I was thinking along the same lines. I'd never heard of this place untill now, and I bet terrorists never have either. Then I thought "Well, suppose those fuckers tried to make that thing slide off a little faster than nature would? How much explosives would it take?"
It's not so much the lack of imagination, but that playing todays games is much like riding a train. There's a lot of great scenery, it's easy, but the path is always the same. After awhile (quickly) it gets boring.
"And the generation before you was saying your generation was worthless because you didn't know how to code in Assembly, and didn't know how to punch a card, and had never worked on an IBM mainframe."
When did this change? I didn't get the memo. Perhaps the memo wasn't sent to me on punch cards.
"The physicists proved a theorem that demonstrtated that a stable objective reality on the macro level emerges from the chaotic quantuum world where the act of observation determines the state of the system in ways that can only be described in probablistic terms."
If this were true then what we observe individually would be chaotic. The 'probablistic terms' on the macro scale would be what each individual observes. The stable objective reality is the commonality expectations of all observers.
"In short, if a tree falls in the middle of the desert and no one is around to hear it, it still makes a noise(i.e. propogates sound waves through the air) because that is the quantuum state which must appear on the macro level for their to be an observable universe. Other inconsistent quantuum states on the macro level are cancelled by mathematical necessity as proved by this theorem."
The tree does still make a noise, yes. That result is within the commonality expectations of the observers. If no one is around to hear it isn't even part of the question when commonality is considered. The fact that when any object fall s it makes a noise is in the commonality shared by all observers and is perpetuated regardless of observation. (If you want to get right down to it, on this planet at least, there is not many places devoid of observers wheather it's a human being, small animal, even bacterial)
What it is is quantum theory in it's form. You seem to think of it as 'pure' science without questions. Quantum theory is full of questions, philosophy, and faith.
"The point is that the distinction is very clear. Science will answer questions like "what happens when I raise the temperature of this beaker" or "how hard can I hit this before it breaks","
These are known qualities. Additional observations will not change the baseline. It's no surprise to me that sciences outside of quantum physics haven't really moved very much in the past years. Science, historically (and I use historically because this is not true presently), has also been the realm of philosophers. Quantum sciences are probably closer to being pure science more so than any other in the present day because it does involve philosophy and faith. I certainly believe in the scientific method, but that comes into play after philosophy. The scientific method cannot be approached without thinking of the 'item' first, and that (especially on the quantum scale) requires a certain amount of philosophy. You don't just go ahead, jump in, and randomly do 'things' without thinking about them first.
Measurments that are made by observers, and the more observers the more the baseline results are changed to meet the common expectations of the observers.
Perhaps you are thinking of religion and philosophy in the traditional senses of the terms such as 'gods' and such. I think of them as religion being a 'faith' in a concept, and philosophy being the 'theories' behind 'faith'. Science is quantification of things around us. So we have 'theories' (philosophy) that cause scientists to have 'faith' (religion) that their 'theories' are correct which are then tested by science which attempts to quantify the 'theories' and bring that theory into the communal set of reality. Up intill that time it is a matter of 'faith'. Theory is just speculation (for instance, "there is a god", "This mathematical formula shows the Mooky-mooky particle to be real"), faith is belief in that speculation (a belief in god, a belief in the mooky-mooky particle), science is the attempt to quantify that speculation driven by belief the results will come out a certain way as to prove the speculation to be correct.
"Religion and metaphysics fall outside the realm of testible, falsifiable ideas and that is what makes them separate."
That's the hell of it, such things are unobservable. Once an item becomes part of the baseline commonality it's as if it's 'always been that way', and can only be tested by an observer outside of our baseline commonality that witnesses the change, but any observer outside the baseline commonality that can see the change becomes a part of that baseline commonality.
This sort of thing has been a theory with me for years. All 'reality' is based on single and shared observation. Person A views everything a certain way, Person B views it another way. What we 'see' in our reality is the overlapping realms between persons A and B (for instance). In other words, the universe is touched and changed by observation. Humanity as a whole shares and expected result of reality which is the baseline norm.
Quantum physics is just the microcosm if the greater universe. Looking for a particle? Create it. Do the math, theories, etc... Then 'look' at it and there it is! The greater the number of believers that the particle exists, the greater chance the particle will be observed. The big question is "Did the particle exist before, or did it come into existance because shared reality expectations amoung observers cause it to come into existance?"
I know there will be those that totally don't understand, and those that will detract, but quantum physics is where science, philosophy, and religion tend to meet. There are few that feel comfortable with that thought.
Uh, yeah. Try this... have 1500 people use the same yo-yo at the same time. Does it work? Is there a special principle that would make it work?
Wanna know what simultaneous control of a camera for 1500 people would look like? Just take a webcam and mount it on top of a spring then whack the spring. 'Democratic' camera control? perhaps, but it wouldn't be true control, but that's another concept entirely.
This item surrounded 'expectations' by the viewers. I'm sure there were many that 'expected' it to be a real item. I have no doubt there were those here on Slashdot that went to the site and thought "this is really cool" without realizing that their sole control of camera and lights was a technically laughable 'expectation' given the number of simultaneous users. The expectations arise out of the lack of most basic understanding of the technology. That's what seems to have pissed people off about the whole thing. Those that think they are 'l331' got sucked into the whole thing, which I find extremely hilarious. I saw the story and just rolled my eyes because it's immediately apparent to the technically skilled that the whole sole control concept of this kind is not physically possible. One person controlling one cam, yes. Many controlling one cam, no. Those that have protested this the most are most likely those that got sucked into it the hardest. Just look at the posts here on Slashdot. There seem to be some really upset people that this whole thing was hoaxed while others find it extremely funny. The mission, if you choose to accept it, is to pick out the ones that went to the site and 'wondered' at it.
Considering how much coverage this thing had, the numbers of visitors would have been huge. It's ridiculous to think that a display like that would be stable with the large number of visitors/hits/controllers he 'would' have had. 1500 people trying to control one webcam simultaneously is a ridiculous thought.
"Personally I'm sick to death of hearing about the MPAA sueing everybody and their brother over illegally trading music. Why do people trade in the first place?"
Yeah! Especially since the MPAA isn't in the music business.
Back in my day we didn't even have yellow. We just had black, our portable ran off of ONE 9 volt battery, a keypad, a paddle dial, and interchangable faceplates.
The Milton Bradley Microvision. First game portable that used interchangable game cartridges. Not that 'gameboy' thing.
Naw, it's as if someone knocks on the persons door, they answer it, they are handed a 20ft 2x4, then proceed to walk around the house accidentally knocking out their own windows. They then call me to fix the broken windows. sometimes they pick that 2x4 back up and start walking around with it again.
and I forgot to mention the really, really stupid ones. Like the lady that works for a local business that keeps hitting the F10 key on her Compaq (hp) computer when it boots up which screws up her shortcuts to some DOS applications they have running off of a central server. the owners asked what could be done to solve that problem... I offered to clip the F10 key right off the keyboard, but it comes in handy for some of their DOS application commands.
Not when they ask "How does this stuff get in my computer?", and I tell them that p2p programs such as Kazaa, Morpheus, WinMX, etc... which was installed on the machine installed the spyware. I also run down 'safe' browsing habits such as not clicking on the 'yes' button with a caution that clicking on the 'no' button sometime doesn't work as expected. That the problem is in IE and Windows, and that it's safer to use Firefox (which I will install if they want it). I've got one guy that's on DSL, not behind a NAT box, but he refuses to get even so much as a cheap ass netgear router. So he keeps getting owned, and owned hard.
As much as windows sucks, there are users that really shouldn't be allowed to touch a computer.
I do the same thing, and yes it is good. The best part are the clients that keep re-infecting their machines. There's nothing more profitable than stupidity.
Slashdot Mirror
I was thinking along the same lines. I'd never heard of this place untill now, and I bet terrorists never have either. Then I thought "Well, suppose those fuckers tried to make that thing slide off a little faster than nature would? How much explosives would it take?"
Than I thought, "bah, I'm in NM."
You had an onion? We didn't have onions! We had to hang a turd from ours and imagine that it was an onion!
It's not so much the lack of imagination, but that playing todays games is much like riding a train. There's a lot of great scenery, it's easy, but the path is always the same. After awhile (quickly) it gets boring.
Green text there junebug.
"And the generation before you was saying your generation was worthless because you didn't know how to code in Assembly, and didn't know how to punch a card, and had never worked on an IBM mainframe."
When did this change? I didn't get the memo. Perhaps the memo wasn't sent to me on punch cards.
"isn't this what casteneda presented in the intro to his 2nd in the don juan series?"
Never read it.
"The physicists proved a theorem that demonstrtated that a stable objective reality on the macro level emerges from the chaotic quantuum world where the act of observation determines the state of the system in ways that can only be described in probablistic terms."
If this were true then what we observe individually would be chaotic. The 'probablistic terms' on the macro scale would be what each individual observes. The stable objective reality is the commonality expectations of all observers.
"In short, if a tree falls in the middle of the desert and no one is around to hear it, it still makes a noise(i.e. propogates sound waves through the air) because that is the quantuum state which must appear on the macro level for their to be an observable universe. Other inconsistent quantuum states on the macro level are cancelled by mathematical necessity as proved by this theorem."
The tree does still make a noise, yes. That result is within the commonality expectations of the observers. If no one is around to hear it isn't even part of the question when commonality is considered. The fact that when any object fall s it makes a noise is in the commonality shared by all observers and is perpetuated regardless of observation. (If you want to get right down to it, on this planet at least, there is not many places devoid of observers wheather it's a human being, small animal, even bacterial)
What it is is quantum theory in it's form. You seem to think of it as 'pure' science without questions. Quantum theory is full of questions, philosophy, and faith.
"The point is that the distinction is very clear. Science will answer questions like "what happens when I raise the temperature of this beaker" or "how hard can I hit this before it breaks","
These are known qualities. Additional observations will not change the baseline. It's no surprise to me that sciences outside of quantum physics haven't really moved very much in the past years. Science, historically (and I use historically because this is not true presently), has also been the realm of philosophers. Quantum sciences are probably closer to being pure science more so than any other in the present day because it does involve philosophy and faith. I certainly believe in the scientific method, but that comes into play after philosophy. The scientific method cannot be approached without thinking of the 'item' first, and that (especially on the quantum scale) requires a certain amount of philosophy. You don't just go ahead, jump in, and randomly do 'things' without thinking about them first.
Measurments that are made by observers, and the more observers the more the baseline results are changed to meet the common expectations of the observers.
Perhaps you are thinking of religion and philosophy in the traditional senses of the terms such as 'gods' and such. I think of them as religion being a 'faith' in a concept, and philosophy being the 'theories' behind 'faith'. Science is quantification of things around us. So we have 'theories' (philosophy) that cause scientists to have 'faith' (religion) that their 'theories' are correct which are then tested by science which attempts to quantify the 'theories' and bring that theory into the communal set of reality. Up intill that time it is a matter of 'faith'. Theory is just speculation (for instance, "there is a god", "This mathematical formula shows the Mooky-mooky particle to be real"), faith is belief in that speculation (a belief in god, a belief in the mooky-mooky particle), science is the attempt to quantify that speculation driven by belief the results will come out a certain way as to prove the speculation to be correct.
"Religion and metaphysics fall outside the realm of testible, falsifiable ideas and that is what makes them separate."
That's the hell of it, such things are unobservable. Once an item becomes part of the baseline commonality it's as if it's 'always been that way', and can only be tested by an observer outside of our baseline commonality that witnesses the change, but any observer outside the baseline commonality that can see the change becomes a part of that baseline commonality.
Perhaps I am with it?
This sort of thing has been a theory with me for years. All 'reality' is based on single and shared observation. Person A views everything a certain way, Person B views it another way. What we 'see' in our reality is the overlapping realms between persons A and B (for instance). In other words, the universe is touched and changed by observation. Humanity as a whole shares and expected result of reality which is the baseline norm.
Quantum physics is just the microcosm if the greater universe. Looking for a particle? Create it. Do the math, theories, etc... Then 'look' at it and there it is! The greater the number of believers that the particle exists, the greater chance the particle will be observed. The big question is "Did the particle exist before, or did it come into existance because shared reality expectations amoung observers cause it to come into existance?"
I know there will be those that totally don't understand, and those that will detract, but quantum physics is where science, philosophy, and religion tend to meet. There are few that feel comfortable with that thought.
Uh, yeah. Try this... have 1500 people use the same yo-yo at the same time. Does it work? Is there a special principle that would make it work?
Wanna know what simultaneous control of a camera for 1500 people would look like? Just take a webcam and mount it on top of a spring then whack the spring. 'Democratic' camera control? perhaps, but it wouldn't be true control, but that's another concept entirely.
This item surrounded 'expectations' by the viewers. I'm sure there were many that 'expected' it to be a real item. I have no doubt there were those here on Slashdot that went to the site and thought "this is really cool" without realizing that their sole control of camera and lights was a technically laughable 'expectation' given the number of simultaneous users. The expectations arise out of the lack of most basic understanding of the technology. That's what seems to have pissed people off about the whole thing. Those that think they are 'l331' got sucked into the whole thing, which I find extremely hilarious. I saw the story and just rolled my eyes because it's immediately apparent to the technically skilled that the whole sole control concept of this kind is not physically possible. One person controlling one cam, yes. Many controlling one cam, no. Those that have protested this the most are most likely those that got sucked into it the hardest. Just look at the posts here on Slashdot. There seem to be some really upset people that this whole thing was hoaxed while others find it extremely funny. The mission, if you choose to accept it, is to pick out the ones that went to the site and 'wondered' at it.
Considering how much coverage this thing had, the numbers of visitors would have been huge. It's ridiculous to think that a display like that would be stable with the large number of visitors/hits/controllers he 'would' have had. 1500 people trying to control one webcam simultaneously is a ridiculous thought.
"Personally I'm sick to death of hearing about the MPAA sueing everybody and their brother over illegally trading music. Why do people trade in the first place?"
Yeah! Especially since the MPAA isn't in the music business.
My god! You haven't heard of Grace Hopper? Now there's an awe inspiring woman, a bit old for me tho.
She's got sharp knees.
(doh!)
"jobs which are seemingly difficult to fill from the American labor pool for a variety of reasons,"
Such as not being fluent in Swahili, Cantonese, or Aramaic.
Back in my day we didn't even have yellow. We just had black, our portable ran off of ONE 9 volt battery, a keypad, a paddle dial, and interchangable faceplates.
The Milton Bradley Microvision. First game portable that used interchangable game cartridges. Not that 'gameboy' thing.
"The problem with the Puritan rooted US society is that sex and violence are lumped in one category. Why? They're not the same thing at all."
In case you didn't get the memo... sex and violence ARE the same thing since feminism came to the fore.
"So what Janet Jackson's boobs were on TV? Guess what, a lot of you were sucking on one right after you were born!"
That's a damn lie! I never sucked on one of Janet Jacksons boobs!
I get paid, very well.
Because the spammers probably violate some obscure patent on spamming that microsoft holds.
Naw, it's as if someone knocks on the persons door, they answer it, they are handed a 20ft 2x4, then proceed to walk around the house accidentally knocking out their own windows. They then call me to fix the broken windows. sometimes they pick that 2x4 back up and start walking around with it again.
It's a net plus for me.
and I forgot to mention the really, really stupid ones. Like the lady that works for a local business that keeps hitting the F10 key on her Compaq (hp) computer when it boots up which screws up her shortcuts to some DOS applications they have running off of a central server. the owners asked what could be done to solve that problem... I offered to clip the F10 key right off the keyboard, but it comes in handy for some of their DOS application commands.
Not when they ask "How does this stuff get in my computer?", and I tell them that p2p programs such as Kazaa, Morpheus, WinMX, etc... which was installed on the machine installed the spyware. I also run down 'safe' browsing habits such as not clicking on the 'yes' button with a caution that clicking on the 'no' button sometime doesn't work as expected. That the problem is in IE and Windows, and that it's safer to use Firefox (which I will install if they want it). I've got one guy that's on DSL, not behind a NAT box, but he refuses to get even so much as a cheap ass netgear router. So he keeps getting owned, and owned hard.
As much as windows sucks, there are users that really shouldn't be allowed to touch a computer.
I do the same thing, and yes it is good. The best part are the clients that keep re-infecting their machines. There's nothing more profitable than stupidity.