Bookmarks => Curated search results with a user-centric taxonomy
Admittedly, in our modern post-Information Scarcity era, a quick google search is usually the first step towards answering a question... but if one has a body of knowledge one regularly visits, there is a place for having one's own curated collection,,and a taxonomy that makes finding things (and seeing the associations between items) quick and easy.
Come on people (like MZ), admit it - you just want to be a brain in vat, and do everything by thought. Turn your fucking lights off with a switch, like everyone else. Go to the door and greet your fucking friends, if they're your friends, and you actually have any. Really, this is just ridiculous. It is hard to imagine anything more unimportant.
The point of home automation is to (a) integrate various technologies around the home while (b) providing a convenient, intuitive, easy to use interface for doing so.
I'm sure the same objections were made in the past about *every* technological advance...
"Use fire to provide light at night? Just go to sleep, like everyone else does."
"Cook your meat? Just eat it raw, like everyone else does."
"Domesticate and ride a horse? Just walk, like everyone else does."
There are legitimate concerns when it comes to the hows and whys of home automation... but this reflexive nay-saying isn't among them. It's just lazy objection for objection's sake.
Because of convenience. Updates and new features are added automatically, and the developers only have to deploy a single copy to know that everyone has the latest features and bugfixes, instead of having to rely on people updating their local copies. And as long as you have access to a computer with an Internet connection, you have access to the apps you're used to.
Of course there are downsides, but local software has downsides too. It all comes down to your user profile, and for most people, Google docs has all the features they need. For power users, you have locally-installed applications with larger feature sets and harder learning curves.
Also, with Google Docs I have full access to my content anywhere, on any device... and, again, all for free. Desktop software, in these respects, is hardly superior.
And yet, I use Google Docs on a regular basis... and find it sufficiently powerful, reliable, free, and with the features I need.
If you'd like to create a competing product, please do... otherwise, just what are you bringing to the table?
The general idea is appealing: An especially easy to see/access interface to one's phone, one that takes the role traditionally held by a wristwatch and builds on it.
But, given the cost, and given the limitations of a postage-stamp-sized interface, I just don't see any "killer apps" for smart watches that justify that cost.
Because after a point you have to draw the line somewhere when it comes to being politically correct. I mean we already have to write "he or she put on his or her hat" where we used to just write "he put on his hat" when writing about an unknown person, because the later method might offend somebody when no offense was ever intended.
I mean what, now we have to go back and rewrite every personnel database management system to include every new form of gender that somebody can philosophically surmise in order to comply with anti-discrimination laws? Shit, every year somebody comes up with a new one.
Really, if gender is that unimportant to you, then just pick one of the two at random and let everybody else get on with their business.
You want the rest of humanity to put itself into the few boxes you happen to be comfortable with.
Can you give us a good reason (aside from inconvenience for database maintainers... and no, that's not a good reason) why anyone should feel obliged to agree with you?
interesting read, even though I'm past the age where I think it's possible: Manna, by Marshall Brain.
What, in your opinion, stands in the way of such a world happening?
I don't necessarily believe it will as written in this story, either, but I'm interested in hearing your particular reasons for doubt.
He couldn't be more wrong, the more likely scenario is collapse due to over population and limited resources.
The question you need to ask yourself is this: Do I passively let the collapse happen, or do I have the intellect, courage, and will to do something, however small, to fight for a better future? Will I light a candle, or curse the darkness?
Nobody says you have to work in a concrete canyon.
As for the OP, tl;dr summary: "Some day socialism will finally work when products magically appear infinitely cheaply."
You've got a few things wrong with your statement...
Socialism is an economic system in which there is social ownership of the means of production, and co-operative management of the economy.
What the Federation seems to be (they never have given a coherent picture of their economics) is more a post-Scarcity economy with a partly Democratic / party Anarchic political system... but it isn't Socialism.
And, given the pace at which automation is replacing labor, there will come a time when there aren't enough jobs because the tasks that need to get done are getting done... without humans needing to be "in the loop."
What will we do then? I vote for giving - yes, giving - everyone enough to give them shelter, food to keep them healthy, and access to medical care and education. We'll have enough surplus output to easily manage that. We can work towards the description of society given by Captain Picard in "The Neutral Zone":
"People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things. We've eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions. We've grown out of our infancy."
The human concept of "a soul" is an emergent property of high order intelligence.
You know that the "emergent property" expression is technobabble, right?"
Emergent properties are phenomena which are a product of the characteristics of the set of entities which are interacting with each other and the structure of that interaction.
A water molecule doesn't have a snowflake hiding in it, nor does it have some quality of "snowflakeness".
Take a bunch of water molecules, have them interact with each other in the right environment, and you get snowflakes.
If you seriously think government funded research projects are bad, go back to your Amish colony, and not bother using any technology developed in the last 60 years.
What. The private sector invests in tech, it's not gov or nothing. How do you conclude "armish" from this?
Gov research is a huge waste of money. Stop taxing coporations to pay for useless gov programs and you'll get plenty of privatly funded research.
Also, Solindra.
Tell me: which private companies are investing in pure research, where the payoff is unknown and may well be nonexistent?
"Is it your belief that human brains process information in some way that can't be replicated by a system that isn't composed of a network of mammalian neurons, and, if so, why?"
Not just mammalian neurons, but invertebrate neurons too. I think that until we surpass what MomNature has already bioengeineered and abandoning the VonNeumann/Turing model of how a computer is "supposed to be" that we will not construct anything AI that is more performant than what already exists in biological systems.
And that's the eventual goal of AI, harder/better/faster/stronger (to the tune of Daft Punk) than the biological model.
Neural networks aren't von Neumann machines. They can be run in software on von Neumann machines, or on custom hardware or FPGAs.
Kurzweil is delusional. Apple's Siri, Google Now and Watson are just scaled-up versions of Eliza. Circus magic disguised as Artificial Intelligence is just artifice.
What would you need to see / experience in order to agree that the system you were observing did display what you consider to be "Intelligence", and wasn't simply "... just scaled-up versions of Eliza" ?
AI assumes that you can take published facts, dump them in a black box, and assume that the output is going to be intelligent. Sorry, but when you do this to actual humans, you get what is called "book smart" without common sense.
I'm sure everyone here can either identify this or identify with it.
--
BMO
You're mis-stating the nature of your objection.
What you're objecting to isn't the entirety of artificial intelligence research, but rather drawing an (IMO false) distinction between the sort of information processing required to qualify as being "book smart", and the information processing you label "common sense."
Human brains detect and abstract out patterns using a hierarchical structure of neural networks. Those patterns could involve the information processing needed to accurately pour water into a glass, or the information processing necessary to accurately answer the question "What's the weather like?" by including the full context in which the question was asked.
Is it your belief that human brains process information in some way that can't be replicated by a system that isn't composed of a network of mammalian neurons, and, if so, why?
Here, in reality, there is no such thing as an HR. You don't get it, do you? I guess you're moderately wealthy, nice house in the 'burbs, etc ad nauseum. In the real working world, companies don't HAVE an HR department. I've never worked for a company that had one.
What modern company of any size doesn't have an HR Department? I know of companies with thirty or so employees who have an HR person on staff.
I call "shenanigans" on this claim... not to mention noting the scent of "Internet Tough Guy" coming off of this post.
Agreed... The Amiga was a decade ahead of its time. If Commodore had only been able to market the machine to a wider audience, *it* would have set the standard, and advanced personal computing by a decade. Graphics, sound, OS, even the processor were all superior.
Speaking out falls under the heading of "Lobby", so no, I wasn't attempting to discard or restrict your freedom of speech.
Yes, there is an implicit contract. You'll notice that the roads are drivable, the water drinkable, etc. The government (which, I remind you, is a collection of your fellow citizens, and is not in fact staffed by aliens or demons) is beholden to us. We elect them, and we can un-elect them. Is the system perfect? No, but no system is.
Is there some alternative political system you'd like to propose? If so, then please tell us all about it.
Ah, the contract-that-you-agree-to-by-living argument! Followed by the uncontrolled-benefits-create-obligation argument! Classic!
There's a simple way of opting out of the contract which is implicit between you and the society which surrounds and supports you.
Leave.
If, on the other hand, you'd like to lobby your fellow citizens to change the system we live in, you can do that... but it will require that you actually put forth effort, and it will require that you, most likely, expend more resources than you would just by paying taxes.
Or, you could just whine about having to actually pay for the benefits you get.
Slashdot Mirror
Bookmarks => Curated search results with a user-centric taxonomy
,and a taxonomy that makes finding things (and seeing the associations between items) quick and easy.
Admittedly, in our modern post-Information Scarcity era, a quick google search is usually the first step towards answering a question... but if one has a body of knowledge one regularly visits, there is a place for having one's own curated collection,
Come on people (like MZ), admit it - you just want to be a brain in vat, and do everything by thought. Turn your fucking lights off with a switch, like everyone else. Go to the door and greet your fucking friends, if they're your friends, and you actually have any. Really, this is just ridiculous. It is hard to imagine anything more unimportant.
The point of home automation is to (a) integrate various technologies around the home while (b) providing a convenient, intuitive, easy to use interface for doing so. I'm sure the same objections were made in the past about *every* technological advance...
There are legitimate concerns when it comes to the hows and whys of home automation... but this reflexive nay-saying isn't among them. It's just lazy objection for objection's sake.
Whee, another chance to beat our chests and gloat about how superior we feel to those rubes.
You have the amazing ability to share words with the entire planet... and you chose to squander it on the above.
We have someone charged with educating children. Her way of fulfilling that responsibility is to have pages torn out of textbooks.
In what universe does that constitute the legitimate fulfillment of her responsibilities?
> she is claiming a "right" which does not exist.
Progressives and liberals of various flavors have been paving the way for that for a long, long time.
You mean, by fighting for individual rights and freedoms? Do tell...
Because of convenience. Updates and new features are added automatically, and the developers only have to deploy a single copy to know that everyone has the latest features and bugfixes, instead of having to rely on people updating their local copies. And as long as you have access to a computer with an Internet connection, you have access to the apps you're used to.
Of course there are downsides, but local software has downsides too. It all comes down to your user profile, and for most people, Google docs has all the features they need. For power users, you have locally-installed applications with larger feature sets and harder learning curves.
Also, with Google Docs I have full access to my content anywhere, on any device... and, again, all for free. Desktop software, in these respects, is hardly superior.
And yet, I use Google Docs on a regular basis... and find it sufficiently powerful, reliable, free, and with the features I need. If you'd like to create a competing product, please do... otherwise, just what are you bringing to the table?
The general idea is appealing: An especially easy to see/access interface to one's phone, one that takes the role traditionally held by a wristwatch and builds on it.
But, given the cost, and given the limitations of a postage-stamp-sized interface, I just don't see any "killer apps" for smart watches that justify that cost.
By your "argument", we shouldn't have children, lest they surpass us one day.
Just be glad you weren't born homosexual, I'm sure it's a huge burden.
Let's make a slight change to your sentence:
Just be glad you weren't born black, I'm sure it's a huge burden.
or how about:
Just be glad you weren't born a woman, I'm sure it's a huge burden.
Do you see my point?
Because after a point you have to draw the line somewhere when it comes to being politically correct. I mean we already have to write "he or she put on his or her hat" where we used to just write "he put on his hat" when writing about an unknown person, because the later method might offend somebody when no offense was ever intended.
I mean what, now we have to go back and rewrite every personnel database management system to include every new form of gender that somebody can philosophically surmise in order to comply with anti-discrimination laws? Shit, every year somebody comes up with a new one.
Really, if gender is that unimportant to you, then just pick one of the two at random and let everybody else get on with their business.
You want the rest of humanity to put itself into the few boxes you happen to be comfortable with. Can you give us a good reason (aside from inconvenience for database maintainers... and no, that's not a good reason) why anyone should feel obliged to agree with you?
interesting read, even though I'm past the age where I think it's possible: Manna, by Marshall Brain.
What, in your opinion, stands in the way of such a world happening? I don't necessarily believe it will as written in this story, either, but I'm interested in hearing your particular reasons for doubt.
Certainly, we are in a post-Information Scarcity era... and I love it!
He couldn't be more wrong, the more likely scenario is collapse due to over population and limited resources.
The question you need to ask yourself is this: Do I passively let the collapse happen, or do I have the intellect, courage, and will to do something, however small, to fight for a better future? Will I light a candle, or curse the darkness?
Nobody says you have to work in a concrete canyon.
As for the OP, tl;dr summary: "Some day socialism will finally work when products magically appear infinitely cheaply."
You've got a few things wrong with your statement... Socialism is an economic system in which there is social ownership of the means of production, and co-operative management of the economy. What the Federation seems to be (they never have given a coherent picture of their economics) is more a post-Scarcity economy with a partly Democratic / party Anarchic political system... but it isn't Socialism. And, given the pace at which automation is replacing labor, there will come a time when there aren't enough jobs because the tasks that need to get done are getting done... without humans needing to be "in the loop." What will we do then? I vote for giving - yes, giving - everyone enough to give them shelter, food to keep them healthy, and access to medical care and education. We'll have enough surplus output to easily manage that. We can work towards the description of society given by Captain Picard in "The Neutral Zone":
The human concept of "a soul" is an emergent property of high order intelligence.
You know that the "emergent property" expression is technobabble, right?"
Emergent properties are phenomena which are a product of the characteristics of the set of entities which are interacting with each other and the structure of that interaction.
A water molecule doesn't have a snowflake hiding in it, nor does it have some quality of "snowflakeness".
Take a bunch of water molecules, have them interact with each other in the right environment, and you get snowflakes.
No technobabble needed.
If you seriously think government funded research projects are bad, go back to your Amish colony, and not bother using any technology developed in the last 60 years.
What. The private sector invests in tech, it's not gov or nothing. How do you conclude "armish" from this?
Gov research is a huge waste of money. Stop taxing coporations to pay for useless gov programs and you'll get plenty of privatly funded research.
Also, Solindra.
Tell me: which private companies are investing in pure research, where the payoff is unknown and may well be nonexistent?
"Is it your belief that human brains process information in some way that can't be replicated by a system that isn't composed of a network of mammalian neurons, and, if so, why?"
Not just mammalian neurons, but invertebrate neurons too. I think that until we surpass what MomNature has already bioengeineered and abandoning the VonNeumann/Turing model of how a computer is "supposed to be" that we will not construct anything AI that is more performant than what already exists in biological systems.
And that's the eventual goal of AI, harder/better/faster/stronger (to the tune of Daft Punk) than the biological model.
Neural networks aren't von Neumann machines. They can be run in software on von Neumann machines, or on custom hardware or FPGAs.
Because Kurzweil's a freakin' lunatic snakeoil salesman? I dunno - just guessin'.
If you're "just guessin'", then why should anyone grant your statement any weight?
Wouldn't it be better to make an actual argument, and support it with actual evidence?
Kurzweil is delusional. Apple's Siri, Google Now and Watson are just scaled-up versions of Eliza. Circus magic disguised as Artificial Intelligence is just artifice.
What would you need to see / experience in order to agree that the system you were observing did display what you consider to be "Intelligence", and wasn't simply "... just scaled-up versions of Eliza" ?
AI itself is fundamentally flawed.
AI assumes that you can take published facts, dump them in a black box, and assume that the output is going to be intelligent. Sorry, but when you do this to actual humans, you get what is called "book smart" without common sense.
I'm sure everyone here can either identify this or identify with it.
-- BMO
You're mis-stating the nature of your objection.
What you're objecting to isn't the entirety of artificial intelligence research, but rather drawing an (IMO false) distinction between the sort of information processing required to qualify as being "book smart", and the information processing you label "common sense."
Human brains detect and abstract out patterns using a hierarchical structure of neural networks. Those patterns could involve the information processing needed to accurately pour water into a glass, or the information processing necessary to accurately answer the question "What's the weather like?" by including the full context in which the question was asked.
Is it your belief that human brains process information in some way that can't be replicated by a system that isn't composed of a network of mammalian neurons, and, if so, why?
Here, in reality, there is no such thing as an HR. You don't get it, do you? I guess you're moderately wealthy, nice house in the 'burbs, etc ad nauseum. In the real working world, companies don't HAVE an HR department. I've never worked for a company that had one.
What modern company of any size doesn't have an HR Department? I know of companies with thirty or so employees who have an HR person on staff. I call "shenanigans" on this claim... not to mention noting the scent of "Internet Tough Guy" coming off of this post.
Agreed... The Amiga was a decade ahead of its time. If Commodore had only been able to market the machine to a wider audience, *it* would have set the standard, and advanced personal computing by a decade. Graphics, sound, OS, even the processor were all superior.
Speaking out falls under the heading of "Lobby", so no, I wasn't attempting to discard or restrict your freedom of speech.
Yes, there is an implicit contract. You'll notice that the roads are drivable, the water drinkable, etc. The government (which, I remind you, is a collection of your fellow citizens, and is not in fact staffed by aliens or demons) is beholden to us. We elect them, and we can un-elect them. Is the system perfect? No, but no system is.
Is there some alternative political system you'd like to propose? If so, then please tell us all about it.
Ah, the contract-that-you-agree-to-by-living argument! Followed by the uncontrolled-benefits-create-obligation argument! Classic!
There's a simple way of opting out of the contract which is implicit between you and the society which surrounds and supports you.
Leave.
If, on the other hand, you'd like to lobby your fellow citizens to change the system we live in, you can do that... but it will require that you actually put forth effort, and it will require that you, most likely, expend more resources than you would just by paying taxes.
Or, you could just whine about having to actually pay for the benefits you get.
So... which will you choose?