I'm sure they'd love to, but it's illegal, at least in the US. I worked as a telemarketer for awhile (felt very guilty about it, but I needed the money to get through college) and they instructed us that if anyone asked to be removed from the list, we had to, otherwise the company could be held liable and had charges filed against them.
Simple: just get one of those nifty little de-soldering tools and you'll be all set. (Of course, finding another CPU with the right dimensions/connections/etc might be a little tricky...)
Nobody "forced" you to buy the VHS version. If you decided that you didn't want to wait for the DVD, that was your decision. Timetables for things like this are always changing, so you can't hold Lucas responsible for the $400 you spent buying every possible version of the movies.
What books/literature would you recommend for someone interested in finding out more about AI? I have programming background but I haven't done much with AI and it's something that's interested me for awhile.
What would be the determining factors to make you decide that a computer program was intelligent (or possibly self-aware/conscious)? Do you think it would ever be possible to reach this point (maybe not in the near future, but eventually)? If so, at what point might you consider it unethical to turn off/shut down this program?
If you don't think we could ever reach this point with AI, why not?
It may not really be true "consciousness," but it would be indistinguishable from talking to a person. Therefore, it'd probably pass a Turing Test for machine consciousness at the very least.
(I'm not saying that I agree with the Turing Test as a test for true consciousness, however. Simply that this machine/program would be likely to pass that test.)
Here is information on the release of the Mambo X MP3 portable cd player as to why it hasn't been released yet (I noticed this device mentioned in numerous messages in this thread...):
From: Jason Moh, Director of Product Marketing To: All MAMBO-X P300 Enthusiasts Date: December 31, 1999
As some of you may be aware, we have experienced a delay in the production of the Mambo-X. The date has been pushed to March. We understand that this has been cause for concern with getting the product to market, and that both resellers and users would like to know the current status. We would like to address the problem.
The player works, and performs well under normal conditions. Even with most stress testing, it works fine, and would not have any problems for the majority of users. However, during our extended stress testing, we found a problem that could potentially cause temporarily degraded performance for some users; It doesn't involve any physical defect that could break the unit, but rather is a technical one that could affect the playing in certain specific situations. We have found the source of the problem and are implementing an effective solution, which will allow production to go forward. Since this one issue is the only one that has come up with the player, we don't foresee any additional delays in production or shipping.
It is our belief that our users deserve the highest quality for an item like this, and we genuinely want to deliver a superior product to our customers. We greatly appreciate everyone's patience in this situation, and we are confident that everyone will find the result to be worthwhile.
Sincerely,
Jason Moh Director of Product Marketing Tagram System Corporation
direct411.com has a listing for a portable mp3 cd player from a company called "Mambo". It's listed as being available for pre-order and will be released mid-February 2000, so I'm not sure what that means exactly. Cost is $200 and battery life is (claimed) 14 hours (making it just perfect for my 10 hour mp3 cd's + still have some battery left over).
A new study from this week's New Slashdot Science reveals that not only are trolls inescapable in/. message boards, but that they are actually woven into the "fabric" of slashdot itself, due to unpredictable interactions of certain aspects of the source code.
It is believed that this theory could answer many of the questions of current/. users. Such questions as:
1. Why are there so many useless, garbage posts? 2. Why do people persist in clogging the discussions with pure crap?
These questions become irrelevant and easily answered once it is realized that this sort of behavior is innate to slashdot and cannot be stopped. See newscientist.com for more information on this and other incredible scientific developments. Additionally please see Weekly World News for additional updates.
I'd like to patent the act of typing. This is a unique process through which a person, through the sequential striking of lettered buttons laid out in a particular arrangement, can communicate his/her thoughts, enter code into a computer, etc.
From this point on anyone who would like to type is required to send me licensing fees. Please email me for info on where to send payment.
Not enough people meta moderate so this is why such a system can seem broken.
Can you explain how to meta-moderate exactly? I've read about this in numerous different posts lately, but I've never been sure exactly what it is. (No reference in slashdot faq, etc). Is this something that anyone can do, or are certain people assigned meta-moderation points in much the same way that the regular moderation points are given out?
I fell asleep. Writing. Notes. I was woken up --by my trainer no less-- and found out that I had written down my dream/halucination/what have you. Not much, a dozen words or so and then a squiggly line trailing off...
I actually have an entire notebook full of this stuff, from a history of Western Civilization class I was forced to take (my college requires it) last year. I think it's probably one of the greatest collections of notes I own. The class was at 9:30am, so it essentially consisted of a lot of those weird random squiggly lines along with words that made absolutely no sense. Also, every once in awhile I would print "NEED SLEEP" in large, block letters.
No, of course they won't, and neither will computer games ever match console games. The two are really exclusive from each other, since computers excel at certain aspects of gaming and console systems excel at others which computers don't seem to have done very well at.
1. You just can't get decent graphics on a 320x240 resolution TV, no matter how good the graphics controller.
Graphics aren't everything. Again, this simply reflects the different nature of console vs. computer - the graphics in computer games are obviously much more detailed in many instances, and this makes them *different* than console games, not *necessarily* better.
2. They're too friggin expensive(the games).
Most console games seem to be in the same price range as most computer games as far as I've noticed...
6. Impossible to copy, at least they would be if all the console makers were as smart as Sony.
Two words: mod chip.
7. Less competition=less quality.Hmm. While it's true that there are hordes of game developers for the PC and only a handful (comparatively) of companies developing for consoles, again, this doesn't *necessarily* mean that game consoles are going to have lower quality games. I tend to find that, in my own opinion, anyway, game consoles tend to have a greater number of games that are enjoyable (to me) than computers...and again, this simply represents the fact that computer games are different in nature than console games.
After all, I, unlike many outspoken slashdotters, enjoy you're articles - because of the discussion they provoke (and I don't mean the trolls!). Some of the best discussion are definitely provoked by your articles.
I would have to agree with you. When I started reading/., I tried reading a couple of Katz articles and quite honestly found them to be almost completely worthless - I wrote better in 8th grade than he does now (and this is not bragging, as I don't consider myself an exceptional writer). However, there really are great discussions provoked by these articles, and this is why I don't filter him. (Of course, I don't read the article itself, either, I simply jump to the discussion...)
I would tend to think that a higher percentage of geeks would be agnostic rather than atheist. Of course, I haven't done any studies, and I could be just talking out of my ass, but this is true at least among those I've associated with.
The solution to all our problems is clear. We all get together and create a giant poster with the DeCSS code printed on it in huge letters (enough so that 1m resolution could read them), put it out in the middle of a field somewhere, and have this thing take a picture. I suggest that this picture then be made the official new slashdot logo.
Like I have said many, many, many time as well there is not a conspiracy in the [US] news media. I really wish I had access to the book that I read it out of for an exact quote. Basically it was summed up by saying that in the news media there were many competing interests and that these interests were not under strict or hardly any control by and one person. Please get facts. The whole world isn't out to get you just because someone dosn't want to look bad. If you listen to enough of the news stories you will eventually get a compelte picture of what is going on.
I'm sorry, but if you truly believe that the US media is unbiased, you are sadly mistaken. I don't even think it's possible to debate the matter. Essentially all national news reports, if you look through any major newspaper, are either taken directly from the Associated Press or are slight variations thereof written by the newspapers' staff. And most of these reports are EXTREMELY biased, and you WON'T always get a complete picture, no matter how much of it you read. For example, look at the coverage of the Seattle WTO situation from a few months ago. If you look at what was reported in newspapers and compare it to all the eyewitness reports after the fact, you'll see a world of difference. And this is only one example. If you learn to read carefully, you'll see a lot more (less dramatic) examples.
It should be noted that Brown University also has a CAVE (although I'm not sure if they use the same name). They've had it for about a year.
They actually pay people to come in and use the thing, so they can watch you and "test" the software - although I must admit I haven't yet had a chance to get over there and do some of this "testing," unfortunately.:(
The RIAA really does need to take a whole new approach to the way they do business. Instead of relying on overpriced CD's for revenue (and attempting to add a copy-protection scheme once they realize there is no way to stop the mp3 revolution) why don't they attempt to make some money out of this?
They should just put up a massive online collection of mp3's of all the artists from major labels. They could rely on ads and/or promotions (concert tours, merchandise, etc) to generate income...they could even charge a nominal fee for unlimited access to the servers, and I don't doubt that an enormous amount of people would flock to a site like this. As nice as Napster is, it's very irritating when my transfers get cancelled midway through - or when I try to download from someone on a "T1" line speed and get 2k/sec... if the recording industry put up servers with all their music in mp3 form they would make a LOT of money. It's really too bad that they don't seem to understand this. Instead of adapting to new technology, they're simply trying to suppress it, and if history is any guide they are obviously doomed from the start.
I'm really not sure where you're coming from with many of your points here...
In many window managers, nondestructive buttons such as Maximize are placed right next to destructive buttons such as Close, increasing the chances that the user will accidentally destroy a window.
Again, even my grandmother can hit these buttons, so can you. I promise.
I can't even count the number of times in windows where I've accidentally hit the "close" button instead of maximize. Sure, for most grandmothers, it's easy - because they're often doing things slowly, making sure they've got it right before they click. People well-grounded in this sort of thing, however - like myself - will often rush about and accidentally hit the wrong one (as I often do). The most common result of this act is a loud shouting of obscenities, as I'd of course forgotten to bookmark the netscape site that I had been looking at.
Umm, because you are a Mac user you think you have to hold the mouse down the whole time while using the menu, which you don't in Windows or in most window managers. Just click on the menu, and behold, it stays open. Move to the submenu (you can move the curser 16 laps around the screen on the way if that gets you going) and click on it. It will open too!
This behavior only occurs in Windows if you move the mouse horizontally off the menu. Any vertical movement will automatically close the submenu. Thus, while sliding the mouse to the right, if you move up or down too far, it will close your submenu and open the one that was above/below the one you were using (or simply close it, if the adjacent choice didn't have a submenu). My answer to this is to simply navigate around the menus with the keyboard, but I've seen many a novice struggle to move the mouse exactly to the right without accidentaly closing the menu.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure they'd love to, but it's illegal, at least in the US. I worked as a telemarketer for awhile (felt very guilty about it, but I needed the money to get through college) and they instructed us that if anyone asked to be removed from the list, we had to, otherwise the company could be held liable and had charges filed against them.
Simple: just get one of those nifty little de-soldering tools and you'll be all set. (Of course, finding another CPU with the right dimensions/connections/etc might be a little tricky...)
Nobody "forced" you to buy the VHS version. If you decided that you didn't want to wait for the DVD, that was your decision. Timetables for things like this are always changing, so you can't hold Lucas responsible for the $400 you spent buying every possible version of the movies.
What books/literature would you recommend for someone interested in finding out more about AI? I have programming background but I haven't done much with AI and it's something that's interested me for awhile.
What would be the determining factors to make you decide that a computer program was intelligent (or possibly self-aware/conscious)? Do you think it would ever be possible to reach this point (maybe not in the near future, but eventually)? If so, at what point might you consider it unethical to turn off/shut down this program?
If you don't think we could ever reach this point with AI, why not?
Many musicians already do this sort of thing.
For example, check out Dennis Bathory-Kitsz.
It may not really be true "consciousness," but it would be indistinguishable from talking to a person. Therefore, it'd probably pass a Turing Test for machine consciousness at the very least.
(I'm not saying that I agree with the Turing Test as a test for true consciousness, however. Simply that this machine/program would be likely to pass that test.)
oops, should have previewed that. At least the link works...:)
CSound home page
/. community be looking for?
It's free, the source is available, and it can synthesize some amazing sounds. What more could the
Here is information on the release of the Mambo X MP3 portable cd player as to why it hasn't been released yet (I noticed this device mentioned in numerous messages in this thread...):
From: Jason Moh, Director of Product Marketing
To: All MAMBO-X P300 Enthusiasts
Date: December 31, 1999
As some of you may be aware, we have experienced a delay in the production of the Mambo-X. The date has been pushed to March. We understand that this has been cause for concern with getting the product to market, and that both resellers and users would like to know the current status. We would like to address the problem.
The player works, and performs well under normal conditions. Even with most stress testing, it works fine, and would not have any problems for the majority of users. However, during our extended stress testing, we found a problem that could potentially cause temporarily degraded performance for some users; It doesn't involve any physical defect that could break the unit, but rather is a technical one that could affect the playing in certain specific situations. We have found the source of the problem and are implementing an effective solution, which will allow production to go forward. Since this one issue is the only one that has come up with the player, we don't foresee any additional delays in production or shipping.
It is our belief that our users deserve the highest quality for an item like this, and we genuinely want to deliver a superior product to our customers. We greatly appreciate everyone's patience in this situation, and we are confident that everyone will find the result to be worthwhile.
Sincerely,
Jason Moh
Director of Product Marketing
Tagram System Corporation
The URL for this letter
direct411.com has a listing for a portable mp3 cd player from a company called "Mambo". It's listed as being available for pre-order and will be released mid-February 2000, so I'm not sure what that means exactly. Cost is $200 and battery life is (claimed) 14 hours (making it just perfect for my 10 hour mp3 cd's + still have some battery left over).
Here's the URL:
Mambo portable MP3 cd player
Anyone else know anything about these and when they might be released?
A new study from this week's New Slashdot Science reveals that not only are trolls inescapable in /. message boards, but that they are actually woven into the "fabric" of slashdot itself, due to unpredictable interactions of certain aspects of the source code.
/. users. Such questions as:
It is believed that this theory could answer many of the questions of current
1. Why are there so many useless, garbage posts?
2. Why do people persist in clogging the discussions with pure crap?
These questions become irrelevant and easily answered once it is realized that this sort of behavior is innate to slashdot and cannot be stopped. See newscientist.com for more information on this and other incredible scientific developments. Additionally please see Weekly World News for additional updates.
I'd like to patent the act of typing. This is a unique process through which a person, through the sequential striking of lettered buttons laid out in a particular arrangement, can communicate his/her thoughts, enter code into a computer, etc.
From this point on anyone who would like to type is required to send me licensing fees. Please email me for info on where to send payment.
Not enough people meta moderate so this is why such a system can seem broken.
Can you explain how to meta-moderate exactly? I've read about this in numerous different posts lately, but I've never been sure exactly what it is. (No reference in slashdot faq, etc). Is this something that anyone can do, or are certain people assigned meta-moderation points in much the same way that the regular moderation points are given out?
I fell asleep. Writing. Notes. I was woken up --by my trainer no less-- and found out that I had written down my dream/halucination/what have you. Not much, a dozen words or so and then a squiggly line trailing off...
I actually have an entire notebook full of this stuff, from a history of Western Civilization class I was forced to take (my college requires it) last year. I think it's probably one of the greatest collections of notes I own. The class was at 9:30am, so it essentially consisted of a lot of those weird random squiggly lines along with words that made absolutely no sense. Also, every once in awhile I would print "NEED SLEEP" in large, block letters.
Console games will never match computer games.
No, of course they won't, and neither will computer games ever match console games. The two are really exclusive from each other, since computers excel at certain aspects of gaming and console systems excel at others which computers don't seem to have done very well at.
1. You just can't get decent graphics on a 320x240 resolution TV, no matter how good the graphics controller.
Graphics aren't everything. Again, this simply reflects the different nature of console vs. computer - the graphics in computer games are obviously much more detailed in many instances, and this makes them *different* than console games, not *necessarily* better.
2. They're too friggin expensive(the games).
Most console games seem to be in the same price range as most computer games as far as I've noticed...
6. Impossible to copy, at least they would be if all the console makers were as smart as Sony.
Two words: mod chip.
7. Less competition=less quality.Hmm. While it's true that there are hordes of game developers for the PC and only a handful (comparatively) of companies developing for consoles, again, this doesn't *necessarily* mean that game consoles are going to have lower quality games. I tend to find that, in my own opinion, anyway, game consoles tend to have a greater number of games that are enjoyable (to me) than computers...and again, this simply represents the fact that computer games are different in nature than console games.
After all, I, unlike many outspoken slashdotters, enjoy you're articles - because of the discussion they provoke (and I don't mean the trolls!). Some of the best discussion are definitely provoked by your articles.
/., I tried reading a couple of Katz articles and quite honestly found them to be almost completely worthless - I wrote better in 8th grade than he does now (and this is not bragging, as I don't consider myself an exceptional writer). However, there really are great discussions provoked by these articles, and this is why I don't filter him. (Of course, I don't read the article itself, either, I simply jump to the discussion...)
I would have to agree with you. When I started reading
I would tend to think that a higher percentage of geeks would be agnostic rather than atheist. Of course, I haven't done any studies, and I could be just talking out of my ass, but this is true at least among those I've associated with.
The solution to all our problems is clear. We all get together and create a giant poster with the DeCSS code printed on it in huge letters (enough so that 1m resolution could read them), put it out in the middle of a field somewhere, and have this thing take a picture. I suggest that this picture then be made the official new slashdot logo.
Like I have said many, many, many time as well there is not a conspiracy in the [US] news media. I really wish I had access to the book that I read it out of for an exact quote. Basically it was summed up by saying that in the news media there were many competing interests and that these interests were not under strict or hardly any control by and one person. Please get facts. The whole world isn't out to get you just because someone dosn't want to look bad. If you listen to enough of the news stories you will eventually get a compelte picture of what is going on.
I'm sorry, but if you truly believe that the US media is unbiased, you are sadly mistaken. I don't even think it's possible to debate the matter. Essentially all national news reports, if you look through any major newspaper, are either taken directly from the Associated Press or are slight variations thereof written by the newspapers' staff. And most of these reports are EXTREMELY biased, and you WON'T always get a complete picture, no matter how much of it you read. For example, look at the coverage of the Seattle WTO situation from a few months ago. If you look at what was reported in newspapers and compare it to all the eyewitness reports after the fact, you'll see a world of difference. And this is only one example. If you learn to read carefully, you'll see a lot more (less dramatic) examples.
Their website doesn't seem to be very extensive, but it does have some information:
http://www.cs.brown.edu/re search/graphics/research/cave/
It should be noted that Brown University also has a CAVE (although I'm not sure if they use the same name). They've had it for about a year.
:(
They actually pay people to come in and use the thing, so they can watch you and "test" the software - although I must admit I haven't yet had a chance to get over there and do some of this "testing," unfortunately.
The RIAA really does need to take a whole new approach to the way they do business. Instead of relying on overpriced CD's for revenue (and attempting to add a copy-protection scheme once they realize there is no way to stop the mp3 revolution) why don't they attempt to make some money out of this?
They should just put up a massive online collection of mp3's of all the artists from major labels. They could rely on ads and/or promotions (concert tours, merchandise, etc) to generate income...they could even charge a nominal fee for unlimited access to the servers, and I don't doubt that an enormous amount of people would flock to a site like this. As nice as Napster is, it's very irritating when my transfers get cancelled midway through - or when I try to download from someone on a "T1" line speed and get 2k/sec... if the recording industry put up servers with all their music in mp3 form they would make a LOT of money. It's really too bad that they don't seem to understand this. Instead of adapting to new technology, they're simply trying to suppress it, and if history is any guide they are obviously doomed from the start.
I'm rather curious - what part of Kafka's The Trial did you see as being sci-fi exactly?
I'm really not sure where you're coming from with many of your points here...
In many window managers, nondestructive buttons such as Maximize are placed right next to destructive buttons such as Close, increasing the chances that the user will accidentally destroy a window.
Again, even my grandmother can hit these buttons, so can you. I promise.
I can't even count the number of times in windows where I've accidentally hit the "close" button instead of maximize. Sure, for most grandmothers, it's easy - because they're often doing things slowly, making sure they've got it right before they click. People well-grounded in this sort of thing, however - like myself - will often rush about and accidentally hit the wrong one (as I often do). The most common result of this act is a loud shouting of obscenities, as I'd of course forgotten to bookmark the netscape site that I had been looking at.
Umm, because you are a Mac user you think you have to hold the mouse down the whole time while using the menu, which you don't in Windows or in most window managers. Just click on the menu, and behold, it stays open. Move to the submenu (you can move the curser 16 laps around the screen on the way if that gets you going) and click on it. It will open too!
This behavior only occurs in Windows if you move the mouse horizontally off the menu. Any vertical movement will automatically close the submenu. Thus, while sliding the mouse to the right, if you move up or down too far, it will close your submenu and open the one that was above/below the one you were using (or simply close it, if the adjacent choice didn't have a submenu). My answer to this is to simply navigate around the menus with the keyboard, but I've seen many a novice struggle to move the mouse exactly to the right without accidentaly closing the menu.