The guy who did this research, Hans Moravec, is a bit of a utopian optimist... he's a good man, but in my views his hopes for the future are a bit unrealistic...
if i recall correctly, in 100 years (or was it 50?) he claims robots will operate fully autonomously, and act more or less as intelligently as a standard-issue human being. in a little longer, he expects robots will inherit the earth, the stock sci-fi drama of robots being superior to us in every aspect, rationally, physiologically, even creatively/emotionally, and we either make ourselves cyborgs/robots, or the robots proper become the mightiest animal in the urban jungle.
so... maybe the proverbial grain of salt is in order, but of course it's wonderful to see this kind of vast technological progress.
a quote in the slashdot post of the news item is taken out of context, changing its meaning... this new gameboy thing isn't the first handheld with horizontal layout, it's the first NINTENDO hand-held with horizontal layout...
remember back in the 90's how much better those sega gamegears were? infinitely better gameplay, games, graphics, style, power usage, power sources, comfort, coolness, etc. Was there one single way in which gameboy was better than gamegear? no.
man, remember the days? gameboy was always the shitty toy, the second-best. remember when they came out with colour? oh no, it wasn't the games that were in colour, it was the translucent plastic on the machine.
I can't wait 'till everybody signs the petition to send spacemen off for a one-year trip during which they will absorb enough radiation of various sorts to put them out of comission, thus rendering them useless for proposed missions. Maybe eventually we will have solutions to all the difficulties in sending humans to Mars, but with what we now have and what's forseeable in the near future, that ain't gonna happen.
So now Dr. Seuss becomes classified as a science fiction writer. Remember Bartholomew and the Green Goo? I think that's what the title was... anyway, here we have it, except he got the colour wrong (like everybody did with the dinosaurs).
While a lot of you (we?) techies might think it's an interestinig development, has lots of promise for global development of space technology, new competition, yada yada... don't you think there are better things for a government of 1.2 billion people, many starving and living in poverty, to spend on than A MERE SPACE PROGRAM? Does China still limit the number of children a family is allowed to have?
For God's sake, misplaced priorities are SERIOUSLY hurting a LOT of people. A little humanitarian intervention would be nice to see, regardless of all the politics. (This being said from Canada, where I know you can criticize, but partly we're on the right track).
I've been using PG for a long time, and it's an EXCELLENT resource. The people running it obviously do need help publicizing, and I think once they get started the project will really take off, seeing as they already have tons of information. As the Subject says, once they hit critical mass in terms of public knowledge they're set. Another hassle they're facing is copyright law. The PG site lists some elementary info on copyright law, and it was changed not too long ago to cover a lot more stuff, so unfortunately we'll be seeing that many fewer etexts in our lifetimes. Ah well, what Project Gutenberg provides is nonetheless fantastic, and hopefully it will soon receive due recognition. Dan
Slashdot Mirror
if i recall correctly, in 100 years (or was it 50?) he claims robots will operate fully autonomously, and act more or less as intelligently as a standard-issue human being. in a little longer, he expects robots will inherit the earth, the stock sci-fi drama of robots being superior to us in every aspect, rationally, physiologically, even creatively/emotionally, and we either make ourselves cyborgs/robots, or the robots proper become the mightiest animal in the urban jungle.
so... maybe the proverbial grain of salt is in order, but of course it's wonderful to see this kind of vast technological progress.
remember back in the 90's how much better those sega gamegears were? infinitely better gameplay, games, graphics, style, power usage, power sources, comfort, coolness, etc. Was there one single way in which gameboy was better than gamegear? no.
man, remember the days? gameboy was always the shitty toy, the second-best. remember when they came out with colour? oh no, it wasn't the games that were in colour, it was the translucent plastic on the machine.
and gameboy somehow won......
I can't wait 'till everybody signs the petition to send spacemen off for a one-year trip during which they will absorb enough radiation of various sorts to put them out of comission, thus rendering them useless for proposed missions.
Maybe eventually we will have solutions to all the difficulties in sending humans to Mars, but with what we now have and what's forseeable in the near future, that ain't gonna happen.
K
So now Dr. Seuss becomes classified as a science fiction writer. Remember Bartholomew and the Green Goo? I think that's what the title was... anyway, here we have it, except he got the colour wrong (like everybody did with the dinosaurs).
Danny Boy
While a lot of you (we?) techies might think it's an interestinig development, has lots of promise for global development of space technology, new competition, yada yada... don't you think there are better things for a government of 1.2 billion people, many starving and living in poverty, to spend on than A MERE SPACE PROGRAM? Does China still limit the number of children a family is allowed to have?
For God's sake, misplaced priorities are SERIOUSLY hurting a LOT of people. A little humanitarian intervention would be nice to see, regardless of all the politics. (This being said from Canada, where I know you can criticize, but partly we're on the right track).
I've been using PG for a long time, and it's an EXCELLENT resource. The people running it obviously do need help publicizing, and I think once they get started the project will really take off, seeing as they already have tons of information. As the Subject says, once they hit critical mass in terms of public knowledge they're set. Another hassle they're facing is copyright law. The PG site lists some elementary info on copyright law, and it was changed not too long ago to cover a lot more stuff, so unfortunately we'll be seeing that many fewer etexts in our lifetimes. Ah well, what Project Gutenberg provides is nonetheless fantastic, and hopefully it will soon receive due recognition. Dan