That's all cute and all, but until I see it I'm not convinced that digitized versions can replace the real thing. As far as I am concerned we are at the worst part of the 'uncanny valley' right now. Sure it will get better but that could be a while out.
Also, I think it will eventually work great on those actors who *cough* can't act. A digital Bogart doesn't make a great movie.
The Vista developers agreed with you. The desktop in Vista is rendered in 3D. Really the only difference is that it now requires a kick-ass 3D graphics card to run the Windows operating system properly.
I'm pretty much assuming that advances in 3D desktop will come from other places. Microsoft's use of 3D for the desktop is rather awkward. I believe they mostly render every window in software and then use 'advanced' 3D graphics hardware to alpha blend those windows together creating the amazing effect of transparency (sorry for the sarcasm). The only thing they require to be advanced about the 3D graphics hardware is decent fill rate.
I'm all for a little skepticism, but don't let it get in the way of progress. 3D can be progress for the desktop and I'm convinced we will go there. My web browsing is not at all like interacting with printed media. Besides text, images and video I have tabs, links (portals), dynamically arranged resizable content, multiple overlapping windows, multiple monitors, taskbars, etc. A myriad of content is awkwardly laid out as flat planes in front or behind one another. Smells like 3D to me. Looks like we got started down the 3D track but didn't dare to embrace it yet.
risking my nerd licence, I believe it was from "2010: Odyssey Two" by the late Arthur C. Clark. The part of the book describing the Chinese mission of launching a small manned spaceship towards Jupiter without enough fuel to travel back is one of the most exciting passages from a sci-fi (mostly sci) book I have ever read. The main characters who are also heading that way in a larger and more traditional spacecraft figure that the Chinese ship will use the gravitational pull of Jupiter to slow down, then land on the moon Europa where they presume to refuel for the trip back. Not going to give up more due to spoilers for those not familiar with the story. Please read it.
I'd much rather the increase in GPU power be used through a GPGPU API for artificial intelligence, advanced physics simulations, fluid dynamics, flocking behavior or other things which could really add to gameplay.
You would have loved the AMD talk on advanced rendering techniques at Siggraph. Using DirectX 10.1 techniques they demonstrated a gaming scenario with 3000 characters (froblins, don't ask), each 1.2 million triangles at the highest level of detail, that demonstrated flocking behavior, AI, path finding (using fluid dynamics), animations and interaction....all on the GPU.
Very impressive stuff, great use of the GPU.
Should be a large paper about this on the AMD website somewhere, I'll try to find it for you.
I switched from Norton Anti Virus to AVG about a year ago. AVG was free, it doesn't seem to be as much of a system hog as Norton AV and is easy to use and seemed to get favorable reviews.
Now I hear that it is the mother of all evil. Ok, not really, but I'm assuming that those who have vented against AVG in this thread would recommend I use something different.
So, what do I use for a good, preferably (but not necessarily) free, anti virus program?
But I wouldn't concede that we've made serious progress until (for example) there's software that can always tell when a given word is being used as a verb (time flies like an arrow) and when it's being used as a noun (fruit flies like a banana). Ha, fruit can't fly!
wait....nevermind.;-)
Anyways, I don't think that designing 'software' to solve these 'riddles' is the approach that will lead to intelligence.
Dude, Moore's "law" will cease to apply in just a few years. It's not a law of nature, it's an observation that chip fab facilities double their resolution every 18 months. But you can only take that so far. I have never met anyone actually claiming that Moore's "law" was anything more then a semi-coincidental trend that will seize to exist soon. The question is, how soon. The discussion is whether the moment at which computers can't increase in capacity anymore lies before or after their ability to be intelligent. In other words, Moore's law is indeed the relevant topic.
There are tons of interesting side discussion, like what the hell is 'intelligence' anyways? Can a non-human thing even be intelligent? Etc.
Since I'm an Atheist and don't believe (no pun intended) that human brains are all that special I have no problem believing that computers will eventually become intelligent. Personally I put that at less then about 20 years away. But then, I'm an optimist:-)
Your vision of the future is as sci-fi as your knowledge of human nature. What do you think would really happen if distances in space could be easily overcome and we would start a colonization run? Who would want to lay claim to what? How would these claims be resolved? What makes you think that just going to a new world would solve anything?
It's a good dream though, but first we got to figure out how to live with each other in peace on this rock before we scorch the next.
IAANAL. This approach sounds familiar though. If you get lung cancer and think it was caused by second hand smoke, you don't sue all the smokers...you sue the tobacco industry claiming that they knew it was dangerous and have known for a long time.
We are on that tipping balance in time where the majority starts to agree that global warming is a fact and that the man made contribution is going to have a noticeable negative impact on the environment and our lifestyle. This is bound to be followed by attempts of finger pointing at industries who have "known this all along but didn't do anything". I myself am a firm believer in this because I think a large part of our society has been so focused on individual short term greed rather then social long term wellbeing.
PGP doesn't protect against human error. Using PGP still consists of picking a recipient for the email, if you pick the wrong one PGP only makes sure that you have a nicely encrypted session with the wrong person.
You are absolutely right. The phrase that I used doesn't actually exist in the movie. But it wasn't just that the computer wanted to play chess rather then war, the movie goes one step further and the person guides the computer first through a tic-tac-toe game and then through the war scenarios showing that that kind of war can't be won.
At least that is how I remember it....but it has been a while.
Don't forget that his greatness has a lot to do with his world championship win against Spassky in 1972 making him a Cold War hero. It is weird to see how Americans idolize those who 'won' anything against the USSR during that dark period. Media and politicians have long send out the message that creating a better world consists of beating down your opponents and dominating them. The fact that the cold war eventually ended through a shift in tolerance and cooperation rather then winning some fight seems lost to many./rant off
As a scientific (meta) method I was describing Logical Positivism. I like using that as an example though it isn't at all in favor anymore within the philosophy of science. Still, I strongly feel there is a small set of meta-science rules that allows us to determine if something belongs to science or to our imagination.
Yes there is room in there for math, logic and computability.
Art and the "love me" questions are part of emotions. Emotions come from the brain. The brain is a (fairly) complex network of chemical interactions. This is all amazingly scientific, though not yet fully understood.
I try not to dwindle on the thoughts of disproving the existence of God. Instead I ask myself, is there a need for a scientific theory containing "God" that will further explain how the world works.
Since I don't feel the need to add "God" to anything that hasn't been explained yet, I find that there really is no need for a "God" theory for me. I stopped believing 20 years ago (technically I never believed). Been very happy with how everything fits properly with those thoughts. I don't have to wrestle with trying to fit a non-scientific entity into any of my discussions.
That, and 40 years of unanswered "can you hear me now?";-)
Again, I really respect your thoughts and don't mean to turn this into a long debate.
I really like your thoughts on God and why you believe there is one. I never got to that point, perhaps because my life has been to easy. I have never been faced with death in any sense where I believe I was saved by a 'voice' other then those originating in my own brain (high on adrenaline). I started of, pretty early in life with the premise "what can I prove to be real". It's a tough one without higher education (when I was younger) but leads to lots of fun speculation. Things you can discuss with others or even with yourself. Over time I figured out some basic philosophical things like "if I say there is a pink elephant in the room, there is nothing you can do about that". Well, for most people not capable of working out meta-ideas this is where the religious discussion ends. Not satisfied, I started coming up with the idea that meta-science is the only place where I could find the truth. With these thoughts in mind I classify 2 types of universes. The first I call the real universe. This consists of everything that is really going on with or without you. The second universe is the scientific universe, the collection of scientific descriptions (theories if you will) that allow us to describe the real universe. There is no way I could convince you to believe in the same meta rules on how to add scientific knowledge to the second universe, but for myself I found that the more restricted the rules are the better an understanding of the real universe I would get out of it. One of my personal favorites is still Logical Positivism (I acknowledge its flaws) which allows us to add scientific hypotheses only if they contribute to the understanding of the universe with the restriction that the hypothesis must be an extrapolation of current knowledge and be testable. After long thoughts this was the one that led me to believe that there is no God because it is not possible to form a scientific hypothesis about God that could be proven, thus the hypothesis itself is incorrect.
By februari I expect there to be available 200 MHz based ARM 11 processors with a seperate (though integrated) 3D accelerator that is OpenGL ES 1.1 compatible. 3D demos have been shown last year on prototypes with these chips running 5000 triangle scenes at 35 fps. That is, 150,000 triangles per second sustained (not just max). Graphical features include dual texturing with lightmap and bumpmapping based lighting effects, character and camera animation, particle effects and other (basic) 3D features.
Who says that the lossless offer will be DRM free? (Didn't RTFA)
Also, it will be digital, so any self respecting audiophile should instantly dismiss this format because the quantum fluctuations that are part of the original audio are not represented to a high enough precision turning the recorded audio into near white noise useless garbage (aka pop).;-)
Slashdot Mirror
That's all cute and all, but until I see it I'm not convinced that digitized versions can replace the real thing. As far as I am concerned we are at the worst part of the 'uncanny valley' right now. Sure it will get better but that could be a while out.
Also, I think it will eventually work great on those actors who *cough* can't act. A digital Bogart doesn't make a great movie.
The Vista developers agreed with you. The desktop in Vista is rendered in 3D. Really the only difference is that it now requires a kick-ass 3D graphics card to run the Windows operating system properly.
I'm pretty much assuming that advances in 3D desktop will come from other places. Microsoft's use of 3D for the desktop is rather awkward. I believe they mostly render every window in software and then use 'advanced' 3D graphics hardware to alpha blend those windows together creating the amazing effect of transparency (sorry for the sarcasm). The only thing they require to be advanced about the 3D graphics hardware is decent fill rate.
I'm all for a little skepticism, but don't let it get in the way of progress. 3D can be progress for the desktop and I'm convinced we will go there. My web browsing is not at all like interacting with printed media. Besides text, images and video I have tabs, links (portals), dynamically arranged resizable content, multiple overlapping windows, multiple monitors, taskbars, etc. A myriad of content is awkwardly laid out as flat planes in front or behind one another. Smells like 3D to me. Looks like we got started down the 3D track but didn't dare to embrace it yet.
risking my nerd licence, I believe it was from "2010: Odyssey Two" by the late Arthur C. Clark. The part of the book describing the Chinese mission of launching a small manned spaceship towards Jupiter without enough fuel to travel back is one of the most exciting passages from a sci-fi (mostly sci) book I have ever read. The main characters who are also heading that way in a larger and more traditional spacecraft figure that the Chinese ship will use the gravitational pull of Jupiter to slow down, then land on the moon Europa where they presume to refuel for the trip back. Not going to give up more due to spoilers for those not familiar with the story. Please read it.
The paper is called March of the Froblins
I'd much rather the increase in GPU power be used through a GPGPU API for artificial intelligence, advanced physics simulations, fluid dynamics, flocking behavior or other things which could really add to gameplay.
You would have loved the AMD talk on advanced rendering techniques at Siggraph. Using DirectX 10.1 techniques they demonstrated a gaming scenario with 3000 characters (froblins, don't ask), each 1.2 million triangles at the highest level of detail, that demonstrated flocking behavior, AI, path finding (using fluid dynamics), animations and interaction....all on the GPU.
Very impressive stuff, great use of the GPU.
Should be a large paper about this on the AMD website somewhere, I'll try to find it for you.
I switched from Norton Anti Virus to AVG about a year ago. AVG was free, it doesn't seem to be as much of a system hog as Norton AV and is easy to use and seemed to get favorable reviews.
Now I hear that it is the mother of all evil. Ok, not really, but I'm assuming that those who have vented against AVG in this thread would recommend I use something different.
So, what do I use for a good, preferably (but not necessarily) free, anti virus program?
wait....nevermind.
Anyways, I don't think that designing 'software' to solve these 'riddles' is the approach that will lead to intelligence.
The question is, how soon. The discussion is whether the moment at which computers can't increase in capacity anymore lies before or after their ability to be intelligent. In other words, Moore's law is indeed the relevant topic.
There are tons of interesting side discussion, like what the hell is 'intelligence' anyways? Can a non-human thing even be intelligent? Etc.
Since I'm an Atheist and don't believe (no pun intended) that human brains are all that special I have no problem believing that computers will eventually become intelligent. Personally I put that at less then about 20 years away. But then, I'm an optimist
Slashdot logo - made you move back into your mother's basement.
Slashdot logo - made you want to stay in your mother's basement
fixed (we _are_ on slashdot...duh)
Your vision of the future is as sci-fi as your knowledge of human nature. What do you think would really happen if distances in space could be easily overcome and we would start a colonization run? Who would want to lay claim to what? How would these claims be resolved? What makes you think that just going to a new world would solve anything?
It's a good dream though, but first we got to figure out how to live with each other in peace on this rock before we scorch the next.
IAANAL. This approach sounds familiar though. If you get lung cancer and think it was caused by second hand smoke, you don't sue all the smokers...you sue the tobacco industry claiming that they knew it was dangerous and have known for a long time.
We are on that tipping balance in time where the majority starts to agree that global warming is a fact and that the man made contribution is going to have a noticeable negative impact on the environment and our lifestyle. This is bound to be followed by attempts of finger pointing at industries who have "known this all along but didn't do anything". I myself am a firm believer in this because I think a large part of our society has been so focused on individual short term greed rather then social long term wellbeing.
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting/unlimited/
Lots of disclaimers. No hard numbers. Definitely nothing to do with unlimited.
PGP doesn't protect against human error. Using PGP still consists of picking a recipient for the email, if you pick the wrong one PGP only makes sure that you have a nicely encrypted session with the wrong person.
You are absolutely right. The phrase that I used doesn't actually exist in the movie. But it wasn't just that the computer wanted to play chess rather then war, the movie goes one step further and the person guides the computer first through a tic-tac-toe game and then through the war scenarios showing that that kind of war can't be won.
At least that is how I remember it....but it has been a while.
Would you like to play a game of Global Thermonuclear War?
Don't forget that his greatness has a lot to do with his world championship win against Spassky in 1972 making him a Cold War hero. It is weird to see how Americans idolize those who 'won' anything against the USSR during that dark period. Media and politicians have long send out the message that creating a better world consists of beating down your opponents and dominating them. The fact that the cold war eventually ended through a shift in tolerance and cooperation rather then winning some fight seems lost to many. /rant off
> Also, can we officially start calling it AirBook? It's much simpler to say.
:-)
I prefer ThinMac (does not come with fries)
As a scientific (meta) method I was describing Logical Positivism. I like using that as an example though it isn't at all in favor anymore within the philosophy of science. Still, I strongly feel there is a small set of meta-science rules that allows us to determine if something belongs to science or to our imagination.
Yes there is room in there for math, logic and computability.
Art and the "love me" questions are part of emotions. Emotions come from the brain. The brain is a (fairly) complex network of chemical interactions. This is all amazingly scientific, though not yet fully understood.
Cheers.
I try not to dwindle on the thoughts of disproving the existence of God. Instead I ask myself, is there a need for a scientific theory containing "God" that will further explain how the world works.
;-)
Since I don't feel the need to add "God" to anything that hasn't been explained yet, I find that there really is no need for a "God" theory for me. I stopped believing 20 years ago (technically I never believed). Been very happy with how everything fits properly with those thoughts. I don't have to wrestle with trying to fit a non-scientific entity into any of my discussions.
That, and 40 years of unanswered "can you hear me now?"
Again, I really respect your thoughts and don't mean to turn this into a long debate.
I really like your thoughts on God and why you believe there is one. I never got to that point, perhaps because my life has been to easy. I have never been faced with death in any sense where I believe I was saved by a 'voice' other then those originating in my own brain (high on adrenaline). I started of, pretty early in life with the premise "what can I prove to be real". It's a tough one without higher education (when I was younger) but leads to lots of fun speculation. Things you can discuss with others or even with yourself. Over time I figured out some basic philosophical things like "if I say there is a pink elephant in the room, there is nothing you can do about that". Well, for most people not capable of working out meta-ideas this is where the religious discussion ends. Not satisfied, I started coming up with the idea that meta-science is the only place where I could find the truth. With these thoughts in mind I classify 2 types of universes. The first I call the real universe. This consists of everything that is really going on with or without you. The second universe is the scientific universe, the collection of scientific descriptions (theories if you will) that allow us to describe the real universe. There is no way I could convince you to believe in the same meta rules on how to add scientific knowledge to the second universe, but for myself I found that the more restricted the rules are the better an understanding of the real universe I would get out of it. One of my personal favorites is still Logical Positivism (I acknowledge its flaws) which allows us to add scientific hypotheses only if they contribute to the understanding of the universe with the restriction that the hypothesis must be an extrapolation of current knowledge and be testable. After long thoughts this was the one that led me to believe that there is no God because it is not possible to form a scientific hypothesis about God that could be proven, thus the hypothesis itself is incorrect.
/me takes another deep drag from the bong
What is next? Scientist determine to give this "God" idea some serious thought?
Sounds like a plot for a bad sci-fi movie. Perhaps if you add some nifty special effects this could lead to something.
:-)
Oh and, this feels like Deja-Vu all over again!
and, smells like a stab or attempt at intelligent design more then science.
man this is easy
By februari I expect there to be available 200 MHz based ARM 11 processors with a seperate (though integrated) 3D accelerator that is OpenGL ES 1.1 compatible. 3D demos have been shown last year on prototypes with these chips running 5000 triangle scenes at 35 fps. That is, 150,000 triangles per second sustained (not just max). Graphical features include dual texturing with lightmap and bumpmapping based lighting effects, character and camera animation, particle effects and other (basic) 3D features.
Who says that the lossless offer will be DRM free? (Didn't RTFA)
;-)
Also, it will be digital, so any self respecting audiophile should instantly dismiss this format because the quantum fluctuations that are part of the original audio are not represented to a high enough precision turning the recorded audio into near white noise useless garbage (aka pop).