... ideally what we really need to get to eventually is the point where we can read all neurons at the same time. Injectable meshes aren't going to cut it for that.
The best I can envision is injecting bioluminescent proteins into the brain that flash when different types of activation or chemical concentration are achieved in different neurons. Ideally they'd flash at different frequencies for different cells by having the color adjusted by various local concentrations of chemicals that vary between cells, but it'd be workable even if you only have one color for all neurons. You'd then need numerous 360-degree digital photosensors (wired or wireless - ideally the latter) scattered throughout the brain, recording the flashes of light and correlating the different directions the light comes from with corresponding neuron activations.
The key difference between that and a mesh is that a mesh has to touch and individually measure each cell - nearly a hundred billion perfectly positioned connections, each connection with the hardware to encode the activity into packets to transmit out of the brain. But if you have one optical micro sensor that can read the flashes from a million nearby cells, you don't need nearly 100 billion individually wired connections, you need 100.000 microsensors, each with the processing power of a modern digital camera. No, we're not to that point with today's technology. But we're sure a heck of a lot closer to that than to being able to wire up nearly 100 billion neurons individually.
Of course, such a situation could be run in reverse: adding photosensitive proteins to neurons to cause or suppress activation in them, and having the ability to project light at high resolution in 360 degrees to trigger or suppress individual neurons. However, I expect that'd be more challenging without having neuron-specific activation frequencies. It's one thing to see a flash passing through a dozen neurons on the way to the sensor and figure which neuron was activated based on the shape of the flash, but if you're projecting through parts of a dozen different neurons to try to activate one further away, you risk activating them as well.
To me, the ultimate goal of all of this would be to enable a gentle end-of-life transition to a digital mind. If we reach the point where we can accurately simulate brain function given sufficient input data, then we can one by one: A) pick a neuron, B) begin to simulate it, C) suppress its actual firing, D) activate its neighbors based on its simulated firing, E) trigger apoptosis in the no-longer-needed neuron. Then move on to its neighbors, one by one, until there's nothing left of the brain but the simulation.
He already is - read the sort of stuff he's writing. He's damned lucky that they're not charging him as a member of a terrorist organization rather than, basically, their Booster Club.
4. At all relevant times, the defendant knew that ISIL was a designated terrorist organization, and that it was a violation of United States law to provide support and resources to ISIL.
THE DEFENDANT'S USE OF @.AmreekiWitness IN FURTHERANCE OF HIS CONSPIRACY TO SUPPORT ISIL
5. On or about June 26, 2014, the defendant started the Twitter account: @AmreekiWitness, which boasted over 4,000 followers. The defendant used the account as a pro-ISIL platform during the course of over 7,000 'tweets.' Specifically, the defendant used this account to conduct twitter-based conversations regarding ways to develop financial support for ISIL using on-line currency, such as Bitcoin, and ways to establish a secure donation system or fund for ISIL.
6. The following are examples of the defendant's use of Twitter in furtherance of his conspiracy to provide material support to ISIL:
a. On or about July 7, 2014, using the @AmreekiWitness account, the defendant tweeted a link to an article he authored entitled "Bitcoin wa' Sadaqat al-Jihad" (Bitcoin and the Charity of Jihad). The link transferred the user to the defendant's blog, where the article was posted. The article discussed how to use bitcoins and how jihadists could utilize this currency to fund their efforts. The article explained what bitcoins were, how the bitcoin system worked and suggested using Dark Wallet, a new bitcoin wallet, which keeps the user of bitcoins anonymous. The article included statements on how to set up an anonymous donations system to send money, using bitcoin, to the mujahedeen.
b. On approximately August 1, 2014, the defendant showed support for ISIL and his desire to help garner financial support for those wanting to commit jihad. Through @AmreekiWitness the defendant discussed methods to provide financial support for those wanting to commit jihad and for those individuals trying to travel overseas.
c. On approximately August 19, 2014, the defendant showed support for ISIL and desire to support ISIL. The defendant tweeted that the khilafah needed an official website "ASAP," and that ISIL could not continue to release media "in the wild" or use "JustPaste." Through various tweets, the defendant provided information on how to prevent the website from being taken down, by adding security and defenses, and he solicited others via Twitter to assist on the development of the website.
7. The defendant also operated an Amreeki Witness page on the website ask.fm. The defendant used these accounts extensively as a platform to proselytize his radical Islamic ideology, justify and defend ISIL's violent practices, and to provide advice on topics such as jihadists travel to fight with ISIL, online security measures, and about how to use Bitcoin to finance themselves without creating evidence of crime, among other matters.
8. The defendant also created the pro-ISIL blog entitled, "Al-Khilafah Aridat." On this blog, the defendant authored a series of highly-technical articles targeted at aspiring jihadists and ISIL supporters detailing the use of security measures in online communications to include use of encryption and anonymity software, tools and techniques, as well as the use of the virtual currency Bitcoin as a means to anonymously fund ISIL.
THE DEFENDANT'S FACILITATION OF RN'S TRAVEL TO SYRIA
9. RN, a co-conspirator, is an 18-year-old resident of Prince William County, Virginia.
10. Beginning in or around September 2014, the defendant began an effort to convert RN to a radical form of Islam.
11. In or about late November or early December 2014, the defendant put RN in touch with an ISIL supporter located outside of the United States via Surespot in order to facilitate RN's travel to Syria to join and fight with ISIL.
12. The defendant arranged for this ISIL supporter located overseas to send RN a package containing a phone for RN's use during his travel to Syria, an encrypted thumb drive, and a letter.
That statement of Kennedy's sounds great at first, but it's so vacuous. You can use it to apply to any project whatsoever, no matter how ridiculous it is.
Reporter: "Mr. President, please, I don't understand - why exactly are we excavating the entire state of Iowa to a depth of 100 meters and dumping all of the overburden on Nebraska in the shape of a giant weasel?"
Kennedy: "We choose to make the weasel and do the other things, not because it is easy but because it's hard!"
That's awfully convenient given that the definition of "macrospeciation" is "speciation which occurs over timescales too long to observe directly". I could point to tons of observed examples of speciation but you'll simply reply that they're not "macrospeciation", no matter how radical they are, because they were observed, and thus not "macro". Major changes in physical structure (Shikano, et al. (1990)), changes in chromosome counts (tons), single cellular to multicellular changes (Boraas (1983)), radically different diets (tons), and on and on? Nah, not macrospeciation. Why? Because they've been observed, duh!
NAFTA received 78% of its NO votes from Democrats and 59% of its YES votes from Republicans. Overall, despite having their party leader in the White House pressuring them, 60% of Democrats still voted NO; 75% of Republicans voted YES.
Are you done deluding yourself with this "Both Parties Are The Same!" BS?
No. Finding actual DNA would be a real shock, as it's an unstable molecule. Even finding RNA would be quite a shock. It's amazing that we can even get some sort of "proteins" (maybe). Still, if this can be replicated, that's a great start toward understanding what would be in their DNA. We already have the basic framework (modern birds), and we can roll back many of the changes that have occurred in birds by looking at what they have in common versus what deviated in different lineages, plus potentially some more information from other living relatives like crocodilians. But we can't figure out everything that way. We can in many regards guess by means of learning what different genes do and reactivating atavisms or inserting genes that cause the morphological differences in dinosaur species. But finding actual proteins would help take the guesswork out.
It's unlikely, baring discovering some sort of amazing and totally unexpected type of preservation, to ever be able to bring dinosaurs back all the way. But, with a lot of time and research, we may be able to get pretty close.
On the other hand, not even all modern birds in the same family taste the same (for example, chicken vs. turkey). BTW, does anyone else find it kind of odd that it just worked out such that one family (Phasianidae) contains almost all of the commonly eaten birds (chicken, turkey, pheasant, quail, grouse, ptarmigan, peafowl, etc) except for the waterfowl, their less commonly hunted but still regionally popular relatives are in the same order (Galliformes), and waterfowl - the remainder of the commonly eaten birds - make up the other half of the same superorder (Galloanserae)? That superorder only contains 440 of the world's ~17000 living bird species. Apparently evolution did something along that line that humans decided equals "tasty, convenient, and morally acceptable". And apparently it did that all the way back in the cretaceous, because this superorder has been distinct for that long - the "food birds" / "fowl" branched off from the other avian dinosaurs while there were still tyrannosaurs and velociraptors roaming about.
BTW, alligators/crocodiles just barely miss out on being called dinosaurs in most definitions, and any definition that would lump pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, etc in with dinosaurs would also lump in alligators / crocodiles. They're birds' closest living relatives, both descended from the archosaurs.
Nope. Both of them supported it. Among the rank and file, however, there's no questions that far more opposition to free trade bills comes from left. Just look at voting records for past free trade bills.
Nice concept, but because treaties are arrived at by a process of give and take - where if one party gives in one topic of discussion, they're going to insist on getting something that they want in regards to another - not realistic.
Wow, long-time Slashdotter doesn't update their profile in years and makes a number of comments in a thread - conspiracy details at 11! Did you bother to stop and check what Cursor.org actually was? It's was a minneapolis-based progressive (read: generally anti free trade) news aggregator. Hint: I'm opposed to TPP, at least in its current form.
Yeay! Someone disagrees with me, therefore, I'm On The Dole(TM)! Where do I get my paycheck?
For example, fast track prevents congress from debating specific elements of the treaty (i.e. they can only vote on the enitre treaty)
I never said otherwise. And allowing each state's congress to amend the treaty would be an absurdity, no many-state treaty could ever get approved anywhere in such a circumstance. As soon as one state amends it, all of the other states are going to want to go back to the negotiating table.
When treaty negotiations finish, everyone can read it, and everyone can vote on whether they think there's more good in it than bad - then it either becomes law or it doesn't. If you have a better way to negotiate treaties that's not patently ridiculous (aka, something that could ever realistically result in many-state treaties ever becoming reality), please share them.
Please read your own link better: It says " it will grant the authority to decide and negotiate the terms of agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to the executive branch," "...critical to successfully negotiating its terms internationally", etc. Duh. That's what we're talking about here. It's being negotiated in secret. It will not become some sort of "secret law". Once it's done, the full text will be released and congress will have to vote on it, just like all treaties.
Right. Because liberals are so famously pro-free-trade-agreements and conservatives so famously opposed to them?
Meanwhile in Bizarro World, the Democratic Party has introduced a "Kill the Gays" bill while the Republican Party has introduced a bill requiring all power plant CO2 emissions to be sequestered inside the shafts of government-subsidized wind turbines.
Most of the TPP is your standard free trade agreement fare - removing tarriffs, stopping countries from favoring their local companies and punishing foreign ones, etc. If you're a fan of free trade agreements, you'll probably be a fan of it. If you hate free trade agreements, you'll probably hate it.
The part that most people on Slashdot will hate regardless of views on free trade agreements in general however is the IP section. It basically imposes an even more rightsholder-friendly version of US IP law on all member states. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been railing about it since the earlier versions were leaked, like Issa's leak in 2012. It's not gotten any better.
But as for all of the other stuff: 1) if you like free trade agreements, "Yeay!". 2) If you don't like free trade agreements, "Boo!"
As for the secrecy, unfortunately, this is generally how complex international treaties are negotiated - the concept being that if the public is involved in every stage of the negotiations, they'll never get anywhere; there's so many countless details to iron out and a lot of give-and-take between countries. It's supposed to be fair because when it's done, the full text is made public and each country gets to vote on it; it's not like it suddenly becomes some sort of "secret law". But obviously whenever you negotiate something in secret it's going to make the public suspicious of it - that should pretty much be a given.
Slashdot Mirror
... ideally what we really need to get to eventually is the point where we can read all neurons at the same time. Injectable meshes aren't going to cut it for that.
The best I can envision is injecting bioluminescent proteins into the brain that flash when different types of activation or chemical concentration are achieved in different neurons. Ideally they'd flash at different frequencies for different cells by having the color adjusted by various local concentrations of chemicals that vary between cells, but it'd be workable even if you only have one color for all neurons. You'd then need numerous 360-degree digital photosensors (wired or wireless - ideally the latter) scattered throughout the brain, recording the flashes of light and correlating the different directions the light comes from with corresponding neuron activations.
The key difference between that and a mesh is that a mesh has to touch and individually measure each cell - nearly a hundred billion perfectly positioned connections, each connection with the hardware to encode the activity into packets to transmit out of the brain. But if you have one optical micro sensor that can read the flashes from a million nearby cells, you don't need nearly 100 billion individually wired connections, you need 100.000 microsensors, each with the processing power of a modern digital camera. No, we're not to that point with today's technology. But we're sure a heck of a lot closer to that than to being able to wire up nearly 100 billion neurons individually.
Of course, such a situation could be run in reverse: adding photosensitive proteins to neurons to cause or suppress activation in them, and having the ability to project light at high resolution in 360 degrees to trigger or suppress individual neurons. However, I expect that'd be more challenging without having neuron-specific activation frequencies. It's one thing to see a flash passing through a dozen neurons on the way to the sensor and figure which neuron was activated based on the shape of the flash, but if you're projecting through parts of a dozen different neurons to try to activate one further away, you risk activating them as well.
To me, the ultimate goal of all of this would be to enable a gentle end-of-life transition to a digital mind. If we reach the point where we can accurately simulate brain function given sufficient input data, then we can one by one: A) pick a neuron, B) begin to simulate it, C) suppress its actual firing, D) activate its neighbors based on its simulated firing, E) trigger apoptosis in the no-longer-needed neuron. Then move on to its neighbors, one by one, until there's nothing left of the brain but the simulation.
He already is - read the sort of stuff he's writing. He's damned lucky that they're not charging him as a member of a terrorist organization rather than, basically, their Booster Club.
Ackbar.... sounds Arabic....
uh oh....
Where do you draw the line? Somewhere long before you get to here.
ISIL is a "designated terror organization". It is a crime to support a designated terrorist organization.
From the statement which he pled guilty to:
Even when they weren't interesting, they were often quite entertaining. For example:
Hahaha... pre-school voice: "Very good, Billy! You get a cookie!" ;)
That statement of Kennedy's sounds great at first, but it's so vacuous. You can use it to apply to any project whatsoever, no matter how ridiculous it is.
They also have rather high egg laying capacity compared to most birds - usually half a dozen to over dozen eggs in a clutch.
By, say, voting against it while the other party voted for it?
3/5ths of Democrats voted AGAINST it, even WITH the urging of the head of their party, whike 3/4ths of Republicans voted FOR it.
Please explain to me how either of those links do anything to rebut the actual voting record for NAFTA?
That's awfully convenient given that the definition of "macrospeciation" is "speciation which occurs over timescales too long to observe directly". I could point to tons of observed examples of speciation but you'll simply reply that they're not "macrospeciation", no matter how radical they are, because they were observed, and thus not "macro". Major changes in physical structure (Shikano, et al. (1990)), changes in chromosome counts (tons), single cellular to multicellular changes (Boraas (1983)), radically different diets (tons), and on and on? Nah, not macrospeciation. Why? Because they've been observed, duh!
NAFTA received 78% of its NO votes from Democrats and 59% of its YES votes from Republicans. Overall, despite having their party leader in the White House pressuring them, 60% of Democrats still voted NO; 75% of Republicans voted YES.
Are you done deluding yourself with this "Both Parties Are The Same!" BS?
No. Finding actual DNA would be a real shock, as it's an unstable molecule. Even finding RNA would be quite a shock. It's amazing that we can even get some sort of "proteins" (maybe). Still, if this can be replicated, that's a great start toward understanding what would be in their DNA. We already have the basic framework (modern birds), and we can roll back many of the changes that have occurred in birds by looking at what they have in common versus what deviated in different lineages, plus potentially some more information from other living relatives like crocodilians. But we can't figure out everything that way. We can in many regards guess by means of learning what different genes do and reactivating atavisms or inserting genes that cause the morphological differences in dinosaur species. But finding actual proteins would help take the guesswork out.
It's unlikely, baring discovering some sort of amazing and totally unexpected type of preservation, to ever be able to bring dinosaurs back all the way. But, with a lot of time and research, we may be able to get pretty close.
On the other hand, not even all modern birds in the same family taste the same (for example, chicken vs. turkey). BTW, does anyone else find it kind of odd that it just worked out such that one family (Phasianidae) contains almost all of the commonly eaten birds (chicken, turkey, pheasant, quail, grouse, ptarmigan, peafowl, etc) except for the waterfowl, their less commonly hunted but still regionally popular relatives are in the same order (Galliformes), and waterfowl - the remainder of the commonly eaten birds - make up the other half of the same superorder (Galloanserae)? That superorder only contains 440 of the world's ~17000 living bird species. Apparently evolution did something along that line that humans decided equals "tasty, convenient, and morally acceptable". And apparently it did that all the way back in the cretaceous, because this superorder has been distinct for that long - the "food birds" / "fowl" branched off from the other avian dinosaurs while there were still tyrannosaurs and velociraptors roaming about.
BTW, alligators/crocodiles just barely miss out on being called dinosaurs in most definitions, and any definition that would lump pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, etc in with dinosaurs would also lump in alligators / crocodiles. They're birds' closest living relatives, both descended from the archosaurs.
Nope. Both of them supported it. Among the rank and file, however, there's no questions that far more opposition to free trade bills comes from left. Just look at voting records for past free trade bills.
Negotiations for TPP began in 2005.
Nice concept, but because treaties are arrived at by a process of give and take - where if one party gives in one topic of discussion, they're going to insist on getting something that they want in regards to another - not realistic.
Wow, long-time Slashdotter doesn't update their profile in years and makes a number of comments in a thread - conspiracy details at 11! Did you bother to stop and check what Cursor.org actually was? It's was a minneapolis-based progressive (read: generally anti free trade) news aggregator. Hint: I'm opposed to TPP, at least in its current form.
Again, I'll ask, where do I get my paycheck? ;) Here? ;)
Yeay! Someone disagrees with me, therefore, I'm On The Dole(TM)! Where do I get my paycheck?
I never said otherwise. And allowing each state's congress to amend the treaty would be an absurdity, no many-state treaty could ever get approved anywhere in such a circumstance. As soon as one state amends it, all of the other states are going to want to go back to the negotiating table.
When treaty negotiations finish, everyone can read it, and everyone can vote on whether they think there's more good in it than bad - then it either becomes law or it doesn't. If you have a better way to negotiate treaties that's not patently ridiculous (aka, something that could ever realistically result in many-state treaties ever becoming reality), please share them.
Please read your own link better: It says " it will grant the authority to decide and negotiate the terms of agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to the executive branch," "...critical to successfully negotiating its terms internationally", etc. Duh. That's what we're talking about here. It's being negotiated in secret. It will not become some sort of "secret law". Once it's done, the full text will be released and congress will have to vote on it, just like all treaties.
The EU is not a member party to the negotiations of the Trans Pacific Partnership.
Right. Because liberals are so famously pro-free-trade-agreements and conservatives so famously opposed to them?
Meanwhile in Bizarro World, the Democratic Party has introduced a "Kill the Gays" bill while the Republican Party has introduced a bill requiring all power plant CO2 emissions to be sequestered inside the shafts of government-subsidized wind turbines.
Most of the TPP is your standard free trade agreement fare - removing tarriffs, stopping countries from favoring their local companies and punishing foreign ones, etc. If you're a fan of free trade agreements, you'll probably be a fan of it. If you hate free trade agreements, you'll probably hate it.
The part that most people on Slashdot will hate regardless of views on free trade agreements in general however is the IP section. It basically imposes an even more rightsholder-friendly version of US IP law on all member states. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been railing about it since the earlier versions were leaked, like Issa's leak in 2012. It's not gotten any better.
But as for all of the other stuff: 1) if you like free trade agreements, "Yeay!". 2) If you don't like free trade agreements, "Boo!"
As for the secrecy, unfortunately, this is generally how complex international treaties are negotiated - the concept being that if the public is involved in every stage of the negotiations, they'll never get anywhere; there's so many countless details to iron out and a lot of give-and-take between countries. It's supposed to be fair because when it's done, the full text is made public and each country gets to vote on it; it's not like it suddenly becomes some sort of "secret law". But obviously whenever you negotiate something in secret it's going to make the public suspicious of it - that should pretty much be a given.