME...
... You might be a geek.
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Cool!
I started a meme!
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I just got a 1 gig card for my phone, which makes life much easier.
It's going to take even me a while to fill up a gig.
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The eye toy is a pretty poor application of the technology.
I'm thinking more along the lines of minority report: you wear a few colored dots on your body, and the webcams track your motions and add them onto a virtual charactor.
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Yeah, I'm still curious who did the vandalism.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Green Geeks - Posted By Ati - Karma received: |
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That's a good point.
Also, the conditions chickens are usually kept in are disgusting. Cows to for that matter.
Chickens are caged four to a 1 foot by one foot box, and they are often forced to eat each other because they are not fed enough. The live from birth till death in this box, which is almost never cleaned.
Cows are kept in concrete stalls, and never allowed to walk around or leave. They are fed on a moderately poisonous diet, and they are shot in the head with a nail gun when it is time to kill them, and it often taken many tried to work.
You have to be very, very careful where you get your meat.
Green Geeks - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Most of the idiots in power today are just the puppets of smarter men.
The odds of a nuclear strike happening due to stupidity are pretty low.
Actually, nuclear war isn;t even our biggest problem at this point. Global warming is slower, but if not stopped it oculd do a lot more damage than any nuclear war over time.
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Wow, so...
everybody then.
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This is really retty annoying.
Shuzak is borderline unusable right now, save chat.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Bullshit.
The equations shown were meaningless ('= god'?) and there is no way in hell a physics equantion can predict the birth of a single human being. It's complete and utter bullshit.
(pardon my french)
Incidentally, if anyone is interested, the nebula in the background is 'the eagle has risen' nebula.
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This kind of stuff would be funny if it wasn't so bloody apalling.
And the sad thing is that people are going to belive him because he says the words 'quantum physics'.
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That's interesting Wendy, but...
What is different is the age of consent 14 in Italy, 15/17 in Greece.
Well, that's not the only difference - in any two given cultures, there are going to be major differences, and some of those completely cultural differences probably affect what your talking about as well:
It is possible that the laws were written to reflect pre-existing cultural attitudes, rather than the cultural attitudes reflecting the laws?
Also,
I say about 16 is a good one. Kids under that age will have sex but hopefully with each other and with a condom.
In a perfect world I would agree with you (and certainly about the condom bit), but in this case, many of the people enforcing our justice system are anal retentive, pedantic, small minded, and bigoted.
With these sorts of laws in place, it is only a matter of 'how often', not 'if' you get prosecutors who use this law as a chance to punish teenagers for things they find morally wrong (premarital sex), or simply enforce the law to the letter and (as noted above) list every case as a double rape.
In my earnest opinion, criminalizing it starting at an arbitrary age limit is one of the worst things you could do. It HAS to be decided on a case by case basis... given so many different factors to consider, no simple law could handle every different case and the implications and nuances contained therein.
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GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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That's an interesting question Quantum Beep.
I think, after giving it some thought, that I would sacrifice my life only to prevent tyranny, and not religion (I don't have one) or politics (don't frankly care all that much), and if there was a significant chance that my death would change the condition of tyranny.
And even then it would be a value judgement based on the circumstances of the time.
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It's an expression that means 'please excuse my language'.
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Well, sorry to hear that things aren't going well. Be sure and let us know if there is anything we can do to help. That said...
First, my main stress is thinking too much. I honestly think about the smallest details of any given day or problem for days. Thinking builds up inside this mind. It's a very disturbing habit on my end, but the only way I can really convince myself that things aren't bad is when they finally turn out right.
My advice is to get a nice, healthy obsession. Baseballs card, nanotechnology, building a rocket in your back yard, writing a novel, programming a videogame, I don't care.
Just so long as keeps your mind from dwelling too long on your problems.
Pretty much since Shuzak began. I've discovered life's path can change and branch off into something new just like that. Sometimes putting your mind on something too quickly will affect your and others significantly.
You can't predict the results of every action you take - do your best, and try to make the most of it with the decisions you can control.
So when does life truly begin? Is it when you get to experience living on your own or is it when you are finally happy with a family?
Your life began when you were born. Attempting to draw an arbitrary line and say 'life will being when I move out', or 'life will begin when I get the job' will simply prevent you from appreciating everything before then.
Thirdly, is trying to start new a good thing?
IT depends on whether you want to start over, and the effects that would have on those around you.
I'm afriad I can't help you with your legal problems, as it's not my area of expertise. Maybe try talking to a lawyer.
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That sounds like a reasonable system Poss.
In my opinion, it is unwise for children to have sex at much younger than fifteen or sixteen, but the best solution to this is sex eduction and parental involvement, not legislation.
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I have many healthy obsessions. Music, skateboarding, guitar, etc. But when life has been my number one obsession (interest) for a long time that's all I can think about.
Sounds like you need to keep yourself busy. Maybe try some exercises, they do wonders for clearing your head.
Which is the current predicament I'm in now. I predicted this apartment would turn out great. Now I'm in over my head. This is honestly the worst decision of my life.
Well, the good news is that you've got a lot of your life left to make much, much bigger mistakes. In the meantime though, I'd take soem of Poss's advice as to how to fix some of your financial woes.
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Yes, it's getting a tad annoying.
Keep In Touch - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Hello everyone.
I've had an interesting idea recently, and I was hoping I could get some of your opinions on it.
Essentially, my idea is as follows: create a working model of human neurons (by testing samples of brain tissue), and create simple pieces of code that emulate the tissue.
Then, take a high-resolution brain scan (an MRI maybe) and instruct the computer to create a series of bitmap images containing a single pixel for every brain cell.
Then, you would use an fMRI in order to record the brain activity during various simple cognitive processes (mathematical reasoning, emotional repsonses, pattern recognition, strong self-awareness, motor control, etc.).
The last step would be to add in recordings of behavior during these states, and use a neural network to fine-tune the patterns of pixel-neuron representation in order to exactly match the behavior of the person in question.
Then, when it is run, the compiler goes through and runs a copy of the neuron-simulation model for every pixel, tweaking it depending on the color value the pixel has come to via the evolutionary algorythm.
The largest problem would obviously be memories... what you'd get out of this emulation would be a functional copy of the person's though processes, but not their person memory.
The only way I can think of to upload memory would be to go through the painstaking process of running small jolts of electricity through each and every neuron in the memory cortex and recording the response. This would be time consuming, but not impossible.
This is still not a completely cleared up idea, and it may well be wildly implausible, but it looks to me like a good shot at uploading using current tech (except for the computing power required to run such a simulation, of course), so if anyone has any comments, ideas or suggestions, I'd welcome the input.
Cheers,
Ati
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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(my apologies, the original post contained an error.)
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I was actually thinking of using a set of listener electrodes to record impluses to record the impulses in the spinal column, then use a camera attached beside the eye to record the incoming impluses. Then you just tweak the model until it produces the same output to the spinal column (in reponse to the incoming signals) as the real brain does.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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IT might be worth a chuckle.
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Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: |
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I quite agree Valerio.
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Well, here's how I see it:
If someone gets this to work, and I, an average posthumanist consumer uses it once a week to back myself up, one of two things will happen:
1. I'll die unexpectedly, and according to my will and using a fund set aside, I will be ressurected from the model when computing power becomes cheap enough.
2. I'll survive for a another twenty or thirty years, at which point the neccesary computing power should be available for a few grand, accoridng to Moore's law, and I run several versions of my conciousness simultaneously.
Either way, I win.
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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I think your overestimating Poss.
The Blue Brain project emulated half of a mouse's brain (though lacking deep cortical structures), at 1/10 real time.
Assuming doubling computing power every year, in just a year they'll be able to do a whole brain for the same cost.
In two years, they'll be able to do two.
In three years four,
in four years eight, or roughly half of a human brain.
In five years sixteen, which is roughly on par with the size of a human brain.
Then on to 1/5 real time, then 1/2, then at real time.
8 years from now, and a project like the blue brain project can emulate a full human brain is real time.
And every year after it takes half the money of the year before - do you see why I make my predicitions as I do?
Cognitive Science - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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(h)erbs (not silent H, just very quiet)
or-ray-gah-no
bay-zil
Linguistics - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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pro-ses-ing
Day-ta
Linguistics - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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An absence of a thing has as much meaning as the thing being present - a one means as much as a zero.
That said, there are definite differences between ones and zero's, and there is a difeinite difference between total vacuum (if such a thing is possible) and a solid object.
Random Stuff - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 5 |
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...or a good cry.
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how do you plan to get them, that being the case?
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You're not joking.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I would certainly give myself up for two people - my life is not worth twice as much as anyone else's.
As for whether I could, the thought of my own death doesn't really scare me too much any more. I've believed myself about to die a number of time due to some unfortunate circumstances, and I think the odds are good of my being able to do it if I had a few moments to think about it and maybe set a few affairs in order.
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Actually, the first couple of time were on accident, and after that I joked around a bit, but I definitely didn't look at anyone's private Zacks, screw with their profiles, or seriously impersonate them.
When things malfunctioned, all you had to do is to visit another person's profile page, and from that moment onward, Shuzak thought that you were them.
It was most annoying, but I think most of the people around here were polite enough to keep their noses out of information that should be private.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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@Poss
I actually prefer
"The greatest mistake made by those attempting to make a thing completely foolproof, is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." - Douglas Adams, Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Mostly Harmless, Chapter Three (I think)
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I like stuff rare.
A little pink in the middle is fine - but if it's bleeding, that goes a little far for me.
Green Geeks - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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You know?
I don't actually have a position on this one yet.
Let me give it some thought and get back to you.
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I never realized up till now exactly how much I relied on the 'someone replied to me' function.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 4 |
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Darn you - you stole my joke!
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Well, I have given it some thought, and here are my views on the matter:
Basically, I do not think that any blanket age limit is simply not going to get the job done- it has to be decided on a case by case basis.
If two fifteen year olds want to have sex, I say let them, so long as they use a condom- I don't personally think it's a good idea, but calling it two sided rape is not the answer either.
On the other hand, if a sixty year old guy is trying to have sex with fifteen year old girl, obviously that is not okay.
Again, it has to be decided on a case by case basis.
There are a huge number of factors to consider (it is obviously a very complex and important issue), and while I do not claim to know what the solution is, an arbitrary age limit isn't it.
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Just so you folks know, this is a double post- most of the posts are in the one below.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Come to think of it, if the planet blew up, I'd likely go with it anyway. So if I'm going to die either way, might as well save everyone else if I can.
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I suppose that works.
As for my opinions on vehetarianism, I personally feel that the best way to stay healthy is to eat a certain ammount of meat, rather than trying to bootstrap it with certain assortments of vegetables. Our bodies are optimized to use a certain quantity of meat, and we have canines for a reason.
Also, I like bacon.
However, I make an effort to ensure that the meat I eat is from a s humane a facility as possible, and as soon as soneone comes up with a way to create a decent vat-grown side of bacon, I'll be their first customer
Green Geeks - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I've just been keeping a careful eye on new topics. It's still annoying not knowing if anyone replied to any of the older topics.
Man, I hope this gets fixed soon.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I'm saving up for a custom VR rig.
Three webcams for full body motion tracking, and three projectors for a panoramic view screen.
Maybe I
ll ad force feedbakc later as well. But this is all going to be rather costly, so it might be some time before I can afford it.
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For the game world, I'm writing custom software that uses DirectX 9 shading engine. Camera tracking is going to be much harder, and I'm still working on a pseudo-code piece to try and figure out how the heck I'm going to pull it off.
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Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: |
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1358 : 1817
Not really: you're a good 419 ahead of me. Man, I need to get on the stick here.
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Excellent idea, pocket protectors for the win!
What I'm thinking of for T-shirts is sort of a re-done Shuzak logo on the front, with a phrase of choice on the back.
Like "Shuzak: Geek is cool"
"Shuzak: We can all pass the Turing tes"
"Shuzak: Myspace, without all the idiots, emos, and spammers"
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Memories and personality are what make us human, are what make us distinct individuals.
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no, because they have memories and personality to loose if they die.
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Bascially, whenever a post comes up on how Shuzak is dying, it means we are abotu to come out of a recession.
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I like chamomile and mint.
(common taste I know)
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Thank you Poss, you made the point far better than I ever could.
It is not up to the government to decide what a woman can or cannot do with her body. It's not up to the state, it's not up to her family, or her parents, and it is sure as hell not up to the church.
It is, fundamentally, her decision, at every level. It is absolutely apalling to think that ANYONE has ANY right to dictate to her what she can or cannot do.
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Ati, do you still think that it is completely about the memories? Are the memories what make us what we are?
We are our memories and personality. Our personality is the way we interpret our world, and our memories are the things that give the present context, and which allow us to function.
A fetus has neither of these, and an anesthetized man has all of them. Do you see the distinction?
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The answer, if anything, is more Crisis Pregnancy Centers, more protection, birth control.
I am in favor of those things too. Abortions should preferably be performed as little as possible. However, in many cases, such as Poss's case, all of these things fail, and then what? That is where abortions are useful, and where the right to have a safe abortion becomes so valuable to a potential mother.
I truly do support a women's right to do what she wants with her body, but at the same time, I do not think that an embryo is part of her body, it is the embryo's own body.
Does not matter. The embryo still needs her body to continue to survive.
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Plenty of material!
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I'd like to know what would happen if one of those alien face huggers got onto him tho?
Probably nothing, as they seem to rely on the incubation properties of the human body, something that this guy would lack.
As for the mist, we do not know how large his working components are, so depening on the size and weight that might not be feasible.
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Great first post Rod.
'Free love' ticks me off too.
Also, what Redstart does not seem to understand is that marriage is an OPTIONAL contract. He doesn't have to marry- why take it away as an option for those who do want it?
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Well, is this involuntary euthasiana, or involuntary?
I have somewhat different opinions in both cases:
In the case of involuntary, in which a person has come to a point at which they have no higher brain function, and are incapable of caring about their own demise (as in the Terry Schaivo case) then I believe that it should be left up to any wishes expressed before death, or failing that, the wishes of the spouse or family.
In the case of the voluntary, If the person is merely depressed, then anti-depressents and psychological therapy should definitely be tried. If, however, the patient is in severe pain and has decided without being clinically depressed that life is no longer worth living, and there is nothing that can be done about it, then yes, I believe that patients wishes should be respected in this case.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 4 |
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Scrunch. It takes less time than folding, and it doesn't actually matter once it hits the sewer system.
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In the event of my turning into a vegetable, assuming no total brain damage, I'd want cryonics if possible. If that's impossible, just do whatever you can- just soak my brain in cryonics anti-freeze and stuff it in a chest freezer if you have to. Even if its to badly damaged for them to upload, it'll make a nice suprise for my descendants...
As for pain, I say that yes, in some cases pain can be overcome, but in some cases it is also unreasonable to expect a patient to do so, and the decision should be left up to the patient.
And yes, making suicide a crime is to me one of the greatest ironies the human race has ever conceived.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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Actually, I want a terminator Slinky as well...
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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They are some good ideas, if we knew anyone who could actually draw...
Oh wait. Yeah. Him...
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I don't go to too much trouble to avoid germs: my immune system needs the practice anyway.
I also don't usually use antibiotics when do I get sick, to improve my odds of surviving one of the superbugs.
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When I joined there was a lot of old stuff, but I read through all of that fairly quickly.
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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Okay Zen, but don't come crying to me when you start seeing school textbooks written in 1337...
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I'm afraid I disagree:
humans are certainly better at getting around than tanks, but they are far from the optimal body type.
Military Technology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Ttly.
Nocturnals - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I would agree, except that I would say that if a person wants to commit suicide for no obvious reason (i.e. not in severe pain, or completely paralyzed, etc.) then their friends and family have an obligation to try and help them out of whatever has led them to this sad state of affairs. Criminalizing it is more than a tad absurd, but self destruction is rarely a carefully and rationally considered course of action.
Philosophy - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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oh?
C programming - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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*reloads*
*points gun at suspiciously hominid tree*
*lines up scope perfectly*
*fires*
Late Night TV :D - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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I know this guy who is a great artist, and who does really fantastic drawings, but he's a tad... odd.
Most of the stuff he draws are demons, or monsters from some grim nightmare.
It would make and interesting webcomic though...
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I think a spider-type body might be more efficient for combat than a humans though:
they're fast, maneuverable, very hard to trip, etc.
Military Technology - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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*curses*
*jumps onto roof of Hello's car*
*falls and rolls to back, but grabs hold of rear windshield wipers*
*gets to feet*
*empties clip into roof*
*reloads*
Late Night TV :D - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 3 |
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I'll look into it.
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The only time i'd use anti-biotics is if my life or long-term health is in danger, otherwise I figure my body can deal with it.
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Yikes.
Religious Theory - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I agree that marriage is nto something to be taken lightly, but I do think that in some cases it is a good thing, and should be left open as an option for those who want it.
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True.
Suggest Shuzak! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I meant how large the nano-bots were.
As for fighting other T-1000, I think that the best thing to do would be to just jumpt right onto him and try to destroy his nano-components one at a time.
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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It would probably depend on the type of acid.
Come to think of it, I wonder how they handle oxidation? They almost have to have SOME iron components in them somewhere.
What about other forms of molecular decay- do they have nano-assemblers inside of them to eat and repair damaged tissue?
If so, then why not just eat a chunk of matter in order to increase their mass. Come to think of it, why not just get close to their target and turn themselves into grey goo?
Epic Hero Battles! - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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I loathe spinach.
As for meat, I'll eat it, so long as its relatively fresh... I went to this fried chicken resteraunt recently, and that place smelled like death. The whole place stunk of rotten meat, and several of the pieces of chicken showed signs of having had severe necrosis prior to cooking.
Man, that was nasty.
Green Geeks - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 2 |
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I'd like to be able to access my zackbook (but not my private messages) while not logged in - I often surf Shuzak from my smartphone, and the login page doe not work from my phone.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Actually, I agree that guests sending Zaks is a bad idea.
Guests being able to VIEW public Zaks, on the other hand, is a good idea, although others might disagree.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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Well, no nuclear country has been stupid enough to ignore mutually assured destruction... yet.
Say what you will about Russia, it likes to exist, and that makes it safe. It's really the theocracies that you have to watch out for - it's all too easy for one of them to decide that it's worth all of their lives to do god's work and punish the infidels...
Frankly, Israel scares the hell out of me too.
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Nah, chat is off limits for guests.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I would.
It is part of my personal morality not to consider my own life of significantly more abstract value than anyone else's, so from that perspective this is a no-brainer: kill one person, save six-odd billion.
However, I would not think the less of another person because they refused to.
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Fingers dutifully crossed.
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 1 |
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erm...
Shuzak Current Affairs - Posted By Ati - Karma received: 0 |
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I don't havean MP3 player, but I use my smartphone for the same purpose.
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