Slashdot Mirror

I thought this was interesting: https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_...

What if you could just edit out that deficiency?

How does the Fashion Industry do it without copyright?

HINT: You don't Imaginary Property to make money.

Hell, when even a patent attorney are saying society should be Against Intellectual Property then you know there is a problem.

Like this?

http://www.ted.com/talks/david...

As the URL says, there is a method that has been developed by David Bismark to use paper, scanning, and also a secure database for the voter to be able to verify that their vote was properly tallied, and yet still kept anonymous.

It's brilliant, simple, economical, and secure, so naturally it will never be implemented in the US.

Intelligence is not just pattern recognition (i.e. understanding); it's also pattern creation (i.e. reason, creativity).

This may interest you then.

So basically, you don't know what the problem is but you do know it had better not be anything that implies it could be fixed by reducing men's dominance a little.

Oh dear. Let me get this correct. Unless you can /prove/ that men /aren't/ the cause of a problem, then the absence of proof is ipso facto, evidence of guilt.

Meanwhile, in non-science denying parts of academia, we have already firmly established that the genders differ in significant ways, esp. when it comes to preferences. And we don't discount cultural explanations for disparate racial outcomes, simply because we're showing off how virtuously non-racist we are -- while simultaneously judging white people by the color of their skin, and without any trace of irony.

Pathetic.

The "mankind changing for the better" nearly always happened during times of rising prosperity. Economic fears and stagnation brings out the worst in people.

Are people open to rational arguments? Yes, if cloaked in emotions : http://www.ted.com/talks/simon...

Some years ago, Prof. Courtine gave a TED talk when they were still doing the experiments in rats.

The underlaying mechanism is that the electrical stimulation brings the remaining neural structures in the spinal cord into an active state (i.e. where neurons can transmit electrical information). If you can time the stimulations correctly with the rat's own intention to walk, you facilitate neural plasticity (the ability of neurons to create new connections). This means that after an extensive training, the rat's remaining neural structures rewire and give the animal the ability to walk again by itself, in certain cases even without electrical stimulation.

The monkeys in the current paper have a completely severed spinal cord and so there are no remaining neural structures. The "therapy" paradigm was thus changed and instead relies on a permanently active neurostimulation system, that links the brain directly to the region below the injury in the spinal cord.

Quantum locking comes to mind too -- https://www.ted.com/talks/boaz...

The Ugly Indian The speaker makes the point of India can't expect to consider itself a world class country until it cleans itself up. He goes into the culture of "someone else will deal with it" so he organizes cleanup events that target the worst areas so that people see how nice an area can become and then start to take pride in keeping that way.

Weather patterns do not form deserts. You're mostly wrong about things and you're wrong here too. You think you know so much. Maybe you'd know more if you shut your gob and listened to those who actually work in the field.

So how about shutting up for a while?

It has nothing to do with rain

But I know, god don't I know, you're regularly modded up by people who got their education from a 4 minutes segment on the Discovery Channel so y'all think you're in the know about these matters. Sheesh.

Or what usually happens: we grow more humans.

Nope - more efficient food production leads to more leisure time which leads to more education which leads to lower population levels. Feed everybody as much as possible if you want the population to decline.

https://www.ted.com/talks/hans...

Hear, hear. The people telling you that "It's better to switch to a diet of energy conservation, efficiency, and renewables" are completely out of touch with reality. While the first world is busy sprinkling their landscapes with renewables and prematurely shutting down nuclear plants, the global share of clean energy is actually declining, and the reason is quite simple: growth. Before advocating unrealistic solutions based on ideology, please educate yourself.

There are already billions doing without, burning dung and wood just to survive; telling them that they can't have a better life is insulting. The developing world will choose the most economical option, and today that is coal. They desperately need cheap, abundant, and reliable energy to build out infrastructure and industry. It is our job to push technology, as only a better option will dissuade them from realizing the mountain of coal plants currently on the drawing board. Once built, they will continue to burn coal for the next 40-60 years.

Molten salt reactors were proven 50 years ago, and can solve the problems facing conventional nuclear. The primary obstacles are political in nature, and while it will require courage, they can be overcome. There are dozens of companies trying to push nuclear forward, but they are mired in overzealous regulations and unfair policies distorting the market in favor of renewables only and not clean energy in general. In reality, these policies lock in fossil fuel backup, which will remain the bulk of generation. Only when reactors are rolling off of assembly lines, do we have any hope of truly closing the book on fossil fuels. Until then, it is foolish to leave any effective clean energy options off the table.

(Also note: the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is an anti-nuclear organization; leading climate scientists, among others who genuinely care about the environment, do not exclude options based on the "green" ideology.)

And homeopathic "medicine" is still for sale.

It's pure water, sugar, etc - it doesn't actually do anything - so it's safe.

There are different kinds of happiness. One is simple pleasure-seeking and hedonism, another is a more deep-souled immediate sense of "joy" that goes beyond normal pleasure, and yet another is something more like a longer lasting "overall contentment and satisfaction".

The positive psychology people have found good reasons to classify it into 3 types : positive emotions, flow, and meaningfulness. This might interest you : https://www.ted.com/talks/mart...

"David Bismark has co-developed an electronic voting system that contains a simple and reliable method of verification." http://www.ted.com/talks/david...

This is the sort of thing that prompted Open Source Ecology's open-source hardware - the vital machines of civilization, built from collaboratively updated open source blueprints, made to a modular design from off-the-shelf parts. Know FreeCAD? Welding? You can make a tractor. I've seen one of the initial prototypes, and it was doing the job.

http://opensourceecology.org/g...
https://www.ted.com/talks/marc...

Their current push is open-source homebuilding, but it builds on all of the machines they've made. https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

In my estimation, this is one of the most important open source projects of all time. This stuff is maintainable and built without planned obsolescence. We need that kind of freedom at the base of civilization.

See if this helps : https://www.ted.com/talks/joha...

Exactly.

Assumption: You need copyright to make a profit.
Status: DEBUNKED.

If the Fashion Industry can survive without copyright then this is pure bunk.

For a gripping account how it feels to operate on only one half of the brain, watch Jill Bolte Taylor's TED talk. Highly recommended!

https://www.ted.com/talks/jenn...

I qualify expert with an M-16 and I have a pretty good knowledge of firearms as I have been shooting my whole life.

The idea that an AR-15 is just as dangerous as a hunting rifle is stupid. I know I can kill a lot more people in a shorter amount of time with an AR-15 than I can with any hunting rifle. The NRA(the gun manufacturers lobby) has successfully brainwashed a generation of people into thinking the 2nd amendment is sacrosanct and that it means you should be able to get any damned firearm you want.

There are many problems with this. One is that this country has changed dramatically over the last ~200 years. Technology has improved and population density has increased. Another problem is that traditionally as the west was being settled one of the ordinances a new town would enact is a no guns in town ordinance. It is a sign of lawlessness to have people running around in town with a gun. Rural settings are obviously different and should be treated differently. But in the cities and towns, guns are stupid and just asking for trouble. Another huge problem is the NRA. I used to be a member but those guys are fucking crazy. They block very sensible legislation and technology like single user gun tech. We can make guns that can only be operated by one or two designated users. This tech is sensible and would prevent many tragedies yet the NRA not only blocked legislation making the tech mandatory, they went further to prevent municipalities from requiring weapons like this for law enforcement. Think about that. The NRA didn't want cops to have guns that couldn't be fired by people who aren't police. Furthermore the NRA has blocked legislation that would make it easy to identify a shooter after the fact. We have forensic capabilities with tasers that will allow law enforcement to identify the person who purchased the taser cartridge, we could easily do the same with firearms, but the NRA won't have it. That's fucking insane.

I could go on for days but think about this. If there was a non lethal and better alternative to guns, would you be OK with getting rid of guns? If you ask someone who is pro gun that question and they can't answer in the affirmative then a couple of things might be at play. They are either too stupid to deal with a hypothetical or they have a deeply rooted religious belief about guns which can't be shaken.

Neither option is good and I don't really see a third. Generally a pro gun person will find all sorts of ways to try to show that the hypothetical doesn't or can't exist in reality, which is proof of the first option as the link above demonstrates or their belief is too deeply rooted.

Oh yes, I forgot the other option. They just like to kill.

17 December 2003 — release of Linux kernel 2.6.0 (5,929,913 lines of code)

If we're all feeling nostalgic, this should do the trick:

The Linux Backdoor Attempt of 2003

if ((options == (__WCLONE|__WALL)) && (current->uid = 0))
      retval = -EINVAL;

But on Nov. 5, 2003, Larry McVoy noticed that there was a code change in the CVS copy that did not have a pointer to a record of approval. Investigation showed that the change had never been approved and, stranger yet, that this change did not appear in the primary BitKeeper repository at all.

Other issues back in 2003 were burning up the Linux development intertubes.

The mind behind Linux

16:00

To me, the sign of people I really want to work with is that they have good taste, which is how ... I sent you this stupid example that is not relevant because it's too small. Good taste is much bigger than this. Good taste is about really seeing the big patterns and kind of instinctively knowing what's the right way to do things.

The following is my idea of good taste (since the 1980s), whenever a comparison involves a constant term:

if ((options == (__WCLONE|__WALL)) && (0 = current->uid))
      retval = -EINVAL;

This does not achieve root. It won't even compile.

My thought is that cancer at its core is a bit error that is disabling apoptosis (cell suicide in response to its neighbors telling it to). Once a cell ignores apoptosis, all bets are off as to what that cell will do. It's free to reuse any genetic code that's available just like a virus can.

Consider that metastasis, the migration of cancer cells, is how we all got our start. After we were conceived, the fertilized egg migrated from a free floating organism in the fallopian tubes to attach itself to the uterine wall. Cancer uses those routines.

Once at the uterine wall, the fertilized egg sends out signals to the uterus to build a blood network to feed the egg. Cancer uses those routines.

The egg grows in an organized fashion into us. Perhaps because cancer has disabled apoptosis, it grows into a disorganized mess. Apoptosis is a pruning mechanism that keeps cells from varying too much from their neighbors. Sort of an HOA on steroids.

Consider that roughly 10^9 cells engage in cell divisions every day, that each cell has to copy around 10^9 base pairs which entails a huge number of parallel processes that have to coordinate during mitosis and it's amazing we don't all die from the errors that are bound to arise.

The shrillness of the anti-trade deal folks on the right and left try to make up in volume what they lack in economics. The USA lost nearly all of its textile jobs two decades ago, and the result was excellent. The textile unions had been unable to recruit younger people to work there, and people had to pay $65 for a pair of USA made blue jeans. Moving those jobs through NAFTA and other deals was uncomfortable for the people who lost those jobs, but 2 decades later it would not have mattered. Google supports TPP because they are intelligent and probably have seen the TED talks by Hans Rosling which pretty much demonstrate that everyone in the world has benefitted immensely from freer trade. https://www.ted.com/talks/hans... Most people on Slashdot agreed 15 years ago, it's strange to see this place go protectionist. Nationalism and protectionism suck.

Most people here aren't against free trade. They are against all the new IP laws added in the TPP which have nothing to do with free trade.

The shrillness of the anti-trade deal folks on the right and left try to make up in volume what they lack in economics. The USA lost nearly all of its textile jobs two decades ago, and the result was excellent. The textile unions had been unable to recruit younger people to work there, and people had to pay $65 for a pair of USA made blue jeans. Moving those jobs through NAFTA and other deals was uncomfortable for the people who lost those jobs, but 2 decades later it would not have mattered. Google supports TPP because they are intelligent and probably have seen the TED talks by Hans Rosling which pretty much demonstrate that everyone in the world has benefitted immensely from freer trade. https://www.ted.com/talks/hans... Most people on Slashdot agreed 15 years ago, it's strange to see this place go protectionist. Nationalism and protectionism suck.

He couldn't get nearly this amount of press, and he's been customizing genes for a while now.

https://www.ted.com/talks/bjor...

Simple answer?
Finite resources and priorities.

The summary is that if we're talking about benefiting humanity, there are plenty of things we can do with our time, money, political will that will SUBSTANTIALLY improve life now and in the future (several have compounding benefits over generations) rather than trying to infinitesimally change something we only incompletely understand in the first place.

OK, if you insist.

You are mistaken. Computers have already created more than their programmers could - at times the programmers knew nothing about a field except Deep Learning (TM) and their programs created better ideas than trained humans in the field.

See https://www.ted.com/talks/jere...

So computers can expand the way we listen to music - in fact humans do it by trial and error - computers might do it by analyzing human brain, reactions to music listening etc.

In fact not looking for some kind of answers is a weakness - still getting that answer is only a partial compensatory strength.

You are mistaken. Computers have already learnt more than their programmers - at times the programmers knew nothing about a field except deep learning, and their programs beat trained humans in the field.

See https://www.ted.com/talks/jere....

So computers can expand the way we listen to music - in fact humans do it by trial and error - computers might do it by analyzing human brain, reactions to music listening etc.

I really wish people would get informed before making brash statements. We're all guilty of it....check out the TED Talk this doctor gave regarding his experience with Type 2/insulin resistance. He challenges the notion that everyone who has Type 2 is fat.

https://www.ted.com/talks/pete...

I'm a Type 1, and although I don't adhere to the rules as strictly as I should, I at least know what disease I have. The ones I really hate are the Type 2's who say that "I used to be Type 1, but after losing weight I moved to Type 2". No, you didn't. Just because you don't have to take insulin any longer doesn't mean you're now magically Type 2, because you were never Type 1. If people who have the disease can't get it right, how can we expect the general population to do it? Combine that with the nonsense being peddled by folks like Dr. Oz, and you end up with people believing bullshit like this:

http://draxe.com/how-to-revers...

There has been found a genetic negative correlation between cancer and most brain degenerative diseases - see https://www.ted.com/talks/greg....

Maybe you are not thankful enough for your genes which protect you from cancer?

Anyway, I have a slight family history of Parkinson's too - though not as much as yours. Any idea of the cancer incidence in the Parkinson's afflicted branch of your family?

thanks

So what would they do if the suspect deliberately writes differently than he usually does?

Handwriting analysts claim that they can find the true writer from even a deliberately uncooperative sample provider.

Suspect deliberately changes his voice

Here, there is some evidence that there is some uniqueness to the voice that cannot be faked. Techniques such as these are used to synthesize voice - it should be possible to analyze voice of deliberately uncooperative sample provider.

I much prefer paper towels. So much more sanitary and easier to use.

Just make sure you are using them the right way.

You may be interested in the TEDx talk "How to use a paper towel". Sounds stupid, right? Tons of people actually use those flimsy public restroom paper towels very inefficiently, so it's actually pretty informative.

Your fallacy is you keep forgetting that copyright is for a LIMITED time.

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

Originally it was 17 years. Now the duration is a retarded author's lifetime + 70 years.

Holding popular culture "hostage" for the sake of greed is immature.

The fundamental problem is copyright kills creativity, yet copyright is ignored in the fashion industry.

>> Q. How many friends can I loan my DVD / BluRay to before it becomes piracy?
> All of them. It only becomes piracy if they make a copy of it.

False.

1. If copyright is still ACTIVE then the answer is: All.
2. If copyright has EXPIRED then the answer is: None.
3. You're forgetting that in some places in the world, such as Canada, Germany, etc. you can loan your _original_ to a friend, and they CAN _legally_ make a copy, and return the original partially due to a) a levy tax on blank media, and b) due to a legal loophole:

With physical media like tapes or CDs the "owner" is the person in possession of the original copy. This definition made it legit, at least in Canada, to borrow original materiel, copy it, and then return.

Thankfully coercion for the criminal tax is ignored sometimes.

> It ain't fucking rocket science, dude.

No, shit Sherlock. However, Copyright Law is NOT black and white, when the law keeps changing:

* MPAA says making a backup copy is illegal. That is, you can NO longer legally archive your original DVD's which is retarded.

* When even lending your CD to a friend is illegal (WTF!?), the whole system has become corrupt.

You are under no obligation to follow bad laws.

Given all the mass surveillance we've been alerted to (thank you Edward Snowden!) in the supposed effort of combating terrorism, I've always been a "he who trades freedom for security deserves neither" type of guy. But the RadioLab podcast brings it to a much more personal level because instead of fighting terrorism, which seems far removed from my reality, it looks at mass surveillance as a way to combat crime. And it's really pretty effective and cost-efficient.

The biggest problem with a system like this, as I see it, is that innocent people cannot opt-out of the surveillance. You'd almost have to start with building a brand new community that had the caveat, "This community is under constant aerial surveillance." Then you could decide to live there or not. A community like that would likely have little to no crime; not because of the surveillance, but because of the type of people willing to live under the threat of surveillance. Of course then, you almost don't need the system.

But maybe that's still focusing on the wrong problem. Maybe the money should be spent on preventing people from doing bad things to begin with. It's a struggle against human nature to be sure, but it's a worthy struggle. I just watched a great TED talk from a Boston prosecutor who talks about fixing society in general, and the justice system in particular, in a way that helps to prevent people from committing crimes.

https://www.ted.com/talks/adam...

The law specifies DNA, but DNA doesn't specify sex. That part where the Bible says male and female he created them... turns out, wrong again Bible.
http://www.ted.com/talks/alice...

DNA absolutely specifies sex for the vast majority (around 99.9% last I looked) of the people out there. XY is male, XX is female. There are a few disorders (note: they are *disorders*) that may cause XX to be male or XY to be female (see that one WNBA player as an example), and there are also issues such as chimerism that can cause sexual ambiguity.

That has little or nothing to do with someone like Bruce Jenner wanting to use the women's room.

The law specifies DNA, but DNA doesn't specify sex. That part where the Bible says male and female he created them... turns out, wrong again Bible.
http://www.ted.com/talks/alice...

Ford raising its wages did put pressure on other companies to do the same. Otherwise Ford ends up luring away all your best employees & you're left with the mouth breathers that Ford didn't want. That was part of Ford's intent. He didn't just want his employees as customers, he wanted everyone's employees as costumers. For that to happen, he needed as many people as possible to make more money.

Ford is a great example of a heartless capitalist treating employees well not because it was the right thing to do, but because he was able to make more money by doing it. Unfortunately, that sort of wisdom seems rare today, but it isn't completely absent:

https://www.ted.com/talks/nick...

Great writers don't tend to be highly intelligent (if they were, they'd get work that pays better).

What you say may sound reasonable and obvious but it is based on the assumption that money is a good motivator for creative behavior which has been scientifically proven to be factually incorrect. Take a look at this TED Talk by Dan Pink for an easily digested explanation: On Motivation.

In a more global context, the fact that monetary rewards stifle creativity could explain many deep, systematic problems in our society. Perhaps it is unwise for us to put people who are strongly motivated by monetary rewards into positions of leadership. Not only is fear the mind-killer, it seems money is a mind-killer as well. If we want creative solutions to our problems then the last thing we need are leaders who are primarily motivated by fear and money.

It seems to me (as a confessed introvert) that the dominant culture in the USA - and hence one of the most popular cultures in most of the developed world - is strongly extravert. To stereotype mercilessly, most Americans are seen as energetic, conscientious, achievement-oriented team workers. This is especially so in corporate and government environments, for fairly obvious reasons. Since all human strengths have (indeed, are) complementary weaknesses, this entails being somewhat superficial, outer-directed, over-sensitive to consensus, and averse to solitary thought or study. One consequence is that introverts often find themselves feeling excluded, undervalued, or even (in extreme cases) considered as suffering from mental illness.

That's unfortunate, not only begans introverts have just as much right to live their own lives in the way they prefer as extraverts, but also because a lot of progress depends on introverts. Not to say that extraverts can't accomplish a huge amount too - but often the really big breakthroughs, which require focused attention for many months or years on end, have been made by introverts. It would be great if we could ever adjust our social perceptions to accept the whole spectrum of introversion/extraversion.

For a good introduction, anyone unfamiliar with the topic should try http://www.ted.com/talks/susan...

New TED talk
http://www.ted.com/talks/al_go...

Starting at 13:40 he shows graphs of the exponential growth of wind, solar, and batteries that are driving the move to renewables.

One could just skip the whole god is here concept and say; you can hear color in the same way you can hear radio.

I wonder how broad the spectrum is among humans in the ability of smell, sense and hearing. Considering the how bad we are att making output devices for anything else than vision I'm guessing it's hard to find a common denominator.

I've taken organizational behaviour courses. People work best when they're motivated. A very popular motivator is potential earnings

A popular motivator is incentive - but that doesn't mean it is a good motivator.

See this - first six minutes. If your job is simple, straightforward, not dependent on any insights you need to have - sure. Incentives work. If you need to do something new, have insights, solve real problems - incentives work against you.

You really don't understand the 4 levels of money, at all.

1. Barter of physical good
Before money was invented we used to barter for goods.

Ignore the /Oblg. "Wood for Sheep?" Settlers of Catan joke.

Problem: You can't trade a _partial_ (or "granular") quantity -- you can only trade "course" amounts.
Solution: So we invented a token system.

2.a) Tokens
So instead of trading the things themselves, we abstracted them and used tokens instead. This is extremely more flexible because now we have quantized our money to a small amount -- the penny, and we can easily assign a "multi-value" to things. You may not value Y but value Z instead. I however am willing to pay more for Y.

Problem: I want to trade for non-material things.
Solution: You can trade for services -- the next level of money.

2. b) Time, Experience, and Skill.
I may not have the time or skill to build a house, but I can trade money to someone who does. We both win.

Problem: Greed drives people to just make shit up and enslave others via usury. i.e. Since some yahoo decided we don't even need tokens to represent the things, we can just abstract money one more step and just treat it as a concept of numbers. This is due to a false belief that: "There is never enough."
Solution: But what _really_ is money? Money is just another convenient form of reality of ...

3. ... Energy
At the end of the day we all want matter which is just a different form of energy.

One day humans will spiritually grow up and stop behaving like little 2 year olds -- that day will forced upon us when we have free energy. We already an analogy of this with software and injection molding. Once you have the first "master" it costs almost zero to print X amount of them. So what is the value when you have as much "money" as a society could possible want and it is trivial to produce something??

The Fashion Industry shows us a glimpse:

Johanna Blakley: Lessons from fashion's free culture
* https://www.ted.com/talks/joha...

4. Honor
Sadly here is a word you don't see much more of. In the good 'ol days, a person's word was "literally" their bond. They had honor, acted honorably, and treated others with honor.

The _uniqueness_ of what people bring to the table is the last evolution of money. In a sense, a person's reputation, will eventually determine their worth to others. Hey, this person gets shit done! Or "Don't use that person, he is always late, does a poor job, etc."

Weirdly enough, a philosopher wrote about this when she explained the "logical transition from the principles guiding an individual's actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others." which is even more strangely in this Object-Oriented Programming and Objectivist Epistemology: Parallels and Implications" paper:

The starting point is
(A) the fact that a rational man will only act in ways that safeguard the conditions of existence required by his nature for his proper survival. Therefore,
(B) he will benefit from cooperation and trade with others only if those with whom he deals respect the conditions of his proper survival. He knows that
(C) those with whom he can deal for mutual benefit are rational men like himself, and therefore
(D) they will deal with him on condition that he respect their conditions of proper survival. Therefore,
(E) a rational man, in order to benefit from cooperation and trade with others, will respect the conditions of proper survival - the rights - of other men

As a species we're still at stage 2 of understand money.

Illusion? No, you're the one delusional on what money _really_ is.

And WiTricity...

WiTricity has been demoing the only feasible technology (resonant inductive power transfer) since 2009. They can actually reach out a few feet without worrying about getting blocked by clothing or body parts or orientation of the receiver. But the media has forgotten them in favor of utterly unworkable solutions like Ultrasonic Power Transfer which can't go through objects and require exact receiver orientation and alignment to work. https://www.ted.com/talks/eric...

The challenge is whether WiTricity can deliver useful range range and sufficiently shrink the receivers to be thin enough to be in a smartphone. Useful range is likely a few feet which means it's much shorter than a typical cable. We're also looking at a minimum of 50% losses which might be acceptable for a smartphone, but we know there are plenty of people who have no qualms charging their 400 watt HDTV or 40000 watt car like this.

The real revolution we're seeing in smartphone charging is USB-C with a higher Power Deliver profile. Next generation Samsung phones coming out can be charged in around 20 minutes which means a charge rate of 3C. Batteries can be pushed up to 5C to get charge times times down to 12 minutes which means 6 minutes can fill up most semi-discharged smartphones. Fast charging is far more useful than being stuck in a 3-foot area for 2 hours waiting for the phone to fill up.

We have a human

I bow to you sir, and thank you!