I've been testing Skype and Line2 calls over WiFi in a house with Clear, and latence doesn't seem to be an issue. The lag is noticeable if I'm within earshot of the person whose cell phone I'm calling, but without that second channel for comparison it's not significant.
There are however some issues with calls dropping (the Nexus S's ability to hold onto a WiFi signal isn't impressing me so far; it gets 1/4 when a laptop in the same location gets 4/4 for signal strength); and the Google Voice + pbxes.org + Sipdroid solution has pretty bad quality.
I tried this (and was very excited to find it), but sipdroid seems to have trouble staying logged in to pbxes, so I only sometimes get incoming calls (or can make outgoing calls); and call quality is ok-to-poor (but it is free).
Try it out in henna (or some other semi-permenant ink) first. This has the advantages of 'wait ten years' –specifically, you're not stuck –but also lets you see if you really like it in person, you aren't just imagining it.
Personally, I am not tempted to get a tattoo. In addition to the permenance issue, I think my body is pretty sweet on its own –doubly so if what you want to celebrate is the beauty of the natural world and our understanding of the same.
In fact, such devices exist: the BrailleNote is a portable computer with a Braille 'screen'. Among other things (wireless internet, bluetooth, voice memos, word processing) it e-book reading as a feature. (I have never used one myself - I am sighted, and can barely struggle along in Braille - but a blind friend of mine has one.)
We had keyboarding/computer class in middle school, where I topped out on a good day at about 30wpm, and learned the aquarium game and hypercards.
Then, I got instant messaging, and learned to touch-type 60wpm so I could keep up with four concurrent conversations (though I'll admit my preference to keep proper spelling and punctuation in that context is atypical). (And then, I decided to learn C, and installed OpenBSD on some box, and learned about computers.) So while basic computer literacy is a good requisite, I think it's better aligned with reading and writing, or physical coordination - a tool, not a subject.
As to the four-year-old girl: my boss' daughter, 1 a few months ago, plays with laptops, and rejects a detached keyboard when he tries to subsitute it. (She has her own obselete iBook, now.) It's probably mostly imitation (and bright colors) at this point, but I wouldn't be surprised if she was computer-fluent by four.
Moreover, if the brain is simulated well enough, it will certainly appear self-aware. Even if there is a difference (such as it not having a soul), that's not something we can (so far) experimentally determine, and therefore any metaphysical postulations are, or should be, beside the point in the question of ethical behavior towards the simulation.
(1) dead simple to use, because that's not what the course is about
Having been both a student and a TA in this program, I can say with confidence: (a) svn is available for students / courses to use (although there's some overhead to getting it set up), and (b) although there is some command-line education component to the course, these students (depending on which course this is) have plenty to think about with interpreting tracebacks and remembering whether arrays start at 0 or 1. (That dead simple.) They don't need to think about svn quite yet.
Also, like the OP said, he's looking for concurrent collaboration. As other people have suggested, SEE is the right idea, though cross-platform is a must and web-based is probably better. Mercurial or svn or git are solving a different problem.
Actually, I'd becurious to know whether lots of people clicking produced interference, or instead produced better coverage of the environment; I suspect the latter, so long as the different people are not producing identical clicks at exactly the same time.
I don't [think] this is something that happens often under circumstances people normally experience.
I agree. In the first article, it doesn't tell us how the rats were kept awake, but it gives a hint that they were not kept up by excitement over their latest project:
It's also possible that extreme levels of stress contributed to the rats' demise.
However, the article opens talking about Guantanemo; it is relevant to consider that such treatment of fellow human beings might be more dangerous than supposed.
At UPenn, the machines in each computer lab had a theme, and one was dances: swing, lindy, foxtrot, etc. The login message, along with upcoming events, included a short description of the dance.
This also led to that particular room being called 'the dance lab'.
(Somehow, the one with 'temerity' and other adjectives was just called 207A.)
Slashdot Mirror
I've been testing Skype and Line2 calls over WiFi in a house with Clear, and latence doesn't seem to be an issue. The lag is noticeable if I'm within earshot of the person whose cell phone I'm calling, but without that second channel for comparison it's not significant. There are however some issues with calls dropping (the Nexus S's ability to hold onto a WiFi signal isn't impressing me so far; it gets 1/4 when a laptop in the same location gets 4/4 for signal strength); and the Google Voice + pbxes.org + Sipdroid solution has pretty bad quality.
I tried this (and was very excited to find it), but sipdroid seems to have trouble staying logged in to pbxes, so I only sometimes get incoming calls (or can make outgoing calls); and call quality is ok-to-poor (but it is free).
Thank you! Scientific rigor and grammatical rigor seem to be decoupled for the OP.
Try it out in henna (or some other semi-permenant ink) first. This has the advantages of 'wait ten years' –specifically, you're not stuck –but also lets you see if you really like it in person, you aren't just imagining it.
Personally, I am not tempted to get a tattoo. In addition to the permenance issue, I think my body is pretty sweet on its own –doubly so if what you want to celebrate is the beauty of the natural world and our understanding of the same.
In fact, such devices exist: the BrailleNote is a portable computer with a Braille 'screen'. Among other things (wireless internet, bluetooth, voice memos, word processing) it e-book reading as a feature. (I have never used one myself - I am sighted, and can barely struggle along in Braille - but a blind friend of mine has one.)
I totally agree.
We had keyboarding/computer class in middle school, where I topped out on a good day at about 30wpm, and learned the aquarium game and hypercards.
Then, I got instant messaging, and learned to touch-type 60wpm so I could keep up with four concurrent conversations (though I'll admit my preference to keep proper spelling and punctuation in that context is atypical). (And then, I decided to learn C, and installed OpenBSD on some box, and learned about computers.) So while basic computer literacy is a good requisite, I think it's better aligned with reading and writing, or physical coordination - a tool, not a subject.
As to the four-year-old girl: my boss' daughter, 1 a few months ago, plays with laptops, and rejects a detached keyboard when he tries to subsitute it. (She has her own obselete iBook, now.) It's probably mostly imitation (and bright colors) at this point, but I wouldn't be surprised if she was computer-fluent by four.
...and would you agree with the robotic copy of you, as it brought its handy built-in axe down on its old copy? (See also, The Prestige.)
Moreover, if the brain is simulated well enough, it will certainly appear self-aware. Even if there is a difference (such as it not having a soul), that's not something we can (so far) experimentally determine, and therefore any metaphysical postulations are, or should be, beside the point in the question of ethical behavior towards the simulation.
I think you're missing requirement (1):
(1) dead simple to use, because that's not what the course is about
Having been both a student and a TA in this program, I can say with confidence: (a) svn is available for students / courses to use (although there's some overhead to getting it set up), and (b) although there is some command-line education component to the course, these students (depending on which course this is) have plenty to think about with interpreting tracebacks and remembering whether arrays start at 0 or 1. (That dead simple.) They don't need to think about svn quite yet.
Also, like the OP said, he's looking for concurrent collaboration. As other people have suggested, SEE is the right idea, though cross-platform is a must and web-based is probably better. Mercurial or svn or git are solving a different problem.
Actually, I'd becurious to know whether lots of people clicking produced interference, or instead produced better coverage of the environment; I suspect the latter, so long as the different people are not producing identical clicks at exactly the same time.
I don't [think] this is something that happens often under circumstances people normally experience.
I agree. In the first article, it doesn't tell us how the rats were kept awake, but it gives a hint that they were not kept up by excitement over their latest project:
It's also possible that extreme levels of stress contributed to the rats' demise.
However, the article opens talking about Guantanemo; it is relevant to consider that such treatment of fellow human beings might be more dangerous than supposed.
> I am beginning to think that we have some miasma that turns everything into a carcinogen
http://www.bunny-comic.com/?id=1360
You mean the automatic pellet turret?
> Mon Jan 18, 22:14:08 EST
I disagree: Tue, 19 Jan _2038_ 03:14:08 GMT
See also, the 2038 problem.
Or for the Pythonically inclined:
import time
time.asctime(time.localtime(1234567890))
'Fri Feb 13 15:31:30 2009'
At UPenn, the machines in each computer lab had a theme, and one was dances: swing, lindy, foxtrot, etc. The login message, along with upcoming events, included a short description of the dance.
This also led to that particular room being called 'the dance lab'.
(Somehow, the one with 'temerity' and other adjectives was just called 207A.)
Presuming that the text is all the information we need - maybe the got creative and did steganography, or a message hidden in the flash source.
I agree with the characters; if newlines are relevant:
VFWTDLCSWV. YD
NSLMIJFWEJFD GSW SL
NIJNQBLM FOBV EJFDVF
DLNIGTFBSL. KBVBF
YYY.AHB.MSK/NSCDC.OFZ
FS EDF WV QLSY SA
GSWI VWNNDVV.