BP used to operate under "APOC". If you want to know about the sordid history of this company, look up "Operation Ajax". This was the company largely behind the one event that history can consider to be the most primal cause of the Iranian revolution, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iran-Iraq war, the first Gulf War, most likely 9/11, and our current ongoing involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan.
If the United States Government had mainly just minded its own business, in 1953, and operated in the best interests of its citizens, instead of foreign-owned oil companies, many of these horrible events (and associated tragic costs and consequences) may likely not have come to pass.
BP has much to "make up for" and Deepwater doesn't even really scratch the surface.
Well; there's been studies showing correlative links between genetic markers in parents, and autism in their children. So where do these genetic defects in the parents come from?
That's right. Hexavalent Chromium, in the water supply. From GE. (Generally Evil.) First it was nuclear testing, then Chemtrails, then HAARP, for the fine-tuning. And that's just the beginning of our new genetic horror that began three generations ago, and continues today; where we're only starting to grasp the immensity of it . . . just as we're losing our capacity to understand or even do anything about it. Soon, we'll be reduced to a society of degenerate mutants, roaming the sewers, eating eachother to survive. Lawsuits? pfft. The lawyers are going to be the first ones eaten. I assure you of that.
I don't think the creators are overlooking advanced or esoteric technique. One day, not too long from now (and this is long overdue) the machines are going to be playing shit that will make our eyes bug out. And then make us yawn, and bitch and moan for upgrades.
Well, Ford wasn't so terribly bad. You name one after Clinton, or Carter, and (not that I think they were bad presidents) - you'd have a problem, in the Military. Name one after freaking Nixon - man that'd be a joke.
But they've got a GHW Bush, coming up, and a carrier; Reagan (not bad, for a senile sock-puppet, who was supposed to take a bullet and go down like a man; so the grown-ups could get some work done). But I guess there are plans for a GW Bush. And given the whole torture, and fake war, and no WMD, and failure to actually find OBL. . . that's just kind of sad. I mean, I know he was responsible for more profit for the manufacturer than any other president in history, but, I think a lot of ppl are going to feel pretty uncomfortable serving on a ship named after "Miserable Failure".
We called it "Computer Math" back in 1981. Of course, we felt damn lucky that we even had a computer lab full of TRS-80's. But it was a class in BASIC, on how to solve math problems, graph functions (linear and polynomial.)
Our motivation to take the class was the idea that, at that time, the personal computer revolution was just beginning, and this set of skills was more or less a guaranteed career. That's certainly not the case anymore.
I don't know how or why you'd attract a person to a field of rigorous study if they weren't going to have some reasonable expectation of a secure future. And that's not up to the teacher or the designer of the curricula. That's up to industry.
There are more of us and we're smarter. . . until they start spending billions of dollars to advertise opposing viewpoints on cable news stations. Then, there are more of them.
Though, I'd really like to see the fuckers all just move to Somalia.
So, how long will this dream last after the first lawsuit to protect some insect local to the area to be covered by solar panels?
As soon as climate change from sustained petrofuel extraction and burning kills those insects, I figure we'll be golden. Yep. A nice crispy golden-brown. There will be no more insects, lawyers, lawsuits, laws, yen, dollars, solar panel projects, or people. but plenty of sand.
The weird thing is, his heavily Mormon population state, Utah, has typical Semitic-Judeo-Christian fundamentalist prohibitions on Sexuality, Caffeine, and Alcohol, but unfortunately, NOT PORK.
Personally, since Orrin Hatch has suggested that RIAA companies have the right to hack into my computer and destroy it; without any warrant, probable cause, judicial oversight, or any state-backed law enforcement, (basically, having a big, fascist, caca-smearing-eating-fetish party all over the Bill of Rights), I have zero sympathy for Orrin Hatch, or the idiot people of Utah who keep re-electing him. Utah is a state, that as far as I'm concerned, can secede back to the freaking stone age where they belong. They deserve no rights, and no federal dollars, and no benefits of modern science.
A human behind the wheel will become massively more expensive the moment some insurance adjuster (runs a spreadsheet that) determines that a human behind the wheel is statistically more expensive for his employer to underwrite.
On that day - kiss your god-given-right to drive legally on public roads good bye.
Your statement is true; and suggests an economic inbalance; an unnatural inflation in wages in the US job market. . . which, in my observation, is true: to match, certain other (heavily subsidized and/or legislatively monopolized) segments of the economy whose costs have spiraled out of control: entertainment, medicine/healthcare, law, banking/finance (especially including housing and automotive).
The "matriculated class" deals with these highly-inflated segments. The "uneducated" do not; usually. The governmental interference in these segments has been meant to address problems of income shortfalls in the working class, but instead, inflated those prices; made the degree into some sort of "magical piece of paper" - required to gain entrance into the magical land of >$40k salaries and bennies. (which, used to cut it back in the 1980's, doesn't cut it anymore. now it's more like >$100k, or >$150k for that standard of living). Unfortunately - the associated skills learned are not even roughly equivalent to 5 years professional experience in the field.
Why does the government need to interfere in these segments of the economy by subsidizing? Because of our ideology. So we can pretend to be a free-capitalist market, while, in actuality, being a heavily corporatist/socialist economic system. Because our government lacks the very fundamental power to create its own currency. (and therefore, is not a real government.) Because of this: these subsidies are "for show" subsidies - and only act to distort the market. They help no-one, and long-term, to more harm than good. Due to the geometric progression of interest owed on borrowed money, eventually, we (the "responsible parties" of the government debt) are going to be completely screwed.
He's not the used car salesman that Mark was, nor the fiery bitch that Carli was. He's kind of a geek, and a definite software nerd.
No wonder they're trying to shut him down.
And unlike most Germans, he appears to have had his sense of humor reinstalled.
To which Germans, specifically, are you referring? In my experience, Germans, though possessing a very dry humor, are among the funniest sons of bitches in the world. Oh wait. The males. Not the females.
The FCC can say what frequency, and when, and how much profanity can be in a political message broadcast on any given network.
The FCC's regulations, in turn, create a scarcity of a resource, that distorts the market such that there is a price for airtime, thus necessitating campaign contributions.
I don't see that the federal government prohibiting a political film release within a certain time-frame, as ANY DIFFERENT, than what it already does through the FCC. Regulation of spending money has FUCK ALL to do with regulation of any individual's right to political speech.
There is a huge difference between paid access to mass media messaging, and our individual right to say whatever the fuck we want to say.
SCOTUS's failure to unwind this very simple logical fallacy, has completely and utterly fucked everything this nation every stood for.
well - of course, Economists, who profit by also doing side-jobs working for "think-tanks", writing editorials, public speaking, and there is the promise of profitable private engagements after leaving academia, through appointments to the Federal Reserve, various corporate Boards of Directors, etc. Economists are the absolutely most biased lot - but then again, the dead giveaway that it's not a REAL science, is the fact that they believe in an "Invisible Hand". lol.
Maybe the percentage of slashdotters that were in college when Facebook was strictly for.edu user is so small you are unaware. Trust me, alotta people were pissed when Fb opened up to everyone and started commercializing- it has been downhill ever since-
ha. Y'all are probably too young to remember when the Internet was ALL either.mil or.edu. Trust me. A LOTTA people were pissed when AOL opened up the Internet to everyone and started commercializing. It has been downhill ever since.
uh yeah - apparently, not a problem if you've paid your $30 for Quicktime "Pro". Apparently, the $3900 you just paid for the "Mac Pro" isn't "Pro" enough. You need to pay another $30. Then you get all the neato codecs to play the weird Thai kiddie por- oh, I mean, Dora the Explorer videos.
(don't forget, you can't change your DVD player to Region 9, and you can only change Regions like 2 or 3 times).
What about the MIDI keyboards you can plug into a Mac, and the Mac goes: WTF is this shit?
What about the NTFS-formatted USB hard drives you can plug into the Mac (and depending on whether you're on 10.4, 10.5, or 10.6) - it says: oh, so sorry, I can read this, can't write.
And this is the modern Mac situation. Never mind the 1990's - what a fucking nightmare of hardware incompatibility. Video cards that had SPECIAL FLASH ROM - but were otherwise identical to the PC counterpart? (oh yeah, that, and the $200 price difference).
Ever spend $500 on a 4"x6" drawing tablet - ADB, only to have Apple "obsolete" the whole ADB concept and adopt USB? Oh - don't worry, there are "adapters"! Yeah, they work with pretty much everything. Except overpriced drawing tablets. (and in those days, ADB was the only choice for Macs because the serial ones were flaky as hell).
Now, if you've got a Mac that's more than say... 5 years old, and just try to burn a data DVD, you better have a DVD-R, and not a DVD+R, because it will burn to that DVD+R just fine. Wait until you try to read that disk. HA! jokes on you, sucker!
I've had really messed up hardware issues with all three OS platforms - to tell you the truth. But Macintosh has frequently been the worst, and most frustrating.
The coastal trains generally get up to about 60 mph on a good day. If they don't have to share the track with a freight train.
They've probably spent $9 Billion just talking about, and lobbying for (and against) high-speed rail - in California alone, over the past 10 years. And so far, the plans that got the furthest along, connect through Las Vegas - of course.
Because there are only two cities that matter in California. And there is only one place anyone in California might want to go in a hurry.
The very huge problem with this is when you want to add functionality, finding hardware to develop on is quite a massive pain. You've usually got to simulate it nowadays. That 386-based machine's got to talk to a motherboard and bus and adapters and peripherals of that era - and if you're looking to buy hardware like that, well, be prepared to pay a LOT, (and be treated like crap by their customer service, in my experience . . . early IBM/PPC hardware. . . ) -
Worse: you get some spreadsheet jockey who finally gives you dollars to "upgrade", and do they talk about something sensible? Something that isn't going to need a complete retrofit in another 5 years?
Hell No. They go right into the "DotnetdotASP integrated silverlight distributed cloud-y web application services is the information availability platform of the future, it's where everything is going, so don't even consider anything else. This will be a 100% pure microsoft effort." Soon; you're paying for Dell servers (and MS licenses) what you would have been paying for the old IBM stuff anyway. 12 months into the project, you're having to pay for upgrades, and new licenses, before the team's even agreed on a final design. And the hardware's already "obsolete" (ie. discontinued).
I take issue with your statement "in the end everything is irrational, as it should" - because, it implies that the emotional response is automatically irrational.
And that's not really so. Is it?
The emotional response comes from the primitive parts of our central nervous system and limbic system that had evolved in living creatures tens or hundreds of millions of years before the cerebral cortex and neocortex; (the assumed "home" of what we're calling "rational thought"). These primitive responses and reflexes are very rational survival responses to an hostile environment. Perhaps not from the point of view of individual survival - but for survival of the species, passing on DNA.
A lot of these responses don't make "rational sense" to our thinking, logical, rational brain, because that brain does not think in those terms, and does not have the benefit of all the data that was entered into the "evolutionary system" that evolved the underlying bits.
The other (huge) problem, (especially from the point of view of the science of Psychiatry) - is that the neocortex speaks in language. It uses a system of logic, and can even be formalized, recorded on paper, transmitted electronically, shared with other people. The emotional brain speaks a completely different language. One of "feelings" - which we're often culturally trained to suppress, or ignore, or tune-out. It's no wonder that the operation of the emotional brain SEEMS irrational.
The mechanism of drug addiction isn't really as simplistic as "triggers pleasure; we seek pleasure, therefore we must continue to seek the trigger". Often, the mechanism of drugs or alcohol (or other compulsive/addictive behaviors) is a dysfunction rooted in covering up or avoiding uncomfortable feelings. Of course there's a lot of controversy about how this dysfunction arises. Popularly, now, it's said that it's trained-in by family dysfunction. Or that there may be a genetic component as well. That's beside the point. The point is that human minds are very very complex machines.
And I think you agree with this point.
I'm not sure I agree that humans have a hard-wired altruism. (I'm saying I don't know that). I think that, probably, a lot of this is bound-up in self-image, and when we're taught a moral and ethical code, and when we have role models; other people who we admire, or love, and want to emulate, we are motivated to "be like them" - including having the same ethical code. Which is why, often, children emulate their parents. (or celebrities or heroes, even fictional ones). And when we fail to meet those standards, our self-image suffers, we feel pain. I think that's the hard-wired mechanism. And I think that when a culture has a "good" set of ethics, that culture thrives. When they do not - they destroy themselves. Over time.
Are emotions necessary?
I would defer to Dijkstra. "The question of whether a machine can think, is about as interesting as whether a submarine can swim."
Are emotions necessary for humans? I think skin is necessary for humans. Livers are necessary.
I mean - machines are machines, humans are humans. Where are we going with this? Humans, of course, are a type of machine, and one can certainly (in theory) build a machine to resemble a human. I don't see why "genuine" emotions have to be some magical quantity or secret ingredient that somehow makes a machine into a better emulation of a human being - as if that's even a necessary goal. Who gives a crap?
I know that having more than one social network kind of defeats the purpose - so obviously, a federated approach is necessary, and you'll never get vendors to buy into such a thing.
But "one" network to "rule them all" is. . . not good.
I am a hiker of average experience, and a scout, and I did recently follow advice of an article I read on the internet. . . really, it was kind of an insane trip-report. The advice was to go cross country, to find a route that was not maintained, with some technical climbing, that was kind of a shortcut, and the elevation gain over the pass was less than the trail.
We asked the rangers about this route, before we left, and they warned us, but didn't tell us not to try it. Our technical climbing skills are pretty good, but we'd never tried anything like this before. We'd gotten off-trail on previous hikes before, and found our way back. We had maps, a GPS, and a compass. The GPS ended up being completely useless, and the compass, not much better, and we relied 100% on orienteering skills of the topo maps to navigate.
Cross-country navigation is definitely NOT for the unprepared, or faint of heart - because we did get into a couple of pretty hairy spots. But the thing is - we packed enough food, and we knew when to turn around, and find different routes, and we knew where we were, and not to panic. In the end, it was a great experience, and though we were worried at a few points - in hindsight, it was a great experience, and the only thing I'd do differently is next time, I'm going to bring some ice equipment. This is the definition of Adventure.
You go hiking, and you learn, you use your knowledge to push a bit on your next trip, so you continually advance your skills. You can't get it all out of a book.
There are tons of n00bs who just have no concept of what they're biting off, and they get themselves into trouble. That's how I started out. Usually, the rangers who grant the permits, at least in low-volume areas, can "vet" these guys, and judge when someone's doing something that they can't recommend. That's why the permit application has the trip itinerary on it. So the rangers know where the hikers are planning on going, and that they know the rules and the basics of how to get through what they're facing.
I think the biggest problem is when the volume of visitors for popular parks is set too high, and the permit system doesn't let the rangers vet visitors.
And the worst scenario - is a hiker that's trying to do an overnight hike as a day-hike. They don't need a permit, so they don't get their itinerary vetted, and they don't pack what they need, because they don't think they'll need it. Then they end up getting into trouble. Trails over certain length ought to be included in the permit system regardless of whether the hiker's going to day-hike, or overnight it. A simple chat with the ranger beforehand will filter out 99% of this kind of garbage.
Slashdot Mirror
BP used to operate under "APOC". If you want to know about the sordid history of this company, look up "Operation Ajax". This was the company largely behind the one event that history can consider to be the most primal cause of the Iranian revolution, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iran-Iraq war, the first Gulf War, most likely 9/11, and our current ongoing involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan.
If the United States Government had mainly just minded its own business, in 1953, and operated in the best interests of its citizens, instead of foreign-owned oil companies, many of these horrible events (and associated tragic costs and consequences) may likely not have come to pass.
BP has much to "make up for" and Deepwater doesn't even really scratch the surface.
Well; there's been studies showing correlative links between genetic markers in parents, and autism in their children. So where do these genetic defects in the parents come from?
That's right. Hexavalent Chromium, in the water supply. From GE. (Generally Evil.) First it was nuclear testing, then Chemtrails, then HAARP, for the fine-tuning. And that's just the beginning of our new genetic horror that began three generations ago, and continues today; where we're only starting to grasp the immensity of it . . . just as we're losing our capacity to understand or even do anything about it. Soon, we'll be reduced to a society of degenerate mutants, roaming the sewers, eating eachother to survive. Lawsuits? pfft. The lawyers are going to be the first ones eaten. I assure you of that.
My dual G5 is IMMUNE to your evil "App Store" Virus. Suck it, Jobs.
It's still a supercomputer, and it's STILL a weapon.
Even if I can't watch Flash video on it.
dang, it's not bad for a version 1.0.
I don't think the creators are overlooking advanced or esoteric technique. One day, not too long from now (and this is long overdue) the machines are going to be playing shit that will make our eyes bug out.
And then make us yawn, and bitch and moan for upgrades.
Well, Ford wasn't so terribly bad.
You name one after Clinton, or Carter, and (not that I think they were bad presidents) - you'd have a problem, in the Military. Name one after freaking Nixon - man that'd be a joke.
But they've got a GHW Bush, coming up, and a carrier; Reagan (not bad, for a senile sock-puppet, who was supposed to take a bullet and go down like a man; so the grown-ups could get some work done). But I guess there are plans for a GW Bush. And given the whole torture, and fake war, and no WMD, and failure to actually find OBL. . . that's just kind of sad. I mean, I know he was responsible for more profit for the manufacturer than any other president in history, but, I think a lot of ppl are going to feel pretty uncomfortable serving on a ship named after "Miserable Failure".
We called it "Computer Math" back in 1981.
Of course, we felt damn lucky that we even had a computer lab full of TRS-80's. But it was a class in BASIC, on how to solve math problems, graph functions (linear and polynomial.)
Our motivation to take the class was the idea that, at that time, the personal computer revolution was just beginning, and this set of skills was more or less a guaranteed career. That's certainly not the case anymore.
I don't know how or why you'd attract a person to a field of rigorous study if they weren't going to have some reasonable expectation of a secure future. And that's not up to the teacher or the designer of the curricula. That's up to industry.
There are more of us and we're smarter. . . until they start spending billions of dollars to advertise opposing viewpoints on cable news stations. Then, there are more of them.
Though, I'd really like to see the fuckers all just move to Somalia.
So, how long will this dream last after the first lawsuit to protect some insect local to the area to be covered by solar panels?
As soon as climate change from sustained petrofuel extraction and burning kills those insects, I figure we'll be golden. Yep. A nice crispy golden-brown. There will be no more insects, lawyers, lawsuits, laws, yen, dollars, solar panel projects, or people. but plenty of sand.
What would he do without his Pork?
The weird thing is, his heavily Mormon population state, Utah, has typical Semitic-Judeo-Christian fundamentalist prohibitions on Sexuality, Caffeine, and Alcohol, but unfortunately, NOT PORK.
Personally, since Orrin Hatch has suggested that RIAA companies have the right to hack into my computer and destroy it; without any warrant, probable cause, judicial oversight, or any state-backed law enforcement, (basically, having a big, fascist, caca-smearing-eating-fetish party all over the Bill of Rights), I have zero sympathy for Orrin Hatch, or the idiot people of Utah who keep re-electing him. Utah is a state, that as far as I'm concerned, can secede back to the freaking stone age where they belong. They deserve no rights, and no federal dollars, and no benefits of modern science.
A human behind the wheel will become massively more expensive the moment some insurance adjuster (runs a spreadsheet that) determines that a human behind the wheel is statistically more expensive for his employer to underwrite.
On that day - kiss your god-given-right to drive legally on public roads good bye.
Your statement is true; and suggests an economic inbalance; an unnatural inflation in wages in the US job market. . . which, in my observation, is true: to match, certain other (heavily subsidized and/or legislatively monopolized) segments of the economy whose costs have spiraled out of control: entertainment, medicine/healthcare, law, banking/finance (especially including housing and automotive).
The "matriculated class" deals with these highly-inflated segments. The "uneducated" do not; usually. The governmental interference in these segments has been meant to address problems of income shortfalls in the working class, but instead, inflated those prices; made the degree into some sort of "magical piece of paper" - required to gain entrance into the magical land of >$40k salaries and bennies. (which, used to cut it back in the 1980's, doesn't cut it anymore. now it's more like >$100k, or >$150k for that standard of living). Unfortunately - the associated skills learned are not even roughly equivalent to 5 years professional experience in the field.
Why does the government need to interfere in these segments of the economy by subsidizing? Because of our ideology. So we can pretend to be a free-capitalist market, while, in actuality, being a heavily corporatist/socialist economic system. Because our government lacks the very fundamental power to create its own currency. (and therefore, is not a real government.) Because of this: these subsidies are "for show" subsidies - and only act to distort the market. They help no-one, and long-term, to more harm than good. Due to the geometric progression of interest owed on borrowed money, eventually, we (the "responsible parties" of the government debt) are going to be completely screwed.
He's not the used car salesman that Mark was, nor the fiery bitch that Carli was. He's kind of a geek, and a definite software nerd.
No wonder they're trying to shut him down.
And unlike most Germans, he appears to have had his sense of humor reinstalled.
To which Germans, specifically, are you referring? In my experience, Germans, though possessing a very dry humor, are among the funniest sons of bitches in the world. Oh wait. The males. Not the females.
The FCC can say what frequency, and when, and how much profanity can be in a political message broadcast on any given network.
The FCC's regulations, in turn, create a scarcity of a resource, that distorts the market such that there is a price for airtime, thus necessitating campaign contributions.
I don't see that the federal government prohibiting a political film release within a certain time-frame, as ANY DIFFERENT, than what it already does through the FCC. Regulation of spending money has FUCK ALL to do with regulation of any individual's right to political speech.
There is a huge difference between paid access to mass media messaging, and our individual right to say whatever the fuck we want to say.
SCOTUS's failure to unwind this very simple logical fallacy, has completely and utterly fucked everything this nation every stood for.
Tobacco, Pharma, Oil/Gas, Pro/Anti-Abortion, Safety Testing, Weapons Development, etc, etc.
Most of these are cases of "Applied Science" (a.k.a. "Engineering")
well - of course, Economists, who profit by also doing side-jobs working for "think-tanks", writing editorials, public speaking, and there is the promise of profitable private engagements after leaving academia, through appointments to the Federal Reserve, various corporate Boards of Directors, etc. Economists are the absolutely most biased lot - but then again, the dead giveaway that it's not a REAL science, is the fact that they believe in an "Invisible Hand". lol.
Maybe the percentage of slashdotters that were in college when Facebook was strictly for .edu user is so small you are unaware. Trust me, alotta people were pissed when Fb opened up to everyone and started commercializing- it has been downhill ever since-
ha. Y'all are probably too young to remember when the Internet was ALL either .mil or .edu. Trust me. A LOTTA people were pissed when AOL opened up the Internet to everyone and started commercializing. It has been downhill ever since.
uh yeah - apparently, not a problem if you've paid your $30 for Quicktime "Pro". Apparently, the $3900 you just paid for the "Mac Pro" isn't "Pro" enough. You need to pay another $30. Then you get all the neato codecs to play the weird Thai kiddie por- oh, I mean, Dora the Explorer videos.
(don't forget, you can't change your DVD player to Region 9, and you can only change Regions like 2 or 3 times).
bah -
What about the MIDI keyboards you can plug into a Mac, and the Mac goes: WTF is this shit?
What about the NTFS-formatted USB hard drives you can plug into the Mac (and depending on whether you're on 10.4, 10.5, or 10.6) - it says: oh, so sorry, I can read this, can't write.
And this is the modern Mac situation. Never mind the 1990's - what a fucking nightmare of hardware incompatibility. Video cards that had SPECIAL FLASH ROM - but were otherwise identical to the PC counterpart? (oh yeah, that, and the $200 price difference).
Ever spend $500 on a 4"x6" drawing tablet - ADB, only to have Apple "obsolete" the whole ADB concept and adopt USB? Oh - don't worry, there are "adapters"! Yeah, they work with pretty much everything. Except overpriced drawing tablets. (and in those days, ADB was the only choice for Macs because the serial ones were flaky as hell).
Now, if you've got a Mac that's more than say. .. 5 years old, and just try to burn a data DVD, you better have a DVD-R, and not a DVD+R, because it will burn to that DVD+R just fine. Wait until you try to read that disk. HA! jokes on you, sucker!
I've had really messed up hardware issues with all three OS platforms - to tell you the truth. But Macintosh has frequently been the worst, and most frustrating.
The coastal trains generally get up to about 60 mph on a good day. If they don't have to share the track with a freight train.
They've probably spent $9 Billion just talking about, and lobbying for (and against) high-speed rail - in California alone, over the past 10 years. And so far, the plans that got the furthest along, connect through Las Vegas - of course.
Because there are only two cities that matter in California. And there is only one place anyone in California might want to go in a hurry.
The very huge problem with this is when you want to add functionality, finding hardware to develop on is quite a massive pain. You've usually got to simulate it nowadays. That 386-based machine's got to talk to a motherboard and bus and adapters and peripherals of that era - and if you're looking to buy hardware like that, well, be prepared to pay a LOT, (and be treated like crap by their customer service, in my experience . . . early IBM/PPC hardware. . . ) -
Worse: you get some spreadsheet jockey who finally gives you dollars to "upgrade", and do they talk about something sensible? Something that isn't going to need a complete retrofit in another 5 years?
Hell No. They go right into the "DotnetdotASP integrated silverlight distributed cloud-y web application services is the information availability platform of the future, it's where everything is going, so don't even consider anything else. This will be a 100% pure microsoft effort." Soon; you're paying for Dell servers (and MS licenses) what you would have been paying for the old IBM stuff anyway. 12 months into the project, you're having to pay for upgrades, and new licenses, before the team's even agreed on a final design. And the hardware's already "obsolete" (ie. discontinued).
It was probably Crichton, and it was probably based on a factual experience.
I take issue with your statement "in the end everything is irrational, as it should" -
because, it implies that the emotional response is automatically irrational.
And that's not really so. Is it?
The emotional response comes from the primitive parts of our central nervous system and limbic system that had evolved in living creatures tens or hundreds of millions of years before the cerebral cortex and neocortex; (the assumed "home" of what we're calling "rational thought"). These primitive responses and reflexes are very rational survival responses to an hostile environment. Perhaps not from the point of view of individual survival - but for survival of the species, passing on DNA.
A lot of these responses don't make "rational sense" to our thinking, logical, rational brain, because that brain does not think in those terms, and does not have the benefit of all the data that was entered into the "evolutionary system" that evolved the underlying bits.
The other (huge) problem, (especially from the point of view of the science of Psychiatry) - is that the neocortex speaks in language. It uses a system of logic, and can even be formalized, recorded on paper, transmitted electronically, shared with other people. The emotional brain speaks a completely different language. One of "feelings" - which we're often culturally trained to suppress, or ignore, or tune-out. It's no wonder that the operation of the emotional brain SEEMS irrational.
The mechanism of drug addiction isn't really as simplistic as "triggers pleasure; we seek pleasure, therefore we must continue to seek the trigger". Often, the mechanism of drugs or alcohol (or other compulsive/addictive behaviors) is a dysfunction rooted in covering up or avoiding uncomfortable feelings. Of course there's a lot of controversy about how this dysfunction arises. Popularly, now, it's said that it's trained-in by family dysfunction. Or that there may be a genetic component as well. That's beside the point. The point is that human minds are very very complex machines.
And I think you agree with this point.
I'm not sure I agree that humans have a hard-wired altruism. (I'm saying I don't know that). I think that, probably, a lot of this is bound-up in self-image, and when we're taught a moral and ethical code, and when we have role models; other people who we admire, or love, and want to emulate, we are motivated to "be like them" - including having the same ethical code. Which is why, often, children emulate their parents. (or celebrities or heroes, even fictional ones). And when we fail to meet those standards, our self-image suffers, we feel pain. I think that's the hard-wired mechanism. And I think that when a culture has a "good" set of ethics, that culture thrives. When they do not - they destroy themselves. Over time.
Are emotions necessary?
I would defer to Dijkstra. "The question of whether a machine can think, is about as interesting as whether a submarine can swim."
Are emotions necessary for humans? I think skin is necessary for humans. Livers are necessary.
I mean - machines are machines, humans are humans. Where are we going with this? Humans, of course, are a type of machine, and one can certainly (in theory) build a machine to resemble a human. I don't see why "genuine" emotions have to be some magical quantity or secret ingredient that somehow makes a machine into a better emulation of a human being - as if that's even a necessary goal. Who gives a crap?
I just want competition.
I know that having more than one social network kind of defeats the purpose - so obviously, a federated approach is necessary, and you'll never get vendors to buy into such a thing.
But "one" network to "rule them all" is. . . not good.
. . . how many Libraries of Congress can it store?
I am a hiker of average experience, and a scout, and I did recently follow advice of an article I read on the internet. . . really, it was kind of an insane trip-report. The advice was to go cross country, to find a route that was not maintained, with some technical climbing, that was kind of a shortcut, and the elevation gain over the pass was less than the trail.
We asked the rangers about this route, before we left, and they warned us, but didn't tell us not to try it. Our technical climbing skills are pretty good, but we'd never tried anything like this before. We'd gotten off-trail on previous hikes before, and found our way back. We had maps, a GPS, and a compass. The GPS ended up being completely useless, and the compass, not much better, and we relied 100% on orienteering skills of the topo maps to navigate.
Cross-country navigation is definitely NOT for the unprepared, or faint of heart - because we did get into a couple of pretty hairy spots. But the thing is - we packed enough food, and we knew when to turn around, and find different routes, and we knew where we were, and not to panic. In the end, it was a great experience, and though we were worried at a few points - in hindsight, it was a great experience, and the only thing I'd do differently is next time, I'm going to bring some ice equipment. This is the definition of Adventure.
You go hiking, and you learn, you use your knowledge to push a bit on your next trip, so you continually advance your skills. You can't get it all out of a book.
There are tons of n00bs who just have no concept of what they're biting off, and they get themselves into trouble. That's how I started out. Usually, the rangers who grant the permits, at least in low-volume areas, can "vet" these guys, and judge when someone's doing something that they can't recommend. That's why the permit application has the trip itinerary on it. So the rangers know where the hikers are planning on going, and that they know the rules and the basics of how to get through what they're facing.
I think the biggest problem is when the volume of visitors for popular parks is set too high, and the permit system doesn't let the rangers vet visitors.
And the worst scenario - is a hiker that's trying to do an overnight hike as a day-hike. They don't need a permit, so they don't get their itinerary vetted, and they don't pack what they need, because they don't think they'll need it. Then they end up getting into trouble. Trails over certain length ought to be included in the permit system regardless of whether the hiker's going to day-hike, or overnight it. A simple chat with the ranger beforehand will filter out 99% of this kind of garbage.