ray kurzweil - age of spiritual machines
on
A Good Summer Read?
·
· Score: 1
this is a brilliant piece of non-fiction. kurzweil really understands where things are heading. it's very philosophical going into the consiousness of ourselves and how that changes as we augment ourselves with computers, and if AI is consious, and just what is consiousness? plus it's got a shiny cover oooo
i'm not a big car geek but i have started learning basics like changing oil and brake pads, and committed to getting my car geek friend over to show me how to make any necessary repairs in the future instead of just sending it to the shop. self-sufficiency please! it's cheaper and can make you money/friends when others need the same. i've also got an organic garden going and have taken to a mastery of cooking so i only go out to eat on special occasions (again cheaper, better, you know what's going into it) this is also what burningman is all about
well i'm happy in thinking that the worst is past in that most computers that even our grandmothers have are capable of all that most people do on a computer (web email word solitaire) so there's going to be less computers thrown out when upgrades come. plus the shift to laptops and lcds and thinner clients means even the wasted computers of the future will have less crap to them.
and as for schools, the thing we should look forward to the most is not laptops in the classroom but the classroom in the laptop. home based learning will take all the paper away and much of the commuting while moving social interactions into more realistic venues.
as long as we can make it another 30 years without trashing things to the point of extinction of all life i think we'll be at a point of permanently sustainable life. now is definitely the time to be trying extra hard.
the reason the foodstuff is made to look and taste like meat is because of the seasonings added to the wheat gluten or tofu protein base. there's not really much taste to a steak or a block of tofu, it's the marinade and seasonings that give it flavor.
biologically meat is easier to digest, but we have a long digestive track that gives us the biological capacity to get all the protein we need from beans and whatnot (soybeans have more protein per gram than beef) and red meat has the added bonus of heapings of saturated fat and cholesterol to keep your veins nice and insulated.
to a 'political' vegetarian you are murdering their friends. the meat industry is like a perpetual holocaust to cows. cows are alive and feel pain just as you and i. they're industrially numerically wrought out in the most efficient manner possible. and killed in the most economical fashion (when they reach their largest size, the equivalent of killing 18 year old humans) sorry to bother you with my 'nagging' but you just bought a plate of murder.
oo imagining the possibilities! low cost lawnmowing service (putting high school entrepeneurs out of business) by cutting out the man, order the service over the internet, the mower drives itself from it's rechargable home stopping at each house that is signed up (and leaving flyers at the others=[) and mowing their lawns (oh did i leave those important financial documents on the lawn?? well sue the mowers!!) and that's just lawn mowing, they could eventually have automated pizza delivery robots, maids, nannies, and finally! sexbots! of course i've seen AI=) er- moo
This is isn't so easy as crushing up chips and adding cheese but it's a nifty kind of recipe because most of the ingredients are optional depending on what you have lying around or how much effort you want to put into it. the burgers are also cheap at about 1$ for 8 patties (english muffin sized since an 8 pack of english muffins is also 1$) they can't be undercooked since there's no meat and storage is also easy. you don't even need to cook them and you'll get a tunaish substance.
base ingredients (the more the merrier) 1 block tofu 1 cup oats 1/4 cup wheat germ 1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes 2 T soy sauce
optional ingredients 2 sticks celery 1 carrot 1/2 an onion 1/2 c any nuts 1/4 t basil, oregano, blk pepper, salt, garlic powder, or onion powder pretty much anything else
mince all ingredients together and fry until brown or bake at 350F for 10 mins. per side.
another yummy easy recipe
DIY pizza 2c general purpose flour 1c wheat flour 1T baking powder 1 bottle of beer (8oz? i think) mix it all up, spread on 12" oiled baking pan, sauce and top to your heart's extent, bake at 375F for 20-25mins
that book had the ideal pda..kurt vonneghet understands. it's about the size of a credit card and it's all display..it has sound i/o for it's main feature as a translator. all one has to do is start speaking in it and get someone else to say a few words in another language to it and it instantly recognizes both languages and audibly translates between languages. it's a little tower of babel waiting to happen. by allowing everyone to communicate in their own language you've broken down the biggest barrier between modern humans. the pda in the book also had quotes, rules to games, most of the information one could need..i'm sure it could record voice memos as a notepad replacement and set timers/alarms. it could probably play games but that's not something they went into in the book..desktops and frisbees and balls are more suited for games than a pda. i'm sure it could also play music with it's magically unlimited storage and audio output capabilities. they didn't mention connectivity or video but add those in and you could have a communicator that should be able to talk to anyone in the world regardless of language with a video display. something that small would probably be cheap once it's developed and the facilities to build it made. so we should all have one. maybe we'll have a trustworthy government in a decade or so when this is done so we could throw in GPS for security and replace our ID cards and credit cards. then there's only an eyebrow piercing version that shoots video and sound right into your eyes and ears (yet doesn't cause cancer, or cancer is cured/regeneration) then neural implants, robots, the matrix, armageddon, welcome back jesus, fin.
i think the ideal solution would be if we would all start using www.fairtunes.com and sending donations to the artists we listen to, and once the artists have enough money to sustain themselves making music without the industry's paycheck, they can start giving away their music on their website..and we've gotta support these free artists even more so they'll stay on that track. they could still sell cd's through the industry if the industry will accept them giving away music as well.
i had also imagined something like a winamp plugin that would track all the songs you listened to and make a division of donations report to send with your 20 bucks a month to fairtunes.
encryption and all this stuff preventing people from copying music will ultimately fail..people will protest and stop buying music altogether if the industry attempts to pass that. and there will always be ways to bypass it, if it comes out of my speakers i can record it unencrypted and redistribute that.
oh ya and bush shouldn't be in the white house www.michaelmoore.com read the book..take action
i think that people have a drive to be creative because in creating, we are adding diversity to the universe, which seems to be the purpose of it all. but we want others to acknowledge and use our creation, we want props, we want chicks. and so the way you get people to use it, besides offering innovation, is to give it to people for less than the cost of others or the ultimate undercut, for free. that's simple market competition. i think that most of us who love to make software realize that money is just something we gather to get by, but what is most important in the grand scheme of things is making something that people will use and enjoy so your name will be remembered forever =) besides it'll just get pirated if you try and charge for it anyways =P
i think that bioengineered stuffs is any company's perogative but if it's going into food supplies of ourselves or our animals then there may be a problem. there may not be also i can imagine that it may be possible to make foods healthier than what has managed to come out of nature alone, but i think that the industry may be more interested in foodstuffs that cost less through reduced pesticides and patents so every seed is licensed. an important point is that for testing of a food the biotech industry had some 30 rats eating their bioengineered stuff for 90 days (this is supposed to adequately guage if humans can live off of it) and they said that the rats came out fine so it was safe for humans. besides the inadequate test they also straight lied about the results as many of the male rats developed cancerous cysts. sorry i can't provide some more definite coverage but what should be obvious is that the FDA is not entirely in control of regulation of food..the biotech has lots of money and power and they've used it to prevent labeling to allow us to decide so they can use it to work the testing and approval how they want (as the meat industry has) and look at how they're putting these farms next to family farms that don't license their seeds and there is some seed spread from wind or whatever and they sue the family farmer for growing unlicensed seed..they've sued hundreds of farmers in the past 2 years and it's obvious that they want complete control of seeds..like no more non-genetically modified licensed seeds. that's just evil! and it's like the polluters getting paid for polluting. oi i wouldn't mind gm if it was really tested and safe and there was always a non-gm alternative everything clearly labeled.
This is the beggining of our end..after coming home from the protests at the DNC I saw a picture of a row of stern faced riot police that I thought looked kinda like robots..of course I had seen the police at the convention and while many are very robotic, most still have common sense. Robots don't have such a luxury..robots have only code, a robot could easily have common sense programmed, but that's all in the eye of the beholder..my idea of common sense would include the inability to kill anything..but what that would boil down to is including limitations on what you can do with it..which those in command of the robots wouldn't want..they think they have enough sense to not have the robots be doing something which they shouldn't be doing..but nay..here's the scenario..
At the 2004 convention the protests have gotten larger, more people see that corporations are taking control of the system..bending it to their financial interests. They must maintain their control and that means making sure we have a democratic or republican president since they have so much influence over those two and have continually instilled the idea in the public that voting any other way is throwing away your vote..pretty much everyone is displeased but they'll always choose the lesser of the two evils..but the protesters are trying to tell people differently..that it may be unlikely that voting for anyone else will win, but only by voting for that third party can you start to build the support so that for each election that follows the percentage will grow. So that's bad for the big businesses who wouldn't want to loose any of the grip around the neck of us politics and thus the world..and now we have the technology to build robots to use as riot police..perfect..there can be as many of these bots as people..and the best thing, is that if they so desire, they can have an unlimited amount of force..instantly subdue crowds..make up an excuse later 'there looked to be a bomb' everyone knows that it's fake, an excuse..but nobody can contest it..so everyone is afraid..nobody will rebel..4 years later they're in visible distance of every public area on soil..infrared included can even see through walls into your home (that technology is already legal and used in california) I may sound orwellian, but trust me, I'm psychic..I have seen what the future can be..act now Vote Nader vote period..send letters to congress..don't just sit here and do nothing about it and think that you'll know if it's getting worse and you'll do something then. Don't think that I'm just a tree huggin hippie and you'd be glad to see all the protesters like me thrown in jail..because by the time they get to what you care about, it'll be too late to protest. They're charging people with conspiracy to commit a felony for riding bikes out there..I saw over 40 people lined up to be arrested for that.
Robots getting hacked isn't the problem, the current controllers have worse things in mind than what anyone at 2600 would do.
Thanks for reading!
-GreenCow =)
hmm, mebe instead of using lasers ala starwars we could just have little intelligent bomb diffusers flying about disabling any warhead which happens to fly around up there..course nuclear subs/cruise missles are the bigger problem now
I believe more of what we have now is improvements to our ability to access information and to communicate..in the past 10 years we have gained the ability to exchange ideas with almost everyone on Earth instantly..not everyone has a computer but almost everyone has access to one through libraries and schools. It's not a substantial difference for those who choose not to use it, but such level of communication and accessability is what leads into the next 10 years, where the fruits of our developments start to come forth..everyones lives will either be made perfect or we will destroy ourselves, when the potential for either becomes so easy, then one of them is bound to happen.
Slashdot Mirror
this is a brilliant piece of non-fiction. kurzweil really understands where things are heading. it's very philosophical going into the consiousness of ourselves and how that changes as we augment ourselves with computers, and if AI is consious, and just what is consiousness? plus it's got a shiny cover oooo
i'm not a big car geek but i have started learning basics like changing oil and brake pads, and committed to getting my car geek friend over to show me how to make any necessary repairs in the future instead of just sending it to the shop. self-sufficiency please! it's cheaper and can make you money/friends when others need the same. i've also got an organic garden going and have taken to a mastery of cooking so i only go out to eat on special occasions (again cheaper, better, you know what's going into it)
this is also what burningman is all about
well i'm happy in thinking that the worst is past in that most computers that even our grandmothers have are capable of all that most people do on a computer (web email word solitaire) so there's going to be less computers thrown out when upgrades come. plus the shift to laptops and lcds and thinner clients means even the wasted computers of the future will have less crap to them.
and as for schools, the thing we should look forward to the most is not laptops in the classroom but the classroom in the laptop. home based learning will take all the paper away and much of the commuting while moving social interactions into more realistic venues.
as long as we can make it another 30 years without trashing things to the point of extinction of all life i think we'll be at a point of permanently sustainable life. now is definitely the time to be trying extra hard.
www.shizmoo.com has some really well done java games. they've turned some turn based games (pool, chess, scrabble) into realtime action games.
wrap it up b
the reason the foodstuff is made to look and taste like meat is because of the seasonings added to the wheat gluten or tofu protein base. there's not really much taste to a steak or a block of tofu, it's the marinade and seasonings that give it flavor.
biologically meat is easier to digest, but we have a long digestive track that gives us the biological capacity to get all the protein we need from beans and whatnot (soybeans have more protein per gram than beef) and red meat has the added bonus of heapings of saturated fat and cholesterol to keep your veins nice and insulated.
to a 'political' vegetarian you are murdering their friends. the meat industry is like a perpetual holocaust to cows. cows are alive and feel pain just as you and i. they're industrially numerically wrought out in the most efficient manner possible. and killed in the most economical fashion (when they reach their largest size, the equivalent of killing 18 year old humans) sorry to bother you with my 'nagging' but you just bought a plate of murder.
oo imagining the possibilities! low cost lawnmowing service (putting high school entrepeneurs out of business) by cutting out the man, order the service over the internet, the mower drives itself from it's rechargable home stopping at each house that is signed up (and leaving flyers at the others=[) and mowing their lawns (oh did i leave those important financial documents on the lawn?? well sue the mowers!!) and that's just lawn mowing, they could eventually have automated pizza delivery robots, maids, nannies, and finally! sexbots! of course i've seen AI=)
er- moo
This is isn't so easy as crushing up chips and adding cheese but it's a nifty kind of recipe because most of the ingredients are optional depending on what you have lying around or how much effort you want to put into it. the burgers are also cheap at about 1$ for 8 patties (english muffin sized since an 8 pack of english muffins is also 1$) they can't be undercooked since there's no meat and storage is also easy. you don't even need to cook them and you'll get a tunaish substance.
base ingredients (the more the merrier)
1 block tofu
1 cup oats
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
2 T soy sauce
optional ingredients
2 sticks celery
1 carrot
1/2 an onion
1/2 c any nuts
1/4 t basil, oregano, blk pepper, salt, garlic powder, or onion powder
pretty much anything else
mince all ingredients together and fry until brown or bake at 350F for 10 mins. per side.
another yummy easy recipe
DIY pizza
2c general purpose flour
1c wheat flour
1T baking powder
1 bottle of beer (8oz? i think)
mix it all up, spread on 12" oiled baking pan, sauce and top to your heart's extent, bake at 375F for 20-25mins
that book had the ideal pda..kurt vonneghet understands. it's about the size of a credit card and it's all display..it has sound i/o for it's main feature as a translator. all one has to do is start speaking in it and get someone else to say a few words in another language to it and it instantly recognizes both languages and audibly translates between languages. it's a little tower of babel waiting to happen. by allowing everyone to communicate in their own language you've broken down the biggest barrier between modern humans. the pda in the book also had quotes, rules to games, most of the information one could need..i'm sure it could record voice memos as a notepad replacement and set timers/alarms. it could probably play games but that's not something they went into in the book..desktops and frisbees and balls are more suited for games than a pda. i'm sure it could also play music with it's magically unlimited storage and audio output capabilities. they didn't mention connectivity or video but add those in and you could have a communicator that should be able to talk to anyone in the world regardless of language with a video display. something that small would probably be cheap once it's developed and the facilities to build it made. so we should all have one. maybe we'll have a trustworthy government in a decade or so when this is done so we could throw in GPS for security and replace our ID cards and credit cards. then there's only an eyebrow piercing version that shoots video and sound right into your eyes and ears (yet doesn't cause cancer, or cancer is cured/regeneration) then neural implants, robots, the matrix, armageddon, welcome back jesus, fin.
i think the ideal solution would be if we would all start using www.fairtunes.com and sending donations to the artists we listen to, and once the artists have enough money to sustain themselves making music without the industry's paycheck, they can start giving away their music on their website..and we've gotta support these free artists even more so they'll stay on that track. they could still sell cd's through the industry if the industry will accept them giving away music as well.
i had also imagined something like a winamp plugin that would track all the songs you listened to and make a division of donations report to send with your 20 bucks a month to fairtunes.
encryption and all this stuff preventing people from copying music will ultimately fail..people will protest and stop buying music altogether if the industry attempts to pass that. and there will always be ways to bypass it, if it comes out of my speakers i can record it unencrypted and redistribute that.
oh ya and bush shouldn't be in the white house www.michaelmoore.com read the book..take action
=)
remember don't use your cell phone on airplanes
i think that people have a drive to be creative because in creating, we are adding diversity to the universe, which seems to be the purpose of it all. but we want others to acknowledge and use our creation, we want props, we want chicks. and so the way you get people to use it, besides offering innovation, is to give it to people for less than the cost of others or the ultimate undercut, for free. that's simple market competition. i think that most of us who love to make software realize that money is just something we gather to get by, but what is most important in the grand scheme of things is making something that people will use and enjoy so your name will be remembered forever =) besides it'll just get pirated if you try and charge for it anyways =P
(=MintyGreenCow=) [grammar? punctuation?]
i think that bioengineered stuffs is any company's perogative but if it's going into food supplies of ourselves or our animals then there may be a problem. there may not be also i can imagine that it may be possible to make foods healthier than what has managed to come out of nature alone, but i think that the industry may be more interested in foodstuffs that cost less through reduced pesticides and patents so every seed is licensed. an important point is that for testing of a food the biotech industry had some 30 rats eating their bioengineered stuff for 90 days (this is supposed to adequately guage if humans can live off of it) and they said that the rats came out fine so it was safe for humans. besides the inadequate test they also straight lied about the results as many of the male rats developed cancerous cysts. sorry i can't provide some more definite coverage but what should be obvious is that the FDA is not entirely in control of regulation of food..the biotech has lots of money and power and they've used it to prevent labeling to allow us to decide so they can use it to work the testing and approval how they want (as the meat industry has) and look at how they're putting these farms next to family farms that don't license their seeds and there is some seed spread from wind or whatever and they sue the family farmer for growing unlicensed seed..they've sued hundreds of farmers in the past 2 years and it's obvious that they want complete control of seeds..like no more non-genetically modified licensed seeds. that's just evil! and it's like the polluters getting paid for polluting. oi i wouldn't mind gm if it was really tested and safe and there was always a non-gm alternative everything clearly labeled.
This is the beggining of our end..after coming home from the protests at the DNC I saw a picture of a row of stern faced riot police that I thought looked kinda like robots..of course I had seen the police at the convention and while many are very robotic, most still have common sense. Robots don't have such a luxury..robots have only code, a robot could easily have common sense programmed, but that's all in the eye of the beholder..my idea of common sense would include the inability to kill anything..but what that would boil down to is including limitations on what you can do with it..which those in command of the robots wouldn't want..they think they have enough sense to not have the robots be doing something which they shouldn't be doing..but nay..here's the scenario.. At the 2004 convention the protests have gotten larger, more people see that corporations are taking control of the system..bending it to their financial interests. They must maintain their control and that means making sure we have a democratic or republican president since they have so much influence over those two and have continually instilled the idea in the public that voting any other way is throwing away your vote..pretty much everyone is displeased but they'll always choose the lesser of the two evils..but the protesters are trying to tell people differently..that it may be unlikely that voting for anyone else will win, but only by voting for that third party can you start to build the support so that for each election that follows the percentage will grow. So that's bad for the big businesses who wouldn't want to loose any of the grip around the neck of us politics and thus the world..and now we have the technology to build robots to use as riot police..perfect..there can be as many of these bots as people..and the best thing, is that if they so desire, they can have an unlimited amount of force..instantly subdue crowds..make up an excuse later 'there looked to be a bomb' everyone knows that it's fake, an excuse..but nobody can contest it..so everyone is afraid..nobody will rebel..4 years later they're in visible distance of every public area on soil..infrared included can even see through walls into your home (that technology is already legal and used in california) I may sound orwellian, but trust me, I'm psychic..I have seen what the future can be..act now Vote Nader vote period..send letters to congress..don't just sit here and do nothing about it and think that you'll know if it's getting worse and you'll do something then. Don't think that I'm just a tree huggin hippie and you'd be glad to see all the protesters like me thrown in jail..because by the time they get to what you care about, it'll be too late to protest. They're charging people with conspiracy to commit a felony for riding bikes out there..I saw over 40 people lined up to be arrested for that. Robots getting hacked isn't the problem, the current controllers have worse things in mind than what anyone at 2600 would do. Thanks for reading! -GreenCow =)
hmm, mebe instead of using lasers ala starwars we could just have little intelligent bomb diffusers flying about disabling any warhead which happens to fly around up there..course nuclear subs/cruise missles are the bigger problem now
I believe more of what we have now is improvements to our ability to access information and to communicate..in the past 10 years we have gained the ability to exchange ideas with almost everyone on Earth instantly..not everyone has a computer but almost everyone has access to one through libraries and schools. It's not a substantial difference for those who choose not to use it, but such level of communication and accessability is what leads into the next 10 years, where the fruits of our developments start to come forth..everyones lives will either be made perfect or we will destroy ourselves, when the potential for either becomes so easy, then one of them is bound to happen.