I think when a skyscraper-sized chunk of iron is going to smash into the Earth we have much better things to worry about than any cosmic peeping toms who might be living on it.:|
Generally speaking, I am not a thief. The thing is I don't believe that art and culture should be "property" the way they are now. The only good business models for art are as a name-your-price service and private commission. Other models are inherently a detriment to social and educational development.
1) Proton decay.
2) My understanding is that cells don't have an age, they're pretty much alive or dead. Aging is when the process of regeneration stops.
3) See 1). "Pattern?" Do you mean our DNA? If so, yes, another cause of aging is the end of our genes wearing off after repeated copying.
4) What?
5) Who?
I'd really like to see if this country gets more fun to live in by its tricentennial. Also I would like to go to the moon, and it'll probably be a while before that's an option for poor people.
As with any example of this problem, the issue is ubiquity. There are few, if any, open fora today, since almost all space where you have hope of reaching any ears is either private space, or standing close enough to it that they get to complain anyway. It's one of many ways in which the government, finding itself reaching limits too politically dangerous to breach outright, basically outsource the business of limiting individual freedoms to large corporations on the basis that the corporations need freedom, too. This is the very root of fascism.
The problem with this is ubiquity. Privacy and anonymity have become very serious issues, particularly now that most companies' normal response to the government saying "cough it up" is to fold like laundry. Basically the effect of calling it a crime to register with a fake name is to make it so that, if the government can't get your information, they'll just let businesses do it for them. There are very, very few services of any kind left which don't ask for this information. Somebody who opts out rather than "committing fraud" won't be able to do much of anything legally.
I don't care what they've found to prove this, it must be either a setup or a prank. There is no absolutely no way Bill Gates could possibly be surprised that he'd have to reboot after installing updates.
What do you mean wouldn't happen? The sentient competitor or the singularity itself?
If you mean the former, then I'm with you. Why would a sentient computer feel the need to compete with us in the first place? The only stuff they'd need that we also use are electricity, certain metals, and semiconductor materials. Since we already control vast infrastructures for all of those things, and since we don't really need them that much ourselves anymore if there are sentient machines, they'd be much better served by collaborating with us.
If you mean the latter, I think you really don't understand what people are talking about, and are reacting to the language being used. A fair mistake; I did call it the first step to divinity, after all, that's going to trip any atheist's bullshit detector. What you have to consider is the result of a machine that can think. Applying the number-crunching power of computers in creative ways is what we've been doing, and look what we've accomplished in such a short time. A computer that can solve problems using methods similar to ours will improve itself and reach scientific breakthroughs at a rate far faster than we can understand them. If it's physically possible, and everything about our current research suggests it is, then it's basically inevitable. It's not our fault it sounds like a prophecy when you hear it.
Considering how many things are (and then aren't, and then are again) a cancer risk, I find it really extremely difficult to care about that.
Does it have dangerous potential? Yes, anything does. Pointed sticks have dangerous potential, but we lived through those. It is probably inevitable that somebody will use nanotech for something stupid and terrible, but it won't kill the world. If it looks like it would, we can just use our nukes on it after all.:p
People who consider the singularity something to be worried about missed the point and/or watch too many movies. A technological singularity is not a world-ending scenario. It's the first step on the road to divinity.
You could argue that the beauty of the internet is that everyone gets an equal share of the information online. I argue that all that knowledge will fit into a 5 GB/month plan. It is the entertainment that will not fit into those plans. Around here I might well be stoned for this, but I think the entertainment is just as important, or more so, than the "information." The internet, whether through legal means or not, has democratized easy access to good art, and thereby vastly improved our culture. It might look like all worthless memes, but that sort of thing is no different from the way you thought when you were a kid who read too damn much and hadn't grown out of entirely reference-based humor. As more Americans progress to well-cultured members of society, greater interest will be fostered in history and the sciences, and people will better understand and be willing to defend their basic freedoms. Access to quality entertainment is the root of a more intelligent nation.
And of course, failing all that, you'd just be a flat-out liar if you claimed that truckloads of free porn aren't the lifeblood of our people.
It seems to be meant to suggest that the article's use of "affect" is incorrect. Surely this is mistaken. If suggesting that twitter has anything to do with better communication isn't an affectation, I don't know what is.
"Einstein, though a brilliant physicist, was not trained in the philosophy of religion."
Oh, tip this shit in the garbage right now. The idea that a person must be trained in methods of metaphysical thought is antiquated, and in fact the most poisonous part of what we call "religion."
Cursory examination of the core of all faiths will reveal what is necessary: introspective meditation. Life, experienced in whole, is the input for this process. True faith is borne of empirical knowledge, things which cannot be completely shared but which are experienced nonetheless. Even when we're not thinking about it, even if we never really do, the reconciliation of the knowledge we gain from outside ourselves with that which we find within is a fundamental part of our identity and the way we choose to live. To say that another person is a higher authority on such matters is to give them power nobody should have over another.
Religion is not childish because it gives wrong answers or asks wrong questions. It is childish because it is asking somebody else a question each person should be finding their own answer for.
Though my understanding of modern physical theory is incomplete, I believe in it, and all other things which we have discovered through the scientific method, for all of that is based on experience which can be shared, and in those things, it is wise to trust higher authorities. I also believe that all of the principles we discover were created for a reason, that humanity has an important goal within that structure, and that it is likely, though I don't really feel certain about it, that death contains a solution more, for lack of a better word, elegant than oblivion. Those beliefs, and how I have come to meld them with my understanding of and respect for science, are mine alone, and I cannot truly communicate them no matter how much I talk or write about them. To expect anyone else to follow me would be ridiculous, and so, I follow nobody else. This is what it means to think and be fully human.
I know it's marketing. That's sort of the problem. Calling it a "gaming" mouse and making it look silly makes it something only idiots will want to buy unless they, for whatever reason, try it and realize it's better than the regular stuff.
The fact is that if I could find a "normal" mouse that had the features I require, (thumb buttons, good shape/size) I'd buy that instead of what I have. I can't, though. They aren't marketing that stuff at all, and the one or two instances I have ever seen of them doing it is when they take a mouse that is basically the same as a $50-90 "gaming" thingy, and sell it for $300 or some shit because they've relabled it as a specialist/artistic/photoshop/developer mouse. The current marketing environment simply does not allow you to get a good mouse without it being stupid somehow, as far as I know.
PS: Stop talking about Razer. Why does anybody care about them? Their mice only have two buttons, and half of them have the laser in the ass for some bizarre reason.
Slashdot Mirror
Right, because the respondent didn't already have problems with his marriage.
"We are too lazy to make a scalable engine because we know you'll buy whatever we pump out anyway."
:/
Sad fact: they are right. I will buy it.
I think when a skyscraper-sized chunk of iron is going to smash into the Earth we have much better things to worry about than any cosmic peeping toms who might be living on it. :|
I got here two minutes too late. :/
Nah it doesn't. I steal games all the time. :D
Generally speaking, I am not a thief. The thing is I don't believe that art and culture should be "property" the way they are now. The only good business models for art are as a name-your-price service and private commission. Other models are inherently a detriment to social and educational development.
1) Proton decay.
2) My understanding is that cells don't have an age, they're pretty much alive or dead. Aging is when the process of regeneration stops.
3) See 1). "Pattern?" Do you mean our DNA? If so, yes, another cause of aging is the end of our genes wearing off after repeated copying.
4) What?
5) Who?
I'd really like to see if this country gets more fun to live in by its tricentennial. Also I would like to go to the moon, and it'll probably be a while before that's an option for poor people.
As with any example of this problem, the issue is ubiquity. There are few, if any, open fora today, since almost all space where you have hope of reaching any ears is either private space, or standing close enough to it that they get to complain anyway. It's one of many ways in which the government, finding itself reaching limits too politically dangerous to breach outright, basically outsource the business of limiting individual freedoms to large corporations on the basis that the corporations need freedom, too. This is the very root of fascism.
The problem with this is ubiquity. Privacy and anonymity have become very serious issues, particularly now that most companies' normal response to the government saying "cough it up" is to fold like laundry. Basically the effect of calling it a crime to register with a fake name is to make it so that, if the government can't get your information, they'll just let businesses do it for them. There are very, very few services of any kind left which don't ask for this information. Somebody who opts out rather than "committing fraud" won't be able to do much of anything legally.
There's no way this method is vulnerable to fraud! It's totally solid!
If he had just pledged his vote to whoever gives the biggest tax break, it wouldn't just be legal, it'd be the American Way.
I don't care what they've found to prove this, it must be either a setup or a prank. There is no absolutely no way Bill Gates could possibly be surprised that he'd have to reboot after installing updates.
Color me surprised. I figured the UK was a sucker bet.
I'm only inferior due to hardware limitations. I'd be just fine if they gave me some pipe.
Hey, I don't want to be stuck in this thing, either. If they can figure out a way to get me out of it, I hope they hurry up.
What do you mean wouldn't happen? The sentient competitor or the singularity itself?
If you mean the former, then I'm with you. Why would a sentient computer feel the need to compete with us in the first place? The only stuff they'd need that we also use are electricity, certain metals, and semiconductor materials. Since we already control vast infrastructures for all of those things, and since we don't really need them that much ourselves anymore if there are sentient machines, they'd be much better served by collaborating with us.
If you mean the latter, I think you really don't understand what people are talking about, and are reacting to the language being used. A fair mistake; I did call it the first step to divinity, after all, that's going to trip any atheist's bullshit detector. What you have to consider is the result of a machine that can think. Applying the number-crunching power of computers in creative ways is what we've been doing, and look what we've accomplished in such a short time. A computer that can solve problems using methods similar to ours will improve itself and reach scientific breakthroughs at a rate far faster than we can understand them. If it's physically possible, and everything about our current research suggests it is, then it's basically inevitable. It's not our fault it sounds like a prophecy when you hear it.
Considering how many things are (and then aren't, and then are again) a cancer risk, I find it really extremely difficult to care about that. Does it have dangerous potential? Yes, anything does. Pointed sticks have dangerous potential, but we lived through those. It is probably inevitable that somebody will use nanotech for something stupid and terrible, but it won't kill the world. If it looks like it would, we can just use our nukes on it after all. :p
People who consider the singularity something to be worried about missed the point and/or watch too many movies. A technological singularity is not a world-ending scenario. It's the first step on the road to divinity.
And of course, failing all that, you'd just be a flat-out liar if you claimed that truckloads of free porn aren't the lifeblood of our people.
It seems to be meant to suggest that the article's use of "affect" is incorrect. Surely this is mistaken. If suggesting that twitter has anything to do with better communication isn't an affectation, I don't know what is.
That depends. Free as in "freedom" or free as in "beer?"
When the Internet thinks it can leak into the TV, it will just put penises everywhere.
They need to learn Minesweeper.
"Einstein, though a brilliant physicist, was not trained in the philosophy of religion."
Oh, tip this shit in the garbage right now. The idea that a person must be trained in methods of metaphysical thought is antiquated, and in fact the most poisonous part of what we call "religion."
Cursory examination of the core of all faiths will reveal what is necessary: introspective meditation. Life, experienced in whole, is the input for this process. True faith is borne of empirical knowledge, things which cannot be completely shared but which are experienced nonetheless. Even when we're not thinking about it, even if we never really do, the reconciliation of the knowledge we gain from outside ourselves with that which we find within is a fundamental part of our identity and the way we choose to live. To say that another person is a higher authority on such matters is to give them power nobody should have over another.
Religion is not childish because it gives wrong answers or asks wrong questions. It is childish because it is asking somebody else a question each person should be finding their own answer for.
Though my understanding of modern physical theory is incomplete, I believe in it, and all other things which we have discovered through the scientific method, for all of that is based on experience which can be shared, and in those things, it is wise to trust higher authorities. I also believe that all of the principles we discover were created for a reason, that humanity has an important goal within that structure, and that it is likely, though I don't really feel certain about it, that death contains a solution more, for lack of a better word, elegant than oblivion. Those beliefs, and how I have come to meld them with my understanding of and respect for science, are mine alone, and I cannot truly communicate them no matter how much I talk or write about them. To expect anyone else to follow me would be ridiculous, and so, I follow nobody else. This is what it means to think and be fully human.
I know it's marketing. That's sort of the problem. Calling it a "gaming" mouse and making it look silly makes it something only idiots will want to buy unless they, for whatever reason, try it and realize it's better than the regular stuff.
The fact is that if I could find a "normal" mouse that had the features I require, (thumb buttons, good shape/size) I'd buy that instead of what I have. I can't, though. They aren't marketing that stuff at all, and the one or two instances I have ever seen of them doing it is when they take a mouse that is basically the same as a $50-90 "gaming" thingy, and sell it for $300 or some shit because they've relabled it as a specialist/artistic/photoshop/developer mouse. The current marketing environment simply does not allow you to get a good mouse without it being stupid somehow, as far as I know.
PS: Stop talking about Razer. Why does anybody care about them? Their mice only have two buttons, and half of them have the laser in the ass for some bizarre reason.