Just think, once everyone is using these we can shrink an office building down to the size of an armoire. Everyone's bot can scurry around the small building being in each other's presence. It will save oodles of money. Of course, once we've done that, we'll realize that the office building is a logical concept that doesn't need a physical presence, and we'll create a virtual office, with virtual presence bots, where everyone roams the virtual halls. And we'll call it WOW or Minecraft, or something like that. World of MeetingCraft?
No, no, you missed the point of the whole story, which is: hey these machines are soooo cooooool!!!! And it's true. They are. Wait, were we supposed to be posting news?
Agreed. I'd also like to see this same analysis applied to actual presidential elections of the past, not just primaries. Especially a close one like 2000. It's great work that should be continued. Basically a Freakonomics approach to elections.
Exactly. We try to improve ourselves in countless other ways. Diet, exercise, sunscreen, makeup, plastic surgery, moisturizer, viagra, propecia, yoga, and on and on. To me that's not even a question. We can and should improve ourselves.
Now the questions that remain are What are the benefits? What are the side effects, short and long term? What is the tradeoff? Are there broad public health concerns, like addiction? What is the cost - and is this going to deepen class inequality?
From my perspective, the government should have *very* *very* good reasons before they consider taking away my right to weigh my options and decide what substances I will put in my body.
And for what it's worth, when there are drugs that make us smarter, with minimal side effects, I'm all for taking them and getting them to as many people as possible. We need more smarts around here. Meaning everywhere on the planet.
Nobody's going to buy that piece of crap. It's a glorified golf cart.
Well, you're right that it's not a car. But it also not a golf cart. No, it's an autorickshaw, and (if this is not vaporware) they will buy it because there are already probably a hundred million of them in India, home of Tata Motors.
My aunt was in Iraq with the army the first time around and had a good story. She described a US armor force who had detected a line of Iraqi tanks and decided to engage them. They took out the first one in the line, then the second one. The Iraqis couldn't see the US tanks, so they had no idea where the fire was coming from and therefore couldn't return fire. After tank 1 and tank 2 blew, the US forces could see the guys scrambling out of tank 3. They gave them a few seconds to get out and get away then blew the tank, and so on down the line.
The lesson is, the force with the better detection/sensors/eyes can engage an enemy before that enemy even knows there is a fight, provided their weapons have sufficient range. A slight edge in information becomes overwhelming superiority.
Applying this to space, if we have two opposing forces, and one has a Hubble telescope level optics capability where the other doesn't, those with the capability will be able to engage in the fight at a much greater distance, and pick off the adversary at will.
Of course they will need an advantage in weapons range, too. In space you can't afford to use up your limited mass to attack, because sooner or later you'll run out, and it will affect your trajectory. It will be all about energy weapons, including lasers. And making those effective at distance is also dependent on your optics.
So, optics for observation and optics for achieving high range with energy weapons leads to force superiority in space.
Yes. We need way more than 32 characters. Unless you want everyone yelling all the time. (I think without lower and caps people will default to all caps. ick) And we need a decent amount of punctuation. Period, comma, apostrophe, question mark, and exclamation are all essential for basic communication. Quotes, hyphen, @ sign, etc are nice to have, and we're already over the 32 char limit. And we didn't even talk about numbers yet. 32 char won't work.
Code is more persistent than computers... Well said. I have not seen much mention of it here. I personally had the job, in the mid-nineties, of porting some code last modified in 1977 from Unisys to VAX. And who even knows when it was created. This required very little modification of the code, since it was all in very standard FORTRAN77.
This brings to light several issues of definition that are present in this question. What is meant by "code" and by "still running"? If I ported that stuff and changed a handful out of thousands of lines (had to adjust for different rounding), is that still old code?
My mother had the dubious pleasure of escorting several massive COBOL codebases to their demise at AT&T/Lucent. These were running systems with hundreds of thousands of lines of code, running 24/7, responsible for critical company processes, like purchasing and payroll. They had quite a few situations where the system was totally dependent on an executable for which the source had been lost many years before, and no one really understood what it did. Is that "code"?
That's exactly what I thought when I saw this. I see the argument for not clogging mainstream wikipedia with full proofs, but a central, public wiki of proofs would be a fantastic public resource, a great place for communicating about such things, and might spawn a real discussion community. A wikiproof site would be a great way to separate this out while keeping it available, and wikipedia pages could reference the appropriate proof pages when needed.
For a deeply researched and most excellent collection of ideas, evidence, and conclusions along these lines, but perhaps argued more persuasively, see "The Lucifer Pricipal" (available here) by Howard Bloom. It is revolutionary, and a revelation. It's an excellent work, which changed my thinking.
Let's also require that all vehicles have a red blinking light on the dashboard any time the owner is not in the car. But it's your choice on whether to lock the doors or leave the keys in the ignition.
Do you have any references for the 225 wpm/3x figure?
I am interested in these alternative input devices, and even willing to invest some time and effort into practicing with one, but only if there is a payoff in speed. My typing speed on a standard qwerty is pretty decent, around 60 wpm. Any new input device has to offer the potential of beating that for it to be worthwhile. Speed is everything.
The
wikipedia article
on AlphaGrip says:
"According to the site, users can achieve approximately 50 or more words per minute once the initial learning curve of the AlphaGrip's "Enhanced QWERTY" arrangement has been overcome"
I have never seen any decent data on measured typing speed with various input device. I'd love to see a good controlled comparison of standard keyboard vs. natural vs. dvorak vs. AlphaGrip vs. the various chorded keyboards. If you (or anyone else for that matter) have any data like this please share.
My dad was in the navy reserves for ages. He had a tale about this thing. Once they were in port, and a helicopter was landing on the ship. For whatever reason, the Phalanx was left turned on. Something about the rotors on the chopper pissed off (i.e. fooled the sensor algorithms of) the Phalanx, which rapidly swung around and pointed itself at the chopper. Luckily, as the parent post says, there was no ammo, so no shooting. But it scared the bejesus out of the helicopter pilots.
Also, one of the things that makes this thing so kick ass is that once it decides to shoot something, it start shooting (at 4,500 rounds per minute (or 75/sec)) and the radar tracks each bullet's trajectory and corrects the aim based on that. It has eliminated any aiming error before the first bullet gets to the target.
These are not autonomous robots, as other comments have stated. And this clearly is not the first use of remote control machines to attack.
The U.S. military has been using UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) for a while, and has used them to launch missile attacks in several cases, which you have probably heard about on the news. You could argue that the UAVs are nearly robots, since they do quite a bit of flying and observing autonomously. But they do not attack autonomously.
I agree.
Ten years ago there was no/. and I got a lot more work done.
Plus, between the emails, IMs, cell phone calls, text messages, and all the friends blogs and news sites I have to keep up with, who has time for work?
Of course, some people have a job really is about communicating with people. For them these advances might make them more effective. But for a person with a job that requires spooling up a complex problem and long periods of concentration, an interruption filled environment is death.
But those of us bitching about it have only ourselves to blame. We choose to read/. and turn on IM. We keep our cell phones on, and answer the phone when it rings. The personal and impersonal media streams coming at us have increased dramatically, but our inability to manage them effectively is our own damn fault.
Hey, I watched
that NOVA
too, and it's the first thing I thought of when I saw this.
I suppose that, just like all toilets swirl the other direction down under, when the poles swap these computers will run backwards... (hmmm, what would all that pr0n look like in reverse?)
;-)
From that page: "Given the close biological similarities between mice and humans, it has been suggested that human behaviour could also be affected in some way, and some epidemiological links may have been found between latent toxoplasmosis infections and car crashes, slower reactions, an increase in risk-taking behaviors, and schizophrenia"
"It is estimated that up to 50% of all people worldwide are infected with Toxoplasma gondii."
Maybe that was posted AC to avoid repercussions of misusing one of our favorite sources of information.
True enough.
But there are some people out there trying to learn what makes the fun games fun and apply that knowledge to making the stuff we have to learn a little more fun to learn.
www.seriousgames.org
If they do it well enough, they may even create games that are entertaining enough to play them for fun, even if they teach you something as a side effect.
Like, say, this one:
www.americasarmy.com
or these:
www.sheppardsoftware.com
Slashdot Mirror
That link sucks. Just brief news coverage.
Here are some better references:
http://www.paconsulting.com/events/the-pa-raspberry-pi-competition-winners-announced/
http://www.paconsulting.com/introducing-pas-media-site/releases/a-pill-dispenser-and-an-air-quality-monitor-all-from-a-25-raspberry-pi-21-march-2013/
Just think, once everyone is using these we can shrink an office building down to the size of an armoire. Everyone's bot can scurry around the small building being in each other's presence. It will save oodles of money. Of course, once we've done that, we'll realize that the office building is a logical concept that doesn't need a physical presence, and we'll create a virtual office, with virtual presence bots, where everyone roams the virtual halls. And we'll call it WOW or Minecraft, or something like that. World of MeetingCraft?
No, no, you missed the point of the whole story, which is: hey these machines are soooo cooooool!!!!
And it's true. They are.
Wait, were we supposed to be posting news?
Agreed. I'd also like to see this same analysis applied to actual presidential elections of the past, not just primaries. Especially a close one like 2000. It's great work that should be continued. Basically a Freakonomics approach to elections.
If only we were a little smarter we would be able to work out the ethics of this once and for all. Here, take this.
Exactly. We try to improve ourselves in countless other ways. Diet, exercise, sunscreen, makeup, plastic surgery, moisturizer, viagra, propecia, yoga, and on and on. To me that's not even a question. We can and should improve ourselves.
Now the questions that remain are
What are the benefits? What are the side effects, short and long term? What is the tradeoff?
Are there broad public health concerns, like addiction?
What is the cost - and is this going to deepen class inequality?
From my perspective, the government should have *very* *very* good reasons before they consider taking away my right to weigh my options and decide what substances I will put in my body.
And for what it's worth, when there are drugs that make us smarter, with minimal side effects, I'm all for taking them and getting them to as many people as possible. We need more smarts around here. Meaning everywhere on the planet.
Nobody's going to buy that piece of crap. It's a glorified golf cart.
Well, you're right that it's not a car. But it also not a golf cart.
No, it's an autorickshaw, and (if this is not vaporware) they will buy it because there are already probably a hundred million of them in India, home of Tata Motors.
My aunt was in Iraq with the army the first time around and had a good story. She described a US armor force who had detected a line of Iraqi tanks and decided to engage them. They took out the first one in the line, then the second one. The Iraqis couldn't see the US tanks, so they had no idea where the fire was coming from and therefore couldn't return fire. After tank 1 and tank 2 blew, the US forces could see the guys scrambling out of tank 3. They gave them a few seconds to get out and get away then blew the tank, and so on down the line.
The lesson is, the force with the better detection/sensors/eyes can engage an enemy before that enemy even knows there is a fight, provided their weapons have sufficient range. A slight edge in information becomes overwhelming superiority.
Applying this to space, if we have two opposing forces, and one has a Hubble telescope level optics capability where the other doesn't, those with the capability will be able to engage in the fight at a much greater distance, and pick off the adversary at will.
Of course they will need an advantage in weapons range, too. In space you can't afford to use up your limited mass to attack, because sooner or later you'll run out, and it will affect your trajectory. It will be all about energy weapons, including lasers. And making those effective at distance is also dependent on your optics.
So, optics for observation and optics for achieving high range with energy weapons leads to force superiority in space.
Yes. We need way more than 32 characters. Unless you want everyone yelling all the time. (I think without lower and caps people will default to all caps. ick)
And we need a decent amount of punctuation. Period, comma, apostrophe, question mark, and exclamation are all essential for basic communication. Quotes, hyphen, @ sign, etc are nice to have, and we're already over the 32 char limit. And we didn't even talk about numbers yet. 32 char won't work.
This brings to light several issues of definition that are present in this question. What is meant by "code" and by "still running"? If I ported that stuff and changed a handful out of thousands of lines (had to adjust for different rounding), is that still old code?
My mother had the dubious pleasure of escorting several massive COBOL codebases to their demise at AT&T/Lucent. These were running systems with hundreds of thousands of lines of code, running 24/7, responsible for critical company processes, like purchasing and payroll. They had quite a few situations where the system was totally dependent on an executable for which the source had been lost many years before, and no one really understood what it did. Is that "code"?
That's exactly what I thought when I saw this. I see the argument for not clogging mainstream wikipedia with full proofs, but a central, public wiki of proofs would be a fantastic public resource, a great place for communicating about such things, and might spawn a real discussion community. A wikiproof site would be a great way to separate this out while keeping it available, and wikipedia pages could reference the appropriate proof pages when needed.
That is not an absolute truth. It might very well be false tomorrow. In fact, I'd say chances are about fifty-fifty.
Parent post makes me think we need a "+1 Off-Topic" mod.
For a deeply researched and most excellent collection of ideas, evidence, and conclusions along these lines, but perhaps argued more persuasively, see "The Lucifer Pricipal" (available here) by Howard Bloom. It is revolutionary, and a revelation. It's an excellent work, which changed my thinking.
Maybe this will explain some of the many mysterious hum phenomena.
Why ally when you can buy? Maybe they'll just buy up, say, EBay , or something.
Let's also require that all vehicles have a red blinking light on the dashboard any time the owner is not in the car. But it's your choice on whether to lock the doors or leave the keys in the ignition.
I am interested in these alternative input devices, and even willing to invest some time and effort into practicing with one, but only if there is a payoff in speed. My typing speed on a standard qwerty is pretty decent, around 60 wpm. Any new input device has to offer the potential of beating that for it to be worthwhile. Speed is everything.
The wikipedia article on AlphaGrip says: "According to the site, users can achieve approximately 50 or more words per minute once the initial learning curve of the AlphaGrip's "Enhanced QWERTY" arrangement has been overcome"
And the AlphaGrip white paper does not mention anything above 50 wpm.
I have never seen any decent data on measured typing speed with various input device. I'd love to see a good controlled comparison of standard keyboard vs. natural vs. dvorak vs. AlphaGrip vs. the various chorded keyboards. If you (or anyone else for that matter) have any data like this please share.
My dad was in the navy reserves for ages. He had a tale about this thing. Once they were in port, and a helicopter was landing on the ship. For whatever reason, the Phalanx was left turned on. Something about the rotors on the chopper pissed off (i.e. fooled the sensor algorithms of) the Phalanx, which rapidly swung around and pointed itself at the chopper. Luckily, as the parent post says, there was no ammo, so no shooting. But it scared the bejesus out of the helicopter pilots.
Also, one of the things that makes this thing so kick ass is that once it decides to shoot something, it start shooting (at 4,500 rounds per minute (or 75/sec)) and the radar tracks each bullet's trajectory and corrects the aim based on that. It has eliminated any aiming error before the first bullet gets to the target.
The U.S. military has been using UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) for a while, and has used them to launch missile attacks in several cases, which you have probably heard about on the news. You could argue that the UAVs are nearly robots, since they do quite a bit of flying and observing autonomously. But they do not attack autonomously.
This wikipedia article describes one such UAV, the Predator, and details the attack missions it has been used for.
Ten years ago there was no
Plus, between the emails, IMs, cell phone calls, text messages, and all the friends blogs and news sites I have to keep up with, who has time for work?
Of course, some people have a job really is about communicating with people. For them these advances might make them more effective. But for a person with a job that requires spooling up a complex problem and long periods of concentration, an interruption filled environment is death.
But those of us bitching about it have only ourselves to blame. We choose to read /. and turn on IM. We keep our cell phones on, and answer the phone when it rings. The personal and impersonal media streams coming at us have increased dramatically, but our inability to manage them effectively is our own damn fault.
I suppose that, just like all toilets swirl the other direction down under, when the poles swap these computers will run backwards... (hmmm, what would all that pr0n look like in reverse?)
;-)
Even before this was posted on /. the wikipedia article included a mention of speculation about the effects on human brains, and the 50% figure.
Wikipedia page as of 01:02, 10 February 2006
From that page:
"Given the close biological similarities between mice and humans, it has been suggested that human behaviour could also be affected in some way, and some epidemiological links may have been found between latent toxoplasmosis infections and car crashes, slower reactions, an increase in risk-taking behaviors, and schizophrenia"
"It is estimated that up to 50% of all people worldwide are infected with Toxoplasma gondii."
Maybe that was posted AC to avoid repercussions of misusing one of our favorite sources of information.
But there are some people out there trying to learn what makes the fun games fun and apply that knowledge to making the stuff we have to learn a little more fun to learn.
www.seriousgames.org
If they do it well enough, they may even create games that are entertaining enough to play them for fun, even if they teach you something as a side effect.
Like, say, this one:
www.americasarmy.com
or these: www.sheppardsoftware.com
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