Slashdot Mirror

On this CD's product page, there are several negative reviews on account of spyware. My favorite puts into plain English why this is bad: "I am very unhappy, since I now listen to all of my music using my IPod."

I think this is the way to fight DRM. When we complain about DRM rights, we're fighting a crusade on principle, and few people really get what's wrong. When you say, "This CD that I paid for can't be transferred to my iPod," people will see that it's outrageous. When people see that it's installing spyware on your computer, they'll flip. Cheers to whoever's left this feedback.

You need to read "The World is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman.

California minimum wage laws don't apply in India! Even if the company hiring them is in California.

I don't like outsourcing anymore than you do, and it is the primary reason I boycott Walmart, but it is what it is.

I commend you for being passionate about it and trying to do something about it. But you won't change the nature of outsourcing. You can avoid it, boycott it, and discourage it, but personally I don't think you can change it.

Thomas L. Friedman hits the nail right on the head, and America needs a boot to the head if we're going to survive the new transition.

Otherwise we'll end up just like stage coaches or any other industry that failed to adapt and tried to hang on to old models.

Save yourself SEVENTEEN BUCKS ($17!) by buying the book here: The Definitive Guide to MySQL 5. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Save yourself SEVENTEEN BUCKS ($17!) by buying the book here: The Definitive Guide to MySQL 5. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

How is it a good deal? DVD for the complete first season of Lost: at Amazon. According to the details for the DVD, that's 24 episodes. 24 * $1.99 = $47.76. So you're paying more for the privilege of downloading episodes the day after they air, instead of waiting for the DVD to come out.

Not only that, but the episodes you download are 320x200, much less than DVD res. Plus, you don't get all the extras like the commentaries.

I think it's great that they're offering the episodes to download, but no way that's a "good deal." I'd be all over it if it cost me $0.50 or less, but $1.99 is way, waaay too much.

The Zombie Survival Guide : Complete Protection from the Living Dead http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1400 049628/qid=1130790887/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-2770 054-9448651?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Since you mention Red, about 40 (probably a lot more). This book is a pretty good look at the way something like Red changed over time and telling.

_An Introduction to Database Systems_ by C.J. Date.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0321 197844/qid=1130779484/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-1718 741-7424931?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

I think that the greatest thing Date ever said was, 'The principles of database design are nothing more than formalized common sense.'

You might try some university-level database books. The advantage there is that they tend to concentrate on the underlying principals rather than any particular database implementation. Since you already know the syntax of the database you want to work with, you should be able to apply whatever you learn in the book to what you're actually doing.

The textbook they used in my "Database 101" class is still available on Amazon. It's ok. I suppose it's probably about average.

Title = Database Design, Application & Administration
Author = Maminno
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0072 880678/103-4666631-1635844?n=507846

If there is a university close to where you live, you might also try going to their bookstore and looking at the used books they have.

Just stay away from those, "Learn Microsoft SQL Server 2005 in 21 days" books. That's the trap many people fall into. You don't want to learn a particular implementation. You want to learn normalization. I promise you, it will make your life easier in the long run. Normalization is to database design what goto-less programming is to programming. When you start programming, you do it on your own and you learn bad habbits, like using gotos all over the place. Then one day you sit down with a book, not a "C" book or a "Java" book, but a programming book, and that's when you really learn. Same here. You want to learn design and normalization.

good luck. I think it's good that you're motivated to do this.

Then you better get this book as well!

Only $10.36 at Amazon.
As for the movie.. don't get too exicted about Reno 911's creators writing it. Ben Garant is most recently responsible for such "greats" as Taxi and Herbie: Fully Loaded...

Nah; assuming that was a The Sneeze page, that was perfectly targetted (it always has ads for uh... slightly weird things. At the moment it's giving me "Elk Carcass").

If you want a very good book about Apple up to the time of Sculley and Jobs' early years try to get hold of The Journey is the Reward by Jeffery Young. West of Eden, the End of Innocence at Apple Computer by Frank Rose is also another good book at this time. Oh, and if you want a laff read Sculley's book Odyssey - a more talentless f*ck and bigger blowhard you could not wish to hire to ruin your business, the guy obviously only made it by marrying the boss's daughter. Sculley is all that is wrong with corporate America. The book must rank with "The Road Ahead" as the deranged ramblings of someone who just didn't get it. :-)

If you want a very good book about Apple up to the time of Sculley and Jobs' early years try to get hold of The Journey is the Reward by Jeffery Young. West of Eden, the End of Innocence at Apple Computer by Frank Rose is also another good book at this time. Oh, and if you want a laff read Sculley's book Odyssey - a more talentless f*ck and bigger blowhard you could not wish to hire to ruin your business, the guy obviously only made it by marrying the boss's daughter. Sculley is all that is wrong with corporate America. The book must rank with "The Road Ahead" as the deranged ramblings of someone who just didn't get it. :-)

If you want a very good book about Apple up to the time of Sculley and Jobs' early years try to get hold of The Journey is the Reward by Jeffery Young. West of Eden, the End of Innocence at Apple Computer by Frank Rose is also another good book at this time. Oh, and if you want a laff read Sculley's book Odyssey - a more talentless f*ck and bigger blowhard you could not wish to hire to ruin your business, the guy obviously only made it by marrying the boss's daughter. Sculley is all that is wrong with corporate America. The book must rank with "The Road Ahead" as the deranged ramblings of someone who just didn't get it. :-)

we don't even have a concrete scientific definition of intelligence. So then how can "intelligent design" even be a topic of discussion?

This is one of my favorite points to make in this context. Not only is there no theory of intelligence, there is no theory of design. Complex functional and useful artifacts almost never spring from the minds of inventors complete and working, they are typically the products of many people working over many years, making and testing incremental changes- one interesting theory of innovation suggests that evolution may be one of the best analogies- check out The Evolution of Technology (my notes here).

It's funny because I think the source of the whole issue is a result of the industrial revolution, followed by advances in biology which too often used the 'machine' analogy when explaining biological processes. Religious types hope to advance their beliefs by observing that humans are intelligent, humans make machines, humans are like machines (though with a supernatural 'soul' making Free Will command decisions from behind the curtain), therefore something intelligent made humans. The reaction is happening now in this form because now science has basically unlocked all the major mysteries of life as we observe it now except for those of intelligence, the last front of the 'god of the gaps'- and since we don't have perfect records of the history of life/time-machines, deep history is a weak spot that can be assaulted in order to carve out a space for the interventions of the intelligent designer/s.

What is really humorous about the bottom line of the ID/Creationism argument is their argument that they have a theory that is more plausible than evolutionary scientist's. If you take two universes, one in which life sprang out of raw materials and evolved to sentience, and one in which a God created intelligent life in-situ, the first universe is one more worthy of awe than the second, because it is less likely or even impossible by the arguments of the ID/Creationists! Any old God can make his own complex multi-cellular organisms in Its image, but a universe that bootstraps itself up to having sentience is truly impressive.

I haven't seen the box you mention, but the cheapest in-print Our Gang DVD listed on Amazon has a MSRP of $4.95.

ID proponents show, using scientific, philosophical and logical means, that the chances that abigenesis and macroevolution are the cause of life are just too miniscule to believe. Applying Occam's Razor, a creator of some sort (strict ID does not suggest who the creator might be) is the obvious conclusion.

For a good discussion of ID, check out this book: The Privileged Planet

Looney Tunes. They're old, and I don't think they are regularly broadcast anywhere.

Funny thing about Looney Tunes, they have been available for years on DVD. So it was a simple job over the last few years to rip them to a video Archos and enjoy them, Or on a Treo. Or a phone. Or a PSP. I'm sorry for so many people that it's taken the iPod so long to finally get some kind of video playback. Portable cartoons rule. It's nice having complete runs of Simpsons and Futurama ready to go at the click of a button...

Have you ever read the Larry Niven & Stephen Barnes short story "The Locusts"? It's in Limits which is one of his better collections.

The premise is similar, but it takes it a bit further (if you haven't read it I don't want to spoil it for you...)

-David

Your claim that it's "not worth it" runs directly counter to the example presented: these are NOT clearout sales on stuff that's going out of print, that's the MSRP on many of these DVDs. Dual Sided discs and insanely cheap packaging are our friends in this case, and if it wasn't worth it to the manufacturer, they wouldn't be doing it. For those who've never been in Walmart, he's not exaggerating, you can seriously go into a bargain bin and find an entire seasons of, for example, Abbott and Costello's TV series or the Little Rascals, for $1US.

Here's the Amazon link to Little Rascals volume 1. MSRP is $14.95. The cheapest Little Rascals disk listed on Amazon is $4.95 MSRP. There are a number of out of print Little Rascal's collections, some of which can be had at lower prices.

that thing is too odd for me, i prefer the previous generation Trackman Marble. much more ergonomic, i have never had any wrist problems with it, and i can sit at my computer for several hours playing Civilisation without ever having any discomfort in my right hand.
i'll be dead and 6' below ground before you'll pry this mouse from my hands, hell, you just might have to bury me with it
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004L8IG/002-04 25879-7990434?v=glance&n=172282&v=glance

I read about this same technology in this series. Could his predictions finally be coming true?

You've made the mistake of assuming that what's good for you is good for everyone.

I suffer from tendinits in my wrist. If I use a mouse the way you describe, I'll be in pain within minutes. If I keep it up all day, I won't be working for at least a week. On the other hand, I have a co-worker who has elbow and shoulder problems. He uses and loves a Logictech Marble Mouse, which is used by moving the fingertips as you describe.

I don't have anything to back this up, but I get the impression that wrist pain is much more common than shoulder pain. In most cases, shoulder pain related to mouse/keyboard use can be helped by getting a chair which can be adjusted to support the elbows.

In fact, This one is very timely and informative. Horace Feeland Judson demonstrated in this book that fraud in science is nothing new. Even "great" and classic experiments have been the subject of fraud.

What is new here are the pressures since WWII in the academic world to get results. Some major cases of fraud were so egregious that these people would have to have been writing papers every two or three days on average --for periods of years. Nobody is that productive.

It's sad that MIT had to make such a discovery. Worse still is knowing that such fakery exists and doing nothing about it. Judson found more than a few institutions, many in the US, but even more world wide, where such things were covered up instead of dealt with.

Sorry, but I've been repeatedly smacking my head against a table while reading the comments. It is a fact that there are just as many people who believe evolution is true that have a misunderstanding of intelligent design as there are people who believe creation is true and misunderstand evolution. I have two major issues here...

1) Evolution is a very large topic. In this sort of discussion, people often ambiguate its meaning. On a micro level, it is indisputable. Virii mutate. This is undisputed by intelligent design advocates, creationists, etc. However, the mutations that occur within virii are very different from what is more largely claimed on a macro level. We have evidence that virii mutate, becoming immune to certain vaccines, etc. What we do not have is any inter-species mutations that cause anything other than death. This point is often glossed over, but is important all the same.

2) Intelligent design isn't about teaching Genesis in classrooms (though some people try using it to do such). It's about properly interpretting data. You can, reasonably, look at a complex biological system and come to the conclusion that it evolved via nature selection and random mutations just as well as you could examine it and come to the conclusion that it was designed. Same data. Different conclusions. Intelligent design argues that it is more probable that an intelligence designed the system based upon what we know about complex systems (see The Design Inference by William Dembski, Cambridge University Press).


I have one last illustration regarding much of the frustration that drives the intelligent movement that you brought up quite nicely.

You say:
It's hard to argue against natural selection, since we see it all around us, from the famous moth study to drug resistant microbes.

The "famous spotted moth study" you refer to has been shown to be a fraud (see Nature, vol. 396, November 5, 1998, pp. 35,36). Oftentimes the tension isn't so much with the scientists doing the research, but the way in which "science" is taught to students. Go out and check any biology textbook. You will find the spotted moth used as an example of natural selection in action. "Proof." As we all know, new editions of these textbooks are printed practically every year, so this isn't a matter of old editions being outdated. Textbooks with 2005 publication dates are using examples that have been proven to be fraudulent. Neither the scientific, nor the academic community seems to care. They don't bother to point out that said example is a fraud in class. Many professors gloss over it because "evolution is proven, after all." Proven. So how do the little details matter? Well, that's what the intelligent design movement is about--the devil is often in the details.

Don't want to believe in a designer? Fine. But believe in academic honesty and original thought. Sticking to the facts in textbooks and admitting that there are biases and philosophic pre-suppositions being used, regardless of background or belief, would go far to easing the tension that exists currently. If sticking to the facts and having academic honesty is anti-science, I'm all for it. But last time I checked, that was what science was supposed to be all about.

So with that grain of salt, I think we are farther along that you think.

Except for the duration of travel, the Moon is a harsher mistress than Mars. It's colder at night, hotter in the day, less gravity while you're staying there, the long night will be killer on any scenario that tries to use solar power or batteries, and the radiation is worse due to no atmosphere or magnetic shield whatsoever. As to the dust both of our Viking landers lived though dust storms on Mars and survived unscathed.

We already have the technology to cross space and land on another body; that's old hat. The only trick with Mars is getting enough provisions along for the ride; food, fuel, water, air. Those are funding and coordination issues, not new technology and research issues. We could leave for Mars in five years if we had the political will power and funding. We just need a big man-rated launcher again and NASA is finally working on that.

hard vacuum - Apollo dealt with that.
weightlessness - string out a tether, capsule at one end, some equal mass at the other, spin at appropriate speed and presto, one gravity while enroute.
cosmic and solar flare radiation - minimal shielding in flight, their cancer risk goes up about 1% over their lifetime after a two year trip.
cold - Apollo dealt with that.
heat - Apollo dealt with that.
energy (our own) - If you are referring to electricity, take a small nuclear plant, we do it for subs, for space probes, for satellites - its not mystery science.

If you are talking about human energy to last through the mission, well, that's a question. My guess is that it won't be an issue with the right personality type. They will still be able to be in contact with Earth via radio, Internet (bluetooth 3.0 has a realllly long range... :), etc. I mean, how many guys on slashdot go for years with nothing but a computer, the internet and porn? Just don't send a neat freak with a slob. And I think that an all male, heterosexual crew is the only way to go. But I'm not a sociologist either....

I really think that we are ready to go, we just need a friendly Queen to finance us. Wouldn't it be cool if Queen Elizabeth II browses slashdot? :)

If you want a great book on the subject, read The Case for Mars by Robert Zubrin. It's a great book, discusses all of this, specifically in chapter 5 - 'Killing the Dragons'.

For the few of the who actually RTFA I would suggest taking extreme care. The article makes many false statements about the undead hoards and may lead some into the false idea that they were prepared for a zombie outbreak. For the record, a Zombie is a corpse which has been infected with the virus Solanum. The bites are infact 100% contagous. The rough time from a bite to full transformation is 15 hours, although this varies based on how close to a major vein or artery the bite occured. The bite leads to apparent death, followed by rising no more than 2 minutes after initial death.
A zombie can only be stopped by destroying the brain. This is usuallly accomplished through the use of a bullet. Fire can effectively destroy the brain- however be aware that setting a zombie on fire is not a sure thing, often times the fire will go out before destroying the brain, and in the mean time the flaming zombies will catch fire to the surrounding areas. .22 caliber bullets are often rarely effective for fighting zombies as they lack the power to penetrate a skull from a distance. Air rifles are useless. Shotguns are often ineffective as they spread the blast over a large area. If you find yourself in the midsts of a zombie outbreak also be sure to avoid fully automatic weapons. It only takes 1 bullet to the brain to stop a zombie, and a fully automatic weapon can encourage the wasting of bullets. The sound will also have a tendancy to draw the undead from the surrounding areas. Often times a blade such as a sholin spade or a sword can be highly effective. A blade never needs to be reloaded.
A few more tips should a zombie outbreak occur:
Always be prepared, stay in good physical condition and keep a supply of food, water, medical supplys and weapons on hand.
In a zombie outbreak other humans may be as or more dangerous than the undead.
Should people start evacuation you would be better off to wait until the roads have had a chance to clear if you are going to be using a vehicle, however using an automobile is often a poor way to travel when a zombie outbreak occurs as you will likely find streets block and lacker manuverability. Dirt bikes can be useful in helping you speed away off road but the sound can draw in zombies and they require gas. Your best option is a bicycle.
For more information read The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks(Link is not a referer link).

In order to prepare for a zombie attack one needs two things: The Zombie Survival Guide, and of course, a holy symbol. Or is that vampires that need a holy symbol? Anyway, I've got my Jewish star ready!

If you read The Origin of Species, you'll find that Darwin proposed several causes of evolution in addition to natural selection. Some of those causes, like sexual selection, have survived the test of time, while others, such as his acceptance of Lamarck's selection of acquired characteristics, have been disproven.

Evolutionary biology has come a long way since Darwin's time, of course, and we've found that other causes such as genetic drift are quite important. If you read a modern book on evolutionary biology, such as Jerry Coyne's Speciation , you'll find a broad coverage of many causes of evolution.

Mandatory reference

Please study the list for atleast 10 full minutes ( assuming pop culture hasn't numbed your attention span:) and its clear movies haven't grown complex, not by a long shot.

Take the top 10 in that list. Other than LOTR & maybe starwars, the rest are straightforward good-vs-evil narratives.

Ok, take the top 25. You have memento & usual suspects...both are an example more of puzzle/trickery than true complexity.

Take the top 50...you now add Matrix & Eternal Sunshine...two examples of, forgive me, pretentious complexity as opposed to being genuinely complex.

On to the top 100...

I'd wager that truly complex films won't do well on the box office.
Simpler motifs are more compelling.
Why ?
Because narratives mirror human life.
Human life is primarily about
1.ambition
2.rejection
3.acceptance
4.mortality

You can play combinatorics with above 4 plotpoints to get finite set of 3-acts & those would translate to premises. You then construct characters to advocate said premises, such characters would then lead to conflict,lo & behold...drama!
Ingredients have always been the same Pemise->Character->Conflict.
For a forceful primer on why this is so, study Lajos Egri, for example.

Film has a roughly 106 year old history at this point. We're still dealing with the same stock naratives, and a 106 years later, unless the species have evolved to some higher ethereal plane, we'll deal with the same narratives.

Ofcourse Joe becomes Neo to keep up with pop culture...thats as far as complexity goes.

What has changed is the phenomenal growth of meta.
50 years ago, you forgot about the outside world & watch a flick & walk out mesmerized by the characters & the narrative. Now, nobody cares about the characters as much as which star is playing the character, whom he's sleeping with, whats the size of his paycheck, where's the film's blog, what did the director say on Jon Stewart's show, hey did you see the trailer on Charlie Rose, did you hear that joke on Jay Leno, Larry King,...so much meta-info.

Gimme the first & last name of the character played by Tom Cruise in Speilberg's WOTW ?
Who cares ? It was a Tom Cruise flick, made for the studio average of $120+ million, probably made twice as much on the box, had cool cgi, ...more complex ? Certainly not. Good guy Cruise saves planet from bad guy Martians...so whats new ?

Save yourself more than THREE BUCKS by buying it here: Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter . And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Save yourself more than THREE BUCKS by buying it here: Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter . And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

i still find Herbert Gans' Popular Culture and High Culture to hold excellent arguments and recommend it for anyone interested in the broad scope of this discussion.

(no referral code in amazon.com link, i promise)

In that book, folks would ask him about "healing crystals" and many other things both religious and "New Age". His response was something to the affect of "...there's no data that supports that belief." I found that response to be respectful to the person asking and at the same time putting forth that idea that maybe they should question their own beliefs. Of course, there's always going to be people who are completely happy relying on faith. I have no problem with that as long as they don't legislate their beliefs on everyone else.

I always thought Bellwether was her best book. The insight into what it takes to make a breakthrough in science impresses me to this day.

You're just saying "The Bible isn't condoning violence, it's the people in the Bible who are condoning violence".

Actually, I'm saying nothing of the sort. I'm saying that the example you gave is an example of someone venting their frustrations. Have you ever gotten angry at a sibling or friend and yelled, "If I catch you, I'm gonna kill you?" Were you really going to kill them? Perhaps you felt like smashing a few kneecaps, but did you do so?

That argument is worthless, because you can used for video games, movies, books and anything else. It's not the movie that condones violence. It's the characters in it!

Really? So let's interpret classic literature, shall we? According to your logic, the "Scarlet Letter" promotes both wedlock and cruel and unusual punishments, Robin Hood promtes oppression of the people and extreme taxation, the House of Seven Gables promotes cheating old men out of their lifetime homes, Hamlet promotes sucide, and To Kill a Mockingbird promotes domestic violence and rape. Is that the point you're attempting to make? Because that is where your logic leads.

The problem is that you're confusing literary devices with the real world. Protagonism and Antagonism (the so-called good-guys and bad-guys) are devices used by an author to help the reader understand the situation without going into long histories that explain how everyone ended up in their current position. You have the good guy on one side (who usually can do no wrong) and the bad guy on the other (who usually does nothing *but* wrong). They duke it out, and you root for the good guy the whole time.

Unfortunately, life doesn't always work that way. We're talking about a book that documents 3000-4000 years of very real history. Just because a few jews in captivity wanted to see the Babylonians burn doesn't mean that all their decendents do. I'm sure quite a few Americans wanted to see Russia nuked at one point, but wouldn't dream of it in this day in age. The point is that the events happened, and denying them does nothing but harm everyone. For example, Peter could have helpfully ommitted his cowardice in the face of Jesus' death (i.e. You shall deny me three times) when he wrote his book of the Bible. He didn't. Why do you think that is?

But if you really can't handle the complexities of real life as presented in book form, then may I suggest that you either improve yourself by attending a few Literary classes? Otherwise you might want to stick to the pre-chewed versions.

L Frank Baum's universe is quite ethically and morally complicated; a fact that is made full use of in the recent novel Wicked. (Not one of my favorites, but that's neither here nor there.) In taking a story from Baum's long-running series out of context and transforming it into a screenplay, a great deal gets lost. It seems to me that Baum wanted us, at least as adults, to think about the kinds of things that concern you.

That said, the Wicked Witch of the West is clearly not a nice person, nor a mentally stable one. She spends a lot of time trying to kill a child for the high crime of happening to be inside the house that fell on her sister. The rightful ownership of the ruby slippers is an interesting question, but I think we can safely guess that the Witch would not have used the magic power of the slippers to send Dorothy home and restore all Oz to peace, joy, and prosperity. The Witch died, after all, as an inadvertent result of setting Dorothy's highly flammable friend on fire. I'm OK with that.

You can buy the games here: Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow and Trauma Center: Under the Knife. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

You can buy the games here: Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow and Trauma Center: Under the Knife. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

You can buy the games here: Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow and Trauma Center: Under the Knife. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Unfortunately with political correctness becoming the norm, I don't see things like this not happening. Anti smoking advocates already scream if a movie shows a "good guy" smoking. How hard would it be to start protesting old movies that contain positive images of smoking?

The above recalled Rudy Rucker's early, first(?) novel Software. The plot carries your idea along the following lines:

"Cobb Anderson created the "boppers," sentient robots that overthrew their human overlords. But now Cobb is just an aging alcoholic waiting to die, and the big boppers are threatening to absorb all of the little boppers--and eventually every human--into a giant, melded consciousness. Some of the little boppers aren't too keen on the idea, and a full-scale robot revolt is underway on the moon (where the boppers live). Meanwhile, bopper Ralph Numbers wants to give Cobb immortality by letting a big bopper slice up his brain and tape his "software." It seems like a good idea to Cobb."

Rucker's background gave him more insight into the idea of mapping consciousness than "Dixie Flatline's construct" William Gibson came up with.

The ideas propagated in epistemology, (as it refers to the theory of knowledge not the methodology of science), have eaten up big chunks of my time since my mid teens. Presently I'm trying to come a working definition of information, more so in the context of entropy and negentropy, as it applies to life. The going has been slow. Recently I've read through quite a bit of Complexity theory (Santa Fe Institute, S. Kaufman et al) and am poking around at ideas of memory and attractor basins. The same old story the more I learn, the less I know. We, as sentient beings, seem to need to relate through stories and broad context. Factor in Antonio Damasio's work on the importance of emotion in knowing and decision making, and, the idea of modelling consciousness becomes, to me, presently impossible.

cheers, thanks for the input.

The above recalled Rudy Rucker's early, first(?) novel Software. The plot carries your idea along the following lines:

"Cobb Anderson created the "boppers," sentient robots that overthrew their human overlords. But now Cobb is just an aging alcoholic waiting to die, and the big boppers are threatening to absorb all of the little boppers--and eventually every human--into a giant, melded consciousness. Some of the little boppers aren't too keen on the idea, and a full-scale robot revolt is underway on the moon (where the boppers live). Meanwhile, bopper Ralph Numbers wants to give Cobb immortality by letting a big bopper slice up his brain and tape his "software." It seems like a good idea to Cobb."

Rucker's background gave him more insight into the idea of mapping consciousness than "Dixie Flatline's construct" William Gibson came up with.

The ideas propagated in epistemology, (as it refers to the theory of knowledge not the methodology of science), have eaten up big chunks of my time since my mid teens. Presently I'm trying to come a working definition of information, more so in the context of entropy and negentropy, as it applies to life. The going has been slow. Recently I've read through quite a bit of Complexity theory (Santa Fe Institute, S. Kaufman et al) and am poking around at ideas of memory and attractor basins. The same old story the more I learn, the less I know. We, as sentient beings, seem to need to relate through stories and broad context. Factor in Antonio Damasio's work on the importance of emotion in knowing and decision making, and, the idea of modelling consciousness becomes, to me, presently impossible.

cheers, thanks for the input.

Maybe using something like Vista since this city is heavy on the medical community. e.g. hospitals, doctors offices, even universities (UIPUI, Butler). Any advice on getting started?

The medical community is very difficult to break into (and becoming increasingly so), due to regulatory factors that impact IT vendor selection like HIPAA. IT sales to publically-traded companies are becoming more difficult due to Sarbanes Oxley audit and compliance requirements that get applied to the vendor. You will be expected to have healthy financials, bear the cost of having them audited, and may be expected to have undergone a recent SAS-70 audit to qualify as a technology service provider.

Over the past dozen years, the tech industry has quickly raised barriers to entry to keep startups out and the most effective approach is to limit qualification to only established and financially healthy vendors. Sadly, it just isn't realistic to break out with a better mousetrap in healthcare, banking or most major corporations for this reason. Then again, some would argue that healthcare or banking are terrible places for the experimentation of untested, bleeding edge IT products. Better to prove them out in markets that are tolerant of their rough edges, get them worked out and then move up into more risk-averse markets.

That said, I'd suggest you look for markets that don't have these regulatory requirements if your startup is to have a chance. I'd also avoid markets that suffer from buyers that expect a ton of perks like free training at exotic vacation destinations (e.g. the week-long Disney World trip with about 4 hours of real training), tons of free ancillary software and other expensive bribes to swing the buyer's decision your way. You'll have difficulty as a startup competing in this kind of market, where your competition will wow the customer with three times the useless sales critters, send the customer's techies to an exotic location for training for a week, and stick the customer with an outrageous bill for an outdated solution. You'd think people would make rational decisions and buy your better product, but at least half the buyers I've encountered probably would take the personal gifts (they're probably looking for another job anyway and a free Disney trip would be a nice way to conclude their career at the company).

If you want more ideas or have any aspirations of launching a tech startup, get your hands on Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Solution - this is a must read (and a good start to his books).

*scoove*

I think this entire subject needs to be prefaced with a discussion about Peak Oil. Several books have been written about the impending energy crisis, most notably, Beyond Oil : The View from Hubbert's Peak.

What really interests me is the usual human nature reaction to this. Government, business and the public at large seem to think that their "wish", that things continue as they always have continued, will ensure a continued cheap and easy to access energy supply.

Sure, Coal and Nuclear can and probably will supply our forseeable electrical needs, but what about transportation? Jet fuel, overseas shipping, etc?

Universal Common Ancestry was widely believed even before Darwin's grandfather. Darwin's was not bold in saying that there was common ancestry, but instead that all the transformations that were accomplished happened without any notion of purpose or looking ahead.

Darwin did hold some Lamarckian ideas, but still beleived that the direction that the change took place was not purposed either by the organism nor by a creator, but instead that many directions were taken within a population, and the successful ones were kept.

What's really interesting is that Mendel actually used his experiments as a refutation of transformism.

Current biology is actually moving away from both Darwin and the neo-Darwinian synthesis. Shapiro has a good overview:

http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/21st_Cent_View_Evo l.html

Basically, the idea of a passive cell and a passive genome is going towards a much more Lamarckian idea of an active cell and active genome, making purposeful changes. Another good read on the subject is Evolution in Four Dimensions:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262101076/ freeeducation-20/

You can buy the game here: Sid Meier's Civilization IV Presell Edition. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

You can buy the game here: Sid Meier's Civilization IV Presell Edition. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!