Or perhaps it really is a giant con. 3D *is* a gimmick
It's a gimmick, but it's not a con. I went to Avatar knowing full well that I was in for 3 hours of visual spectacle. I could not have cared less about how good the plot was, or if there was a plot at all. It was a 3 hour light show and it was great.
Go watch something like Memento, Le notti di Cabiria, Psycho, Les Enfants du Paradis, Hotel Rwanda, The Lives Of Others, Read my lips, Downfall, Ghandi, Oliver or Mississippi Burning and compare it to one of these blockbusters in 3D.
You can rent (or download) any of these for a couple bucks, and you miss out on nothing. If I paid full price for any of these, I'd feel ripped off. (I'd probably fall asleep in the theater too) Avatar on the other hand, if I spent $2 to see it on my TV at home I'd feel ripped off. $15 to see it in IMAX 3d, it's worth every penny. Fancy screens and kilowatt audio systems are the only draw theaters have anymore. They are wise to capitalize on that.
General purpose computers do have app-stores. Or as they're more generally called, repositories. They're fantastic. Apt-get on a phone would be beautiful.
With less privacy, they are less likely to "cheat" the filters.
So what if they do? Part of parenting is letting kids figure things out themselves, and part of growing up is pushing the limits. Children need well defined limits, but it's not the end of the world if they step over them once in a while. I'd be more worried if they didn't.
That's a fair assertion. I'd be much more in favor of classifying Jupiter as something else than I would be classifying Pluto as a planet. But there would only be one or two bodies in that group. So I'm not sure it's really useful to call them a whole other group. There are dozens of dwarf planets, and they really deserve their own classification. If you have to draw the line somewhere (and you do), it only makes sense to draw a line in between Pluto and the rest of the planets.
What possible justification could there be for drawing the line at masses below Pluto other than sentimentality?
Yes, the meter is arbitrary. However you set the meter, it's clear that objects around size 1 are very different from objects around size.001. A useful classification system will group like with like. Pluto at.2% of Earths mass is very much unlike Earth. When you consider that Haumea and Makemake are 30% of the mass of Pluto, it's clear that Pluto is much more like them than it is like Earth.
And you are using a bad example because you appear to be completely unaware that the reclassification of Pluto was because of a political pissing contest at the IAU.
So there was no scientific reason for reclassifying Pluto? Then, can you provide a definition of "planet" that will include Pluto, but exclude the dozens of other pluto-like objects in the kuiper belt?
Scientists also will find this change inconvenient. A very large amount of what we know about eukaryotic genetics comes from Drosophilia. They're second only to yeast. It's so familiar that we refer to it just like that, no species name needed. It'll take some time to remember to say Sophophora instead.
Nice argument, but the facts contradict it. There are many great free tributes to classic games. Freeciv, OpenTTD, Oolite, FrozenBubble, beautiful remakes of King's Quest I & II, and Quest for Glory II, Scorched 3d, etc. Any of these stand up well against their original inspiration, and provide something new at the same time.
This is the most interesting response I've gotten yet. I'm not quite sure how to respond to it, because I'm not quite sure it's entirely relevant. The algorithms that represent the components of the brain must halt because physics occurs. If it took an infinite amount of time to determine (or express probabilistically) what was going to happen to an atom from one moment to the next, physics wouldn't happen.
My personal suspicion is that we would need to measure the variables to a sufficient degree of precision that we would hit the realm where physics is no longer strictly deterministic, i.e. that changes at the subatomic level could potentially alter the result.
Sure, at the bottom it's probabilistic. Probabilities are still constrained by the laws of statistics.
More to the point, you aren't responding to my claim that brains can generate minds, something computers have never been shown capable of doing.
I can't accept or reject that as a premise, since it's the very point we're arguing here. To do so would be begging the question. Just because it's not technically feasible to implement a brain on a computer doesn't mean it's not possible in principle. Knowing that the brain is the physical substrate for the mind, and that we can model the laws of physics on a computer I think it's very hard to argue that it's impossible.
Well, your argument assumes something about equivalence of computational models (or, actually, to which model the brain is equivalent). It is believed that quantum computability > probabilistic computability > deterministic computability (I mean efficient computability in all models, of course), to which one is the brain equivalent?
I don't think it matters. All that matters is that it's sufficiently complex to pass the turing completeness threshold. Then it's fundamentally equivalent to any other computer.
Furthermore, the brain is not designed to run algorithms, it's not a universal turing machine.
Notepad is not designed to run algorithms, it's not a universal turing machine. That doesn't mean it can't be run on a universal turing machine.
The laws of physics govern the roll of dice, too, but you aren't saying there's a dice algorithm, are you?
Of course there is. It's just incredibly complex. We could not possibly measure all the variables with enough precision to predict a dice roll. Doesn't mean there's not an algorithm.
While the underlying biochemical reactions occurring in the brain are completely dependent on physical laws, the actual connections between neurons, expression of certain genes in certain cells, and levels of neurotransmitters and receptors are governed by a myriad of factors. These factors range from past experiences, conditioning and training to diet, to current amount of sunlight, etc.
All of which are fundamentally governed by the laws of physics. Math.
Physics cannot explain why I, at this instant, choose to think about a magenta capybara and why you, having never heard of this creature I just made up, actually imagined one when you read it.
Sure it can. Chaos theory. Sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Physics can't predict exactly where the next tornado will touch down either. That doesn't mean weather is independent of the laws of physics.
are these games fun precisely because they're hard for computers to solve, and need a spark of human creativity?"
No. The human mind is created by the brain which is governed by the laws of physics. The laws of physics are mathematical, so fundamentally the human mind is an algorithm. Because of Turing completeness, there's fundamentally nothing that the human mind can do that a computer cannot. It's not easier for humans to solve NP-hard problems. We just come with better software for it.
Or computer games - I can't imagine a business model that would work for them if non-commercial sharing was allowed.
Video games have been shared freely for as long as they have existed. The success of the video game industry is testament to the fact that rampant sharing and profitability are not mutually exclusive.
I didn't play FEAR2, but I played FEAR and yeah it was boring as hell. Same damn dimly lit office buildings again and again and again. The AI was actually pretty good, but they crammed you into locations so cramped it usually didn't matter. It's hard for the enemy to flank you in a tunnel.
Slashdot Mirror
Or perhaps it really is a giant con. 3D *is* a gimmick
It's a gimmick, but it's not a con. I went to Avatar knowing full well that I was in for 3 hours of visual spectacle. I could not have cared less about how good the plot was, or if there was a plot at all. It was a 3 hour light show and it was great.
Go watch something like Memento, Le notti di Cabiria, Psycho, Les Enfants du Paradis, Hotel Rwanda, The Lives Of Others, Read my lips, Downfall, Ghandi, Oliver or Mississippi Burning and compare it to one of these blockbusters in 3D.
You can rent (or download) any of these for a couple bucks, and you miss out on nothing. If I paid full price for any of these, I'd feel ripped off. (I'd probably fall asleep in the theater too) Avatar on the other hand, if I spent $2 to see it on my TV at home I'd feel ripped off. $15 to see it in IMAX 3d, it's worth every penny. Fancy screens and kilowatt audio systems are the only draw theaters have anymore. They are wise to capitalize on that.
Corruption. Next question?
General purpose computers do have app-stores. Or as they're more generally called, repositories. They're fantastic. Apt-get on a phone would be beautiful.
An HTPC is likely to be left on 24/7 for recording, etc. Being power efficient is important under those circumstances.
With less privacy, they are less likely to "cheat" the filters.
So what if they do? Part of parenting is letting kids figure things out themselves, and part of growing up is pushing the limits. Children need well defined limits, but it's not the end of the world if they step over them once in a while. I'd be more worried if they didn't.
Big companies are pretty much bad for quality in any market.
the viewing of child pornography creates a demand for new images
Do you have some evidence for this? One could think that viewing child pornography would satiate demand for it.
That's a fair assertion. I'd be much more in favor of classifying Jupiter as something else than I would be classifying Pluto as a planet. But there would only be one or two bodies in that group. So I'm not sure it's really useful to call them a whole other group. There are dozens of dwarf planets, and they really deserve their own classification. If you have to draw the line somewhere (and you do), it only makes sense to draw a line in between Pluto and the rest of the planets.
What possible justification could there be for drawing the line at masses below Pluto other than sentimentality?
Off the top of my head:
Cannabis sativa
Psilocybe cubensis
Lophophora Williamsii
Echinopsis pachanoi
Papaver somniferum
Datura stramonium
Theobroma cacao
Coffea arabica
Isn't botany (and mycology) fun?
Yes, the meter is arbitrary. However you set the meter, it's clear that objects around size 1 are very different from objects around size .001. A useful classification system will group like with like. Pluto at .2% of Earths mass is very much unlike Earth. When you consider that Haumea and Makemake are 30% of the mass of Pluto, it's clear that Pluto is much more like them than it is like Earth.
And you are using a bad example because you appear to be completely unaware that the reclassification of Pluto was because of a political pissing contest at the IAU.
So there was no scientific reason for reclassifying Pluto? Then, can you provide a definition of "planet" that will include Pluto, but exclude the dozens of other pluto-like objects in the kuiper belt?
Scientists also will find this change inconvenient. A very large amount of what we know about eukaryotic genetics comes from Drosophilia. They're second only to yeast. It's so familiar that we refer to it just like that, no species name needed. It'll take some time to remember to say Sophophora instead.
Nice argument, but the facts contradict it. There are many great free tributes to classic games. Freeciv, OpenTTD, Oolite, FrozenBubble, beautiful remakes of King's Quest I & II, and Quest for Glory II, Scorched 3d, etc. Any of these stand up well against their original inspiration, and provide something new at the same time.
I've spent the last year building a statistical computation software that's entirely web-based, and entirely written in javascript.
Dear god! Why?
This is the most interesting response I've gotten yet. I'm not quite sure how to respond to it, because I'm not quite sure it's entirely relevant. The algorithms that represent the components of the brain must halt because physics occurs. If it took an infinite amount of time to determine (or express probabilistically) what was going to happen to an atom from one moment to the next, physics wouldn't happen.
My personal suspicion is that we would need to measure the variables to a sufficient degree of precision that we would hit the realm where physics is no longer strictly deterministic, i.e. that changes at the subatomic level could potentially alter the result.
Sure, at the bottom it's probabilistic. Probabilities are still constrained by the laws of statistics.
More to the point, you aren't responding to my claim that brains can generate minds, something computers have never been shown capable of doing.
I can't accept or reject that as a premise, since it's the very point we're arguing here. To do so would be begging the question. Just because it's not technically feasible to implement a brain on a computer doesn't mean it's not possible in principle. Knowing that the brain is the physical substrate for the mind, and that we can model the laws of physics on a computer I think it's very hard to argue that it's impossible.
Well, your argument assumes something about equivalence of computational models (or, actually, to which model the brain is equivalent). It is believed that quantum computability > probabilistic computability > deterministic computability (I mean efficient computability in all models, of course), to which one is the brain equivalent?
I don't think it matters. All that matters is that it's sufficiently complex to pass the turing completeness threshold. Then it's fundamentally equivalent to any other computer.
Furthermore, the brain is not designed to run algorithms, it's not a universal turing machine.
Notepad is not designed to run algorithms, it's not a universal turing machine. That doesn't mean it can't be run on a universal turing machine.
The laws of physics govern the roll of dice, too, but you aren't saying there's a dice algorithm, are you?
Of course there is. It's just incredibly complex. We could not possibly measure all the variables with enough precision to predict a dice roll. Doesn't mean there's not an algorithm.
While the underlying biochemical reactions occurring in the brain are completely dependent on physical laws, the actual connections between neurons, expression of certain genes in certain cells, and levels of neurotransmitters and receptors are governed by a myriad of factors. These factors range from past experiences, conditioning and training to diet, to current amount of sunlight, etc.
All of which are fundamentally governed by the laws of physics. Math.
Physics cannot explain why I, at this instant, choose to think about a magenta capybara and why you, having never heard of this creature I just made up, actually imagined one when you read it.
Sure it can. Chaos theory. Sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Physics can't predict exactly where the next tornado will touch down either. That doesn't mean weather is independent of the laws of physics.
We are more than the sum of our parts.
I agree. We are the product of our parts.
are these games fun precisely because they're hard for computers to solve, and need a spark of human creativity?"
No. The human mind is created by the brain which is governed by the laws of physics. The laws of physics are mathematical, so fundamentally the human mind is an algorithm. Because of Turing completeness, there's fundamentally nothing that the human mind can do that a computer cannot. It's not easier for humans to solve NP-hard problems. We just come with better software for it.
Or computer games - I can't imagine a business model that would work for them if non-commercial sharing was allowed.
Video games have been shared freely for as long as they have existed. The success of the video game industry is testament to the fact that rampant sharing and profitability are not mutually exclusive.
Video games from the 80s have aged far, far better than music from the 80s.
For example, my sister was very upset that someone wrote a sequel to Gone With the Wind
So what, we should all suffer because your sister is a bitch?
I didn't play FEAR2, but I played FEAR and yeah it was boring as hell. Same damn dimly lit office buildings again and again and again. The AI was actually pretty good, but they crammed you into locations so cramped it usually didn't matter. It's hard for the enemy to flank you in a tunnel.
Most of the best things in life are bitter or astringent. Hoppy beers, dry red wine, dark chocolate, skunky weed, darkly roasted coffee, greens, etc.