Cleverbot, to me, seemed like Eliza's retarded little brother. And I was impressed with Eliza when I met "her" on a 16k TRS-80, back in 1981.
It is depressing to me that the only innovation in AI that we've come up with in 30 years, is to program Eliza to claim that she's a human, and accuse me of being a bot.
It is contamination from fission byproducts and waste. Primarily, I-131 in the short-term, (months), and Cs-137 in the long term (decades), and many, many (hundreds of) other byproducts. The particles produced are nanoscale-sized, and extremely difficult to filter. In an accident, they are discharged and spread far and wide. By their radioactivity, they are difficult to detect - because they are not actually all that radioactive, outside the human body. But if they are combined with other elements in the environment, and introduced into the food chain, and inhaled or ingested, they can persist in the human body, and do tremendous damage over long periods of time.
Once deposited over a wide area, there is no alternative other than to abandon the poisoned land. Sure, people can "live" on it. But when you look at the data from health studies, over the long term, our health is impacted. There are mutations, unexplained deaths, cancers, birth defects, immune disorders.
FACT: The increased risk of health impacts are small. FACT: If you amortize these health risks over time, and over the population as a whole, the economic costs, of the cancers, in particular, are huge. The alternative, the hundreds of square miles of abandoned land (for decades or longer) - (this must also include Pripyat, and also the areas in Russia and the US that have been abandoned due to improper disposal of waste from cold-war weapons production). FACT: Over time - in the future, the risks will only increase, as there are more accidents. More land will be denied, higher concentrations of contaminants will accumulate across the globe, as we build-out more and more plants, as we continue to reject that nuclear is an "unacceptably risky solution". FACT: I'm personally, not happy, that I have to accept a.001% higher risk of cancer, because TEPCO couldn't keep their plant in proper repair, and prepared for a disaster that anyone could have predicted was eventually inevitable. FACT: There are "clean" alternatives. Question: Why choose the risk? The "convenience" of nuclear power does not outweigh the cost of these health risks.
I have heard that some recruiters PAD their applications with fakes, to keep applicants "hungry". I do not know if this is true.
Your story sounds very similar to my (adult) son's; where he's working, barely hanging on, despite repeated demonstrated continuous competence and drive, and when he goes out of his way to innovate, or be creative - (solve problems on his own time, with side-projects) - they shut him down. Classic bad-manager-power-games, from what I can tell. The lower-level manager is, himself, so worried about his position (his VP is riding his ass) that he takes it out in the form of abuse on his underlings. It's very unprofessional, of course, and also horrible management technique, because it kills productivity, and as soon as the job market picks up, your best and brightest will get the hell out of there. But this is why Business people make for HORRIBLE managers. They think of people as widgets, and numbers on spreadsheets. To them, it's all carrot-and-stick. (mostly stick). No finesse.
My advice is to stick it out for a couple of years until you've accumulated enough experience to make your resume "impressive". When the market improves, leave. In fact, leave for greener pastures, as often as possible, until you find a place you like. When you are offered certification training, TAKE IT, and BUST YOUR ASS. It is more letters you can put onto your CV/Resume. When you have less than 5-10 years of experience, all that bullshit certification training really makes a difference. It's all about padding your resume.
>5-10 years experience, don't bother, and don't job-hop.
This is true; for MOST IT jobs (up to and including server integration, and even moderate programming and engineering) - this is a "vocational-level" career. You will do well with a bachelor-level degree with a computer-heavy curriculum, but much of the mathematical and techie rigor is absolutely unnecessary for about 90% of the jobs in this field. Practical experience takes you MUCH further than the classroom experience.
(full disclosure: I'm frequently exposed to the other 10%. . . where my education and experience are entirely inadequate; so I *do* see where others, who DO have the rigorous math background and deep theoretical specializations actually USE those skills in doing innovative and interesting work. I'm more of a spectator. . . but I manage to stay useful.)
When it comes to radioactive contamination, and public health and safety, then yes, truth is always better than lies. Fuck your "95% of the population of the planet" and their "culture of modesty". In both eye-sockets.
There is a time and a place for anthropology, and a time and place for basic fucking health and safety and survival, and human dignity in not being pissed on and being told it's raining.
Sometimes it is in your own best long-term self-interest to help your neighbor out. (In fact, often, it is so.) Sometimes, in doing that, (for various reasons, not always "greed") - your neighbor takes advantage of you and screws you over.
And often, there is no way in hell to know, until AFTER you get screwed over. (because, nobody is a telepath).
And that, my friends, sums up the whole of economics.
If you are a Communist - you will ALWAYS eventually get screwed over. You either over-trust, or are forced to become totalitarian. If you are a Capitalist - you will live in a bankrupt society, paralyzed, and devoid of mutual trust. (which is exactly where we stand today - in the midst of a "liquidity crisis").
The truth is: Our society has not been PURIST Capitalist, for a very long time. But the PURISTS among us have been crybaby McCarthyite red-baiters, and drove our balanced system too far in the Capitalist direction. Now we are screwed.
When they raised the price, we decided to tough it out and stick with streaming, because we have fairly robust AT&T DSL, and watch on a Sony BlueRay DVD player, that does Netflix streaming. (also a Wii; the pick-interface is much better; sometimes we watch on a laptop, because the kids are watching something on the TV).
Sometimes . . . I only have like a half-hour to kill. Time-wise. And it takes me that long just to find something worthwhile to watch. Seriously. Even then - I'll get 10-15 minutes into a movie I've never heard of, (after spending 10-15 minutes browsing through the myriad of choices) - and then I'll realize, I just wasted a half-hour.
The problem with the DVD service is - when I find out I've got a dud, I have to mail the dud back, and wait for the new potential dud to arrive.
Frankly - I think the biggest problem with Netflix is - I have seen too much crap. I have a 56" TV, + 5.1 surround, and I have no desire to watch a damn thing on it, 90% of the time.
I dunno. It seems that I am churning through about 4-5 new projects a year. Each one is usually involving something different; and while I absolutely use old languages and skills, I'm always picking up NEW languages. Mostly various web platforms, lately. Mostly, I'm overseeing tying up loose ends of stuff other people started and didn't finish, integration work, etc.
I have never programmed in C++, except in school. I know there's a huge Win32 framework. I have no idea how to use it. Not even much C. I started in BASIC, and Z-80 Assembler. So this goes way, way back.
I think there are very well-established niches EVERYWHERE in engineering and software, IT, admin, etc. Whether you know 1 language, or you can chameleon your way through life. Hell, I know a guy who has based a 15-year career on training people in JUST LOTUS NOTES ONLY. Just training. (Of course, his life, to me, would be a living hell, because he travels 35 weeks a year. FUCK THAT SHIT). I've known people who made careers out of QA. Documentation. People who can't code to save their lives - but they're good solid workers. I don't suppose those jobs are easy to GET. I don't think these jobs are what you'd call "Highly Paid" either. We can't all be rock-stars, right?
I guess I can complain that I'm not "highly paid". But what the fuck. I'm steadily employed. I can find time to read slashdot a couple hours a week.
I'm finding this pretty ironic, but my teenage son, who has only recently displayed ANY interest in computers, has entered a kind of IT/vocational program in secondary school; and I'm finding that he's asking a lot of questions, (and I'm digging up a lot of old answers) on BATCH FILE PROGRAMMING! (laughing my ass off). I thought I was DONE with that 15 years ago. I thought I was done with that 10 years ago. I thought I was done with that 5 years ago. Yet, every once in a while, I keep bumping into crufty old junk that requires some quick-n-dirty batch file hackery that the ruby and c++ guys don't seem to be interested in.
I think that there will always be cheap bastards out there.
This is exactly correct: And EXACTLY how Free Independent Quebec was brought-back into Canada after the popular referendum to secede.
It's really not about TRADE SANCTIONS. It's about creditor blackmail.
Now you understand who REALLY runs the world, and why everything (geopolitically) actually happens.
You can circle-jerk all you want about politics and will-of-the-people, or even economics. But if a government, whether it's a gangster with a bunch of thugs, like Zimbabwe, or whether it's a constitutional parliament like Germany, can't get buy-in from the international banks, it's fucked - period. (and if the dictator and thugs are persisting for ANY period of time, you can be damn sure that it is at the pleasure of the banks - he's getting his capital from SOMEWHERE. In Gaddaffi's case, of course, he's selling oil).
Freedom for us? Good! (we have no oil, right?) Freedom for "them"? NOT GOOD! Please send bombs/teargas/firewalls/wiretapping-equipment!
Of course - we, in the US, and those in the UK, France, Russia/USSR, and other Superpowers, AND even regional powers, have been at this game for centuries. IN FACT. Rome did it to Gaul. Ancient Lower-Egypt did it to (what is now)Somalia, until they pressed for unification to become Upper-Egypt (upper/lower as-the-Nile-flows). Anywhere you have resources, and inequality, you can have exploitation.
And - of course, I'm only joking with you all. It's not like we're really FREE here. Did our presidential election in 2008 actually count for jack squat? Did it change the policies that Obama voters were hoping for? (anything besides DADT? - this is the ONLY meaningful policy change he has accomplished!) We still wiretap, domestically, we still detain without warrants, we still imprison without trial, we still deprive people of property, we still invade personal privacy, and our democracy is a sham with two corporatist center-right parties, and no voice for any other view.
. . . fine and dandy - if you live in Phoenix, AZ. For the poor folks who live in Minneapolis or Seattle, the ROI for PV-covered parking-lots isn't so good: More often cloudy, and high-cost for repair after frequent hail-storms.
(I'm not saying we shouldn't do it - I'm just saying: It's not the rosy picture you paint for everyone. Germany, in particular, has invested HEAVILY in solar energy production, and they are in a horrible position, both latitude (sun-angle) wise, and average cloud-cover wise. But hell, when you factor CO2, meltdowns, nuclear waste, and oil spills, and acid rain into the equation, it is STILL a far better economic deal than fossil fuels or nuclear.)
what's really funny is when you have cookouts, because the meat is gonna spoil, and nobody's got gas to cook with, their charcoal's washed away, so they use scrap pressure-treated (ie. arsenic-soaked) lumber to burn to cook the meat. Yeah. that's a riot.
The US may have a lot of military personnel but it's a very sick country on the verge of collapse.
you are not kidding. I was just at an airshow. The hardware on PUBLIC EXHIBITION was old, worn out, rusty, beat all to hell, and looked like even a fresh coat of paint wouldn't "make things better".
Back in the 1990's we used to joke about how beat up former soviet hardware looked.
You are exactly correct, and we have a perfect example in Apple's history: When Scully took over and fired Jobs. Apple did not die overnight, but the lack of vision was palpable. Jobs' return was more than simple cult of personality. - - and I don't think it was anything magical about Jobs personally, but, I expect Apple to not be succeeding in any way like its current form, within 5 years from now. Unless they change their leadership back from a business-oriented team to an engineering-oriented team. It must be about technology. Not money. Apple is not a bank. They make computers. Not sugar water.
Slashdot Mirror
I know.
I was disappointed.
Cleverbot, to me, seemed like Eliza's retarded little brother.
And I was impressed with Eliza when I met "her" on a 16k TRS-80, back in 1981.
It is depressing to me that the only innovation in AI that we've come up with in 30 years, is to program Eliza to claim that she's a human, and accuse me of being a bot.
It's not nuclear energy that people fear.
It is contamination from fission byproducts and waste. Primarily, I-131 in the short-term, (months), and Cs-137 in the long term (decades), and many, many (hundreds of) other byproducts. The particles produced are nanoscale-sized, and extremely difficult to filter. In an accident, they are discharged and spread far and wide. By their radioactivity, they are difficult to detect - because they are not actually all that radioactive, outside the human body. But if they are combined with other elements in the environment, and introduced into the food chain, and inhaled or ingested, they can persist in the human body, and do tremendous damage over long periods of time.
Once deposited over a wide area, there is no alternative other than to abandon the poisoned land. Sure, people can "live" on it. But when you look at the data from health studies, over the long term, our health is impacted. There are mutations, unexplained deaths, cancers, birth defects, immune disorders.
FACT: The increased risk of health impacts are small. .001% higher risk of cancer, because TEPCO couldn't keep their plant in proper repair, and prepared for a disaster that anyone could have predicted was eventually inevitable.
FACT: If you amortize these health risks over time, and over the population as a whole, the economic costs, of the cancers, in particular, are huge. The alternative, the hundreds of square miles of abandoned land (for decades or longer) - (this must also include Pripyat, and also the areas in Russia and the US that have been abandoned due to improper disposal of waste from cold-war weapons production).
FACT: Over time - in the future, the risks will only increase, as there are more accidents. More land will be denied, higher concentrations of contaminants will accumulate across the globe, as we build-out more and more plants, as we continue to reject that nuclear is an "unacceptably risky solution".
FACT: I'm personally, not happy, that I have to accept a
FACT: There are "clean" alternatives.
Question: Why choose the risk? The "convenience" of nuclear power does not outweigh the cost of these health risks.
I have heard that some recruiters PAD their applications with fakes, to keep applicants "hungry". I do not know if this is true.
Your story sounds very similar to my (adult) son's; where he's working, barely hanging on, despite repeated demonstrated continuous competence and drive, and when he goes out of his way to innovate, or be creative - (solve problems on his own time, with side-projects) - they shut him down. Classic bad-manager-power-games, from what I can tell. The lower-level manager is, himself, so worried about his position (his VP is riding his ass) that he takes it out in the form of abuse on his underlings. It's very unprofessional, of course, and also horrible management technique, because it kills productivity, and as soon as the job market picks up, your best and brightest will get the hell out of there. But this is why Business people make for HORRIBLE managers. They think of people as widgets, and numbers on spreadsheets. To them, it's all carrot-and-stick. (mostly stick). No finesse.
My advice is to stick it out for a couple of years until you've accumulated enough experience to make your resume "impressive". When the market improves, leave. In fact, leave for greener pastures, as often as possible, until you find a place you like. When you are offered certification training, TAKE IT, and BUST YOUR ASS. It is more letters you can put onto your CV/Resume. When you have less than 5-10 years of experience, all that bullshit certification training really makes a difference. It's all about padding your resume.
>5-10 years experience, don't bother, and don't job-hop.
This is true; for MOST IT jobs (up to and including server integration, and even moderate programming and engineering) - this is a "vocational-level" career. You will do well with a bachelor-level degree with a computer-heavy curriculum, but much of the mathematical and techie rigor is absolutely unnecessary for about 90% of the jobs in this field. Practical experience takes you MUCH further than the classroom experience.
(full disclosure: I'm frequently exposed to the other 10%. . . where my education and experience are entirely inadequate; so I *do* see where others, who DO have the rigorous math background and deep theoretical specializations actually USE those skills in doing innovative and interesting work. I'm more of a spectator. . . but I manage to stay useful.)
WHAT?! "Employee Stock"? The workers owning the means of production? Whatryou, some kind of DAMN COMMIE?!!
You just told the story of about 90% of former silicon-valley "success-stories."
Technical founder hires a "professional" MBA to run the company, gets bought-out, pumps-and-dumps. The peons are laid off.
When it comes to radioactive contamination, and public health and safety, then yes, truth is always better than lies.
Fuck your "95% of the population of the planet" and their "culture of modesty".
In both eye-sockets.
There is a time and a place for anthropology, and a time and place for basic fucking health and safety and survival, and human dignity in not being pissed on and being told it's raining.
Both Communism and Capitalism are TOO SIMPLISTIC.
Sometimes it is in your own best long-term self-interest to help your neighbor out. (In fact, often, it is so.)
Sometimes, in doing that, (for various reasons, not always "greed") - your neighbor takes advantage of you and screws you over.
And often, there is no way in hell to know, until AFTER you get screwed over.
(because, nobody is a telepath).
And that, my friends, sums up the whole of economics.
If you are a Communist - you will ALWAYS eventually get screwed over. You either over-trust, or are forced to become totalitarian.
If you are a Capitalist - you will live in a bankrupt society, paralyzed, and devoid of mutual trust. (which is exactly where we stand today - in the midst of a "liquidity crisis").
The truth is:
Our society has not been PURIST Capitalist, for a very long time. But the PURISTS among us have been crybaby McCarthyite red-baiters, and drove our balanced system too far in the Capitalist direction. Now we are screwed.
+1 "Truth to power"
Irony Alert: Government USPS service being killed due to efficient Internet delivery service, invented by US Government.
When they raised the price, we decided to tough it out and stick with streaming, because we have fairly robust AT&T DSL, and watch on a Sony BlueRay DVD player, that does Netflix streaming. (also a Wii; the pick-interface is much better; sometimes we watch on a laptop, because the kids are watching something on the TV).
Sometimes . . . I only have like a half-hour to kill. Time-wise. And it takes me that long just to find something worthwhile to watch. Seriously. Even then - I'll get 10-15 minutes into a movie I've never heard of, (after spending 10-15 minutes browsing through the myriad of choices) - and then I'll realize, I just wasted a half-hour.
The problem with the DVD service is - when I find out I've got a dud, I have to mail the dud back, and wait for the new potential dud to arrive.
Frankly - I think the biggest problem with Netflix is - I have seen too much crap. I have a 56" TV, + 5.1 surround, and I have no desire to watch a damn thing on it, 90% of the time.
I dunno. It seems that I am churning through about 4-5 new projects a year. Each one is usually involving something different; and while I absolutely use old languages and skills, I'm always picking up NEW languages. Mostly various web platforms, lately. Mostly, I'm overseeing tying up loose ends of stuff other people started and didn't finish, integration work, etc.
I have never programmed in C++, except in school. I know there's a huge Win32 framework. I have no idea how to use it. Not even much C. I started in BASIC, and Z-80 Assembler. So this goes way, way back.
I think there are very well-established niches EVERYWHERE in engineering and software, IT, admin, etc. Whether you know 1 language, or you can chameleon your way through life. Hell, I know a guy who has based a 15-year career on training people in JUST LOTUS NOTES ONLY. Just training. (Of course, his life, to me, would be a living hell, because he travels 35 weeks a year. FUCK THAT SHIT). I've known people who made careers out of QA. Documentation. People who can't code to save their lives - but they're good solid workers. I don't suppose those jobs are easy to GET. I don't think these jobs are what you'd call "Highly Paid" either. We can't all be rock-stars, right?
I guess I can complain that I'm not "highly paid". But what the fuck. I'm steadily employed. I can find time to read slashdot a couple hours a week.
I'm finding this pretty ironic, but my teenage son, who has only recently displayed ANY interest in computers, has entered a kind of IT/vocational program in secondary school; and I'm finding that he's asking a lot of questions, (and I'm digging up a lot of old answers) on BATCH FILE PROGRAMMING! (laughing my ass off). I thought I was DONE with that 15 years ago. I thought I was done with that 10 years ago. I thought I was done with that 5 years ago. Yet, every once in a while, I keep bumping into crufty old junk that requires some quick-n-dirty batch file hackery that the ruby and c++ guys don't seem to be interested in.
I think that there will always be cheap bastards out there.
Well, that's it. Now you have made an enemy of Just Another Fucking Anonymous Coward!
Assassination of Character.
Method, tried and true. . . pioneered by the good Senator McCarthy, from Wisconsin.
This is exactly correct: And EXACTLY how Free Independent Quebec was brought-back into Canada after the popular referendum to secede.
It's really not about TRADE SANCTIONS. It's about creditor blackmail.
Now you understand who REALLY runs the world, and why everything (geopolitically) actually happens.
You can circle-jerk all you want about politics and will-of-the-people, or even economics. But if a government, whether it's a gangster with a bunch of thugs, like Zimbabwe, or whether it's a constitutional parliament like Germany, can't get buy-in from the international banks, it's fucked - period. (and if the dictator and thugs are persisting for ANY period of time, you can be damn sure that it is at the pleasure of the banks - he's getting his capital from SOMEWHERE. In Gaddaffi's case, of course, he's selling oil).
Freedom for us? Good! (we have no oil, right?)
Freedom for "them"? NOT GOOD! Please send bombs/teargas/firewalls/wiretapping-equipment!
Of course - we, in the US, and those in the UK, France, Russia/USSR, and other Superpowers, AND even regional powers, have been at this game for centuries. IN FACT. Rome did it to Gaul. Ancient Lower-Egypt did it to (what is now)Somalia, until they pressed for unification to become Upper-Egypt (upper/lower as-the-Nile-flows). Anywhere you have resources, and inequality, you can have exploitation.
And - of course, I'm only joking with you all. It's not like we're really FREE here.
Did our presidential election in 2008 actually count for jack squat? Did it change the policies that Obama voters were hoping for? (anything besides DADT? - this is the ONLY meaningful policy change he has accomplished!) We still wiretap, domestically, we still detain without warrants, we still imprison without trial, we still deprive people of property, we still invade personal privacy, and our democracy is a sham with two corporatist center-right parties, and no voice for any other view.
Don't they know? Information wants to be free.
yay for the economy! (?)
Well, factor the cost of nuking India into the equation then. I'm sure there are those in the Pakistani government who've been dreaming of that.
slave-labor == cheaper! FTW!
. . . fine and dandy - if you live in Phoenix, AZ. For the poor folks who live in Minneapolis or Seattle, the ROI for PV-covered parking-lots isn't so good: More often cloudy, and high-cost for repair after frequent hail-storms.
(I'm not saying we shouldn't do it - I'm just saying: It's not the rosy picture you paint for everyone.
Germany, in particular, has invested HEAVILY in solar energy production, and they are in a horrible position, both latitude (sun-angle) wise, and average cloud-cover wise. But hell, when you factor CO2, meltdowns, nuclear waste, and oil spills, and acid rain into the equation, it is STILL a far better economic deal than fossil fuels or nuclear.)
what's really funny is when you have cookouts, because the meat is gonna spoil, and nobody's got gas to cook with, their charcoal's washed away, so they use scrap pressure-treated (ie. arsenic-soaked) lumber to burn to cook the meat. Yeah. that's a riot.
The US may have a lot of military personnel but it's a very sick country on the verge of collapse.
you are not kidding. I was just at an airshow. The hardware on PUBLIC EXHIBITION was old, worn out, rusty, beat all to hell, and looked like even a fresh coat of paint wouldn't "make things better".
Back in the 1990's we used to joke about how beat up former soviet hardware looked.
You are exactly correct, and we have a perfect example in Apple's history:
When Scully took over and fired Jobs. Apple did not die overnight, but the lack of vision was palpable. Jobs' return was more than simple cult of personality. - - and I don't think it was anything magical about Jobs personally, but, I expect Apple to not be succeeding in any way like its current form, within 5 years from now. Unless they change their leadership back from a business-oriented team to an engineering-oriented team. It must be about technology. Not money. Apple is not a bank. They make computers. Not sugar water.