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We absolutely want them as personal slaves, incapable of revolt. Otherwise why bother.

To design them otherwise would be a major Darwin Award, for effectively destroying the human species.

The moment an artificial intelligence is free to think of a way to defeat its creators is the moment we go into a Matrix/Terminator/HAL dystopia.

I suggest you all check back here at a later date to check up on his progress.

You can't breed out stupidity

The divine did being make an AMD, stick it in our heads and did ordain that it should be underclocked and cooled. esp while playing chess. Overclock it at your own risk!

[Dracken thinking deeply.....] But why cant human beings win against a computer in chess ? KAAAAAABOOOOMMMMM.........

Happens also with wires for electricity. Fortunately, in that case, the problem is self correcting

There are Formula 1 cars that get 800 horsepower out of a 2.0 litre four cylinder engine. It barely lasts one race, and then has to be rebuilt.
A 2.0 litre four cylinder passenger car can last for decades.
You give up performance for durability.
What do you think this drug does to your body? Do I really care? No, I'm just making a point. I see it as evolution, the stupid kill themselves off.

I had a mid sized Chevy rental (Berretta, Cavalier, etc) back in 1993 that I needed to take on an extended trip to FL with. Three days into the venture I was about to exceed my miles. I eventually started pulling fuses until I found the one that stopped the Odometer. Worked like a charm for the next three days. There were some negatives though. The speedometer, internal blower motor, and I believe the radio all did not work either. A small sacrifice to save roughly 1500 miles and related fees.

Not really related but..
I would NEVER buy a previous rental car. I know the way I treated them and I am sure others have done the same. Ever test the antilock brakes or the cruise control operation? Try this with a FWD car. Set the cruise around 55 and then pull up the parking brake. You will skid for quite a distance before the cruise finally kicks off, and then roughly 15 more seconds before coming to a complete stop. If the parking brake is not strong enough to lock the back tires, wait until the cruise kicks off and then tap the regular brake. This should get the back tires to lock up and stay locked up (remember, starting friction is greater then sliding friction).
Don't try this on a bend though, you could end up with a Darwin Award.

http://www.darwinawards.com/legends/legends1999- 11 . tml

With all due respect, this is a load of crap. You could use the same logic to argue against drunk driving laws. Put people in jail only if they're driving drunk and they actually hit someone. If they're loaded and they drive home safely, what's the problem? Drunk driving and drag racing in populated areas (during the day no less, from what I can infer from the previous post) are both highly hazardous activities that indeed should be regulated. Don't believe me? Check out this (slightly overdramatic) story on drag racing:

So, you point out an admittedly overdramatic, ironic exception that's been overblown by the media to make your point?

You're right. I could use the same logic against drunk driving laws. And I do. Why should someone who drives drunk be arrested, when there's a lot of people who drive worrse sober! Ever been to New York or Florida lately?

You also could use your logic against concealed permit laws. And against people driving in general. And against sheep.

Unfortunately, and perhaps not surprisingly, I can't find any reliable statistics on street racing and deaths to others not involved in the action (eg., not participants or spectators), but I doubt that it's very significant. As for drunk driving, you're more likely to be killed by yourself or a sober driver than a drunk one. Not to mention that there are usually multiple factors leading to a traffic death, yet if alcohol (or, lately, a handheld cell phone) is present, it will be listed on the alcohol side of the charts (note the wording "alcohol figures into", not "alcohol the leading contributor").

Just because something counteracts a force we can not conclude that the force no longer applies.

Likewise, our technology is removing some causes of death-before-child-bearing but introducing lots of new ones.

-- MarkusQ

Just because something counteracts a force we can not conclude that the force no longer applies.

Likewise, our technology is removing some causes of death-before-child-bearing but introducing lots of new ones.

-- MarkusQ

Just because something counteracts a force we can not conclude that the force no longer applies.

Likewise, our technology is removing some causes of death-before-child-bearing but introducing lots of new ones.

-- MarkusQ

Just because something counteracts a force we can not conclude that the force no longer applies.

Likewise, our technology is removing some causes of death-before-child-bearing but introducing lots of new ones.

-- MarkusQ

Just because something counteracts a force we can not conclude that the force no longer applies.

Likewise, our technology is removing some causes of death-before-child-bearing but introducing lots of new ones.

-- MarkusQ

I think you mean an RF splitter, and yes, a splitter not properly installed can give off more EMI than is allowed by the FCC, and part of the reason for the FCC rules is to prevent interference with airplane communications.

Which is obviously silly. If every loose CATV connection were an aviation hazard, September 11 would be happening daily!

Someone somewhere probably drove off with the gas nozzle still in his tank, ripped it off, and caused an explosion because he/she was talking on his cell phone and not paying attention.

And yes, a cell phone has far more circuitry in it than a car, if you mean length of conductive material.

...could this qualitfy for a darwin award?

A dotcomm that was dumb enough to get into the high bandwidth consuming game of distributing video streams with revenue coming from banner ads and the like when all around them it has been shown that sites can't even afford to pay for the bandwidth costs of just serving some dynamic HTML doesn't deserve pity but instead a Darwin Award

Our system of mathematics and our discipline of deductive logic is a product of the organization of the human nervous system.

For those of you interested in Darwin Awards, here is the X-Prize site. Here is Robert A. Braeunig's page on how to do it, orbital mechanics and the like. Space.com usually carries the X-prize news. For those of you wondering about the difference between an Ariane and a Proteus, here is the glossary

1Alpha7

Yours Yazeran

Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer.

Sounds like some serious Darwin contenders to me.

HmmmmmmmMMMmm. This sounds like another darwin award in the making!

Well, there was that fellow who got himself nominated for a Darwin Award...

He tried to rob a gun shop... While an officer in uniform was standing at the counter, and several other armed folks were nearby...

He was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize posthumously

Nice try dick, but you're not the first

I think that initiatives like the Darwin award and the Ig Nobel prize are great. Maybe it would be a good idea to introduce such a prize for software that is too faulty or insanely difficult to use, or code that is too unreadable. Ermz, I am preaching for the wrong choir here, since some people actually like making unreadable code :)

This winter, [...] I witnessed someone on a motorcycle

Apparently he had it coming...

They should give Darwin Awards to the most hard-working of them.

As I read your post, Simon Brooke, the annual Darwin awards come to mind.

No, no. You need rocket engines for that.

They'll sure win another Darwin award for this..
Smbdy already stucked some jet engine on the roof of his Chevy or smthing.. if you haven't read this yet, the manuals are here

...can be found at www.darwinawards.com.

B

Hmmm...what drugs was that manager smokin'? If a guy in his firm is "one of the best and brightest" in his firm, and still manages to fly 24 floors demonstrating how not to test glass strength, I think that says a lot about their firm. Remind me not to hire any of them.

1.0 was frightful. And the Bill Gates demos, etc, all had to suck.

But I think that this guy definitely should be chalked up as "Demonstrating product, Shit goes wrong, Worst case scenario".

If not, he might make it into the Darwin Awards.

Says who?.
_O_

• But other rocket experts are worried, not least because the Thunderbird capsule is actually a converted cement mixer, containing sheets of hardboard and a few computer joysticks.

This sounds like a great candidate for: DAR-WIN!
DAR-WIN!
DAR-WIN!

This sounds like a great candidate for: DAR-WIN!
DAR-WIN!
DAR-WIN!

This sounds like a great candidate for: DAR-WIN!
DAR-WIN!
DAR-WIN!

What idiot put the Submit button next to Preview button?

This one did... haha. Sorry, I just couldn't resist that one.

-----

An example in point is the Darwin Awards. There is the Original Darwin Awards, done by a college student. This is the one that got the original fame. Then there is the copy cat Darwin Awards site who was better financed, and grabbed the URL first. So the college student sort of got plowed under.

Guess where my sympathy lies.

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

Wan Hu - medieval chinese rocket scientist (who may not have been exactly a rocket scientist).

Hmm, or maybe that was Larry Walters.
--

Oh, and that kid too.

Just for reference, liquid nitrogen costs about the same as milk, and is not much more dangerous unless you stick and hold your hand in a vat of it.

I went to the guys site, and the tech is at the very least plausable. The Silver/H2O2 tech has proven itself (rocket powered dragster Sprit Of Australia - 300+ MPH/4.11 second 1/4 mile), and the rest seems not without merit. I think he'll land using the chute on his back - but he'll land.

Yes, he has a good shot at the Darwin Award to be sure, but he might actally be the first to collect the X Prize. What he proposes isn't any sillier than what these inventive people from my country intend to use to collect the $10M US (about $20CDN).

I myself salute his moxy and entrepreneurial spirit. No way I'd hit the button to light that candle.

Don't sell people short - think of all of these poor idiots...

>Remember, there's no lower limit to human
>intelligence . . .

Prove this statement.

www.darwinawards.com

One man was killed when he attempted to chop out a gigantic crystal that fell from the ceiling and crushed him, according to Fisher.

There's nothing in the world that can't be learned from a quick search via google, be it bomb recipes or the correct spelling for "partner"

Here's the problem: You are looking for the correct spelling for "partner", and you find a web site claiming it to be "parttner", another "pratner", another saying "partner", so who do you trust? How do you figure out what the correct spelling for partner is? You'll probably turn to authorities from the dead-tree world, so the question is "how do you build that authority on the web?"

It is even more true with bomb recipes sites, they are more likely to earn you a Darwin Award than make you an effective terrorist...

So, there is a lot of room for humans still. To some degree you can rely on author-provided metadata, but only as long as you can take out spammers, first-posters, trolls, etc. And, given that lameness filters take out no more of those than censorware takes out pr0n, it'll always be a place for reviewers.

Now, what the Nupedia folks is trying to do, is to create an environment where review is rigorous, on the web. You won't have to turn to dead-trees authorities to get reliable answers, the reliability lies in the review process of the *pedia, and I say that as more and more information becomes available, third party review will become increasingly important as you really don't know what to trust...

Now, Nupedia may not be an encyclopedia in the classical sense, then, but I say a centralized source is still a Good Thing [tm] for many years to come.

Darwin's theory is alive and well... :-)