The page title is a problem as well, because there are arguably situations where an action done in retaliation for the same action commited in offence, is okay.
To criticize the action, you would have to do something like: Say that in situation X, it's okay, but in situation Y, it's not, and this is situation Y.
You may need to go into depth on why Y is not okay, if the audience doesn't quite buy it right away.
My personal feelings (which do not matter in this criticism) is that we should move to a Transparent Society, as described by David Brin, but I am not going to defend that position right now.
Unfortunately, your page does not match the argument.
The page serves as a veneration and celebration of logic, but the page has no bearing on the argument.
Since you are presenting this veneration of logic as a counter-argument, you are misleading the discussion.
Yes, if someone MIGHT impinge upon your privacy, then it would be wrong to impinge upon their privacy in an imagined pre-emptive retaliation. Unfortunately, that's not the argument at hand.
The argument here is that they ARE infringing on the complaintant's privacy, thus negating an assumption of your page: that the argument being made is based on a possibility, and not an actuality.
Otherwise, (for example,) your page would be a wonderful counter-argument to self-defence.
You would not need just the images, but also very accurate positioning data on where the photos were taken.
Quite right!
In theory, perhaps you could extrapolate the positioning information by looking at static objects in the frame, shadows, etc., but I don't think that's anywhere near practical.
No; It actually exists, now. It's not just a theory. I have a video on my hard drive here, demonstrating it ("kitchen.mp4.avi",) but I can't find it online. No matter; do a google search on "real-time camera tracking in unknown scenes" (which is the title I see when I start up the video,
It's just as you say-- those little points are called "landmarks," and it uses them to track by.
However if you had a cellphone with augmented GPS (WAAS or something like it) that had submeter accuracy or better, and you were taking pictures of a large object, and maybe included a compass chip or something like it to give you an azimuth reading, then I think you could do what you're talking about. At the very least you'd be able to easily construct a photographic panorama / flyaround (a la Quicktime VR). The work necessary to produce a 3-D model might be, as a physicist I knew used to say, "really nontrivial." At least working just from the images and telemetry data without any other subjective stuff (like selecting out the areas by hand as those 2-d photogrammetry systems have you doing, it seems).
A blue bird in industry has told me that in the next 3-5 years, cell phones will have not only GPS, but $3 accelerometers capable of sub-meter resolution sustained for 1 hour without update. (Important for underground locations.)
The work to produce 3-D models may be non-trivial, but: Did you follow the links I gave you? It's all been done- and this isn't recent: This is a few years back.
So the techniques are out there, and they're in practice, and many people are starting to wake up that these are useful things to do. There's a lot of money to be made here. So, this is why I don't think it'll be long before this is integrated into cameras.
But in general I think that's a very cool idea. It would be neat to see digital camera manufacturers start to embed GPS chips into cameras; at the very least it would be cool to open something in iPhoto and see a minimap of exactly where you took the photo. I know that there are some vacation photos of mine that I wish I knew exactly where I'd been standing when I took it, and there's no easy way to figure out now. It's not like the chips to do that would be bulky anymore, now that they've been miniaturized for cellphones. In fact I think I remember a fairly old Kodak DSLR (one of their really serious ones that were built on Nikon F1 frames) that had a serial port and might have been able to connect to a GPS, for that purpose. I think it's a feature that's ready for prime time.
The cell phones have cameras, and many phones already have GPS. It won't be long before they all do..!
3-D photography does not require multiple lenses, if you can move the camera, and if the target is relatively stationary.
So for example, if you were photographing a mountain scene, you can just wave your camera around. If you had 25 different shots, it's like having 25 different eyes to position and construct an image from.
And the resulting calculated image can have a much greater resolution than the camera itself.
So, you can end up with a 3D high-resolution textured model, simply from one camera input. Like, say, your cell phone.
Now, granted, that's a lot of processing for a camera to perform......which is why wireless is so interesting. If you can send the pictures to google, and get google to work out the calculations, and send you the result,...
I'm a rationalist? Oh really? Sounds to me like words from someone undergoing their own, personal conversion, and projecting it out to others.
Let's see who's consumed by rationalism here.
Let's ask ourselves: Just who was it that spoke: "[Hobbies are] a purposeful 'doing what you don't have to do' so that you don't have to think about anything that you do have to do. It's an escape.
Who was it that told us, in so few words, what the essential purpose of a hobby is? And balked at the concept that, perhaps, people like hobbies just because they like whatever it is that the hobby entails?
Like little kids, playing paint, and making buildings out of blocks. No doubt, the little rugrats are taking delight in shirking their responsibilities. Or perhaps you can spin it your way, and saying that they are instead, dutifully following their responsibility. My daughter would be surprised.
Most hobbies are an advanced (and not necessarily bad) form of procrastination. It's a purposeful 'doing what you don't have to do' so that you don't have to think about anything that you do have to do. It's an escape. An escape from your life and your responsibilities.
Whaaa-?
What about people who live lives of leisure, without responsibilities, without having to do anything? When they're practicing their hobby, is it something totally different than people who do have some responsibilities?
Man, I feel sorry for you; You must lead a sad life.
Are you a survivalist, perchance? Is your responsibility, when you have no responsibility, merely to ensure survival against a prioritized list of most likely threats to sustained existance? Is everyone else just neglecting their responsibilities?
I don't think it will make sense to even talk about "your computer," in the future, since there will be so goddamn many of them, all over the place, including within your body.
I think it's likely that they'll have amorphous size, and be divisible and recombinable. I wouldn't speculate on the storage medium. For example, have you heard of "Millipede?" There are so many data storage options being explored right now, and there's a lot of room for diversity. Looking 20 to 30 years down the line; Who knows what we'll be doing? I think it's safe to say it's not going to be what we're doing right now, though.
I think the key thing to note, is that our technologies will be ubiquitous, and massively networked.
You connect a hard drive to your personal network, and it'll be available everywhere. It's won't be all segmented, like it is right now.
And while it has often been misused by people who try to come up with counter-explanations for any data which doesn't support the desired conclusion, that's frowned upon.
Todd? Nice to meet you.
And I'm calling bullshit.
Coming up with counter-explanations for data that doesn't support the desired conclusion is standard operating procedure for science. It depends on it, and it relies on it, for it's operation.
You're being introduced to a concept called "scientific controversy," and since this is your first time with this concept, may I recommend studying some Bruno Latour.
What happens is that you get a number of competing theories. These competing theories use the facts available, and argue and attack against one another. "Desired outcome" is very much a factor in how things go, and critical to the success of the operations as a whole.
You can have one piece of data, which may on the surface seem to indicate one particular perspective, but that's not a perspective-buster, and nor should it be.
Because if that were the case, then anything that any set of contradictory data (on surface appearance) would forever lock deeper discovery out of the way. Newton would say things fall in proportion to their mass, and some kid would walk by, drop a feather, and Newton would have to forever hold his piece....
I've cobbled up what I have through observation and reading papers by psychologists and neurologists. My picture is incomplete because I'm a lay person.
My picture is hopeful, simply as a reflection of who I am. Someone else could take the exact same world-view, (someone who opposes life after 100, say,) and make it turn hopeless.
My hopes guide me to follow up on things that look promising, (and indeed, this has guided science throughout history,) but I work to establish that it doesn't contradict science. And now here's my challenge to you: If you have, in fact, some data that appears to refute my view, and you have compelling answers to show that my reasoning about the data is bogus, I'm all ears to it.
What I understand, from my reading of journals and magazines and talking with my friends in these fields, is that my worldview is plausible, and that people don't really understand yet the real answer. Do me a favor, and show me wrong.
Your response doesn't have to be perfect. Perfect is impossible. It just needs to be convincingly plausible. You may want to look up "defeasible reasoning," as well.
I disagree; I think our balance with nature will be better when we live forever.
We will virtualize, and consume far less resources.
I think every environmentalist should be all for this, and for brain-computer interface research.
Humans aren't like nature- we are symbol creatures, and we make symbols around us, everywhere we go. The sooner we save nature from ourselves by separating ourselves, the better for both.
If I may ask: Where did you get your expertise in the decay of organs? Papers please.
I think the brain is different because I think neurons are a very different sort of cell. I understand (perhaps incorrectly) that cells elsewhere in the body are regularly destroyed and recreated. But the brain is a one-off thing, it doesn't heal if it's cut, and it doesn't shed it's old cells for new ones.
I may be entirely wrong in my understanding, but it goes a ways to explaining why I believe like I do.
Your friend who is intensely curious about the world might not be exercising his brain; Is he doing more than just reading and exploring? Does he perhaps work with his hands, or produce some output? We wouldn't say that someone was exercising their mind if they were watching television; Perhaps reading a lot is only a little a little better than that. A lot of these psychologists are saying that learning languages is good, and I think that might be because learning languages requires that you produce an output.
Did he have to stop driving because his eyesight was bad? That'd be eyesight.
And forgetting names: That means very little to me. I forget people's names all the time. It's because I don't choose to remember them. I'll bet he could of remembered people's names if he'd made use of mnemonic technique. (Like I, and several other people, need to use.)
I'm not a believer in the "frozen brain hypothesis." I've seen that people change dramatically in life, at any point in life, and that they do amazing things where before they were a sleeper. And I've seen that it goes the other way, as well. A dynamo may go off and decide to live a normal human life.
Adults think that kids pick up languages faster than adults, but research shows that the opposite is true. The Monterey Language Institute'll school you in a foreign language much faster than a kid's skill grows at.
The reason we think otherwise is because we have the common sense observation of our own children. But look a little deeper. You'll note that if an adult fumbles with language like a kid does, that the adult is socially punished. And there's very little incentive for an adult to learn a new language. And as for the kids, when they can avoid learning two languages, they avoid learning two languages. One parent is bilingual? The kid's going to learn just one language.
When I realized that the public conception of brains and mental development was all screwy, I decided to ditch popular observation. (So, arguing from popular observation has little influence on me.)
I agree that my perspective is tainted by hopefulness. But look here, I see that your perspective is tainted by hopelessness, or, at least, popular belief. In terms of concrete reason here, there's no reason to believe one way or the other. I choose to be hopeful, and I've seen research that points that my hopes are right.
I'll grant this: There's a lot about the brain that we don't know.
I think that when people use their brains, they retain all those things.
In the US, we just habitually tell people: "Okay, you're retired, no need to think any more. Go home. We don't want you."
I've read that in other countries, elderly people have incredible memory, use their brains, and are mentally healthy.
I've also read that people who use their brains, learn new languages, etc., etc., and much healthier after retirement.
People who are powerhouses, keep doing things, keep thinking- they don't lose their minds. I mean, look at Carter. He was born in 1924.
And: I didn't say the brain was immune. No, not yet. I just think there's good reason to believe it may well last well beyond 100 years.
And I think that if you can make it far enough, we'll solve all the various problems, and, theoretically at least, be able to keep going for another 100 after that, if not forever. (Theoretically.) Obviously, something else would become a threat or an issue, or whatever, but you get my point.
The strategy is to work on freeways first: 2010-2020. Freeways are much more controlled than cities. Cities, much harder, will come later. 2020-2030. A city should be a humming hive of sensors and intelligences, by that point. (links)
Would you rather have more valid opinions and perspectives expressed, and thus a blurier truth, or would you rather have a clearer truth, with fewer valid opinions and perspectives..?
In fact I think we will have both: We continue to find ways for our tools to help us organize our communications and information, and to help us form a clearer picture of a multiplicity of perspectives.
When I read what you wrote, I thought: "Whoah-- somebody feels that their version of the truth isn't the one that's being heard." I feel like you think that there are people who should be considering your thoughts, who should be communicating with you. But that they aren't. I would suggest that perhaps the Internet tools make that more possible, to do, and not less possible. Perhaps you just need to use the tools in front of you?
I think valid opinions and ideas are getting to be easier to find, not harder.
I'm also not clear on what you mean, when you said that the lines of truth are becoming "blury." Do you mean like: "I go to Wikipedia, and I'm not sure how much of what I see, that I can trust?"
I think that everyone's doing a lot more thinking about how our information and knowledge systems work. "Science. Okay, what is science, actually? How does that work? Why should we trust science more than other things? Is it a body of work, is it a process, what?" Perhaps it's just my company, but it does seem to me that these discussions are happening more frequently now.
I notice how much attention is paid to public opinion, and to who thinks what, and to who is advocating what and saying what is true. All of this points, to me, to greater fidelity in vision.
Before, people didn't know about these things. People literally thought that if it was printed in the paper, it was true-- and to be suspicious of anyone who thought otherwise. Wealthy people knew this, and they did purchace newspapers in order to control people.
Are the lines of truth more blury now, or in the past?
Perhaps they are blurier, but they're probably more accurate now.
My understanding from before was that this was something like a dog whistle.
My question is: Is the idea that if you have a digital camera, and you take a picture of your TV-- is your camera supposed to refuse to take a picture of your TV, or monitor, or whatever?
If so, we have much more to be concerned about: Any police that don't want people to take pictures or video tape what they're doing could just turn on the dog whistle.
Or, if you were a thief, you could just bring a DVD playback with you, and all the cams would have to turn off.
Slashdot Mirror
The page title is a problem as well, because there are arguably situations where an action done in retaliation for the same action commited in offence, is okay.
To criticize the action, you would have to do something like: Say that in situation X, it's okay, but in situation Y, it's not, and this is situation Y.
You may need to go into depth on why Y is not okay, if the audience doesn't quite buy it right away.
My personal feelings (which do not matter in this criticism) is that we should move to a Transparent Society, as described by David Brin, but I am not going to defend that position right now.
Unfortunately, your page does not match the argument.
The page serves as a veneration and celebration of logic, but the page has no bearing on the argument.
Since you are presenting this veneration of logic as a counter-argument, you are misleading the discussion.
Yes, if someone MIGHT impinge upon your privacy, then it would be wrong to impinge upon their privacy in an imagined pre-emptive retaliation. Unfortunately, that's not the argument at hand.
The argument here is that they ARE infringing on the complaintant's privacy, thus negating an assumption of your page: that the argument being made is based on a possibility, and not an actuality.
Otherwise, (for example,) your page would be a wonderful counter-argument to self-defence.
Yours in defeasible reasoning, Lion.
You would not need just the images, but also very accurate positioning data on where the photos were taken.
Quite right!
In theory, perhaps you could extrapolate the positioning information by looking at static objects in the frame, shadows, etc., but I don't think that's anywhere near practical.
No; It actually exists, now. It's not just a theory. I have a video on my hard drive here, demonstrating it ("kitchen.mp4.avi",) but I can't find it online. No matter; do a google search on "real-time camera tracking in unknown scenes" (which is the title I see when I start up the video,
It's just as you say-- those little points are called "landmarks," and it uses them to track by.
However if you had a cellphone with augmented GPS (WAAS or something like it) that had submeter accuracy or better, and you were taking pictures of a large object, and maybe included a compass chip or something like it to give you an azimuth reading, then I think you could do what you're talking about. At the very least you'd be able to easily construct a photographic panorama / flyaround (a la Quicktime VR). The work necessary to produce a 3-D model might be, as a physicist I knew used to say, "really nontrivial." At least working just from the images and telemetry data without any other subjective stuff (like selecting out the areas by hand as those 2-d photogrammetry systems have you doing, it seems).
A blue bird in industry has told me that in the next 3-5 years, cell phones will have not only GPS, but $3 accelerometers capable of sub-meter resolution sustained for 1 hour without update. (Important for underground locations.)
The work to produce 3-D models may be non-trivial, but: Did you follow the links I gave you? It's all been done- and this isn't recent: This is a few years back.
Here's a very simple example, here's a more complicated one, and here's yet another, this time dated 2000. Be sure to check out the generated 3D models.
So the techniques are out there, and they're in practice, and many people are starting to wake up that these are useful things to do. There's a lot of money to be made here. So, this is why I don't think it'll be long before this is integrated into cameras.
We have 2D camera phone scanners. Why not 3-D? Some even do OCR.
But in general I think that's a very cool idea. It would be neat to see digital camera manufacturers start to embed GPS chips into cameras; at the very least it would be cool to open something in iPhoto and see a minimap of exactly where you took the photo. I know that there are some vacation photos of mine that I wish I knew exactly where I'd been standing when I took it, and there's no easy way to figure out now. It's not like the chips to do that would be bulky anymore, now that they've been miniaturized for cellphones. In fact I think I remember a fairly old Kodak DSLR (one of their really serious ones that were built on Nikon F1 frames) that had a serial port and might have been able to connect to a GPS, for that purpose. I think it's a feature that's ready for prime time.
The cell phones have cameras, and many phones already have GPS. It won't be long before they all do..!
3-D photography does not require multiple lenses, if you can move the camera, and if the target is relatively stationary.
...which is why wireless is so interesting. If you can send the pictures to google, and get google to work out the calculations, and send you the result, ...
So for example, if you were photographing a mountain scene, you can just wave your camera around. If you had 25 different shots, it's like having 25 different eyes to position and construct an image from.
And the resulting calculated image can have a much greater resolution than the camera itself.
So, you can end up with a 3D high-resolution textured model, simply from one camera input. Like, say, your cell phone.
Now, granted, that's a lot of processing for a camera to perform...
Look up Photogrammetry.
Ah, the Compaq 8088. Yes, excellent computer.
I owned one, too. Survived flipping off the table in a small earthquake.
This is something I hadn't heard about, or thought of before. Please mod the parent posting up.
I disagree. Banning things is very successful at limiting access.
Any solution less then total, and you seem to believe that banning things does nothing.
No, au contrare, banning does a lot.
It's the difference between cities in Nevada that decriminalize prostitutions, and cities in other states that criminalize it.
Even though the effects are not total in other states, they DO make a visible difference in what people see, and even what people do.
I'm a rationalist? Oh really? Sounds to me like words from someone undergoing their own, personal conversion, and projecting it out to others.
Let's see who's consumed by rationalism here.
Let's ask ourselves: Just who was it that spoke: "[Hobbies are] a purposeful 'doing what you don't have to do' so that you don't have to think about anything that you do have to do. It's an escape.
Who was it that told us, in so few words, what the essential purpose of a hobby is? And balked at the concept that, perhaps, people like hobbies just because they like whatever it is that the hobby entails?
Like little kids, playing paint, and making buildings out of blocks. No doubt, the little rugrats are taking delight in shirking their responsibilities. Or perhaps you can spin it your way, and saying that they are instead, dutifully following their responsibility. My daughter would be surprised.
Very well, then- Tell me: why do you live?
You apparently live to carry out your responsibilities.
What are your responsibilities for? What's their purpose?
Proof by contradiction:
1. Anything people enjoy is actually an escape from responsibility.
2. Responsibilities are things people do to live.
3. People live to enjoy life. (Beloved people, beloved works, beloved ideals, sensual & mentally sensual pleasures.)
4. So the purpose of responsibility is to help you enjoy life.
5. But there are no joys in life, merely a series of escapes from responsibility.
Thus responsibility can never fulfill it's purpose.
What's bogus here is line 1.
There is joy outside of "escape."
People actually, really, bona fida, enjoy the things that they're doing. It's not made entirely of "negative value."
If your problem is with line 3, then I mean to tell you: You live a very sad life.
Joy isn't a "0 sum" thing. Look at any kid; They just enjoy doing what they're doing, even though they don't really have to do anything.
Most hobbies are an advanced (and not necessarily bad) form of procrastination. It's a purposeful 'doing what you don't have to do' so that you don't have to think about anything that you do have to do. It's an escape. An escape from your life and your responsibilities.
Whaaa-?
What about people who live lives of leisure, without responsibilities, without having to do anything? When they're practicing their hobby, is it something totally different than people who do have some responsibilities?
Man, I feel sorry for you; You must lead a sad life.
Are you a survivalist, perchance? Is your responsibility, when you have no responsibility, merely to ensure survival against a prioritized list of most likely threats to sustained existance? Is everyone else just neglecting their responsibilities?
I don't think it will make sense to even talk about "your computer," in the future, since there will be so goddamn many of them, all over the place, including within your body.
I think it's likely that they'll have amorphous size, and be divisible and recombinable. I wouldn't speculate on the storage medium. For example, have you heard of "Millipede?" There are so many data storage options being explored right now, and there's a lot of room for diversity. Looking 20 to 30 years down the line; Who knows what we'll be doing? I think it's safe to say it's not going to be what we're doing right now, though.
I think the key thing to note, is that our technologies will be ubiquitous, and massively networked.
You connect a hard drive to your personal network, and it'll be available everywhere. It's won't be all segmented, like it is right now.
Computing is going all low-power and parallel. Check out Intel's Platform 2015.
And while it has often been misused by people who try to come up with counter-explanations for any data which doesn't support the desired conclusion, that's frowned upon.
...
Todd? Nice to meet you.
And I'm calling bullshit.
Coming up with counter-explanations for data that doesn't support the desired conclusion is standard operating procedure for science. It depends on it, and it relies on it, for it's operation.
You're being introduced to a concept called "scientific controversy," and since this is your first time with this concept, may I recommend studying some Bruno Latour.
What happens is that you get a number of competing theories. These competing theories use the facts available, and argue and attack against one another. "Desired outcome" is very much a factor in how things go, and critical to the success of the operations as a whole.
You can have one piece of data, which may on the surface seem to indicate one particular perspective, but that's not a perspective-buster, and nor should it be.
Because if that were the case, then anything that any set of contradictory data (on surface appearance) would forever lock deeper discovery out of the way. Newton would say things fall in proportion to their mass, and some kid would walk by, drop a feather, and Newton would have to forever hold his piece.
I've cobbled up what I have through observation and reading papers by psychologists and neurologists. My picture is incomplete because I'm a lay person.
My picture is hopeful, simply as a reflection of who I am. Someone else could take the exact same world-view, (someone who opposes life after 100, say,) and make it turn hopeless.
My hopes guide me to follow up on things that look promising, (and indeed, this has guided science throughout history,) but I work to establish that it doesn't contradict science. And now here's my challenge to you: If you have, in fact, some data that appears to refute my view, and you have compelling answers to show that my reasoning about the data is bogus, I'm all ears to it.
What I understand, from my reading of journals and magazines and talking with my friends in these fields, is that my worldview is plausible, and that people don't really understand yet the real answer. Do me a favor, and show me wrong.
Your response doesn't have to be perfect. Perfect is impossible. It just needs to be convincingly plausible. You may want to look up "defeasible reasoning," as well.
I disagree; I think our balance with nature will be better when we live forever.
We will virtualize, and consume far less resources.
I think every environmentalist should be all for this, and for brain-computer interface research.
Humans aren't like nature- we are symbol creatures, and we make symbols around us, everywhere we go. The sooner we save nature from ourselves by separating ourselves, the better for both.
I read an essay by Marshall Brain, where he said that the brain could survive for 150 years.
And here's a page on one site about your aging brain.
If I may ask: Where did you get your expertise in the decay of organs? Papers please.
I think the brain is different because I think neurons are a very different sort of cell. I understand (perhaps incorrectly) that cells elsewhere in the body are regularly destroyed and recreated. But the brain is a one-off thing, it doesn't heal if it's cut, and it doesn't shed it's old cells for new ones.
I may be entirely wrong in my understanding, but it goes a ways to explaining why I believe like I do.
Your friend who is intensely curious about the world might not be exercising his brain; Is he doing more than just reading and exploring? Does he perhaps work with his hands, or produce some output? We wouldn't say that someone was exercising their mind if they were watching television; Perhaps reading a lot is only a little a little better than that. A lot of these psychologists are saying that learning languages is good, and I think that might be because learning languages requires that you produce an output.
Did he have to stop driving because his eyesight was bad? That'd be eyesight.
And forgetting names: That means very little to me. I forget people's names all the time. It's because I don't choose to remember them. I'll bet he could of remembered people's names if he'd made use of mnemonic technique. (Like I, and several other people, need to use.)
I'm not a believer in the "frozen brain hypothesis." I've seen that people change dramatically in life, at any point in life, and that they do amazing things where before they were a sleeper. And I've seen that it goes the other way, as well. A dynamo may go off and decide to live a normal human life.
Adults think that kids pick up languages faster than adults, but research shows that the opposite is true. The Monterey Language Institute'll school you in a foreign language much faster than a kid's skill grows at.
The reason we think otherwise is because we have the common sense observation of our own children. But look a little deeper. You'll note that if an adult fumbles with language like a kid does, that the adult is socially punished. And there's very little incentive for an adult to learn a new language. And as for the kids, when they can avoid learning two languages, they avoid learning two languages. One parent is bilingual? The kid's going to learn just one language.
When I realized that the public conception of brains and mental development was all screwy, I decided to ditch popular observation. (So, arguing from popular observation has little influence on me.)
I agree that my perspective is tainted by hopefulness. But look here, I see that your perspective is tainted by hopelessness, or, at least, popular belief. In terms of concrete reason here, there's no reason to believe one way or the other. I choose to be hopeful, and I've seen research that points that my hopes are right.
I'll grant this: There's a lot about the brain that we don't know.
I think that when people use their brains, they retain all those things.
In the US, we just habitually tell people: "Okay, you're retired, no need to think any more. Go home. We don't want you."
I've read that in other countries, elderly people have incredible memory, use their brains, and are mentally healthy.
I've also read that people who use their brains, learn new languages, etc., etc., and much healthier after retirement.
People who are powerhouses, keep doing things, keep thinking- they don't lose their minds. I mean, look at Carter. He was born in 1924.
And: I didn't say the brain was immune. No, not yet. I just think there's good reason to believe it may well last well beyond 100 years.
And I think that if you can make it far enough, we'll solve all the various problems, and, theoretically at least, be able to keep going for another 100 after that, if not forever. (Theoretically.) Obviously, something else would become a threat or an issue, or whatever, but you get my point.
My understanding is that the brain doesn't die after 100 years, like the body does.
If the body didn't strangle the brain to death, the brain could probably go on living for a lot longer.
I've read an estimate of 150 years somewhere, but I'm not sure what the real length is.
If we can develop Brain in a Jar technology, we may be able to circumvent the body entirely. It seems entirely feasible, to me.
Here's a stronger argument, the Fable of the Dragon Tyrant.
It argues that it is immoral and lethal for us to delay our work into longevity reasearch.
The strategy is to work on freeways first: 2010-2020. Freeways are much more controlled than cities. Cities, much harder, will come later. 2020-2030. A city should be a humming hive of sensors and intelligences, by that point. (links)
"...This is my Quest, to follow that Star, no matter how Hopeless, No matter how Far...."
...to technology, in the same way that I am addicted to my throat and ears.
What would you prefer as an alternative?
Would you rather have more valid opinions and perspectives expressed, and thus a blurier truth, or would you rather have a clearer truth, with fewer valid opinions and perspectives..?
In fact I think we will have both: We continue to find ways for our tools to help us organize our communications and information, and to help us form a clearer picture of a multiplicity of perspectives.
When I read what you wrote, I thought: "Whoah-- somebody feels that their version of the truth isn't the one that's being heard." I feel like you think that there are people who should be considering your thoughts, who should be communicating with you. But that they aren't. I would suggest that perhaps the Internet tools make that more possible, to do, and not less possible. Perhaps you just need to use the tools in front of you?
I think valid opinions and ideas are getting to be easier to find, not harder.
I'm also not clear on what you mean, when you said that the lines of truth are becoming "blury." Do you mean like: "I go to Wikipedia, and I'm not sure how much of what I see, that I can trust?"
I think that everyone's doing a lot more thinking about how our information and knowledge systems work. "Science. Okay, what is science, actually? How does that work? Why should we trust science more than other things? Is it a body of work, is it a process, what?" Perhaps it's just my company, but it does seem to me that these discussions are happening more frequently now.
I notice how much attention is paid to public opinion, and to who thinks what, and to who is advocating what and saying what is true. All of this points, to me, to greater fidelity in vision.
Before, people didn't know about these things. People literally thought that if it was printed in the paper, it was true-- and to be suspicious of anyone who thought otherwise. Wealthy people knew this, and they did purchace newspapers in order to control people.
Are the lines of truth more blury now, or in the past?
Perhaps they are blurier, but they're probably more accurate now.
Also remember, when you read that Wikipedia article: It usually has links to trustworthy sources. Let's look at Wikipedia:Common Cold, for instance. See at the bottom, you can get links directly to websites edited by MDs, and the Common Cold Centre.
It's so easy now to investigate why you believe what you believe, to investigate sources, etc., etc.,.
I think the truth is not getting blurred. We're just developing an understanding of the complex.
If you're just a casual Free Software programmer, are there some good resources for getting some of that "Design Goodness" in you?
I do think we've been a bit long on the architecture, and not so much the design.
I'm obviously not going to become a good designer overnight, but is there something that I should be reading, or looking at?
Does this apply to cameras?
My understanding from before was that this was something like a dog whistle.
My question is: Is the idea that if you have a digital camera, and you take a picture of your TV-- is your camera supposed to refuse to take a picture of your TV, or monitor, or whatever?
If so, we have much more to be concerned about: Any police that don't want people to take pictures or video tape what they're doing could just turn on the dog whistle.
Or, if you were a thief, you could just bring a DVD playback with you, and all the cams would have to turn off.