A custody hearing where she is required to be in court would (or at least SHOULD) be an excused absence. They're referring to the kind where the kid doesn't show up and the parents are like "What? He wasn't? Well shit, where did he go?"
Imagine Watson 6 on your mobile phone. Casually listening to any conversation, passively parsing what you say, waiting for you to call on it and ask it a question or take a note.
"Yeah, we should totally go to that sushi place they posted about on BoingBoing today.
"The one with the sentient lobster platter? "
"Yeah! Watson, how do we get there from here?"
"What is take the Alewife line to Porter, then three blocks west and look for the bright green sign. What is Should I call and book you a table?"
I'm guessing there would be a number of strange and unpleasant side effects. The fact that many people in industrialized nations are "fear seekers" (horror movies, roller coasters, extreme sports, videogames, etc.) suggests that there is an inherent desire/need in the human brain to feel fear on a regular basis. With a complete inability to feel fear, it's reasonable to assume a person would become dangerously unstable. Might manifest either as adrenaline junkie tendencies, or as some sort of dissociative disorder.
Also, I have a feeling they would die very quickly due to something like:
- Walking across a busy intersection trying to pull a "frogger"
- Travelling alone at night through a dangerous neighborhood
- Overdosing on some sort of medication or chemical
- Insulting a bunch of veterans
- Attempting some sort of assassination or political uprising
-... or any number of other things we all would totally do if we weren't afraid of the consequences.
"Facebook hackers will soon have a new way of knocking legitimate users out of spam accounts. The social-networking company is rolling out a new security feature that lets hackers see which computers and devices are logged into their Facebook accounts, and then removing the ones that they don't want to have access."
Slashdot Mirror
A custody hearing where she is required to be in court would (or at least SHOULD) be an excused absence. They're referring to the kind where the kid doesn't show up and the parents are like "What? He wasn't? Well shit, where did he go?"
Imagine Watson 6 on your mobile phone. Casually listening to any conversation, passively parsing what you say, waiting for you to call on it and ask it a question or take a note. "Yeah, we should totally go to that sushi place they posted about on BoingBoing today. "The one with the sentient lobster platter? " "Yeah! Watson, how do we get there from here?" "What is take the Alewife line to Porter, then three blocks west and look for the bright green sign. What is Should I call and book you a table?"
I'm guessing there would be a number of strange and unpleasant side effects. The fact that many people in industrialized nations are "fear seekers" (horror movies, roller coasters, extreme sports, videogames, etc.) suggests that there is an inherent desire/need in the human brain to feel fear on a regular basis. With a complete inability to feel fear, it's reasonable to assume a person would become dangerously unstable. Might manifest either as adrenaline junkie tendencies, or as some sort of dissociative disorder. Also, I have a feeling they would die very quickly due to something like: - Walking across a busy intersection trying to pull a "frogger" - Travelling alone at night through a dangerous neighborhood - Overdosing on some sort of medication or chemical - Insulting a bunch of veterans - Attempting some sort of assassination or political uprising - ... or any number of other things we all would totally do if we weren't afraid of the consequences.
"Facebook hackers will soon have a new way of knocking legitimate users out of spam accounts. The social-networking company is rolling out a new security feature that lets hackers see which computers and devices are logged into their Facebook accounts, and then removing the ones that they don't want to have access."