Slashdot Mirror

Part 1: Arbitrariness of the insistence in remaining in information publication industry:

The argument in this case would be "no such car exists", with the scope of "such car" defined implicitly by the rest of the paragraph.

Let us assume that "such" is forcefully deduced from context when "such" is not mentioned. Even then, "such" car is not necessary for commuting. It is not described how "such" car is preferable to any other car. Any car would do, so the ensuing much wringing of hands is not justifiable from "such" car not existing.

Part 2: You not even acknowledging that I am making a "not my problem" argument :

1. drastic contraction that you propose
2. Once you need to buy a year's subscription for Google Search, another ...
3. ought to switch to subscriptions

I have emphasized multiple times that I do not propose they move to subscriptions. How?
1. By not saying they move to subscriptions
2. By saying I am not proposing ANYTHING for the industry
3. By saying I am not their nanny.

I mention the possibilities of moving to other industries only when representatives of the industry point out the flaws in their own business model.

Even when you set out to address my "not my problem" angle, you still
1. assume I am making it my problem
2. assume I am proposing some solution or the other
3. find fault with my imaginary proposal.

Part 3 : Points in which you address my "not my problem" angle.

Hypothetical situation : If the success of the industry is dependent on my suggesting something to them, and not being their nanny I refuse to suggest anything at all to them, the industry folds. You make some good points in such an imaginary situation:

where do you plan to hang out on the web?

I hung out on the web in 2001-2003. I saw a rise of obnoxious advertising in this period, but the best parts of the web were free of any advertising in this period.

Now that the cost of hosting is 10^5 times lower and direction of innovation has changed, I am having trouble being afraid at all from the death of such an industry.

Imagine. "Information" publication industry, holding on to centuries old ways after the "information" technology revolution. And being proud of it - by saying these are the 2 business models being practiced for hundreds of years so obviously we can't do anything.

Essay/Article

TED Talk: Nich Hanauer - The Pitchforks are coming for us.

David Deutsch argues that it is core:
https://www.ted.com/talks/davi...

Also, string theory is surely as testable as quantum mechanics. It's just currently impossible to say which is more valid.

Income inequality harms everybody and income equality increases the quality of life of all including the wealth.

Nevertheless, the West did come out on top, and therefore made the greatest contributions to human progress by far.

And at the same time, we have also greatly damaged human progress in various ways (I won't speak in absolutes, because I'll frankly admit I have no idea who would "win" that particular contest for any given time period). E.g.

• by making pretty much everything subservient to trade/GDP, we're wasting large amounts of human happiness (and thereby, ironically, also of GDP — burnouts, suicides, mental breakdowns, ...)
• by primarily valuing hard science education and regurgitating large volumes of knowledge, we're not exploiting vast amounts of human creativity
• by imposing our societal model on the rest of the world, we have thrown away centuries of social evolution and often replaced it with things that don't necessary work well in the same context. I don't have a link in English handy, but I recently read an interesting interview in Dutch with a simple yet telling example. Paraphrased: "In many of those countries, there were traditional systems that just worked. If person A stole a cow from person B, they went to talk under a tree and worked it out. We replaced that with a system of courts, lawyers and police officers. Now, the person with the biggest bribes wins and the other loses. We made those changes with arguments about democratisation, human rights and international justice, but in practice those people mainly see misery." (it's in the context of explanations for why there is a significant amount of unhappiness with the West in large parts of the world, and why the simplistic messages of the likes of Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and Daesh at the very least get some grudging understanding there even when people find their methods abhorrent)

I'm quite happy with my computer and the internet, but at the same time I think it's good to realise that there's more to human progress than just raw technology and power.

I always found it ironic how islamic extremists demonize the West as the great satan, while driving cars, communicating with technologies and killing with weapons and explosives that are all products of western civilization.

Beating the enemy with his own weapons, hanging the capitalists with the rope they sold, ... Nothing new under the Sun there.

I guess only nude portrate photographs are going to be allowed as someone owns the copyright on the clothes designs

Interestingly, fashion is not protected IP and is widely copied. That's why so much fashion has prominent branding. The brands are of course trademarked and can't be legally reproduced.

While much of the industry is lobbying hard for new protections, some people embrace its free culture.

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

Although i think this kid has some good intentions ultimately its not going to do anything positive for his position, if anything its just giving more ammo to those that already doubt that climate change is happening/can be fixed. What we really need it something more like this: https://www.ted.com/talks/amor... Either way its going to cost us a lot of money sometime in the future to change our energy habits, we can either continue to fund something that we know will fail or even possibly kill us at some point or invest in cleaner and cheaper technologies and slowly reduce our need for coal and oil. Not only does this help the environment but it will also save lots of money in the long run, something I think everyone can agree on. The problem of the 1-2C temperature is sadly unavoidable at this point but the sooner we start moving towards other sources of energy the better for everyone involved.

The Hans Rosling TED Talks (The Best Stats You've Ever Seen) usually start with a quiz that shows the audience to believe far worse about the planet and mankind than reality. The most inaccurage scores on questions like girls education, deaths from violence, people with electricity, etc. came as I recall from journalists, who still use the term "third world". http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_... "if it bleeds, it leads"

Some kind of FTL travel
http://www.space.com/17628-war...

Immortal crew
https://www.ted.com/talks/aubr...

Prolonged stasis
http://www.themarysue.com/nasa...

Generations of crew
This is least as much about will as it is about technology. I think the price of having children being born into captivity is too high though.

This is just what's going on today. In 100 years, who knows? I personally believe we'll "solve" aging by then, and it will likely drive a discussion of whether or not we should and not whether or not we can.

I agree completely, when they gave corporations "people" status and removed 'donation/spending limits'/ aka allowed corporations to BACK a particular candidate; This was the end of any democracy in America(and elsewhere this is employed).

There is no denying it with a sound argument, the 400 wealthiest families in the world control more than half the worlds assets(400 have more combined wealth than 7 billion) (a disproportionate number are American citizens(aka America rules the world/controls the exchange rates/financial markets).

Think about it "google" "cnn"(all controlling shares owned by same 400 people) etc are allowed to support/endorse a political party, with user data and all the profiles built on each person they can do more than throw money at a campaign, they can steer their viewers with 'news' that can effect their vote... We are so so so #$%^$#%ed because the general population couldn't put 2+2 together if their life depended on it.

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

the moral mind

Fairly illuminating TED talk on understanding population growth:

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

> Why would you spend a couple of years to write a book if the moment you showed it to a bunch of publishers they could copy it and sell it as their own?

2 Counter Examples that blow this "argument" right out of the water:

* Fashion Industry thrives inspite of complete lack of copyright proves your premise entirely wrong

* /sarcasm Someone should Mathematics / Mathematicians that for the last few thousand years they have been doing it wrong!

Not everything has to be viewed through myopic capitalism and the greed of artificial monopolies.

Here is someone who is wealthy discussing the topic. Bottom line, wealth distributed is much better for the economy than concentrated wealth.

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

How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
HINT: Bring back the cows to desert areas.

First of all, autonomous cars, lets just call them "automobiles" (harhar) needn't drive perfect to be fully autonomous.
They only need to drive better than humans.
And - Newsflash! - they already do that!

And even just right now I'd trust a google car way more than I'd trust at least 20% of human dimwits at the wheel today.
Testing phase or not.
And that's in Germany, where driving training is a very big deal, takes long and is very expensive and elaborate.
And behaviour in traffic is compareatively civil.

Second of all, TFA says: "Yet as Mindell also observes, there are many challenges to the Google model: Its cars must identify all nearby objects correctly, need perfectly updated mapping systems, and must avoid all software glitches."

Well, no shit, dude.

"Avoid all software glitches" is called "testing" and/or "test driven development" and/or "design by contract" and/or "correct error handling". Like, for instance, warning the driver ... errrm, passenger, when there's a severe problem and they need to stop and he/she needs to get out... It's basically non-douchebag software guys doing the sort of thing any regular respectable engineer would do when designing a bridge. And, trust me, those folks at Google aren't your Type-A hobbyist/wannabe WordPress Plugin Scriptoid - they actually know what they're doing.

And now thats aside, yeah, an autonomous car needs to recognise all those many things. Well, guess what? That's exactly what an autonomous car today is by order of mangitudes *better* at than any human will ever be. For enlightenment I strongly recommend this talk by the head of Googles Autonous Car division, Chirs Urmson, "How a driverless car sees the road". Yes, it's a TED talk - you're gonna live.

Now could someone send this guy the memo?
Thanks.

Replying to add link to the actual Ted Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/step...

Specifically, 8:00 to 9:30.

In one form of dictatorship, the dictators select the candidates who will stand for election. This is the system in Iran. The people dutifully vote for one or the other candidate.

Here, if one can control who can reach the general election, you stand a decent chance of profiting from whoever wins the election.

Lessig talked about this in his notable TED talk which discussed the very issue of a very few, very wealthy people controlling the primary system, leading to election of the candidates they favor.

The problem is, when you undermine the electoral system, you undermine the rule of law.

TEDGlobal 2014 Filmed October 2014 21:42

Ricardo Semler: How to run a company with (almost) no rules

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

Just FYI, human reasoning is much worse than anticipated:

Science on reasoning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

Dennett on consciousness:

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

wind's capacity factor has risen from 32% to 37%. Even more interns of percentage gains, solar's capacity factor has risen from 16 to 20% in that same time frame.

Which is still pretty low, and is why you need to couple expansion of wind and solar with a non-carbon-generating power source with a high capacity factor, such as hydroelectric or nuclear. And nuclear is a lot safer and more environmentally friendly than hydro.

As to your question, I was trying to point out the rising slope, the trend of improvements in those sectors. Lots of room to improve, and it;s happening.

I agree that modern nuclear, like Thorium / MSR should be a big part of the future energy production. It seems insurmountable to educate people on the differences between Grampa's nuclear reactor designs vs. the Thorium/MSR nextgen designs, but it can be done.

In the meantime, the renewables trendlines are going in the right direction for both solar and wind. At the margin, there will come a point when the gains are in ever-smaller increments, but costs will be dropping in a steady curve and make renewables affordable of parts of the world where MSR are not cost effective.

Then again, if modular compact MSR reactors could be mass produced, it may be affordable for markets as small as a small village. http://www.ted.com/talks/taylo...

Yes. This TED Talk is very illuminating: https://www.ted.com/talks/rob_...

Wonder if you have heard the TED Talk by Sugata Mitra who did something similar with urban poor kids in India. He set up a system where kids would be engaged to fool around with the computer and basically teach themselves. http://www.ted.com/talks/sugat...

This guy has a few clues on what can help, and he has done what your friend wants to do: http://www.ted.com/talks/sugat.... He might already have some project going on in India on which you can latch on to avoid re-inventing the wheel ...

I do not wish to participate in the larger debate of the boon and bane of introducing computers, but rather than attempting to put yourselves in the village kids shoes, it would serve the commenters better to step out and test out their theories. I just wanted to say more specifically that I spent my last two months in a village called Guptapada near Bhubaneswar in Odisha as part of the Ammachi labs initiative to train and assist women in building their own toilets in their village and teaching skills such as masonry, cement block making, plumbing and plastering skills using a trained professional and tablet based video courses. You can find more about what Ammachi labs does here: http://ammachilabs.org/womenem... What I noticed computers/tablets brought to the scene is the increased interest and self esteem that is associated with technology. This itself was an enabler to reduce dropouts and instill confidence. Above that tablets allowed us to introduce standardised courses which otherwise would require the villagers to travel to the city and stay away from home for extended periods which those who live hand-to-mouth cannot afford to do.

This guy has a few clues on what can help, and he has done what your friend wants to do: http://www.ted.com/talks/sugat.... He might already have some project going on in India on which you can latch on to avoid re-inventing the wheel ...

All TED talks are not created equally

True that. Monica Lewinsky's talk was amazing.

We get other meaningless jargon phrases like "placebo techno-radicalism"

Actually, that phrase resonated with me very much. He seems to be getting precisely how hollowed-out the techno-libertarian startup culture is, in terms of producing anything that is actually going to make the world better, instead of keeping people more entertained over the course of a brief product life cycle. Sounds like a great term for that, to me.

Techno-junk-food. It's making people billionaires right now, but that alone should be a pretty fucking big flag that it won't last.

You need to see what Mike Rowe has been up to. Check it out. He talks about how to find a career and be happy (including finding a guy who picks up roadkill of the road and whistles while he works).

After watching this video Im pretty sure the cars can detect gestures to pull over.

As the car is doing the driving it should follow the demands of a police officer (as opposed to the passenger) although Im sure it will be hacked around at some point.

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

Brilliant video (20 minutes), absolutely must-view for anyone riding the morale high ground here:

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

you need to be rich ... at 6:45 in the video.

Well, I know you are a troll but here it is:

Ricardo Semler: How to run a company with (almost) no rules

You should see the video by Mike Rowe, where he discusses when he was castrating animals (goats? I forget). https://www.ted.com/talks/mike... No, not painless, but not like you would think either. And the 'painless' technique recommended by people who didn't do it for a living was much worse.

"[Navy Secretary Ray] Mabus said Iran and other countries were already using lasers to target ships and commercial airliners"

Laser targeting != Laser weaponry. I'm surprised that SecNAV doesn't understand the difference although low energy lasers can be fun.

TFA:

"Directed energy brings the dawn of an entirely new era in defense," Lieutenant General William Etter, Commander, Continental U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command Region, told a conference hosted by Booz Allen Hamilton and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment.

which reminded me of:

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

- Dwight Eisenhower

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

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

Not so. Typically if you *completely* remove a cancerous tumor it stays gone - though the risk factors that led it to forming in the first place may lead to new cancers forming in the future. (Also worth noting - not all tumors are cancerous - apparently the terminology has changed (or I misunderstood in the past) such that only malignant tumors are termed cancerous. Not that benign tumors can't kill you - a well-contained lump in the wrong place can still cause fatal complications, but it won't be rebel cell-clusters overwhelming your body that kills you.

That said, completely removing a cancer can be challenging, for a couple reasons:
1) Malignant tumors can metastasize, with cell clusters breaking off in the blood stream and "colonizing" distant parts of the body. Often such secondary tumors will remain microscopic due to the primary tumor releasing growth-suppressing chemicals - at least until it's removed, at which secondary tumors may begin growing rapidly. I believe this is one of the reasons chemotherapy is often employed before a planned surgery - with luck it will both shrink the edges of the tumor, and kill off most of the potentially hundreds of other tiny cancers while they're still too small to detect

2) Historically there hasn't been any easy way to distinguish between healthy and cancerous cells during surgery,with malignant tumors often "infecting" the surrounding tissue as well as the well-defined tumor. And if you leave even one cancerous cell behind it will probably regrow. That's poised to change though, there was a woman on TED a year or two ago that came up with a way to bind an injectable fluorescing dye to only cancerous cells* - exploiting one of the characteristic metabolic quirks I believe. So shine a UV lamp on the surrounding tissue after the main surgery and if anything glows, scrape that out too. Currently the accepted technique is to take post-surgical biopsies from several points around the site for testing, and then schedule a second surgery if there is any further cancer detected. Of course you basically have to just hope that any problem areas get biopsied.

*She also worked out how to bind a second color dye to only nerve cells, allowing for much safer surgery around nerves, particularly extremely fine ones that aren't readily visible. Some cool footage for the non-squeamish http://www.ted.com/talks/quyen...

Have you seen this: https://www.ted.com/talks/ray_...

I watched it the other day, and its interesting to think how we might enhance our existing biology. However, if what really makes us so unique is just a paper thin membrane of newly evolved tissue, then.....

It seems even more amazing would be to liberate that membrane from its lizard brain substrate entirely.

I wonder why the cops in one place loose their shit over someone playing with chemicals and then a kid who builds an actual nuclear device gets treated like a hero.

captcha: snorkel

It's not necessarily to learn something, but just to watch how a programmer works. It is like those tv-shows that mount a camera on a train and just live stream the images without editing. It is called 'Slow TV', and there is a Ted talk about it: Slow TV if you want to see how popular these kind of shows are. I've personally watched a train voyage for hours, while I was recovering from the flue. Nothing happens, it just goes on and on, but it forces you to use your own imagination, instead of digesting the imagination of someone else who most likely has the agenda of making programs/movies that please the lowest common denominator.
 
I don't know what's interesting about watching a programmer, but that has probably more to do with the fact that I'm a programmer myself, although I've to confess I've waisted 15 minutes watching someone program in Swift (I language I haven't yet given a look at).

p>If you really want to "get money out of politics," you need to (as much as possible) get politics out of the economy. (Ideologues will always lobby, and that's fine, because it's the crony capitalism and pay-to-play aspects that are most objectionable.) Which, of course, is not what many reformers want to do. Until they do, they are basically advocating spreading sugar around their picnic blanket, and then complaining about all the ants.

Check out Laurence Lessig's speech "We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim" . The premise is that there is no way to even start getting politics out of the economy (or any other sensible legislation) until we remove money from politics.

I feel your pain. My wife just purchased $200 worth of "essential oils" to help our kids with their ADHD. I'm about ready to kill her. "Alternative medicine" is a HUGE money maker. A lot of these bogus "remedies" get sold right next to actual, effective treatments and, often at higher prices. People think "you get what you pay for" and take the garbage. It kills me to see people do this.

James Randi had a wonderful TED talk about homeopathy quite a few years back. It's very entertaining and he does a demonstration similar to the one you did for your wife. For all the other people out there who don't know a lot about homeopathy or why it's a problem, it's worth a watch.

bughunter's link is good, it leads to the URL I meant to include

bonus rewards

It's known that bonuses in creative jobs do jack shit for motivation and worsen performance.

Just look at all the CEOs leaving with golden parachutes. How is their pay linked to their performance?

We had a bonus package announced earlier in the year. I will work the same regardless, because I know if I work based on the notion I will get a bonus, then my work will be worse.

Surprized? I guess he never saw: http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_p...

There hasn't been another world war since major states nuked up, so I'd prefer everyone stayed armed, thank you very much.

I'd rather not minimize the alternatives that have cost the lives of thousands over the last 50+ years, so don't act like a dumb ass and assume nukes have done fuck-all to stop or curb warmongering.

Ahem, except for the fact that the data says you are wrong... http://www.ted.com/talks/steve...

If the NSA had only been spying on terrorists we wouldn't even be having this conversation. (although it's not really a conversation, but you get my point)

Why would the NSA and CIA be spying on Congress? Is it someone's goal to set up the apparatus of a police state?

Why is the NSA spying on the EU Parliament? Are they looking for terrorists in Parliament?

See: TED How the NSA betrayed the world's trust — time to act
at: 4:30
also see at: 12:40 (or at 12:00 for better context) "I don't think they're looking for terrorists in Parliament."
(see at: 6:00 if you believe in encryption golden keys)

There was a TED talk on this recently: http://www.ted.com/talks/angel... This isn't necessarily about pitting kids against each other. This is about emphasizing an objective measure of potential.

Democracy: an endless cycle of elect and regret.
(Eric X. Li on Ted.com, a very interesting video)

There is a TED talk about it,
https://www.ted.com/talks/fei_...

Quite interesting.

David Bismark demos a new system for voting that contains a simple, verifiable way to prevent fraud and miscounting — while keeping each person's vote secret. http://www.ted.com/talks/david...

And that's hardly an improvement. Any actor with access to the ballot paper printing could subtly (or unsubtly) bias the printing process, so that votes for the unfavored candidate would be counted towards the favored candidate in a region where the unfavored candidate is expected to win. It would also be undetectable.