Slashdot Mirror

It is obvious you aren't a programmer. You aren't thinking about it from a programmer's debugging perspective. Would you rather:

* Start from a simpler base that ALREADY works (such as an Earthworm) and trying to figure out how the pieces work, or

* Start from complexity literally billions of order complicated and TRY to debug that???

Just to put the connections into perspective:

* Each neuron may be connected to up to 10,000 other neurons,
* The minimum total number of connections is estimated to be 100+ trillion. The number of these synapses are at least 1,000 times the number of stars in our galaxy. Yeah, good luck simulating THAT !

> It's like saying we can only make a functional wing from feathers, and not aluminum.

No, that analogy is flawed.

When reverse engineering you ALWAYS start with something that ALREADY works.

You don't start from scratch and "HOPE" it "eventually" works when you don't have a way to determine if it is or isn't working correctly. That is the height of stupidity.

Theory ALWAYS comes AFTER application.

There are a few big problems in Science at the moment:

* Scientists don't have a fucking clue what Consciousness is. There is (currently) no ability to measure it, store it, load it, etc. Without a way to MEASURE it, HOW do you know if what you are doing is moving towards or away from the goal post??? Science will advance when Consciousness is part of the equations.

* Scientists are under the delusion that Consciousness is this magically emergent property. This is the typical ignorance of man -- viewing things ass-backwards.

e.g. Rene Descartes got it completely backwards. It is NOT I think, therefore I am but I AM, therefore I (may) think. (It is obvious Descartes never spent any time learning how to meditate without any thoughts for any significant period of time..)

The actuality is that Consciousness is the Foundation of reality -- not energy. Peter Russel does a great job explaining this in his Primacy of Consciousness talk. Anyone who has had a shared OBE can tell also tell you this -- but unless you have had one you don't have a frame of reference to understand the implications of this -- Consciousness has the ability to operate outside the confines of space-time. Tom Campbell's My Big Toe is a REALLY interesting "map of the territory" so to speak that goes into more detail.

* Trying to use a Linear process to understand a Non-Linear system will never work. Scientists have yet to (re)discover that Consciousness is Non-Linear due to the Property of Free Will. /sarcasm Yeah, good luck trying to use a deterministic system to modal THAT.

* Mind != Brain. There have been dozens of experiments showing the Non-Locality of Mind. Using a Linear system will never modal that.

  But like Max Planck said:

Science Advances One Funeral at a Time.

The entire approach to the solution (and problem) to AI, like creating Artificial Life, is all wrong.

Musk talked about this project in an interview last week. He talks about how surprisingly little innovation has occurred in tunneling technology lately. Everything is still running on diesel power, requiring massive infrastructure to feed fresh air to the operation. In early talks with experts, he asked if they were limited by power or by heat, and they didn't have an answer.

So that's a big part of the reason why he started the Boring Company in the first place. He not only had the selfish motivation to alleviate his own commuting woes, he also found an industry ripe for disruption. Just switching from diesel to electric (an area in which he has some expertise) they can greatly reduce the cost, and that's just the first step in a longer plan.

Parents needed a new reason to be paranoid and overprotective. That's never been a bad thing.

On a serious note, I grew up in Pittsburgh. Prior the 1980s, the air was exceptionally unsafe. Since then, it's only been getting cleaner. What's the trend line for obesity look like? Spoiler: obesity is going up and up, while the air is cleaner than it's ever been for nearly 40 years. Therefore if bad air was thing, you'd expect the exact opposite.

Alarmist news reports over spurious correlations do not help people. They only make your average person lose trust in science. That's not particularly a good thing.

Nothing looks at all like what I saw here. It looks like a tunnel, a boring tunnel constructed by The Boring Company. So allow me to pose a question instead. What makes this short tunnel so worthy of praise?

The tunnel itself is not exciting. But we live in the Golden Era of Marketing and Musk seems to be a marketing master.

Does anybody really know?

The largest share of participants came from one country -- Germany -- where the time switch has been a somewhat odd front-page topic for years.

Which makes sense considering they're the ones who came up with the whole thing.

I'll preface this by saying that I've made a number of critical comments about Elon Musk's ideas and actions in the past, and more often then not, they are modded down. I don't understand why, as I see Musk to be a good idea-man and a brilliant marketer, but he spends too much time inflating the brilliancy of his ideas before anything even gets off the drawing board.

So, I'll try a different approach. I read the article, and I watched the tweeted tunnel video. And I saw an accelerated recording of passing through a tunnel. Nothing looks at all like what I saw here. It looks like a tunnel, a boring tunnel constructed by The Boring Company. So allow me to pose a question instead. What makes this short tunnel so worthy of praise?

And how long out are we until cars can get transported through it, like in the YouTube video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Antibodies, antibodies, antibodies, antibodies!
Sorry...

"while they might let you know when someone has stolen your identity, they're not likely to prevent that from occurring in the first place."

Mitchell & Webb Sound - Identity Theft

The Google Bike video....More for Less https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Something to keep in mind while listening: The investigation after the fact showed **no students actually complained** and the complaint was completely fabricated.

I'm not sure why this is modded down, probably because it's AC, but it's actually true. There's goofy lobbies in the US which make outrageous claims that irradiation of food makes it taste bad, destroys it, makes it radioactive, etc. Some irradiation still happens, but people are indeed irrationally afraid of it like water fluoridation.

Interestingly though, Europe doesn't irradiate *enough* foods because they still kill a lot of people from time to time with preventable foodborne illness, but I think that has a lot to do with the widespread belief (rising in the US too) of what is natural is good, even if it is potentially deadly, and anything based on science is wrong.

John Stossel, even though I'm not really aligned with many of his political/economic beliefs, did a pretty good little "documentary" about food irradiation: see on YouTube

Just missing a few critical items...

Daylight Saving Time, The Movie

Brilliant! But...where does the energy come from to make the hydrogen?

In the future? Solar power. Today? Nuclear power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Here's someone with a doctorate that disagrees with you. Professor Gordon Aubrecht finds synthesized fuel from nuclear power is certainly viable. I don't recall how much detail he goes into it here but he's known to support synthesized fuel from nuclear power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

He makes the interesting case that the ultimate solution will be in solar power but we will need nuclear power to get us there.

Here's another idea on a "bridge" to alternative energy. T. Boone Pickens thinks natural gas is the bridge, but hw's not sure where it leads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

If we are going to move to electric vehicles then we need an energy source to get it from. Burning natural gas to make electricity to charge up an electric airplane would not generally be considered wise for many reasons. It that case we'd just burn the natural gas in the vehicles. If we want zero carbon energy and still fly our planes then it's likely to be with synthesized fuels. You tell me it will never work? Well, people smarter than you tell me otherwise. Also, if it won't work then we don't fly. So, we'll have to find a way to make it work.

Electric planes won't fly any time soon. The regulations and infrastructure needs alone will keep this from flying for 10 to 30 years. Synthetic fuels can happen very soon if we are truly concerned about a zero carbon future.

Here's someone with a doctorate that disagrees with you. Professor Gordon Aubrecht finds synthesized fuel from nuclear power is certainly viable. I don't recall how much detail he goes into it here but he's known to support synthesized fuel from nuclear power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

He makes the interesting case that the ultimate solution will be in solar power but we will need nuclear power to get us there.

Here's another idea on a "bridge" to alternative energy. T. Boone Pickens thinks natural gas is the bridge, but hw's not sure where it leads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

If we are going to move to electric vehicles then we need an energy source to get it from. Burning natural gas to make electricity to charge up an electric airplane would not generally be considered wise for many reasons. It that case we'd just burn the natural gas in the vehicles. If we want zero carbon energy and still fly our planes then it's likely to be with synthesized fuels. You tell me it will never work? Well, people smarter than you tell me otherwise. Also, if it won't work then we don't fly. So, we'll have to find a way to make it work.

Electric planes won't fly any time soon. The regulations and infrastructure needs alone will keep this from flying for 10 to 30 years. Synthetic fuels can happen very soon if we are truly concerned about a zero carbon future.

Someone who is not you and whom you do not know or do business with pretends to be you and somehow that is not entirely the problem of that person and the person who believed that person. All it should take for that to go away is you saying "wasn't me", because you know, it wasn't you. It's actually money that's been taken. Yes. From You. Kind of. I don't know what you want from me other than my commiserations.

My x- wife bought one of these. Should I be concerned?

Great value and great for hauling dead bodies. No more bloody mess either. Leaving no trace of any corpse in your trunk!

People who bought this, also bought:
Duck Tape
...snipsnip...

Hydrofluoric acid. Or maybe not.

As much as they claim this as a solution to global warming it should be obvious it is not. First of all they admit that this is limited to very short flights, the kind of travel better suited to rail. Second, they have to know this will not make it to market any time soon. Even if they had flying prototypes today no passenger service would be allowed by any regulatory agency in the world without considerable testing. Then, even if they are approved to fly, there is the problem of infrastructure. They plan to swap out the batteries on the ground to avoid having to keep the airplane on the ground for a recharge. That will limit the places it can fly.

Here's a better idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

At best we can get these electric planes flying in 30 years. We can get carbon neutral synthesized jet fuel far sooner, all we need is a government willing to make it happen.

My Computer Just Became Self Aware

because we're making Earth more livable for humans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I honestly expect him trying to put up with snowflakes will land him in a hospital bed sooner or later.
There is only so much shit you can take from literal mentally disabled people before you either snap or pass out.
I wish the best for him.

But I must admit, seeing him talking like this is also much much funnier.
I don't know why, but I imagined Homer speaking those words in that sarcastic tone he does every so often.
"look at me, I'm making people haaaaappy"

Creimer released a dance video earlier this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

The maintenance workers at his apartment complex are still putting the floor joists back six months later!

As Jim Warren said in Triumph of the Nerds: "A whole bunch of us had the same community spirit, and that permeated the whole Homebrew Computer Club. As soon as somebody would solve a problem, they'd come running down to the Homebrew Computer Club's next meeting and say, 'Hey, everybody! You know that problem that all of us have been trying to figure out how to solve? Here's the solution! Isn't this wonderful? Aren't I a great guy?' And it's my contention that that is a major component of why Silicon Valley was able to develop the technology as rapidly as it did: because we were all sharing – everybody won!"

Amiga had some good ones like aRoach which caused cockroaches to scurry under your windows, dk which caused pixels on each window to fall like snow to the bottom of the screen, or closeme which made your windows flee whenever you approached the close button.

Amiga had some good ones like aRoach which caused cockroaches to scurry under your windows, dk which caused pixels on each window to fall like snow to the bottom of the screen, or closeme which made your windows flee whenever you approached the close button.

Apple spent less r&d in than AMD in the era where Apple was a duopoly in the smartphone and tablet market with Samsung(no chinese companies back then where so huge) than AMD spent in r&d during their bulldozer days.

Apple, aside from the firewire, hasn't invented anything. They repackage, copy-pasta ideas, from others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I hate fanboys because their fanboy-ism is based upon marketing and ads. I love fanboys who are fanboys for technical reasons.
Let the hate flow, I learnt the "foe" feature here 3 years into this account after an "anti-apple" comment.

Apple is a fashion choice, stop being fashists.

Bloomberg ... media is being controlled by idiots who believe technology is evil.

...satan himself ...

Could it be... SATAN?!

That's not new, here is the media going all SATAN on somebody back in `88.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

A good landing is one you can walk away from. A great landing is when the aircraft can be used again. Landing in a field or median may result in more damage.

Here's a highway landing

The point is not about the demeaning of one group or another it's about accuracy in the label.

Example
Calling Ben Shapiro a NAZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Just how a Libertarian leaning conservative qualifies as a NAZI is rather odd.

NPC however is rather descriptive, it's on the order of Canadians are lousy drivers. Not true for every single Canadian, but the odds favor it.

Oh no!

I'm afraid this is not true. Some transgender people are quite offended that straight members of the opposite gender are not attracted. See, for example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?..., where the straight members of the opposite gender are blamed for their lack of acceptance.

Time to link my favourite shit-eating grin on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

This one has a very Happy Ending!

There is a better place for that.

Scott Manley has a good video analysis.

The problem was with a bent pin seemingly 'forced' in during assembly rather than the sensor itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

J. Frank Parnell : Ever been to Utah? Ra-di-a-tion. Yes, indeed. You hear the most outrageous lies about it. Half-baked goggle-box do-gooders telling everybody it's bad for you. Pernicious nonsense. Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too. When they canceled the project it almost did me in. One day my mind was literally bursting. The next day - nothing. Swept away. But I showed them. I had a lobotomy in the end.

Otto : Lobotomy? Isn't that for loonies?

Parnell : Not at all. Friend of mine had one. Designer of the neutron bomb. You ever hear of the neutron bomb? Destroys people - leaves buildings standing. Fits in a suitcase. It's so small, no one knows it's there until - BLAMMO. Eyes melt, skin explodes, everybody dead. So immoral, working on the thing can drive you mad. That's what happened to this friend of mine. So he had a lobotomy. Now he's well again.

J. Frank Parnell

It could go beyond just basic telepresence; you tell me if it has the potential to change the classroom experience for the weirder.

Cool, but is this really any better than a video conference? Why would you simply not use an online video instead? Students can watch it multiple times to grasp harder concepts and they can watch it literally anywhere with mobile technology. I even did one for my physics students explaining Pepper's ghost. It might not be as cool as a hologram but I bet it is at least as effective pedagogically and since we had all the equipment already the cost was pretty much zero.

Well, I was going to say that I would be waiting for /.'ere to explain to me why this is yet more evidence that Apple sucks but I see that AC has already started it.

If Apple wanted to not suck, they'd not have the ability to repair "vintage"* devices hinging entirely on if they still have old stock of components and make them available to their authorized repair shops. They'd just give out the specs on the device so that anyone could repair, clone, etc defective parts. I know Apple has been pushing really hard to make their devices one solid lump so it's very much a "throw it all away if it breaks", but unauthorized repair shops have shown how often things are repairable with components a lot more available than Apple's limited old stock list.

But, yea, ACs are just hating because they dislike Apple. It has absolutely nothing to do with how little, how late, and how underwhelming this new really is: "we'll fix it, maybe, if we feel like it". I mean, yea, that's a huge step up from "oh, you have a problem so you should just buy a whole new machine" for every problem that comes in. It's so well below just about any other company.

Hell, recently I bought a "new" old Core 2 Duo off ebay to add virtualization support to a 2008 laptop from Dell, and Dell still has rather nice manuals to make the whole process incredibly painless (even if they were ever so marginally inaccurate). I don't expect to use the system to play any serious games, crunch numbers, or even do much heavy virtualization. Yet, a $4 upgrade (give or take) 10 years later (in Apple speak is that an eon?) is so beyond anything Apple seriously offers in any fashion.

* Seriously, 5-7 years is vintage? How Apple was going, people were generally concerned that their latest Macbook Pro was going to fall into "vintage" without any replacement. But tech isn't moving fast enough that 5-7 years on a top of the line laptop is in any meaningful way "vintage".

I trust private companies more than the govt.

The Corporation

You are quite literally manning the barricades on behalf of Robber Barons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jh4Mpgbi4A

Jon Prosser explained in a recent video that he left iOS a few years ago because it was a mess, just got a gold iPhone XS because iOS is working again, and Android is in the same mess as iOS was a few years ago.

Donald didn't used to have issues with gender flexing, thus it appears he's playing politics and kissing up* to the GOP religious base.

* No pun intended.

I'm old enough to remember. Yeah, they were super powerful.

Yeah...they had their own police force!

Are you the other writer?

Doesn't look much like justifiable self defence to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Maybe you have a different video.

All I know is what I've read and heard from guys who actually know X11, particularly X.org inside and out. The talk I was trying to remember is by Daniel Stone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... . Well worth the watch. He claims to be only one of maybe four people that actually understand the nitty gritty details of X.org, it's architecture, and X11's weaknesses.