If you are just generally interested in learning about AI, and not specifically Neural Networks. I highly highly recommend reading A Field Guide to Genetic Programming. Genetic Programming is really cool! and this is a wonderfully written book. Fun to read and easy to understand, great for anyone with a beginning or advanced knowledge of computer science. Best of all, it is freely downloadable under Creative Commons. Or you can order a print on demand copy from Amazon or Lulu.
I also highly recommend reading some books that are not directly related to AI. Checkout How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker. He is a phenomenal author.
Technically... the super religious zealots cannot claim this to be any more immoral than cloning a sheep or cloning a mammoth. Because according to them... neanderthals are fake, and their bones were placed there by they Jews (at least that is what I heard)...if they do not believe in evolution, then a neanderthal is no more human than a monkey or a sheep is.
So at least we have that going for us.
Microsoft Word: Not as useful as Latex, and too much of a pig for writing quick ideas. If I want to jot down ideas or write a short story or something informal, I will take TextEdit or Google Docs any day! There is no reason it should take 10 minutes for my word processor to load up. If I need to make a legitimate paper for a journal or symposium Latex is hands down the most superior.
Excel: In general I have no use for spreadsheets. Occasionally I will take jobs where I will fill out time-sheets, and in general Excel works best with these since OO sometimes has some problems properly running the macros.
Powerpoint: According to Edward Tufte this is totally useless anyways. I wish I could say that Latex's beamer is the superior choice... and for some people it might be. But I have never relied too much in a talk (I prefer to use handouts) and a lightweight WYSIWYG editor is nice to have. So Google wins on this one.
All the other things in office like Groove: meh...
I think the general public could easily phase out Microsoft Office, but it is pretty unlikely to happen.
I read this earlier today and posted this on my blog. I guess my response is more about if theoretically these "big brother" chips could transmit more than 3cm. Technology seems to have a habit of making things harder, better, faster, stronger... so it is not entirely un-plausible that one day RFID chips will transmit at much longer ranges.
I read an article in the Washington post today concerning the future of everything. While some might call this crazy talk... I am going to endorse my neurotic/paranoid side and state: Ubiquitous RFID tags(or some similar device) seems to be an almost inevitable and unavoidable future. And this snippet from the article sums things up nicely:
Katherine Albrecht, founder of CASPIAN, an anti-RFID group, says, "Nobody cares about radio tags on crates and pallets. But if we don't keep RFID off of individual consumer items, our stores will one day turn into retail 'zoos' where the customer is always on exhibit."
I agree with Katherine. I hope that Katherine and her friends will be able to stop this monster... sadly I think they will eventually be overpowered by corporate interest. This situations will not just be contained in store, it will be in every aspect of our lives. While part of me is excited at the idea of cool widgets and the techno magic that accompanies them I am 100% scared crap-less about the complete loss of privacy. So, I have taken it upon myself to offer the best possible solution for dealing with this unavoidable future.
Definition: The ownership of chips. The ownership of a chip is determined by who is in personal possession of the chip. For instance if an item is sitting on a shelf in Wal-Mart, the owner is Wal-Mart. When a customer purchases said item all ownership of that item and the RFID chip is transferred to the customer who will now have complete control of the RFID chip.
1.) All RFID chips must have the following access levels: PUBLIC, PRIVATE and PROTECTED. These access levels can be modified by the chips owner and only by the chips owner. Any attempt to modify a chip that you do not have have ownership of or express permission from the owner to modify should be considered illegal and punishable. I am assuming that it will be easy for people to set permissions on their RFID chip through the use of ubiquitous devices such as their Blackberry/iPhone/(next big thing).
By having permission levels on RFID chips it would potentially eliminate many of the privacy issues while maintaining some of the useful functionality. At the same time if we ever reach a state of ubiquitous RFID tags imagine how easy airport security checks would be! Simply set all of your RFID tags to be public or protected(and give permission to be read by the security scanner) and you can walk right on through. If you have any sort of unsafe item on you it will show up... granted you might be able to sneak in something with out a tag or with a fake tag or a tag that has been tampered with. But that is a different problem, maybe there will be some sort of global authentication system/authority to make sure that the tag matches the item and is not providing false data about that item.
2.) Chip technology must be maintained in the public sector and as open source. This issue so greatly concerns our privacy that the only way anyone should ever feel comfortable about this technology being used in the publics best interest is if it is open source and openly policed(monitored?) by the public. There will never be a company that I would trust to maintain a technology this intrusive and not attempt to use their power over it without devious intent. There is of course the possibility that companies might still manufacture proprietary impostor chips... but hopefully consumers will have the ability to easily sniff out impostor chips (global authentication of
Those who can: write code. Those who can't: write laws.
Can you imagine if every politician in the house and senate knew how to program? Granted a good portion of them would still be writing awful spaghetti code... but for the most part at least they would not be able to compile it.
Slashdot Mirror
If you are just generally interested in learning about AI, and not specifically Neural Networks. I highly highly recommend reading A Field Guide to Genetic Programming. Genetic Programming is really cool! and this is a wonderfully written book. Fun to read and easy to understand, great for anyone with a beginning or advanced knowledge of computer science. Best of all, it is freely downloadable under Creative Commons. Or you can order a print on demand copy from Amazon or Lulu.
I also highly recommend reading some books that are not directly related to AI. Checkout How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker. He is a phenomenal author.
What was step 3? Did you write it in Chinese?
Can we place level caps on lawyers??
Technically... the super religious zealots cannot claim this to be any more immoral than cloning a sheep or cloning a mammoth. Because according to them... neanderthals are fake, and their bones were placed there by they Jews (at least that is what I heard)...if they do not believe in evolution, then a neanderthal is no more human than a monkey or a sheep is. So at least we have that going for us.
Microsoft Word: Not as useful as Latex, and too much of a pig for writing quick ideas. If I want to jot down ideas or write a short story or something informal, I will take TextEdit or Google Docs any day! There is no reason it should take 10 minutes for my word processor to load up. If I need to make a legitimate paper for a journal or symposium Latex is hands down the most superior.
Excel: In general I have no use for spreadsheets. Occasionally I will take jobs where I will fill out time-sheets, and in general Excel works best with these since OO sometimes has some problems properly running the macros.
Powerpoint: According to Edward Tufte this is totally useless anyways. I wish I could say that Latex's beamer is the superior choice... and for some people it might be. But I have never relied too much in a talk (I prefer to use handouts) and a lightweight WYSIWYG editor is nice to have. So Google wins on this one.
All the other things in office like Groove: meh...
I think the general public could easily phase out Microsoft Office, but it is pretty unlikely to happen.
I read an article in the Washington post today concerning the future of everything. While some might call this crazy talk... I am going to endorse my neurotic/paranoid side and state: Ubiquitous RFID tags(or some similar device) seems to be an almost inevitable and unavoidable future. And this snippet from the article sums things up nicely:
I agree with Katherine. I hope that Katherine and her friends will be able to stop this monster... sadly I think they will eventually be overpowered by corporate interest.
This situations will not just be contained in store, it will be in every aspect of our lives. While part of me is excited at the idea of cool widgets and the techno magic that accompanies them I am 100% scared crap-less about the complete loss of privacy. So, I have taken it upon myself to offer the best possible solution for dealing with this unavoidable future.
Definition: The ownership of chips. The ownership of a chip is determined by who is in personal possession of the chip. For instance if an item is sitting on a shelf in Wal-Mart, the owner is Wal-Mart. When a customer purchases said item all ownership of that item and the RFID chip is transferred to the customer who will now have complete control of the RFID chip.
1.) All RFID chips must have the following access levels: PUBLIC, PRIVATE and PROTECTED. These access levels can be modified by the chips owner and only by the chips owner. Any attempt to modify a chip that you do not have have ownership of or express permission from the owner to modify should be considered illegal and punishable. I am assuming that it will be easy for people to set permissions on their RFID chip through the use of ubiquitous devices such as their Blackberry/iPhone/(next big thing).
By having permission levels on RFID chips it would potentially eliminate many of the privacy issues while maintaining some of the useful functionality. At the same time if we ever reach a state of ubiquitous RFID tags imagine how easy airport security checks would be! Simply set all of your RFID tags to be public or protected(and give permission to be read by the security scanner) and you can walk right on through. If you have any sort of unsafe item on you it will show up... granted you might be able to sneak in something with out a tag or with a fake tag or a tag that has been tampered with. But that is a different problem, maybe there will be some sort of global authentication system/authority to make sure that the tag matches the item and is not providing false data about that item.
2.) Chip technology must be maintained in the public sector and as open source. This issue so greatly concerns our privacy that the only way anyone should ever feel comfortable about this technology being used in the publics best interest is if it is open source and openly policed(monitored?) by the public. There will never be a company that I would trust to maintain a technology this intrusive and not attempt to use their power over it without devious intent.
There is of course the possibility that companies might still manufacture proprietary impostor chips... but hopefully consumers will have the ability to easily sniff out impostor chips (global authentication of
Those who can: write code. Those who can't: write laws.
Can you imagine if every politician in the house and senate knew how to program? Granted a good portion of them would still be writing awful spaghetti code... but for the most part at least they would not be able to compile it.