> the brain is supposed to lose neurons that aren't needed because the brain uses such a large portion of the caloric intake.
That does not seem like a good explanation. The human brain has about 100 billion neurons, so even if you lose 100.000 neurons every day, that means only a 0.04 % reduction every year, which does not make a meaningful difference in brain energy consumption.
Do explain how extra cells you aren't using don't qualify as 'unnecessary detail'.
I did spend a few minutes on google before posting that reply, did not find anything substantial. The theory appears to be pushed primarily by Hameroff and Penrose, but I could not find any experiments that support their theory. Other scientists appear to be arguing that either quantum effects are not required to explain the operation of the brain, or quantum systems in the brain would decohere too quickly to have a meaningful influence on computation. Since you originally introduced the Quantum mind theory in this discussion in your reply to Shavano, perhaps you should carry the burden of proof, yes?
> The computing power of the human brain is infinite, by some standard definitions, as it is analogue (at least partially, according to some theories) and there are an infinite number of analogue states.
Just because the brain theoretically has a practically infinite number of possible states does not mean all (or even most) of those states are meaningful and important. People lose thousands of neurons each day without changing significantly (with respect to both personality and intelligence). Obviously the brain contains a lot of detail that it doesn't really need. There is no reason to believe it is impossible to create a significantly less complex model/simulation of the brain that is both functionally equivalent and finite (except our ego, which seems to prefer to think of the human brain as infinitely complex).
> Now if you could say on each image that "this is me", "this isn't me", and it could build up a database of people that should and should not be authorised and OVER TIME learn on it's own without just having a bunch of statistics like "> 20% green = > 90% probability", then you'd have some mild form of intelligence. Otherwise you just have heuristics, which are 0.000001% of how actual intelligence operates.
Cute. From which orifice did you pull the 0.000001%? Do share with the rust of us your elaborate knowledge concerning the workings of intelligence. What is the other 99.999999%? How did you obtain this information?
That isn't a very meaningful limitation. All posters here are copyright holders, as you hold the copyright of your own post. Anyone who has ever drawn a picture or written a paragraph is a copyright owner. With the exception of infants, I don't think you would be able to find anyone who is *not* a copyright holder.
Except that this time the Jews have their own country, military, nukes, and backing of the USA. Meanwhile Iran, with the exception of Israel, has the largest Jewish population in the Middle East.
Let's be honest here, the tensions between Iran and Israel have very little to do with Iran hating the Jews, Iran is not going to start a war with Israel unless forced to because they have very little chance of winning (with Israel having nukes and a rather overpowered ally), and even if Iran had nukes they would only use them on Israel as a last resort because the USA would turn their country in a big sheet of glass about 30 minutes later.
> There is probably not even a need to limit or ban encryption, because in a sense the Internet is already heavily regulated and not what it used to be. Thanks to all kinds of NATs, packet filters, and "intelligent" routers, the times when you could just connect one computer to another one to transmit information are long gone. Nowadays, if you want to be sure that your message reaches the destination without using a central server (which can be surveilled, subpoenaed, put under draconian laws, etc.) you need to dig through miriads of obscure heuristic NAT traversal techniques and use all kinds of hacks like ICMP tunneling or whatever.
So basically what you're saying is: "traffic can be intercepted, therefore the government doesn't need to outlaw encryption." Surely you understand that the entire fucking point of encrypting a connection is to make intercepted data useless? Your argument makes no sense at all. With encryption, why worry about your traffic passing through the ominously named 'central server'?
The earth's atmosphere is 78% nitrogen. On Mars the atmosphere is only 3% nitrogen, and it's much, much thinner than on earth. "Simply" harvesting a useful amount of nitrogen from the atmosphere is nowhere near as simple as you would have us believe.
What a ridiculous rule. Back when I went to school you weren't allowed to use a cell phone *during* class, but were free to have one with you (if it didn't produce any noise, of course), and you were free to use it between classes. What is the point of banning cell phones in situations where they are not disruptive?
Meanwhile in reality, the odds of getting caught are ostensibly significantly lower when there are no witnesses. Since the rape-scenario will usually involve but a single witness, one that already happens to be overpowered and at the mercy of the perpetrator, the solution seems obvious...
Putting people in a situation where they have nothing to lose (and a 98% chance of execution (to use your numbers) would mean 'nothing to lose' to most people (98% of them, in fact;))) is never a good idea.
> Or do you think that maybe the Critter will keep his tackle in the box so that he does not risk getting "shot while resiting arrest"?
Are you suggesting the police murdering suspects of serious crimes is a desirable deterrent?
Doesn't a HTTP request already include a version (usually HTTP/1.1)? Perhaps this could be used; HTTP/5.0 would be the current version, and whenever WHATWG makes up something new they'll bump the second number, and whet W3C creates a new version (which should include all the changes that WHATWG has made) they bump the first number, and the second number starts at 0 again.
On second thought, you're right, this will be a disaster.
> 4. Establish a general policy of erring on the side of pacing the class to the speed of the top 50% of the class, not the bottom 50%. If the bottom cannot keep up, offer them tutoring; if they fail objectively, fail them for the year.
So the slowest students would be stuck at some level until enough of them accumulate to drag the speed down significantly and some of them get into the next year, where the same thing would happen again?
Seems like a lot of trouble. Wouldn't it be much easier to steal the car the old-fashioned way? Presumably your method would result in the organisation having a picture of you (from your fake id), and the monitoring system would reveal the car mysteriously disappearing when entering your steel walled warehouse. So basically the police now know your face and your hideout. Even if that does not lead to your capture, they can put your picture in a database and the next time you attempt to steal a car you'll get flagged and arrested.
What exactly is the point of preventing people who have seen 'pedophile material' from flying? It's not like anyone is going to abuse children in a crowded place where their name is registered, while being thousands of feet up in the air without any out-of-sight places.
Not that I would recommend running Java on a pacemaker, but there is really no need for a pacemaker to create new objects, so the GC would never run anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, that is a dumb thought.
Except that telnet is unencrypted...
> the brain is supposed to lose neurons that aren't needed because the brain uses such a large portion of the caloric intake.
That does not seem like a good explanation. The human brain has about 100 billion neurons, so even if you lose 100.000 neurons every day, that means only a 0.04 % reduction every year, which does not make a meaningful difference in brain energy consumption.
Do explain how extra cells you aren't using don't qualify as 'unnecessary detail'.
I did spend a few minutes on google before posting that reply, did not find anything substantial. The theory appears to be pushed primarily by Hameroff and Penrose, but I could not find any experiments that support their theory. Other scientists appear to be arguing that either quantum effects are not required to explain the operation of the brain, or quantum systems in the brain would decohere too quickly to have a meaningful influence on computation. Since you originally introduced the Quantum mind theory in this discussion in your reply to Shavano, perhaps you should carry the burden of proof, yes?
> I've read they are looking into quantum entanglement as a part of the brain process.
Is there actually any evidence that this is happening, or is it just someone's pet theory?
> The computing power of the human brain is infinite, by some standard definitions, as it is analogue (at least partially, according to some theories) and there are an infinite number of analogue states.
Just because the brain theoretically has a practically infinite number of possible states does not mean all (or even most) of those states are meaningful and important. People lose thousands of neurons each day without changing significantly (with respect to both personality and intelligence). Obviously the brain contains a lot of detail that it doesn't really need. There is no reason to believe it is impossible to create a significantly less complex model/simulation of the brain that is both functionally equivalent and finite (except our ego, which seems to prefer to think of the human brain as infinitely complex).
> Now if you could say on each image that "this is me", "this isn't me", and it could build up a database of people that should and should not be authorised and OVER TIME learn on it's own without just having a bunch of statistics like "> 20% green = > 90% probability", then you'd have some mild form of intelligence. Otherwise you just have heuristics, which are 0.000001% of how actual intelligence operates.
Cute. From which orifice did you pull the 0.000001%? Do share with the rust of us your elaborate knowledge concerning the workings of intelligence. What is the other 99.999999%? How did you obtain this information?
> but in Java you often have to use a debugger to find trivial bugs because of flaws in the way the standard library operates
Could you mention one or two examples? In my experience the standard library is pretty good.
That isn't a very meaningful limitation. All posters here are copyright holders, as you hold the copyright of your own post. Anyone who has ever drawn a picture or written a paragraph is a copyright owner. With the exception of infants, I don't think you would be able to find anyone who is *not* a copyright holder.
So it's okay with the Christians if we put the chips in left arms instead?
Except that this time the Jews have their own country, military, nukes, and backing of the USA. Meanwhile Iran, with the exception of Israel, has the largest Jewish population in the Middle East.
Let's be honest here, the tensions between Iran and Israel have very little to do with Iran hating the Jews, Iran is not going to start a war with Israel unless forced to because they have very little chance of winning (with Israel having nukes and a rather overpowered ally), and even if Iran had nukes they would only use them on Israel as a last resort because the USA would turn their country in a big sheet of glass about 30 minutes later.
Compared to the average person in need of cardiac surgery and a pacemaker, would you say your immune system is probably better, or probably worse?
> Without a helmet even if you're stationary at riding height, falling and hitting your head on the road or other hard object could still kill you.
Doesn't the same apply to pedestrians?
> What has confused you is that in Europe right-turn-on-red is not allowed. Not for cars, not for bikes. Red means stop, with no exceptions.
At some intersections bikes are allowed to make a right turn on red, but there will be a sign that says so.
> There is probably not even a need to limit or ban encryption, because in a sense the Internet is already heavily regulated and not what it used to be. Thanks to all kinds of NATs, packet filters, and "intelligent" routers, the times when you could just connect one computer to another one to transmit information are long gone. Nowadays, if you want to be sure that your message reaches the destination without using a central server (which can be surveilled, subpoenaed, put under draconian laws, etc.) you need to dig through miriads of obscure heuristic NAT traversal techniques and use all kinds of hacks like ICMP tunneling or whatever.
So basically what you're saying is: "traffic can be intercepted, therefore the government doesn't need to outlaw encryption." Surely you understand that the entire fucking point of encrypting a connection is to make intercepted data useless? Your argument makes no sense at all. With encryption, why worry about your traffic passing through the ominously named 'central server'?
> Or simply harvest nitrogen from the atmosphere.
The earth's atmosphere is 78% nitrogen. On Mars the atmosphere is only 3% nitrogen, and it's much, much thinner than on earth. "Simply" harvesting a useful amount of nitrogen from the atmosphere is nowhere near as simple as you would have us believe.
What a ridiculous rule. Back when I went to school you weren't allowed to use a cell phone *during* class, but were free to have one with you (if it didn't produce any noise, of course), and you were free to use it between classes. What is the point of banning cell phones in situations where they are not disruptive?
Are you suggesting 100% of murders get solved?
Meanwhile in reality, the odds of getting caught are ostensibly significantly lower when there are no witnesses. Since the rape-scenario will usually involve but a single witness, one that already happens to be overpowered and at the mercy of the perpetrator, the solution seems obvious...
Putting people in a situation where they have nothing to lose (and a 98% chance of execution (to use your numbers) would mean 'nothing to lose' to most people (98% of them, in fact ;))) is never a good idea.
> Or do you think that maybe the Critter will keep his tackle in the box so that he does not risk getting "shot while resiting arrest"?
Are you suggesting the police murdering suspects of serious crimes is a desirable deterrent?
> Rape/Incest should be a Capital Crime (with special circs)
You realize that would result in more victims being murdered afterwards? What makes you think this is a good idea?
Ouch, you're absolutely correct. What a silly mistake to make :(
Doesn't a HTTP request already include a version (usually HTTP/1.1)? Perhaps this could be used; HTTP/5.0 would be the current version, and whenever WHATWG makes up something new they'll bump the second number, and whet W3C creates a new version (which should include all the changes that WHATWG has made) they bump the first number, and the second number starts at 0 again.
On second thought, you're right, this will be a disaster.
> 4. Establish a general policy of erring on the side of pacing the class to the speed of the top 50% of the class, not the bottom 50%. If the bottom cannot keep up, offer them tutoring; if they fail objectively, fail them for the year.
So the slowest students would be stuck at some level until enough of them accumulate to drag the speed down significantly and some of them get into the next year, where the same thing would happen again?
Seems like a lot of trouble. Wouldn't it be much easier to steal the car the old-fashioned way? Presumably your method would result in the organisation having a picture of you (from your fake id), and the monitoring system would reveal the car mysteriously disappearing when entering your steel walled warehouse. So basically the police now know your face and your hideout.
Even if that does not lead to your capture, they can put your picture in a database and the next time you attempt to steal a car you'll get flagged and arrested.
What exactly is the point of preventing people who have seen 'pedophile material' from flying? It's not like anyone is going to abuse children in a crowded place where their name is registered, while being thousands of feet up in the air without any out-of-sight places.
Not that I would recommend running Java on a pacemaker, but there is really no need for a pacemaker to create new objects, so the GC would never run anyway.