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Thanks for that. Watching the PBS Frontline episode on that whole thing now.

This was a very interesting documentary. I was particularly interested in the inferences about the user interface approach of Airbus versus Boeing. In short, Airbus planes are controlled with joysticks that translate pilot intentions into actual executable commands to the control surfaces. If the pilot tells the computer to do something stupid, the computer won't do it. Contrast this with Boeing, where the pilots control the plane with a proper control stick that gives more effective feedback to the pilots. In a Boeing airplane, when the computer lowers engine power on autopilot, the engine control lever actually moves in a very visible way. However, on Airbus planes, the levers DO NOT move. The only indication to a pilot that the power has dropped is a small circular readout on a computer screen. The Nova scientists theorized that the pilots didn't realize that the computer had lowered power in anticipation of flying through a thunderstorm, or at least that they realized it too late. They theorize that for about a minute the pilots were flying the plane as if the engines were on high power, when they were actually on a much lower power setting. This, combined with a lack of reliable airspeed data may have caused the pilots to put the plane in an unrecoverable mode of flight. Or maybe it was different. We will know soon enough.

BTW, for those of you outside the US, the above video link won't work. I think the video is on bittorrent somewhere. It is definitely worth watching if you haven't seen it.

Proper procedures were followed.

Bin Laden, as leader of the international terrorist and insurgent group Al Qaeda, declared war on the United States in 1996. After the many attacks that killed thousands of people and treating it as a police problem, the US Congress issued the Authorization for Use of Military Force (equivalent to a declaration of war) following the 9/11 attacks that killed 3,000 Americans. Intelligence located Bin Laden, military leader of Al Qaeda, and he was killed by a commando raid. A similar fate occurred to Admiral Yamamoto in World War 2. All perfectly legitimate, and legal under the Law of War.

You can say they don't 'need' to steal the research, but the evidence of Chinese born espionage in the US is blatant. And if you follow corporate and government level espionage in the news you would know that you would bet China if betting your life on who did it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/spy/spies/

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/19/national/main5708534.shtml

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/3319656

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/foremski/chinese-spies-use-cyber-hacking-and-sexual-blackmail/1104

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2008-02-12/news/shuttlespy12_1_space-technology-military-technology-republic-of-china

http://www.haohaoreport.com/ChinaNews/Chinese-spy-gets-more-than-15-years-in-prison

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fbi-arrests-chinese-spies-over-theft-of-military-data-781090.html .............

Seriously, just open your eyes or start paying attention. NASA has been infiltrated by Chinese spies on several occasions. This policy is rational and safe and is a better/safer choice than any potential 'crippling of research' as you put it.

But go ahead pretending this isn't real... go ahead.. I only copied the first few things I looked up, but the truth is about every 3-4 months I read about another Chinese spy in the US. Yet it takes years before I read about ANY OTHER NATION spying (or getting caught at least).

This has already been to court and evolution has been proven out. Creationism and ID are just religion in disguise and it can be proven. Call it what you will.. Null Hypothesis.. whatever.. it will have the same approach to life.. life just poofed into existance just because.. and it's already been proven to not be a science but religion.

Interesting documentary about how creationism/intelligent design already lost in court..
http://video.pbs.org/video/980040807

And for these reasons they'll lose again.

String Theory is (somewhat) testable.
People have gotten the idea that String Theory isn't testable because one of the predictions is supersymmetry. Supersymmetry isn't directly testable at the energies our particle accelerators can reach - indeed they fall many magnitudes of power short of producing collisions that would emit supersymmentric versions of familiar particles (no Snutrinos or Selectrons will come out of CERN or anything else we could build today, even if we made it our number one priority for the whole world for decades to build the most powerful accelerator possible).
        But, the reaction rates for various fundamental particle interchanges are theoretically affected by supersymmetry, and those can be measured - this is ongoing, but seems to confirm supersymmetry does exist - at least the probabilities are now strongly suggestive that it does, and when the experiments are finished we should be at better than six sigmas confidence one way or another.
        There's also astronomical testing - what we can't do here on earth may have been done many times in the immediate post big bang era and left behind strings we can observe. Part of testing string theory has had to wait on people deciding what a very large mass string in intergalactic space might do to light passing nearby and how it could be told from other gravitational lensing effects. Similarly, there's been a lot of discussion about what distortions to the form of a normal spiral galaxy might indicate a string interaction and not some other cause (a galactic mass black hole without accompanying normal matter, collision with a normal galaxy that was moving so rapidly it is no longer in the area where we would normally expect a partner in a collision to be detected, or just the galaxy being oddly formed or seen at an angle that makes it difficult to tell anything for sure.). These are issues, to be sure, but they aren't fundamentally untestable, just complex and requiring time to sort out.
        For something better than a Wikipedia entry on the subject, people can start by reading this Nova Interview with Edward Witten:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/view-witten.html

create an organic renewable fuel

Jay Keasling attempts to rewrite DNA on eColi to make them eat switchgrass and piss biofuel

Who cares what environmentalists will be happy with? We're moving ahead with nuclear, wind, solar, and energy efficiency. There have been several programs on PBS recently (Beyond the Light Switch and Power Surge) that explain what we're doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Contrary to many people's opinions, these actions will not destroy the economy or result in us living in caves.

"Angered at Righthaven’s behavior, a Las Vegas federal judge unsealed the company’s heretofore confidential agreement [...]"

Not that I'm complaining, but... what did Righthaven do to anger the judge? Were their lawyers being dicks? Was the contract itself what angered the judge? Truly, I'd like to know.

The whole point of trying to run a business with the sole purpose of making income by suing people is probably quite angering to judges. After all, courts are not meant to be used for business, they're meant for solving actual real problems.

At least not when the judge isn't getting a cut.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/voices/2011/02/post-24.html

For that amount of money, it better be about utility. I am not the idle rich, that can afford to send my child to university to make him a better man. I'm a serf, and I send my child to university so he can feed his family.

You may perhaps be a serf, but you are also a citizen in a democracy. You sound like you are resigned to being a drone, a meaningless cog in a vast purposeless machine, a football kicked around in someone else's game. Whatever happened to thinking for yourself?

That said, I do understand that we are living in a machine that makes it difficult to think in a truly independent way. It seems like a luxury to have a liberal arts education; and further, what we consider as a liberal arts education often seems sopped in questionable ideology. But even if you do pursue an education that has "utility", such as perhaps engineering or medicine, there is still room to continue and widen your education about the history and philosophy of our civilization.

My suspicion is that the growing trend in our educational system towards "utility" and ideology will over time rob our civilization of the vital spark that has allowed our profound technological and economic progress. I think we are becoming less and less able to recognize what is true, and are thus adopting fallacious ideologies as fact. A prime example of this is much of the field of economics, where theories that are only sometimes true are instead assumed to be always true. The economic crash of recent years is evidence of this. Watch this Nova documentary to see what I mean (the link will only work in the US...otherwise bittorrent should work).

Everybody has seen this Nova episode, right?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/intelligent-design-trial.html

I'm more concerned with the moron who tries to pass off Intelligent Design, or Creationism as sound science, failing to display how they are testable, and falsifiable.

Smashing 'Genesis' with the fossil record and radio carbon dating are probably in class givens when it comes to the questioning of Earth timelines and subsequent biological process' and progress.

For those not aware, PBS:NOVA did an excellent show of Intelligent Design being put on trial. You can find it here. Very worth watching if you haven't.

Burn it off with a controlled burn? How do you suggest that they do that? Light a match next to where it is coming out? It's not like they had a lot of options for the hydrogen gas with no power whatsoever on site. Also I don't know what you mean by "build the reactors along the fault line" You do realize that the fault line is in the ocean right? Not directly under Fukushima. By that reasoning, Tokai and Onagawa should not have been built either. "far lower than the historic tsunami wave-heights" where did you get this information? I can't find any data on historic wave heights of Fukushima. Don't just say "Oh there was such and such a high wave in Hokkaido" either, because the geography of the sea floor and the coast makes a big difference. They had a wall ready for a 5.5 meter tsunami, which is still a huge wave. The earthquake sunk the Japanese coast by about 1 meter AND it was hit by a 14 meter tsunami. This is documented in NOVA's documentary on the subject: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/japan-killer-quake.html . Salvage the reactors? They wrote off the reactors the minute they injected them with seawater. They have publicly said that reactors 1 - 4 will never run again. There is a good deal of information out there if you speak Japanese. Otherwise, you have to wait for someone to translate it which doesn't always happen. If you don't speak Japanese then you are in no position to comment on the amount of information that is or is not coming out.

This is an excellent Nova documentary on the disappearance of Flight 447. It is interesting how investigators were able to give a reasonable hypothesis as to what happened, even without the black boxes. The long and the short of it is that they think super-cooled liquid water from a serious thunderstorm overcame the pitot anti-icing heating systems, freezing over all of the pitots and thus depriving the computer of airspeed data. The computer probably panicked, suddenly switching off the autopilot (they did get data from the computer, as its satellite uplink gave some telemetry). Pilots are capable of flying without airspeed readings, but only if they react quickly. They think that prior to flying into a severe thunderstorm, the computer automatically reduced thrust, in order to slow down in anticipation of turbulence. The problem is that the only pilot feedback that the thrust was reduced would have been a tiny circle on a computer monitor...there is no physical feedback in the throttle levers in Airbus planes. The computer then probably switched off the autopilot, overwhelming the pilots with a sequence of warnings. The thrust likely remained at 70% and the pilots probably didn't realize it. After a minute so the airplane may have lost so much airspeed from the low thrust that it became unflyable, in effect causing the crash.

Give this Nova episode a try...it is very detailed, going into many technical aspects of airplane design.

Yes. The PBS show NOVA ran a documentary on the crash last month (you can watch the whole thing online here) that came to the conclusion you describe. (Though it should be emphasized that it's all speculation until more evidence is gathered.)

I write flight diagnostic software , special software the tries to determine the root cause after number of BIT/and OR ACARS messages. I was especially interested in this flight. Thank god the air bus aircraft sent the ACARS messages otherwise we would have no idea what happened to it. Nova video is pretty convincing. Especially when in the flight simulator , and they cause a simulated air speed failure. The exact same ACARS messages are produced by the simulator that were produced by flight 447. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/crash-flight-447.html . NOVA concluded bad weather caused the failure of the air speed sensors (pito tubes). Air speed sensor failure cause the auto pilot to fail, which turned the cockpit into a christmas tree of error and warning lights. Finally, pilot error in which they didn't react quickly enough .The pilots had to react quickly enough and apply just the right amount thrust and pitch to avoid a dramatic stall. The plane final injuries were consistent with dramatic stall, literally falling strait down out of the sky.

Paul Allen is a billionaire, he has no need to sell an autobiography. The same story was also told by Cringely in 2006, as described by two people close to Paul Allen: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2006/pulpit_20060330_000890.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/profile-vandi-verma.html

Pretty much a geek dreamboat; too bad she's married (and it wasn't even arranged).

Haw?

Why is it then that U.S. tax dollars are going to buying homosexual child sex slaves for Afghan warlords in exchange for getting local police to do their jobs?

To continue being off topic :) but certainly in the tradition of many /. threads I recently watched a Nova episode examining ape behavior.

One experiment with chimps involved two chimps in cages and bowls of treats. The subject chimp points to the bowl with the most treats and the experimenter gives that bowl to the second chimp and the bowl that was not pointed to (with less treats) to the subject. Repeatedly the subject chimp does not learn the 'game' and continues to point to the bowl with the most treats.

Next the researchers teach the chimp numbers and use bowls with numbers instead of treats. The chimp knows that the number represents the number of treats for that bowl. The subject chimp learns to point to the bowl with the smaller number thus giving that bowl to the secondary chimp and getting the bowl with more treats for themselves.

The researchers concluded that symbols allowed the chimp to separate instinct and emotion from decision making thus allowing the chimp to learn the 'game'.

Symbols play large part in what distinguishes human communication from the rest of the animal kingdom. Swearing comes from the same part of the brain as screaming. It may communicate an emotion but little else. Intelligence almost becomes defined by an ability to use symbols.

However, because swearing is rooted in our emotions and instincts I think it can have a place. Swearing is usually more acceptable around friends where emotions and instincts in general are more accepted. Literary works and art that appeal to our emotions and instincts might provide another place for it. Swearing may play a part in bonding. Could bonding play a part in the appearance that blue collar workers swear more than white collar workers?

With all of that said I agree that swearing has no place in the framework of a debate. In this context it is a burden on the mind for both the person that introduces it and the person that receives it.

ID was shot down in court - not that reason, logic, or law make any difference to people who dispel science yet utilize it in their life.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/intelligent-design-trial.html

There was a NOVA episode about this crash (an earlier commenter linked to it, but here it is again: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/crash-flight-447.html).

I won't go into the findings of the NOVA team, but I will point out that your educated guess is completely wrong.

The airbus does have a considerably more advanced and automated autopilot system than Boeing provides. However, that only is engaged during "Normal Law" flight. When any of the sensors on the plane detect a fault, an alarm chimes, and the system informs the pilot that "Alternate Law" is engaged. In Alternate Law mode, the pilot is allowed to use the full control capabilities of the plane, not the restricted range that the sensors believe to be safe.

After alternate law engaged, the pilot can control the engines, and all control surfaces to whatever degree of capability he'd like. The plane in question definitely switched to Alt. Law mode; this fact was radio broadcast back to the Airbus HQ shortly before the plane disappeared. There's a high probability that the pilot was mislead by weather radar readings that said that he could shoot through a "hole" between two storm clouds, but which masked the fact that there was a third (much larger) storm further beyond. Once he was stuck in the middle of all those storms, it was game over.

The pilot and the passengers were not at the mercy of an autopilot that refused to allow corrective action; it is probable that bad data presented to the pilot did not allow him to correctly act.

NOVA ran an episode recently about the all manner of crazy coincidences piled on top of each other - one storm hiding behind another, supercooled water plugging all the pilot tubes, fly-by-wire software that wasn't quite ready for a "no airspeed" input, pilot tube upgrades scheduled but not yet performed...

Sometimes airplanes crash. Proving criminal (I'm assuming negligence) behavior is going to be tricky, at least until they find the black boxes and can prove what caused the crash.

I would have called it:

Goal Oriented Action Training System for Entertainment

I would have called it:
New and Improved State Machine, now with Function Pointers!
(some assembly required)

I don't know about you, but If I'm going to spend my time working for a game company helping to train their AI algorithms then I expect one or more of:

• Reduced prices for games that use our crowd-sourced labor.
• A paycheck of some sort -- Even in-game money or some exclusive perks would be better than nothing.
• Open Source Code (if not AT release, then no more than 10 months afterwards, not 10 years later).
• My name in the credits.

Come on people -- No matter how much you are told otherwise, Whitewashing Fences Is Not Fun, and even Jim required something in return for his efforts -- The returned pail full of water (a work trading barter system).

"So what's in it for me?", What's in it for you!? Well just let me tell you: You get the satisfaction of knowing you helped develop a game AI! That's a Reward in itself! Some people would actually pay for this privilege, but for a limited time we'll let you in on the deal for Free!

Later: As you stand before the store's game shelves holding a game-box in hand, contemplating purchase, you'll turn the box over. Next to the Havok logo will be this GOAP logo, that adds 10 bucks to the price of the game... That's right, you work for them, they charge you for your work -- Might as well pay you in negative company-store credits.

What's next? They have us play a new Kinect game where we act out the scenes displayed so they can crowd-source their motion capture too? Hint: I only consider working for free if a project is open source -- All others must pay.

You can already play with a real guitar with no need for a stupid game. Maybe even go out and find some people to form an actual band with.

Yes but Ubisoft cant monetise that.

Anyway, the mandatory DRM controller will look like this.

#1 was already done on NOVA

...then I'm sure you don't mind sharing your financial details, medical history etc with us, your boss, insurance, etc... It's already electronically available somewhere anyway, right?

You are correct, sir! It is, sadly, already available to the highest bidder, check out the 5th segment, Narrowcasting. Acxiom even allowed cameras into their castle, which is surprising to me.

There was an interesting episode of Frontline on PBS recently that dealt with this topic. I think it first aired last year, but still current I think. You can see the whole thing on-line for free if you are really interested... http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/

College, Inc..

Yours In Akademgorodok,
Kilgore Trout

Maybe it's because, no matter which choices we make, we're going to get criticized by the usual suspects? This sort of thing does inspire cynicism. Let's grab a random example: PBS show on 1993 Somalia, "explores the well-intentioned, aborted, and ultimately tragic American effort to bring about stability and stop starvation." PBS show in 1994 Rwanda, "how the West ignored warnings of the 1994 Rwanda genocide and turned its back on the victims."

It's the Kobayashi Maru - the no-win situation. And there's no reprogramming the computers this time. Is it any surprise that there is a lack of enthusiasm? You're bitching that we aren't doing anything, but the minute the first US Marine sets foot in Libya you'll change your tune to IMPERIALISM USA FASCISTS OIL HALLIBURTON EARTHQUAKE MACHINE 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB WHARRRGARBL

Maybe it's because, no matter which choices we make, we're going to get criticized by the usual suspects? This sort of thing does inspire cynicism. Let's grab a random example: PBS show on 1993 Somalia, "explores the well-intentioned, aborted, and ultimately tragic American effort to bring about stability and stop starvation." PBS show in 1994 Rwanda, "how the West ignored warnings of the 1994 Rwanda genocide and turned its back on the victims."

It's the Kobayashi Maru - the no-win situation. And there's no reprogramming the computers this time. Is it any surprise that there is a lack of enthusiasm? You're bitching that we aren't doing anything, but the minute the first US Marine sets foot in Libya you'll change your tune to IMPERIALISM USA FASCISTS OIL HALLIBURTON EARTHQUAKE MACHINE 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB WHARRRGARBL

Goldman Sachs has colocated at the NYSE, and is front running the stock market to the tune of 13.4 billion dollars in profit every year, simply because of their location. And they also sell self destructing financial instruments to their own clients while betting against them. Here, it's been in the news. But I doubt you watch the news.

So, they're fucking cheating shits who do nothing but game algorithms and lie to people to steal their money, and you're a stupid cunt for having such blind faith in an opaque market.

Technically speaking, could this happen everywhere? Alternatives?

Two interesting reads on this:

[I]magine a school or a church distributing routers among parents or parishioners as a fund-raiser. Let's see how long SBC or Verizon lasts against the Baptists. Now THAT's disruptive.

Robert X. Cringely, The Little Engine That Could, http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2004/pulpit_20040527_000456.html

And the other one to give to the kids:
Cory Doctorow, http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/, 2008

You should check out Nova Science Now on PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/ They had a segment on this last night. I am sure they have an article about it, but what would /. be without indirect sources?

Yep... here it is.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/earthquake-detection.html

You should check out Nova Science Now on PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/ They had a segment on this last night. I am sure they have an article about it, but what would /. be without indirect sources?

Yep... here it is.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/earthquake-detection.html

You should check out Nova Science Now on PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/

They had a segment on this last night. I am sure they have an article about it, but what would /. be without indirect sources?

Or at least, it won't be funding public television and their programming (Sesame Street, etc). ... but that's only what I know based on stuff that was reported on public television; I haven't read the budget myself, so it's possible that there's other for-profit TV channels that'd get some sort of funding for education stuff, like cable in the classroom or similar.

Anyway, the PBS press release from yesterday regarding their funding:

http://www.pbs.org/about/news/archive/2011/pbs-statement-elimination-funding-public-broadcasting/

Where's Team Cringely?

Yes, it is all about natural language parsing, but I think the most interesting feat was actually the seeding of Watson's database. Millions of documents (books, wikipedia, scholarly articles) were "fed" into Watson which become it's knowledge base. So to me, it's not so impressive that Watson understand the questions, but is able to utilize human knowledge that is in a natural-language form.

I agree, it's not an attack on humanity. The PBS Nova episode about Watson explores the issues rather thoroughly, but the videos on IBM's site go into the technicalities a little better. The NOVA ep does do a good job of comparing Watson to competing AI programs out there, though.

I find it exciting that a Watson-like program will eventually be able to answer technical questions for people (like doctors) who don't have time to scan through the thousands of scholarly articles of latest research -- you know, applying Watson's capabilities to a realm that humans need help in.

How long will it be before IBM puts up an "ask Watson" web page, I wonder?

Yeah. Going to war worked SO well in Somalia. America got very heavily criticized for military interference in Africa's internal affairs. Citation: PBS. "Less than a year after having been welcomed by the Somali people as heroes, American soldiers were ambushed by Somali men, women, and children." Then, a year later, America didn't use its military to stop the Rwandan genocide, and got the blame for standing by and doing nothing. Don't trust me: listen to PBS. "The Triumph of Evil: How the West Ignored Warnings of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and Turned Its Back on the Victims."

I read this story somewhere on the net. One day, an African newspaper's headline read: "Three Headless Bodies Found".

The next day: "Three Heads Found".

The third day: "Heads Don't Match Bodies".

Yeah. Going to war worked SO well in Somalia. America got very heavily criticized for military interference in Africa's internal affairs. Citation: PBS. "Less than a year after having been welcomed by the Somali people as heroes, American soldiers were ambushed by Somali men, women, and children." Then, a year later, America didn't use its military to stop the Rwandan genocide, and got the blame for standing by and doing nothing. Don't trust me: listen to PBS. "The Triumph of Evil: How the West Ignored Warnings of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and Turned Its Back on the Victims."

I read this story somewhere on the net. One day, an African newspaper's headline read: "Three Headless Bodies Found".

The next day: "Three Heads Found".

The third day: "Heads Don't Match Bodies".

See this funny SlateV video: http://www.slatev.com/video/ibms-watson-untold-story/ ...

Also, read TV.com's funny interview with IBM Watson: http://www.tv.com/qanda-with-watson-ibms-jeopardy!-playing-trivia-machine/story/25168.html ...

A serious presentation on IBM Watson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G2H3DZ8rNc

Good documentary by NOVA: http://video.pbs.org/video/1786674622/ ...

GG, IBM Watson. :)

I wish I were making this stuff up.

Have a look at this, it gives another perspective on Content farms : http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/07/dont-blame-the-content-farms207.html

Here's a link to the Nova coverage.

I watched that show. The prior trials of the system went poorly. The machine learning really kicked in when (just like a real player) Watson got to"hear" (via text message) the other players answers. And that is when it could make the leap in understanding about the nature of the category.
BTW, the video is on PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/smartest-machine-on-earth.html

I do. When I don't have the information needed, my brain doesn't stop processing things and put up an "ERROR".

You have to understand the semantic meaning of an error in computing. An error is something that is generated by an implementation upon the failure of a test at some level of the system -- it indicates the system has entered a state where further inputs will no longer map to the "desired" outputs. The issue is in how we define "desired," and we find that this is always defined semantically by the humans designing the system, a priori. A computer cannot divide a number by zero, or dereference a null pointer, because we say so, because we apply that abstract truth to the system. We do so because hardware and software form an entity that requires internal consistency to respond to inputs, and when that internal consistency is lost the system no longer is useable.

Humans make errors all the time, it's just that we do not generally halt when we make them. We have other ways of reconciling errors, things we call "rationalization" or "denial" or "learning." Human beings have very limited a priori desired outputs and exception states, and none of them apply to symbolic reasoning -- a coma might be an example of an exception state, and it's brought about by "recoverable device failures." The human brain and cognitive system is also much more finely engineered and rigorous than a computer system, inputs and outputs are always "sane," the states of the system, such as they are, are highly distributed in time and between functional units, and on most levels of operation the global system cannot lose internal consistency in a way that jeopardizes operation.

Abstract thought has not yet been conclusively proven in the animal world, but is that even possible to prove or disprove?

Well, the Nova ScienceNow that directly preceded the Watson episode was all about animal cognition (probably not coincidentally), and they had several rather unsettling demonstrations of a dog that could remember dozens of toys by name, and collect novel toys given nothing but the novel toy's name; a parrot that could count to eight and construct declarative phrases of nouns and modifiers; and dolphins with functional vocabularies that were provably communicating with each other through their squeaks to collaborate on a trick that they invented themselves.

Most creature's brains are capable of abstraction to a degree, but the physical attributes that are associated with humanity, like the opposable thumb, bipedal walking, and particularly a voice, have the effect of creating enormous selection pressures upon the brain. A hand grabbing a pole can kill one animal a year or a hundred, depending on how smart the brain behind it wields it. It may take one individual one lifetime to teach one other individual how to make a tool, or in the same time teach ten-thousand, completely depending on how well they use speech. Because birds and dolphins and dogs can't really manipulate their environment to the degree a creature with a hand can, the selection pressures fall upon other parts of their physiognomy.

There was an interesting episode of Nova called "Smartest Machine on Earth" that was pretty interesting. It talked a lot about the challenges they faced, how they addressed them, what adjustments they made along the way, etc. I don't see the episode listed on the schedule for replay any time soon, but you can watch it on the website
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/smartest-machine-on-earth.html

http://video.pbs.org/video/1786674622/ for Americans. :)

Because we've been down this road before, with the Telecommunications Act of 1996. See: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070810_002683.html

$200,000,000,000 in excise taxes later, we have exactly NOTHING to show for it. Do you have your 45Mbps up-and-down service? Neither does anyone else.