Personally, I find the more interesting aspect to be that, given the lack of one of the standard building blocks for DNA, something still came up with the "idea" of DNA. I don't know much about the subject, but you'd (or maybe just I'd) think that if it was looking pretty damn hard to end up with DNA from the available molecule soup, it just wouldn't happen.
But to actually "innovate" to the point of DNA might mean something deeper. If DNA contains the plan to create a life form, where did the (apparent) plan to create DNA come from? Isn't this the elephant's DNA in the room now? If we've been accepting that, given the right conditions, DNA "just happens" doesn't this now beg the question why? Why this "urge" to create DNA in the first place, even if it means "making do" with alternative materials?
I thought patents were for "inventions", ie. something you have actually made.
I've been reading the patent and it's nothing but a vague idea on how to achieve it, not about how an actual device works. Even point 5 could be the idea for the Kinect:
"5. The method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising tracking predetermined observer characteristics in a virtual volume to provide feedback for interactive, observer-actuated control inputs."
The whole idea is pretty obvious if you think about it. A rippled reflective surface, with a projector system that works out where each eye is and projects each pixel to the exact spot on the surface that will reflect to that eye.
For one observer, that's easy. Problem is, for many observers, each pixel-area on the surface would have to have that many ripples on it (x2), each precisely angled. But I can imagine a cinema, which has fixed seating, with a preset screen for that purpose.
Interesting idea, however obvious. Someone should patent the idea of the fixed-viewing screen, quick, because Apple's idea is all about tracking movement, dynamic ripples, etc. A fixed one should get past the patent office. Apparently even if you haven't actually invented it yet.
Sure. But, to nitpick, prohibition can sometimes validly be said to encourage the behaviour it's trying to discourage. That aside, who says someone is automatically breaking the law by downloading from those sites? Do you know whether they already own the material? What about free-to-air TV you could otherwise have copied on tape for personal use? I doubt there's an actual crime in certain situations.
It's hard to believe that here is Australia, we have superior online banking to that of the US.
Our banks here offer years' worth of historical transaction downloads. I'm with the Commonwealth Bank, they don't even mail me paper statements anymore, I can download every quarterly statement as a PDF file, or CSV, for the past several years.
I can also do searches on transactions, by combination of date, description, whether debit or credit and other things. All my bills can be paid on the bank's site, via our national "BPay" system.
And you're saying that, in the US, banks won't even let you access your own financial data? That should be a legal requirement. But the US does have a fascination with deregulation, so there you go.
is probably whether the significant costs of getting an education in the US is having a detrimental effect on your society at a whole. If everyone was able to get a post-high-school education of some kind, would you have so many kooks, right-wingers, Palins and tea-party-ers storming around tearing up public discussion and making your country (sorry but) look more and more like a dangerous circus.
Seriously, if the US wasn't still such an economic power, you'd be a laughing stock. You now have the Colbert/John Stewart Rally for Reasonableness, or whatever it's called. Surely they teach reasonableness in university and a lot of people are missing out on it.
If I were to give a piece of advice to the US Gov't, it would be to make education cheaper, more accessible, and get rid of INTEREST payments on government education loans (that's simply a travesty).
Unless you want to be overtaken by every Asian country in the world and be relegated to a backwater has-been, apart from exorcising the scourge of public discourse that is ignorance, facilitate a good education in all your citizens!
The story says "One former child protection police officer says there is one clear message from this case - adults have to learn to talk to children about the internet and how to use it safely."
It seems like government is behind the times here. Shouldn't there be a requirement for social networking sites to state warnings? Almost every device we buy comes with some warning or other about how not to use it. Why is it *only* up to parents (to whom the technology may be completely cryptic) when all it takes is a required warning message, something like:
"Please be aware that an online profile does not necessarily reflect the real identity or personality of an individual. The online world and real world can be very different. When meeting someone in person for the first time, always be cautious and do not assume that online communications are as real and trustworthy as your experience of them in person."
I honestly think people need to be told that, obvious as it may seem. This should be on dating sites as well. There are a lot of gullible and vulnerable people out there.
Ever since Walking With Dinosaurs, things have gotten a bit silly. Creative licence should be revoked at times. There's no way they can know what skin colour these guys had.
Maybe dinosaurs died out because all the elaborate colours and plumage made them all easy prey for each other. The ones left over starved. Makes sense, let's go with that.
of a computer trying to examine what we're doing in front of it when there are so many things we do which aren't related to the computer.
Leaning over to grab a cup of tea or pick up the phone will parallax scroll the windows? Or will it be able to tell if I'm not looking at the screen and so ignore that. Chances are most of the CPU will be spent working out what *not* to react to.
Making body movements instead of a flick of the mouse or the tap of a key? Come on. It's like the idea of a touch-screen PC, which is just a recipe for sore shoulders. Touch-screen laptop maybe. But motion sensing for laptops? Even worse situation than a PC.
I can see this being very useful for the disabled, but I think other systems, like brain signalling, will be more popular when that matures.
is asking 20-somethings to be jurors. I'm all for giving young people good experiences (no that's not a euphemism) but not at the expense of the law and someone else's future. I was asked up to jury duty when I was 19. A guy had killed someone else in a car accident, we had to decide if he was guilty of culpable driving. The poor guy (not the dead one) looked confused and in shock all the way though. All I remember is thinking, "look at him, he looks scared to death, I can't do this." It was beyond me to take responsibility for that. I didn't know what the sentence would be. I didn't want to send someone to jail.
What happened to the "council of elders" idea? Why not restrict jury duty to people over 30? If you're only 2 years out from having a driver's licence and being allowed to drink, it seems to me that the responsibility of jury duty is a little beyond their understanding. I'd even say we should not inflict such a heavy responsibility on someone so young.
I know what I'm talking about - I've had about 10 years' experience as a 20-something.:)
to find a way to detect road-side bombs from a distance in the first place?
Think of the relative advantages of that kind of technology: - Eliminating the entire roadside bomb issue. - Making minefield clean-up easier and safer (think of the children). - Hopefully can apply to unexploded cluster bombs. - Better detection of valuables at the beach. - +15 to Detect Hidden Traps.
When everything can be done with 3D CAD and downloaded designs in the home and "printed" onto your block of wood from Hardware House, the idea of "hand-made" furniture etc. kind of goes out the window.
I wonder what will happen to the poorer countries who export hand-crafted goods when suddenly every middle-class westerner can make their own "authentic Thai elephant figurine" or any number of downloadable designs. And what of all those Chinese factory workers, when we can buy "printable plastic" blocks and make our own Star Wars figurines from pirated designs?
This is going to be a whole new world of hurt for companies I'm sure.
The ONLY reason people are saying "it sucks" so much, is because it WAS hailed as the second coming. People are reacting against the constant unrealistic raising of expectations by the marketing machine, and I think that's a natural, healthy and necessary response. People are saying "fuck you" because movie marketing (or of any product really) treats them like idiots.
If Avatar had come out with the expectation that it was cutting-edge effects (as opposed to "deep and meaningful sci-fi going where no-one has gone before) then I'm sure people would be hailing it all over the place as exactly what it was. Complete fluff, albeit with an outstanding female performance, and brilliant special effects.
But people were led to expect more, so they're like, "fuck you don't play me like this." Sci-fi/fantasy is serious shit to a lot of people, me included. Movies like "Moon" come out quietly and become cult successes, where big money makes lots of noise and usually produces utter drivel and people who value substance are getting really tired of that.
What a load of bollocks. If anyone thinks a so obviously hand-drawn picture is anything like a video game, they're simply daft. It's not misleading, it's "box art". Is album-art anything like the album? Well perhaps, if it was drawn by someone with synesthesia. Otherwise not. Same with movies - how many movies these days are properly represented by their trailers? Not many.
It's called advertising, not information - people understand it is supposed to be somewhat misleading.
I say bring the box art back, at least we'd get something worth the cost of games nowadays.
I love that site. Every time the words "proof" or "evidence" appear, they're surrounded by quotes. It's hilarious. Erm.. I just did it too, but these quotes are more intelligent than their quotes. Uh, not "intelligent" in the way they mean it either. Damn it, they're hijacking the frickin language!
This article was all about saying GenX thinks this way and GenY thinks this way. What a load of bollocks. Apparently an entire generation of millions cannot work well in a group, are entitlement-driven and see restrictions instead of challenges. While another generation of millions of people all know how to work in group and don't know what's impossible.
How someone can make such discoveries and not be given a Nobel for breakthrough insights into the human condition is deeply disappointing.
Argh.. this all comes down to what we mean by intelligence. If, in the end, we work out that all our own behaviours are basically informed by social instinct, functions of brain centres and so on (neuroscience is fascinating for that) then we're left with no choice but to call *any* machine or animal "intelligent" by definition.
Humans are so conceited about intelligence. We're amazed every time we find evidence of behaviours in other animals which seem "almost human" - we compare everything to ourselves, not appreciate things on their own merits. We never cared about the environment until it started to affect us. But hey, all animals are like that, so we're not so special. We're not "wardens of the planet" or anything. We just have great imaginations.
And that's the point. If we came across an organism which seemed completely stupid in terms of its own survival, couldn't count to three if you hit it with a stick, had no long term memory, *but* was clearly curious and creative with its environment (tried new things, investigated the unknown) then we'd say.. hm, seems intelligent! Intelligence is really a subjective term.
Humans survived by evolving curiosity and imagination, so naturally we're proud of it and judge all things by it. But are we intelligent, or just machines doing what we're designed to do? And really, does it matter? What will we really gain, if we discover life outside Earth? We're still the same organism, with the same fatal flaws. I think all we'd gain is what we gain from all new information - new information. A new point of view. It's an "imagination gain" which will spark new ideas, show us what's possible. That's the survival currency of our species.
But we won't be destroyed, or saved, by aliens. Or gods. For whatever reason, who knows why, we're more curious than any other creature we know of to date. As a result, we are able (maybe) to decide how we progress as a species from here.
And maybe that is what an advanced race would judge as intelligence. Not survival per se, nor curiosity or imagination. Perhaps not even how we treat each other. From another point of view, the only intelligence worth noting may be the one that takes control of its own evolution. Of course they'd have their own reasons for seeing it that way. But in which case we don't quite qualify yet.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally, I find the more interesting aspect to be that, given the lack of one of the standard building blocks for DNA, something still came up with the "idea" of DNA. I don't know much about the subject, but you'd (or maybe just I'd) think that if it was looking pretty damn hard to end up with DNA from the available molecule soup, it just wouldn't happen.
But to actually "innovate" to the point of DNA might mean something deeper. If DNA contains the plan to create a life form, where did the (apparent) plan to create DNA come from? Isn't this the elephant's DNA in the room now? If we've been accepting that, given the right conditions, DNA "just happens" doesn't this now beg the question why? Why this "urge" to create DNA in the first place, even if it means "making do" with alternative materials?
Really? Hasn't worked for America.
I thought patents were for "inventions", ie. something you have actually made.
I've been reading the patent and it's nothing but a vague idea on how to achieve it, not about how an actual device works. Even point 5 could be the idea for the Kinect:
"5. The method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising tracking predetermined observer characteristics in a virtual volume to provide feedback for interactive, observer-actuated control inputs."
The whole idea is pretty obvious if you think about it. A rippled reflective surface, with a projector system that works out where each eye is and projects each pixel to the exact spot on the surface that will reflect to that eye.
For one observer, that's easy. Problem is, for many observers, each pixel-area on the surface would have to have that many ripples on it (x2), each precisely angled. But I can imagine a cinema, which has fixed seating, with a preset screen for that purpose.
Interesting idea, however obvious. Someone should patent the idea of the fixed-viewing screen, quick, because Apple's idea is all about tracking movement, dynamic ripples, etc. A fixed one should get past the patent office. Apparently even if you haven't actually invented it yet.
Sure. But, to nitpick, prohibition can sometimes validly be said to encourage the behaviour it's trying to discourage. That aside, who says someone is automatically breaking the law by downloading from those sites? Do you know whether they already own the material? What about free-to-air TV you could otherwise have copied on tape for personal use? I doubt there's an actual crime in certain situations.
So I see a case for hypocrisy.
I love the irony/hypocrisy in there.
"We're not hosting files or stealing property, just pointing to the torrents/links."
"We're not seizing your servers, just the DNS entries pointing to them."
You're saying justice has a cute earring?
It's hard to believe that here is Australia, we have superior online banking to that of the US.
Our banks here offer years' worth of historical transaction downloads. I'm with the Commonwealth Bank, they don't even mail me paper statements anymore, I can download every quarterly statement as a PDF file, or CSV, for the past several years.
I can also do searches on transactions, by combination of date, description, whether debit or credit and other things. All my bills can be paid on the bank's site, via our national "BPay" system.
And you're saying that, in the US, banks won't even let you access your own financial data? That should be a legal requirement. But the US does have a fascination with deregulation, so there you go.
is probably whether the significant costs of getting an education in the US is having a detrimental effect on your society at a whole. If everyone was able to get a post-high-school education of some kind, would you have so many kooks, right-wingers, Palins and tea-party-ers storming around tearing up public discussion and making your country (sorry but) look more and more like a dangerous circus.
Seriously, if the US wasn't still such an economic power, you'd be a laughing stock. You now have the Colbert/John Stewart Rally for Reasonableness, or whatever it's called. Surely they teach reasonableness in university and a lot of people are missing out on it.
If I were to give a piece of advice to the US Gov't, it would be to make education cheaper, more accessible, and get rid of INTEREST payments on government education loans (that's simply a travesty).
Unless you want to be overtaken by every Asian country in the world and be relegated to a backwater has-been, apart from exorcising the scourge of public discourse that is ignorance, facilitate a good education in all your citizens!
The story says "One former child protection police officer says there is one clear message from this case - adults have to learn to talk to children about the internet and how to use it safely."
It seems like government is behind the times here. Shouldn't there be a requirement for social networking sites to state warnings? Almost every device we buy comes with some warning or other about how not to use it. Why is it *only* up to parents (to whom the technology may be completely cryptic) when all it takes is a required warning message, something like:
"Please be aware that an online profile does not necessarily reflect the real identity or personality of an individual. The online world and real world can be very different. When meeting someone in person for the first time, always be cautious and do not assume that online communications are as real and trustworthy as your experience of them in person."
I honestly think people need to be told that, obvious as it may seem. This should be on dating sites as well. There are a lot of gullible and vulnerable people out there.
"AT&T has used the patent to extract one-time payments from the likes of C2 Communications."
Do you think the patent would be invalidated then?
What about the poor puppy in all this?
If I saw a puppy tied up by his lead in a backyard while the owner is out all day, I'd be calling the RSPCA to get it taken off him.
That's no way to treat a pet. The pup may very well be better off where it is and everyone knows it.
Ever since Walking With Dinosaurs, things have gotten a bit silly. Creative licence should be revoked at times. There's no way they can know what skin colour these guys had.
Maybe dinosaurs died out because all the elaborate colours and plumage made them all easy prey for each other. The ones left over starved. Makes sense, let's go with that.
of a computer trying to examine what we're doing in front of it when there are so many things we do which aren't related to the computer.
Leaning over to grab a cup of tea or pick up the phone will parallax scroll the windows? Or will it be able to tell if I'm not looking at the screen and so ignore that. Chances are most of the CPU will be spent working out what *not* to react to.
Making body movements instead of a flick of the mouse or the tap of a key? Come on. It's like the idea of a touch-screen PC, which is just a recipe for sore shoulders. Touch-screen laptop maybe. But motion sensing for laptops? Even worse situation than a PC.
I can see this being very useful for the disabled, but I think other systems, like brain signalling, will be more popular when that matures.
is asking 20-somethings to be jurors. I'm all for giving young people good experiences (no that's not a euphemism) but not at the expense of the law and someone else's future. I was asked up to jury duty when I was 19. A guy had killed someone else in a car accident, we had to decide if he was guilty of culpable driving. The poor guy (not the dead one) looked confused and in shock all the way though. All I remember is thinking, "look at him, he looks scared to death, I can't do this." It was beyond me to take responsibility for that. I didn't know what the sentence would be. I didn't want to send someone to jail.
What happened to the "council of elders" idea? Why not restrict jury duty to people over 30? If you're only 2 years out from having a driver's licence and being allowed to drink, it seems to me that the responsibility of jury duty is a little beyond their understanding. I'd even say we should not inflict such a heavy responsibility on someone so young.
I know what I'm talking about - I've had about 10 years' experience as a 20-something. :)
to find a way to detect road-side bombs from a distance in the first place?
Think of the relative advantages of that kind of technology:
- Eliminating the entire roadside bomb issue.
- Making minefield clean-up easier and safer (think of the children).
- Hopefully can apply to unexploded cluster bombs.
- Better detection of valuables at the beach.
- +15 to Detect Hidden Traps.
But no.. let's make a hummvee fly, it's cooler.
Die standing? I'm not sure even horses can do that.
Unexpected explosions notwithstanding.
The end of craftsmanship as we know it.
When everything can be done with 3D CAD and downloaded designs in the home and "printed" onto your block of wood from Hardware House, the idea of "hand-made" furniture etc. kind of goes out the window.
I wonder what will happen to the poorer countries who export hand-crafted goods when suddenly every middle-class westerner can make their own "authentic Thai elephant figurine" or any number of downloadable designs. And what of all those Chinese factory workers, when we can buy "printable plastic" blocks and make our own Star Wars figurines from pirated designs?
This is going to be a whole new world of hurt for companies I'm sure.
The trend is easy to understand.
The ONLY reason people are saying "it sucks" so much, is because it WAS hailed as the second coming. People are reacting against the constant unrealistic raising of expectations by the marketing machine, and I think that's a natural, healthy and necessary response. People are saying "fuck you" because movie marketing (or of any product really) treats them like idiots.
If Avatar had come out with the expectation that it was cutting-edge effects (as opposed to "deep and meaningful sci-fi going where no-one has gone before) then I'm sure people would be hailing it all over the place as exactly what it was. Complete fluff, albeit with an outstanding female performance, and brilliant special effects.
But people were led to expect more, so they're like, "fuck you don't play me like this." Sci-fi/fantasy is serious shit to a lot of people, me included. Movies like "Moon" come out quietly and become cult successes, where big money makes lots of noise and usually produces utter drivel and people who value substance are getting really tired of that.
What a load of bollocks. If anyone thinks a so obviously hand-drawn picture is anything like a video game, they're simply daft. It's not misleading, it's "box art". Is album-art anything like the album? Well perhaps, if it was drawn by someone with synesthesia. Otherwise not. Same with movies - how many movies these days are properly represented by their trailers? Not many. It's called advertising, not information - people understand it is supposed to be somewhat misleading. I say bring the box art back, at least we'd get something worth the cost of games nowadays.
I love that site. Every time the words "proof" or "evidence" appear, they're surrounded by quotes. It's hilarious. Erm.. I just did it too, but these quotes are more intelligent than their quotes. Uh, not "intelligent" in the way they mean it either. Damn it, they're hijacking the frickin language!
This article was all about saying GenX thinks this way and GenY thinks this way. What a load of bollocks. Apparently an entire generation of millions cannot work well in a group, are entitlement-driven and see restrictions instead of challenges. While another generation of millions of people all know how to work in group and don't know what's impossible.
How someone can make such discoveries and not be given a Nobel for breakthrough insights into the human condition is deeply disappointing.
Argh.. this all comes down to what we mean by intelligence. If, in the end, we work out that all our own behaviours are basically informed by social instinct, functions of brain centres and so on (neuroscience is fascinating for that) then we're left with no choice but to call *any* machine or animal "intelligent" by definition.
Humans are so conceited about intelligence. We're amazed every time we find evidence of behaviours in other animals which seem "almost human" - we compare everything to ourselves, not appreciate things on their own merits. We never cared about the environment until it started to affect us. But hey, all animals are like that, so we're not so special. We're not "wardens of the planet" or anything. We just have great imaginations.
And that's the point. If we came across an organism which seemed completely stupid in terms of its own survival, couldn't count to three if you hit it with a stick, had no long term memory, *but* was clearly curious and creative with its environment (tried new things, investigated the unknown) then we'd say.. hm, seems intelligent! Intelligence is really a subjective term.
Humans survived by evolving curiosity and imagination, so naturally we're proud of it and judge all things by it. But are we intelligent, or just machines doing what we're designed to do? And really, does it matter? What will we really gain, if we discover life outside Earth? We're still the same organism, with the same fatal flaws. I think all we'd gain is what we gain from all new information - new information. A new point of view. It's an "imagination gain" which will spark new ideas, show us what's possible. That's the survival currency of our species.
But we won't be destroyed, or saved, by aliens. Or gods. For whatever reason, who knows why, we're more curious than any other creature we know of to date. As a result, we are able (maybe) to decide how we progress as a species from here.
And maybe that is what an advanced race would judge as intelligence. Not survival per se, nor curiosity or imagination. Perhaps not even how we treat each other. From another point of view, the only intelligence worth noting may be the one that takes control of its own evolution. Of course they'd have their own reasons for seeing it that way. But in which case we don't quite qualify yet.
Sex is like oxygen.
.. you get too much you get too high?
Since even birds do it.
Maybe bees do it, and even educated fleas do it.
When I was in high school, seven pages worth of vision would have been considered deep.
Do we still talk about "vision statements" these days? I thought that went out with Myers-Briggs.