Actually Ford saw the inner workings of a meat packing plant and thought that the same idea could work for automobile construction. He recognized the potential of the assembly line, but he didn't invent it.
Yeah, how dare anyone buy music from a band that links its albums together via motifs and themes. A band that explores and transcends new music genres with each album release. Don't pay attention to their radio releases, they must either not pick them themselves or some exec is completely clueless.
Wil Smith says the robots can defend themselves if doing so does not conflict with the first two laws. The third law states that a robot must protect its own existence if doing so does not conflict with the first and second laws.
Saying a robot can "defend itself" implies an attack. Saying a robot "must protect its own existence" makes more sense.
When you step out to get that local paper and it isn't there, and the supermarkets are empty, and people have reorganized into rioting groups to raid for food...then the world will indeed have gone nuts.
Feynman did indeed branch out from physics, a lot. Read "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman" for some insight. This guy had a great love of life, and didn't let anything stop him from enjoying it.
He became an accomplished artist, a great player (of both women and drums), and went into high levels in scientific fields other than physics.
Unless you are saying that memes can be modified through sterilization and genetic reform programs, what does your post have to do with Tackhead's post and my rant?
Way out of topic, even for an offtopic thread: but how is a consumer oriented society screwed in the long run? We no longer primary manufacture stuff, we are a service based economy that happens to contain a lot of people who enjoy buying stuff. What do our admittedly flawed IP and copyright policies do to make a consumer lifestyle unsustainable?
I think a lot of people know what it means to be happy, especially among the class of people that Tackhead wishes to sterilize. I don't think sterilizing the major consumer class (middle-upper class) was Tackhead's intent at all.
Oh. My. God. Is it evil or ignorance, ladies and gentlemen? Surely, surely we hope that it is the latter, but unfortunately there are those of us (like Mister Moron here) that would argue that it doesn't matter! Ha! Sit down sir, class is in session. Setting aside your silly preoccupationi with IQ, your odd view of taxes as an investment, and your laughable racial beliefs; let's examine evolution and genetics.
Evolution is a reaction, not a progression.
We cannot selectively breed ourselves, picking the best traits for survival, because we don't know what traits are best for survival!
To ensure the survival of the species (humanity) we need a large and diverse gene pool from which to draw from should there ever be a significant environmental change (and by environmental, I'm talking about either the real environment or our social environment), we'll have the resources to combat it!
It's like this: wheat. Most of the wheat now grown in the US and other countries is from one genetic strain. If its environment deviates significantly from what is now standard, that wheat is dead. If a disease breaks out that affects that strand, the wheat is dead. If a predator develops that voraciously feeds on that wheat, it is dead. It has nothing left. It has no more genetic tricks up its sleeve. If there were multiple strains of wheat, some would die, some would live, and those that live would have reacted well to the environment. But that doesn't mean that the strains that live are better than those before it! It just means that they were able to cope with a particular stress in a viable manner.
As it stands now, thanks to millions of years of change and mutation, we as a species are incredibly diverse, and very healthy for it. If we were to start to remove parts of that diversity, even if we think that it is for our own good, then we start to mess with things that we simply can't predict because we don't know what the future stresses will be.
You're like someone on a sailboat with a prevailing wind going right where you want to go who says, "These oars are just slowing us down. They weigh a lot and they aren't very good at catching the wind and they're proud of it! Let's throw them overboard!" It can make a stupid kind of sense, until the wind dies down.
It has a regime where it can require (literally) millions of people to work their way through the code
You can say that of any large government.
Re:Aren't they doing that this season?
on
The Simpsons Movie
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Sorry, but you're wrong. The official definition is held at (oddly enough), jumptheshark.com:
Q. What is jumping the shark? A. It's a moment. A defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak. That instant that you know from now on...it's all downhill. The aforementioned expression refers to the telltale sign of the demise of Happy Days, our favorite example, when Fonzie actually "jumped the shark." The rest is history.
Mostly I did not like significant changes from the books because it puts the characters into situations that Tolkien did not write and so it falls to the script writers to interpret what they think that Tolkein's characters would have done. I don't think that they warrant that much leeway.
A key scene exemplifying this is Aragorn's fall. I think that Legolas and Gimli would have climbed down that cliff if only to find Aragorn's body and give it a proper burial. Why would they stay with the people of Rohan?
Ahh, "The Princess Bride" was the essence of the book. Dead on. Of course the book has more scenes and depth, but it captures the essence of the book very well. I think that, except for Fellowship, Jackson missed the target.
Ah, in this you are making a common error in that you think evolution is a progression towards an ultimate goal of perfection. It is not. It is a reaction to environmental stimulus. An animal can not be "perfect"---it can only be extremely well suited for its environment.
Humanity, as our explosive population growth demonstrates, has reached an unprecedented point of suitability for Earth survival.
At any rate, evolution depends on mutation. Having the luxury to allow those you call "negatives" to survive increases our mutation rate and diversifies our genetic line. More diversification, means we'll have a better reaction should a major change take place in our environment. If we were all genetically fit in the same way then we would all be susceptible to the same attack. Read about the current strain of wheat farmers use for some grim scenarios.
Take plague for example. How do you know that the sickly boy from today does not contain code that will make many immune to the plagues of tomorrow? Read up on sickle cell anemia and its relation to malaria.
Ah, no. Sorry. The first Matrix was scifi to be sure, but it more definitely was not hard science fiction. See Gattaca for an excellent example of that genre. The Matrix Series is fun scifi, along the lines of star trek, star wars, and practically every other science fiction movie.
"The body cannot live without the mind." Riiight. Ok.
The explanations you're talking about are standard star trek techno babble, they explain the powers but invent the method of explanation so there's really no point. I greatly prefer the way that Neo's powers were explained: he's special in the Matrix because he is special in the real world; not the other way around. The nature of his "specialness" is subject to debate, intentionally. He's psychic, touched by God, touched by aliens, he isn't affected by delta brain waves, etc. It is enough of an explanation to know that, for some reason, Neo isn't just an ordinary guy in the real world --- as we were led to believe in the first movie and much of the second. To employ a full explanation via standard techno-babble (Neo can control the machines via intelligent microscopic organisms called midi-oneians) would cheapen the story.
And yes, the Oracle *may* be lying. So what? If you distrust everything that every character says then you've pretty much got no movie, especially when no part of any of the movies has given you any reason (other than bad science) to suspect the hypothesis that we can trust the characters to be honest to the best of their ability.
We have samples from icebergs measuring beryllium-10, which give us a good picture of solar activity for the past couple thousand years or so.
Aside from that, it's a historic period in solar flares simply because we haven't seen it happen before. Just because we don't know how common this occurence is in the full grand scheme of things, doesn't mean that it isn't noteworthy when we see it for the first time!
Oh yeah. When I was eight or so I was running up the stairs at home with a pencil in my hand. Somehow I managed to ram the eraser of the pencil into the railing which caused the tip to jame into the base of my left ring finger.
I've got a nice light grey mark that is now usually obscured by my wedding ring.
There seem to be a lot of us marked ones, should we form a club?:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually Ford saw the inner workings of a meat packing plant and thought that the same idea could work for automobile construction. He recognized the potential of the assembly line, but he didn't invent it.
Yeah, how dare anyone buy music from a band that links its albums together via motifs and themes. A band that explores and transcends new music genres with each album release. Don't pay attention to their radio releases, they must either not pick them themselves or some exec is completely clueless.
Wait, I thought we were making progress here. Why don't you think it is a good idea to put that much gaseous hydrogen in one place?
---
Mac OS X will spell check your slashdot posts.
Wil Smith says the robots can defend themselves if doing so does not conflict with the first two laws. The third law states that a robot must protect its own existence if doing so does not conflict with the first and second laws.
Saying a robot can "defend itself" implies an attack. Saying a robot "must protect its own existence" makes more sense.
When you step out to get that local paper and it isn't there, and the supermarkets are empty, and people have reorganized into rioting groups to raid for food...then the world will indeed have gone nuts.
Right now the world is just a little tipsy.
Feynman did indeed branch out from physics, a lot. Read "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman" for some insight. This guy had a great love of life, and didn't let anything stop him from enjoying it.
He became an accomplished artist, a great player (of both women and drums), and went into high levels in scientific fields other than physics.
How about: u472bmt?
Unless you are saying that memes can be modified through sterilization and genetic reform programs, what does your post have to do with Tackhead's post and my rant?
Way out of topic, even for an offtopic thread: but how is a consumer oriented society screwed in the long run? We no longer primary manufacture stuff, we are a service based economy that happens to contain a lot of people who enjoy buying stuff. What do our admittedly flawed IP and copyright policies do to make a consumer lifestyle unsustainable?
I think a lot of people know what it means to be happy, especially among the class of people that Tackhead wishes to sterilize. I don't think sterilizing the major consumer class (middle-upper class) was Tackhead's intent at all.
Oh. My. God. Is it evil or ignorance, ladies and gentlemen? Surely, surely we hope that it is the latter, but unfortunately there are those of us (like Mister Moron here) that would argue that it doesn't matter! Ha! Sit down sir, class is in session. Setting aside your silly preoccupationi with IQ, your odd view of taxes as an investment, and your laughable racial beliefs; let's examine evolution and genetics.
Evolution is a reaction, not a progression.
We cannot selectively breed ourselves, picking the best traits for survival, because we don't know what traits are best for survival!
To ensure the survival of the species (humanity) we need a large and diverse gene pool from which to draw from should there ever be a significant environmental change (and by environmental, I'm talking about either the real environment or our social environment), we'll have the resources to combat it!
It's like this: wheat. Most of the wheat now grown in the US and other countries is from one genetic strain. If its environment deviates significantly from what is now standard, that wheat is dead. If a disease breaks out that affects that strand, the wheat is dead. If a predator develops that voraciously feeds on that wheat, it is dead. It has nothing left. It has no more genetic tricks up its sleeve. If there were multiple strains of wheat, some would die, some would live, and those that live would have reacted well to the environment. But that doesn't mean that the strains that live are better than those before it! It just means that they were able to cope with a particular stress in a viable manner.
As it stands now, thanks to millions of years of change and mutation, we as a species are incredibly diverse, and very healthy for it. If we were to start to remove parts of that diversity, even if we think that it is for our own good, then we start to mess with things that we simply can't predict because we don't know what the future stresses will be.
You're like someone on a sailboat with a prevailing wind going right where you want to go who says, "These oars are just slowing us down. They weigh a lot and they aren't very good at catching the wind and they're proud of it! Let's throw them overboard!" It can make a stupid kind of sense, until the wind dies down.
The New Bard's Tale
It has a regime where it can require (literally) millions of people to work their way through the code
You can say that of any large government.
Sorry, but you're wrong. The official definition is held at (oddly enough), jumptheshark.com:
Q. What is jumping the shark?
A. It's a moment. A defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak . That instant that you know from now on...it's all downhill.
The aforementioned expression refers to the telltale sign of the demise of Happy Days, our favorite example, when Fonzie actually "jumped the shark." The rest is history.
Ni bu shuo Zhong Wen ma?
:-(
Oops, I mean: You don't speak Chinese?
* Yes I know the ? after "ma" is redundant, but I'm weird like that.
Did you know that Slashcode doesn't suppose unicode Chinese characters? Neither did I.
That sucks.
The Ents getting angry
Faramir's reconditioning
Aragorn's angst
Contrived Arwen plot
Mostly I did not like significant changes from the books because it puts the characters into situations that Tolkien did not write and so it falls to the script writers to interpret what they think that Tolkein's characters would have done. I don't think that they warrant that much leeway.
A key scene exemplifying this is Aragorn's fall. I think that Legolas and Gimli would have climbed down that cliff if only to find Aragorn's body and give it a proper burial. Why would they stay with the people of Rohan?
Ahh, "The Princess Bride" was the essence of the book. Dead on. Of course the book has more scenes and depth, but it captures the essence of the book very well. I think that, except for Fellowship, Jackson missed the target.
Hey! I was eating that cheese!
"It's maze time!"
Ah, in this you are making a common error in that you think evolution is a progression towards an ultimate goal of perfection. It is not. It is a reaction to environmental stimulus. An animal can not be "perfect"---it can only be extremely well suited for its environment.
Humanity, as our explosive population growth demonstrates, has reached an unprecedented point of suitability for Earth survival.
At any rate, evolution depends on mutation. Having the luxury to allow those you call "negatives" to survive increases our mutation rate and diversifies our genetic line. More diversification, means we'll have a better reaction should a major change take place in our environment. If we were all genetically fit in the same way then we would all be susceptible to the same attack. Read about the current strain of wheat farmers use for some grim scenarios.
Take plague for example. How do you know that the sickly boy from today does not contain code that will make many immune to the plagues of tomorrow? Read up on sickle cell anemia and its relation to malaria.
Because there is more to being human than simply being alive.
Ah, no. Sorry. The first Matrix was scifi to be sure, but it more definitely was not hard science fiction. See Gattaca for an excellent example of that genre. The Matrix Series is fun scifi, along the lines of star trek, star wars, and practically every other science fiction movie.
"The body cannot live without the mind." Riiight. Ok.
The explanations you're talking about are standard star trek techno babble, they explain the powers but invent the method of explanation so there's really no point. I greatly prefer the way that Neo's powers were explained: he's special in the Matrix because he is special in the real world; not the other way around. The nature of his "specialness" is subject to debate, intentionally. He's psychic, touched by God, touched by aliens, he isn't affected by delta brain waves, etc. It is enough of an explanation to know that, for some reason, Neo isn't just an ordinary guy in the real world --- as we were led to believe in the first movie and much of the second. To employ a full explanation via standard techno-babble (Neo can control the machines via intelligent microscopic organisms called midi-oneians) would cheapen the story.
And yes, the Oracle *may* be lying. So what? If you distrust everything that every character says then you've pretty much got no movie, especially when no part of any of the movies has given you any reason (other than bad science) to suspect the hypothesis that we can trust the characters to be honest to the best of their ability.
We have samples from icebergs measuring beryllium-10, which give us a good picture of solar activity for the past couple thousand years or so.
Aside from that, it's a historic period in solar flares simply because we haven't seen it happen before. Just because we don't know how common this occurence is in the full grand scheme of things, doesn't mean that it isn't noteworthy when we see it for the first time!
Well ok, but have you signed up to help with the next ACLU event?
Or subscribed to the ACLU mailing list? Or visited aclu.org to see what else you can do to help? Get active!
Read the Red/Green/Blue Mars series of science fiction books for a great exposition just along those lines.
Well he said, either a successful story or an aesthetic quality of some sort that overrides the lack of interest-holding narrative.
I'd give Mario games an A+ in aesthetic quality myself.
Homeworld 2 was just released. Fantastic game, Sierra product.
Oh yeah. When I was eight or so I was running up the stairs at home with a pencil in my hand. Somehow I managed to ram the eraser of the pencil into the railing which caused the tip to jame into the base of my left ring finger.
:-)
I've got a nice light grey mark that is now usually obscured by my wedding ring.
There seem to be a lot of us marked ones, should we form a club?