One possible reason I can see for some powerful being creating the universe is if he wanted to create intelligent beings without specifically designing them himself. He would then pick out the ones who were irrationally loyal to their creator and use them as servants, and then discard the rest. I see this as highly improbable, but possible.
Remote working from India doesn't work well. The end result is a disaster in quality of the product. But it is a CHEAP disaster. MBA types like cheap (except for themselves).
I've had friends who sent software projects to India that were complete loses, years spent on software that turned out to be completely unusable. Since it was relatively cheap it didn't break their companies, but it would have been better if they had spent more locally and got working products.
I'm afraid of what the new crop of tycoons will do to manage content. I'm imagining the following nightmare scenario:
Mr. McMoneypants: I know there are people out there watching my intellectual property for free and it frosts my balls!
Prof. Techflunky: You know, if we monitored everything everyone watched then we could send them a small bill every-time they enjoyed your IP. We could make the fee small enough for them to afford it, but have a huge penalty if they refused.
Mr. McMoneypants: Is that even possible?
Prof. Techflunky: It's all just engineering. The first step is to eliminate anonymity from the internet. Since this will lessen hacking and terrorism I'm sure we can get the necessary government backing.
Mr. McMoneypants: Holy Christmas! As it just so happens I own a few politicians! Here's a billions dollars! Put together a team!
Thirty years from now we'll read about Bill Gates dying of old age. Then, days later, all his money will be given to a mysterious heir who looks just like he did when he was twenty years old.
The article describes intelligence as the ability to predict, but humans actually experience information, the mechanism of which is still a complete mystery. Another mysterious aspect of human intelligence is that it is able to experience information that is spatially located in different locations in the brain simultaneously. Until we understand how it is able to do these things we'll just be making more complicated Chinese rooms.
Oswalt's always come off to me as the nerdy kid who's just DYING to sit at the cool kids' table. Maybe you didn't see it that way, but I do.
The nerdy kids are the cool kids around here. Guess what, you don't get props from traditionally "cool" kids by starring in MST3K. By saying he comes off as the nerdy kid DYING to sit at the cool kids' table you just made him cooler.
Hey, it's in my official title, so I'm going to call myself an engineer. My wife always acts surprised when I actually manage to fix any hardware around the house, and I have to remind her "I'm an engineer!" This always gets a laugh.
Simple solution: Strap them into a movie theater seat with their eyes forced open and make them watch gory movies while giving them a drug that makes them nauseous. The worst thing that can happen is that maybe they'll develop an extreme aversion to Beethoven.
Google shouldn't have bothered with ChromeOS in the first place. It just confused everyone that they shipped two mutually incompatible operating systems that overlapped over the same problem space.
Android wasn't ready to be run with a mouse and keyboard, so they didn't overlap over the same problem space. Look to Windows 8 to see how fubar an OS can be if it isn't really ready for both touch and mouse/keyboard.
Why not just have each device add an encrypted checksum using public key encryption. That way you don't have to send all the data to one source, the verification can be done by anyone and as long as the encryption isn't broken any tampering is detectable.
It also doesn't give a ton of power to one verification entity.
The company also provides the service of enforcing copyright laws.
back in the day everyone used to joke that the baretta's didn't have any stopping power and if you shot someone with it you would only make them angry
That's because it uses 9mm ammo, not the.45s of the old 1911s. My choice would be the Glock 21 which shoots.45s, but unfortunately it's not the best for small hands.
I've written a science fiction novel, The NPC that deals with the ramifications of this sort of thing. The solution in the novel is extreme: all recording devices are required to stream their data to a trusted 3rd party (in this case, a corporation called VuDyne) in real time with an encrypted certificate. Otherwise the digital data is not trusted to represent reality. As you can imagine, this gives VuDyne a great deal of power.
If you can create an algorithm that can detect pixels that have been modified in a picture, you can create an algorithm that can modify the pixels to hide the fact that they've been modified.
There is also the factor of domestic help. Prior to the 20th century, if you were middle class you needed to have a number of full time domestic servants, such as a maid and stable hand. This is still the case in much of the 3rd world (the stable hand being replaced by a driver).
There should be a beginners programming course for everyone, going over the basics, like what does CPU stand for and what is a bit and a byte. By the end of the course you can have the kids writing some simple programs. This way hopefully most people won't look at the computer as some sort of magic box, and maybe even get a little appreciation for what it takes to be a programmer. Those kids who have the knack can move on to real programming courses while everyone else will at least know how to program "Hello World".
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Why would an omnipotent being need servants?
I didn't say he was omnipotent. Outside of this universe (which he created) he might be the equivalent of his realm's pimply-faced kid in the cellar.
One possible reason I can see for some powerful being creating the universe is if he wanted to create intelligent beings without specifically designing them himself. He would then pick out the ones who were irrationally loyal to their creator and use them as servants, and then discard the rest. I see this as highly improbable, but possible.
Remote working from India doesn't work well. The end result is a disaster in quality of the product. But it is a CHEAP disaster. MBA types like cheap (except for themselves).
I've had friends who sent software projects to India that were complete loses, years spent on software that turned out to be completely unusable. Since it was relatively cheap it didn't break their companies, but it would have been better if they had spent more locally and got working products.
Assumptions are the mother of all really bad fuck ups
I've always preferred "When you ASSume you make an ASS out of you and me".
I'm afraid of what the new crop of tycoons will do to manage content. I'm imagining the following nightmare scenario:
Mr. McMoneypants: I know there are people out there watching my intellectual property for free and it frosts my balls!
Prof. Techflunky: You know, if we monitored everything everyone watched then we could send them a small bill every-time they enjoyed your IP. We could make the fee small enough for them to afford it, but have a huge penalty if they refused.
Mr. McMoneypants: Is that even possible?
Prof. Techflunky: It's all just engineering. The first step is to eliminate anonymity from the internet. Since this will lessen hacking and terrorism I'm sure we can get the necessary government backing.
Mr. McMoneypants: Holy Christmas! As it just so happens I own a few politicians! Here's a billions dollars! Put together a team!
Prof. Techflunky: As you wish master.
Jar Jar is a Sith Lord.
This may lend support to electromagnetic theories of consciousness.
The A-10 Warthog. You can't take those things down.
Thirty years from now we'll read about Bill Gates dying of old age. Then, days later, all his money will be given to a mysterious heir who looks just like he did when he was twenty years old.
The article describes intelligence as the ability to predict, but humans actually experience information, the mechanism of which is still a complete mystery. Another mysterious aspect of human intelligence is that it is able to experience information that is spatially located in different locations in the brain simultaneously. Until we understand how it is able to do these things we'll just be making more complicated Chinese rooms.
Oswalt's always come off to me as the nerdy kid who's just DYING to sit at the cool kids' table. Maybe you didn't see it that way, but I do.
The nerdy kids are the cool kids around here. Guess what, you don't get props from traditionally "cool" kids by starring in MST3K. By saying he comes off as the nerdy kid DYING to sit at the cool kids' table you just made him cooler.
Minecraft has emerged as the sandbox game of the decade
... for 10 year olds.
Minecraft is too popular for the "cool" kids.
Hey, it's in my official title, so I'm going to call myself an engineer. My wife always acts surprised when I actually manage to fix any hardware around the house, and I have to remind her "I'm an engineer!" This always gets a laugh.
Simple solution: Strap them into a movie theater seat with their eyes forced open and make them watch gory movies while giving them a drug that makes them nauseous. The worst thing that can happen is that maybe they'll develop an extreme aversion to Beethoven.
That's why we need to forget about basing our time on the motion of the Earth around the Sun and switch to Coordinated Pulsar Time.
Google shouldn't have bothered with ChromeOS in the first place. It just confused everyone that they shipped two mutually incompatible operating systems that overlapped over the same problem space.
Android wasn't ready to be run with a mouse and keyboard, so they didn't overlap over the same problem space. Look to Windows 8 to see how fubar an OS can be if it isn't really ready for both touch and mouse/keyboard.
I really hate the fact that the name of the dominant OS is "Android". This is going to be really confusing once we start building real androids.
Bob: Hey Mary, what OS do you run on your android?
Mary: Android.
Bob: Yeah, on your android, what OS?
Mary: Android!
Bob: Yes! I'm talking about your android! What OS is running on it?
Mary: Third base!
Why not just have each device add an encrypted checksum using public key encryption. That way you don't have to send all the data to one source, the verification can be done by anyone and as long as the encryption isn't broken any tampering is detectable.
It also doesn't give a ton of power to one verification entity.
The company also provides the service of enforcing copyright laws.
back in the day everyone used to joke that the baretta's didn't have any stopping power and if you shot someone with it you would only make them angry
That's because it uses 9mm ammo, not the .45s of the old 1911s. My choice would be the Glock 21 which shoots .45s, but unfortunately it's not the best for small hands.
Warning: Shameless Self-Promotion
I've written a science fiction novel, The NPC that deals with the ramifications of this sort of thing. The solution in the novel is extreme: all recording devices are required to stream their data to a trusted 3rd party (in this case, a corporation called VuDyne) in real time with an encrypted certificate. Otherwise the digital data is not trusted to represent reality. As you can imagine, this gives VuDyne a great deal of power.
If you can create an algorithm that can detect pixels that have been modified in a picture, you can create an algorithm that can modify the pixels to hide the fact that they've been modified.
There is also the factor of domestic help. Prior to the 20th century, if you were middle class you needed to have a number of full time domestic servants, such as a maid and stable hand. This is still the case in much of the 3rd world (the stable hand being replaced by a driver).
There are people alive today who will live in a world where humans aren't allowed to drive on public roads.
There should be a beginners programming course for everyone, going over the basics, like what does CPU stand for and what is a bit and a byte. By the end of the course you can have the kids writing some simple programs. This way hopefully most people won't look at the computer as some sort of magic box, and maybe even get a little appreciation for what it takes to be a programmer. Those kids who have the knack can move on to real programming courses while everyone else will at least know how to program "Hello World".
1000 quatloos on the newcomer.