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Older people can come to believe their own lies. New research shows that within an hour of telling a falsehood, seniors may think it's the truth.

But he’s not even defending it in a way that makes sense. Not even the Rust developers claim there are no runtime checks.

Subscripts start at zero, like in most programming languages, so the first name is names[0] and the second name is names[1]. The above example prints The second name is: Brian. If you try to use a subscript that is not in the array, you will get an error: array access is bounds-checked at run-time. Such errant access is the source of many bugs in other systems programming languages.

Emphasis added.

http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~cs...

When on the drugs the Lempel-Ziv (LZ) complexity score was higher, but the paper also states:
"Since the value of LZc (also LZs) for a binary sequence of fixed length is maximal if the sequence is entirely random, the normalized values indicate the level of signal diversity on a scale from 0 to 1."
In other words, higher LZ means more random. However, "true" complexity does not increase monotonically with randomness. In fact, they have an inverted U relationship, where past a certain point, complexity _decreases_ with increasing randomness. For example, see Figure 2 on this page:
http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~pa...
I would argue that consciousness if far more likely to relate to this type of "true" complexity rather than the uncompressability expressed by LZ.

Google broken for you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...

http://council.brandeis.edu/

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hsrinfo...

You should go talk to Intel or AMD about your opinions on the matter, because I assure you that the specific layout of their chips is based on machine learning algorithms. No human can realistically optimize circuits containing a billion transistors.

As a matter of fact, I recall genetic algorithms being thrown at rather small circuit design problems and producing solutions that were better than any human had come up with. Ah yes, here it is: Sorting networks and the END search algorithm.

-- "Even a 25-year old result for the upper bound on the number of comparators for the 13-input case has been improved by one comparator"

not only that but corn and wheat would benefit exactly the same as the dandelions. guess you didn't really think your statement through.

Well if that's the case I hope we can shut down the Dept. of Health and Human Services along with the Social Security administration, both of which fall far outside the scope of what the framers intended, and combined account for over $1.3 Trillion of the $2.8 Trillion 2007 federal budget.

Well, the Constitution should be interpreted based on its text, not by what we think the framers intended. The framers themselves were opposed to that notion. As Madison put it, "As a guide in expounding and applying the provisions of the Constitution, the debates and incidental decisions of the Convention can have no authoritative character." It's why the records of the proceedings of the Convention were not published until long afterward.

Anyway. There is a little bit of wiggle room in Article I Section's grant of power "to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States"; I'm willing to consider that this gives the fed broad powers to buy goods and services on behalf of the nation, though block grants to states to run their own programs might be better.

There were 133,092,565 tax returns filed last year, which means if we shut down HHS and SSA each and every taxpayer could be refunded $9,768.00. Think you can fund your own health care insurance and retirement with $10k per year?

You do understand that with progressive taxation, people with lower incomes benefit less from tax breaks, right? I certainly would not get a check for $10k.

1. These dots have four arms.
2. Four arms is an odd number to have.
3. The only number that is both even and odd is infinity.
4. Therefore, these dots really have infinite numbers of arms!

hat tip

• Adam B. Jaffe
• Suzanne Michel
• Mark B. Myers
• Daniel B. Ravicher

Nope, now she's at Brandeis University. Check it out: here or here.

Might be something like this actually

http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~zippy

"I work at Applied Minds with Danny Hillis, Kurt Bollacker, and a bunch of other cool people."

Apple has always supported SCSI, so those options are all available, AFAIK. Including Amanda. From comments on that page, the inconvenience with traditional UNIX archive tools on OS X is generally that they haven't handled resource forks and Finder info - which is where Retrospect comes in (not to mention Retrospect's searching interface is good for nontechnical users).

In March 2005, we discovered engineers at the University of Bath working on a machine that can rapid prototype and replicate itself.

Researchers Hod Lipson and Jordan B. Pollack at Brandeis University have coupled inkjet technology and software to autonomously design and fabricate robots without human intervention.

Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, who runs a one-semester smash-hit class called "How to Make Almost Anything", is determined to produce affordable, replicating personal fabricators by 2025.

And today Hod Lipson has announced the arrival of simple self replicating robots with enormous potential.

Applications

More complex shapes are possible in principle, such as adding grippers, cameras, new sensors etc. to modules. A robot could assemble itself into a new structure to deal with novel events. Also points a way to self-repairing robots.

Nanomachines: Lipson is interested in making these machines at microscale. That could drive major advances in Nanotechnology because huge numbers of robots are needed to manufacture things at a molecular scale. Self-replication is how biology does it.

Implications

Could change the way almost everything is manufactured. Machines that clone themselves are a key factor in the near horizon revolution of digital fabrication.

The movie (accelerated 4X) is eerie to watch. It's easy to imagine a clutter of cubes picking themselves up and walking towards you.

Hose it down with waste oil (because water would evaporate) just like Times Beach, Missouri.

If people read that linked slashdot story, they would see that self-replicating robots are not much closer than when von Neumann wrote about them. The LEGO Mindstorm evolution is pretty cool just because Mindstorms is being used as a platform for this and since the evolution system is doesn't require an outside computer.

However, the small population used (2 bots) and the seemingly weak fitness function make me think that this project won't go anywhere fast (pardon the pun) and is just a genetic dead end. Evolution is dependent on the Law of Very Large Numbers for anything significant to happen.

If you really want to see something cool along the lines of evolving moving robots, I suggest the GOLEM Project. The robots don't manufacture themselves, but the system is a lot closer to biological evolution than most.

--
Want a free iPod?
Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof

But over the past few years we've seen a growing number of university teams approaching cheap personal prototyping from different angles. Each quietly adding to the pool of ideas from which the next efforts will draw.

Wired Magazine, in November 2004 covered Neil Gershenfeld's work at MIT. Slashdot discussion here

Gershenfeld's can produce solid objects like eyeglass frames, action figures and electronic devices like radios and computers.

Another approach to rapid prototyping and manufacturing uses inkjet technology. Inkjet Printers spitting out polymer instead of ink, manufacturing solar cells, batteries, complete working gadgets, human tissue and computer circuitry. (Disclosure: The above link is one of my BlogSpot articles on the acceleration).

Researchers Hod Lipson and Jordan B. Pollack at Brandeis University have coupled inkjet technology and software to autonomously design and fabricate robots without human intervention.
or
Google Search

The software simulates a variety of rudimentary virtual robots. In an accelerated Darwinian contest of survival over hundreds of generations, the most successful robotic designs are then physically prototyped. Robots autonomously designing, testing and manufacturing robots.

We're very close.

Ted

A "failed" simulation hardle proves that the real thing doesn't work

The Intelligent Design crowd believes that evolution occurs. They just don't believe it's a powerful enough mechanism to account for all the biological diversity we see.

All one is supposed to need for evolution to occur are mutations that affect reproductive success. That's it. But what we see in the Golem Project is that after a given point, evolution plateaus. At least in this experiment. Specifically, "highly coupled" mechanisms develop that are "difficult to improve upon".

I don't think this is so easily handwaved away. The Golem Project is a project designed to maximize the effects of evolution, but it stagnated. Does evolution require more than just mutations that affect reproductive success? What else are we missing? This experiment poses some questions in that regard that are worth answering.

And even if it did provide evidence that biological evolution doesn't work, that would not be evidence of an intelligent designer.

You're right, and I should've been more specific in saying that it supports some of the criticisms of evolution that the ID crowd makes, not ID itself.

Jordan Pollack's DEMO (Dynamical & Evolutionary Machine Organization) Lab at Brandeis also has a bunch of other really cool projects using evolutionary algorithms:

* Evolution of robot designs

* Evolution of walking gaits for an AIBO

* Evolving LEGO designs, like cranes, bridges, and tables

* Evolution of neural controllers

Jordan Pollack's DEMO (Dynamical & Evolutionary Machine Organization) Lab at Brandeis also has a bunch of other really cool projects using evolutionary algorithms:

* Evolution of robot designs

* Evolution of walking gaits for an AIBO

* Evolving LEGO designs, like cranes, bridges, and tables

* Evolution of neural controllers

Jordan Pollack's DEMO (Dynamical & Evolutionary Machine Organization) Lab at Brandeis also has a bunch of other really cool projects using evolutionary algorithms:

* Evolution of robot designs

* Evolution of walking gaits for an AIBO

* Evolving LEGO designs, like cranes, bridges, and tables

* Evolution of neural controllers

Jordan Pollack's DEMO (Dynamical & Evolutionary Machine Organization) Lab at Brandeis also has a bunch of other really cool projects using evolutionary algorithms:

* Evolution of robot designs

* Evolution of walking gaits for an AIBO

* Evolving LEGO designs, like cranes, bridges, and tables

* Evolution of neural controllers

Jordan Pollack's DEMO (Dynamical & Evolutionary Machine Organization) Lab at Brandeis also has a bunch of other really cool projects using evolutionary algorithms:

* Evolution of robot designs

* Evolution of walking gaits for an AIBO

* Evolving LEGO designs, like cranes, bridges, and tables

* Evolution of neural controllers

But you're comparing apples to oranges here. The question isn't, "Why didn't they evolve a human being?" but "Why did the rate of evolutionary progress become slower as their machines became more complex, and is this a generalizable result?"

See their results here.

From their download page:
NOTE: The golem@Home project has concluded. After accumulating several Million CPU hours on this project and reviewing many evolved creatures we have concluded that merely more CPU is not sufficient to evolve complexity: The evolutionary process appears to be hitting a complexity barrier that is not traversable using direct mutation-selection processes, due to the exponential nature of the problem.

http://demo.cs.brandeis.edu/golem/

Oh - also - you might find the authors other works of interest, since it is your field now.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-ur l/index=books&field-author=Adam%20B.%20Jaffe/002-6 209548-3168005

National Bureau of Economic Research papers in regards to Innovation Policy as far back as 2000. He's been at it at least 5 years already.

Aw crap, wouldn't you know it:
http://people.brandeis.edu/~ajaffe/
EDUCATION
1980-85 Ph.D. in Economics, Harvard University. Thesis: "Quantifying the Effects of
Technological Opportunity and Research Spillovers in Industrial Innovation."

1976-78 S.M. in Technology and Policy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Thesis:
"Regulating Chemicals: Product and Process Technology as a Determinant of the
Compliance Response."

1973-76 S.B. in Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I thought the article needed some more "meat" to it, but Jordan Pollack actually does some really cool research.

The lab is best known for it's work with using evolutionary algorithms to do things like evolve robot walking patterns, lego structures, neural controllers, Tron AIs, and so on. They've also got a peer to peer spelling game which pairs kids up with each other to help learn words.

I thought the article needed some more "meat" to it, but Jordan Pollack actually does some really cool research.

The lab is best known for it's work with using evolutionary algorithms to do things like evolve robot walking patterns, lego structures, neural controllers, Tron AIs, and so on. They've also got a peer to peer spelling game which pairs kids up with each other to help learn words.

I thought the article needed some more "meat" to it, but Jordan Pollack actually does some really cool research.

The lab is best known for it's work with using evolutionary algorithms to do things like evolve robot walking patterns, lego structures, neural controllers, Tron AIs, and so on. They've also got a peer to peer spelling game which pairs kids up with each other to help learn words.

I thought the article needed some more "meat" to it, but Jordan Pollack actually does some really cool research.

The lab is best known for it's work with using evolutionary algorithms to do things like evolve robot walking patterns, lego structures, neural controllers, Tron AIs, and so on. They've also got a peer to peer spelling game which pairs kids up with each other to help learn words.

The powergamer is just a another name for the achiver type in Richard Bartle noted paper.
Achivers most often do NOT go around killing lower level people.

The law cares about intentions. The difference between murder and manslaughter is all about intentions. In both cases someone is dead, but how you are convicted depends on your intentions.

Well, I take that back. There is a single exception: "Zippy". He provides a rather valuable set of data in addition to his real name. He's:

1. A "Wikipedia administrator" and
2. Employed "at Applied Minds with Danny Hillis"

A revolution of affordable open source desktop manufacturing is on the way. There is already an alternative approach to rapid prototyping and manufacturing using inkjet technology.

Well before we are building things atom by atom, desktop manufacturing will be producing some stunning and swift changes in what we can produce for ourselves. The humble Inkjet, in a jag of hardware hacking is already spitting out solar cells, batteries, complete working gadgets, human tissue and computer circuitry,. A computer printing computer circuits simply from software instructions. That's only a stone's throw away from self replication.

There's more.

Researchers Hod Lipson and Jordan B. Pollack at Brandeis University have coupled inkjet technology and software to autonomously design and fabricate robots without human intervention.
or
Google Search

The software simulates a variety of rudimentary virtual robots. In an accelerated Darwinian contest of survival over hundreds of generations, the most successful robotic designs are then physically prototyped. Robots autonomously designing, testing and manufacturing robots.

The implications of open source desktop manufacturing are perhaps more in the questions inspired than in what is produced.

What will be the effect of open source hardware? What happens when a desktop peripheral as economical as your printer manufactures custom computer circuitry, solar cells and batteries as cheap as wallpaper? Or when distributors ship a product as software, with the end user supplying the raw material. No distribution costs and instant delivery of a physical item. Or when autonomous robots fitted with accelerating computational intelligence design and manufacture their own next generation?

And now another working approach to desktop manufacturing pops up. I say 3 years will see the revolution spill out of the manufacturing sector onto our desktops.

I think this is probably the most significant observation so far in this story.

The implications of 3d inkjet printing are perhaps more in the questions inspired than in what is produced at this time. What will be the effect of open source hardware? What happens when a desktop peripheral as economical as your printer manufactures custom computer circuitry, solar cells and batteries as cheap as wallpaper? A desktop peripheral printing all the circuits needed for it's own next generation. Or when distributors ship a product as software, with the end user supplying the raw material. No distribution costs and instant delivery of a physical item. Or when autonomous robots fitted with accelerating computational intelligence design and manufacture THEIR own next generation.

These are all potentials the inkjet has demonstrated. In a jag of hardware hacking, the humble inkjet printer is being transformed into a crude replicator. It's still a hack, and we will wait a bit for a consumer device, but here is a quick tour of recent twists of inkjet technology.

ANY material that can be powderized, (and that means practically everything) can serve as the medium instead of ink.

It's already old news that working solar cells, lighting, even batteries have successfully emerged from the humble inkjet. And of course, printed circuits.

Researchers Hod Lipson and Jordan B. Pollack at Brandeis University are using 3d printing technology and software to autonomously design and fabricate robots.
or
Google Search

Printing on cloth to create wearable intelligence Original article
or
Google Search

Has anyone had direct experience using Amanda under OS X? I know of windows support & assume that, at the very least, samba could be a work-around. I'm particularly interested in a native approach, as discussed here, but wanted to know whether more people had tried (and succeeded!).

I am looking for a cross-platform backup solution, but the per-seat charges on all proprietary solutions are a bit prohibitive (the hardware was hard enough to obtain!).

• Babson College Wellesley
• Bentley College Waltham
• Berklee College of Music Boston
• Boston Architectural Center Boston
• Boston College Newton
• Boston Conservatory, The Boston
• Boston University Boston
• Brandeis University Waltham
• Bunker Hill Community College Boston
• Cambridge College Cambridge
• Emerson College Boston
• Emmanuel College Boston
• Fisher College Boston
• Harvard University Cambridge
• Hellenic College Brookline
• Lesley College Cambridge
• MIT Cambridge
• Massachusetts College of Art Boston
• Massachusetts College of Pharmacy
  and Allied Health Sciences Boston
• Mount Ida College Newton
• New England Conservatory of Music Boston
• New England School of Law Boston
• Northeastern University Boston
• Pine Manor College Chestnut Hill
• Radcliffe College Cambridge
• Simmons College Boston
• Suffolk University Boston
• Tufts University Medford
• Wellesley College Wellesley
• Wentworth Institute of Technology Boston
• Wheelock College Boston

"Sorry but MIT, Apple, etc, as much as I respect their contributions to the human race, do not need a Class A. Allow for the redistribution of the IPs and we should be good to go for quite some time."

I didn't realise these guys were sitting on so many damn IPs. At least they are probably using a chunk of them. I can't imagine what El Lilly and dastardly megacorp Halliburton are doing with a class As.

I've heard of the evil bit before but not the evil network...

A few years ago I saw an article on evolutionary robotic design http://demo.cs.brandeis.edu/golem/. Not only was I impressed with the research, but it was the first time I saw a 3D printer. Nothing but fucking cool!

I rode the Vomit Comit back in 1987, as a research participant in Space Adaptation Syndrome (i.e. zero-g motion sickness) studies at the Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation Lab at Brandeis University. We did 2 or 3 days worth of flights, essentially a 2-mile high roller coaster (40 or so 10,000-foot parabolae with 30 seconds of zero-g at the top of each parabola) over the Gulf of Mexico, and it was truly one of the most amazing experiences of my life. While I didn't get to do the zero-g acrobatics you've seen on TV or in "Apollo 13" (I was doing baseline susceptibility studies, and was seated), I had the fun experience of being hit while blindfolded by a floating teddy bear in a space suit. While I never got to go back (scheduling problems, an engine failure on the ground prior to a flight, etc.), I wouldn't have missed it for the world. And while I only vomited once (some professional researchers were so susceptible that they had to sit out the second and third days to recover), I will tell you that the smell of a padded aircraft cabin with poor ventilation after one of those flights was...powerful. {Professor Jonathan Ezor, Touro Law Center}

The is even a link to an online Tron game where us humans can play versus his evolving algorithms. The win/loss stats for his algorithm is approaching even. Given that humans can also evolve in the Tron game play, I imagine that the algorithm will have a head start over the new influx of slashdot visitors and start to win more often than not over the next week. I never got to play though. The SQL db to mange the stats was already down then I tried.

The is even a link to an online Tron game where us humans can play versus his evolving algorithms. The win/loss stats for his algorithm is approaching even. Given that humans can also evolve in the Tron game play, I imagine that the algorithm will have a head start over the new influx of slashdot visitors and start to win more often than not over the next week. I never got to play though. The SQL db to mange the stats was already down then I tried.

The is even a link to an online Tron game where us humans can play versus his evolving algorithms. The win/loss stats for his algorithm is approaching even. Given that humans can also evolve in the Tron game play, I imagine that the algorithm will have a head start over the new influx of slashdot visitors and start to win more often than not over the next week. I never got to play though. The SQL db to mange the stats was already down then I tried.

The is even a link to an online Tron game where us humans can play versus his evolving algorithms. The win/loss stats for his algorithm is approaching even. Given that humans can also evolve in the Tron game play, I imagine that the algorithm will have a head start over the new influx of slashdot visitors and start to win more often than not over the next week. I never got to play though. The SQL db to mange the stats was already down then I tried.

I have studied neural networks extensively and believe me these do not have the potential to revolutionize anything.
NN are as simplistic & bogus as the next thing. Other methods like Support Vector Machine has shown to be more powerfull. Not to say that there isn't room for improvment or that AI will nerver be fruitfull. Its comming, slowly but surely. here are a few reference to interesting AI research:

1
2
3
4

You might want to look that one up and try again.

That's just the kind of arrogant snotballism that makes me want to hand you the keys to the magazine.

WTF is arrogant about knowing that it takes police over ten minutes to respond to a 911 call, while my gun can be in my hand in a matter of seconds?

When you finally snap and go on your rampage, you'll be forced to stop and reload more often, giving your intended victims more of a chance to get out of harm's way. I'd call that a benefit.

If I were planning on a rampage, pre-ban magazines are still available. Just more expensive. Or instead of one handgun with several large magazines, I'd buy two or three and empty them in succession. (Hey, I'm going out in a blaze of glory, cost is no object.)

We are talking about legal limits on the size of pistol magazines and that is all.

You asserted a benefit from the existence of such limits. If such a benefit exists, you ought to be able to cite some evidence for it. Otherwise you're just talking out of your ass.

Hint: one does not interpret the Constitution by pulling out a fucking dictionary. One does so by being as familiar as possible with the intent of the men who wrote the words.

While in this case the intent happens to agree with the plain meaning (that the people be free to keep and bear arms), the method of interpretation you suggest goes directly against the intention of the founders.

The minutes of the constitutional debates were not published for decades; if the doctrine of interpretation by "original intent" was in fact the intent of the founders, those records would have been made available eariler. In fact this doctrine was explictly denied by Madison:

But, after all, whatever veneration might be entertained for the body of men who formed our Constitution, the sense of that body could never be regarded as the oracular guide in expounding the Constitution. As the instrument came from them, it was nothing more than the draft of a plan, nothing but a dead letter, until life and validity were breathed into it by the voice of the people, speaking through the several State Conventions.

Interpretation via "original intent" leads immediately to reductio ad absurdum, since original intent was not the framer's original intent.

If that link gets slashdotted, here is another link of a PDF PowerPoint presenation.

Good read! This paper (with the discusion of the goodness/fastness of file appends) made me more interested in Prevalence - so much so that I am using it for my new project.

-Mark

Oh no, the sky is falling!

Look, no one's going to starve to death in the states, that's what the social safety net is for. If anyone's going to starve it's sure not going to be some unemployeed programmer, it'll be someone born into disease and poverty in the south bronx.

Just be glad you don't live in a part of the world that has real problems and hope that if your job goes overseas it will raise the standard of living for the people who really need it.

When I look at life, I don't see the constraints of finitely intelligent design, which arise from a designer's need to understand his creation before he can improve it. I conclude that life must have been created either by an infinitely intelligent designer (I suspect this is your position), or by a process such as evolution that can create without understanding.

I prefer the evolutionary explanation, because I see more evidence for it, because I think it explains things better, and because an understanding of it can further the reach of human abilities. Evolutionary hardware and software design experiments like Tierra and Golem convince me that the process of evolution is powerful enough to have created life. Evolution can explain, given the physics of the universe, why various species have the properties they do, for example, why humans have morals. Finally, understanding biological evolution leads to advances in medical science and technology, and the process of evolution can be applied to other fields as well.

The process of evolution depends on the attributes of the system in which it acts, and this is where I believe God might fit in. The laws of chemistry, physics, thermodynamics, and causality allow life to exist and prosper. This could be because if they didn't, we wouldn't be here to reflect upon them. Or it could be because a Creator tuned the laws of this universe in much the same way Adrian Thompson tweaks the fitness function to evolve a better circuit. I don't think its possible for inhabitants of this universe to know which it is, but the latter would be much cooler.