Great interview. Probably the best I've ever read on Slashdot (and I'll definitely come back eventually to read everything I glazed over). Does anyone else think it's strange that the leading AI researcher in the world is a self described "mental patient?" I think it's pretty cool.
I especially liked this line:
It may be that future generations come to view what we call "consciousness" the same way we see the Earth at the center of Ptolemy's solar system, as an anthropocentric illusion useful for explaining the unexplainable. Perhaps after a new Copernicus pulls the wool from our eyes, the central role of "consciousness" in intelligence will move to the periphery of our knowledge system, if not disappear entirely.
Rock on. Even if we do have souls, they probably don't affect us at all.
He was the antithesis of the Wizards in attitude yet had tremendous power that you get the feeling was only hinted at
Good point about the Wizards vs Tom, although Tolkien comes right out and says Tom is an extremely powerful being. I think Tom could have worked into the story just fine if he had more influence on the plot/characters or less time spent on him and his realm.
Also, I don't think that second-guessing Tolkien is something that I'd condone.
No matter how brilliant, every artists in every medium has his weak moments. Personally, I find it hard to know if I like something objectively unless I can see at least a few flaws in it.
I realize that it has nothing to do with the plot of the book
Tom actually does advance the plot a bit. *SPOILER WARNING*
The hobbits flee into the forest, get caught, and Tom frees them. I would have been fine with that being in the book/movie, but Tolkein drags it on for far too many pages afterwards. You're right that we differ on how we see books. I think any subject given a large number of pages should have significant influence on the plot or character development. Tolkein has already set up the world nicely with an entire book (The Hobbit) and doesn't need to introduce it again. I think it should have been edited out.
I was extremely glad they cut out the Tom Bombadil scenes from the book. It was the most boring and meaningless section of the entire trilogy and it would have died on screen. Seeing the hobbits get sucked in by the trees would be neat, but I can live without that.
I think I'll rent Fellowship when it comes out in August and then buy it in November. It's a great movie and one of the best book to movie adaptations I've ever seen.
In Philadelphia, venues like the Grape Street Pub do much more than promote their own shows. They are trying to build a thriving original music scene in philly, especially with the compilations they sell and put out on the web.
Local music magazines are also much better at promoting local musicians to the people who will actually come out to see them. Origivation is a good example for Philadelphia.
"You'd only need 4 "fingers" to do a guitar and maybe a motor to move them up and down the fretboard"
I think it would be easier to get the robot to play open chords with 6 "fingers" than to play barred chords with 4.
The ultimate test would be to have the ukelele play with a robotic drummer and put a robotic voice over top of it (like Dr. Sbaitso or the voice from OK Computer)
Awesome prank. Remember that "Bill Gates will send you $1000 if you forward this..." email that was sent around extensively a few years ago? My friend sent it to me and everyone he knew one day, because he claimed "It was worth his time just in case it was true."
I modified my header information and sent him a nice form letter thanking him for participating in Microsoft's email tracking software beta and told him to send a self addressed stamped envelope to Microsoft so he could get his $1000 check. I gave him an address and a confirmation number, too. I didn't tell him about it for 2 years and finally one day he brought the subject up. The sucker had sent the self addressed stamped envelope and Microsoft just sent it back to him. He said he figured "it was worth the 66 cents in case it was true". haha.
Re:Smart Move for Ebay, bad for paypal people.
on
Ebay buys PayPal
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Who else can see paypal becoming a "have money sent to you, but only be allowed to be spent on ebay" type of service?
I do not. If paypal becomes the universal standard for person to person financial transactions online, they stand to make much more money than if they only sold "ebay bucks."
His point is that nationwide more white wealthy families with money to spend identify with the Smarts more than they do with the Pattersons. The concern for Alexis Patterson is only centered in Milwaukee because she is black, and people outside the Milwaukee area wouldn't care about her. (I believe this is what Katz is trying to say)
Personally, I think the story of Elizabeth Smart's disappearence has at least something to do with the publicity it has received. Not many kidnappings occur with a definite witness (the sister) and in the home while the entire family is there.
I agree with John Katz that media is made up of shallow whores with more bias in their story selection than their actual content.
"Currently 1000 users == 1000 streams. An intelligent switch looks at the content, says broadcast one stream to the 1000 users. Sounds simple. Not, though. Check articles on "Layer 4" switches."
I thought you weren't supposed to cross the streams?
Colour will also help features that will make the notes harder to fake.
How does changing the color hurt counterfeiters? Before, you could print any denomination with your ink, but if they change the colors you'll probably only want to print one type and stick with it. That doesn't sound like a huge setback to me, since I hear the margin is pretty high from cost to sale of counterfeit money.
1. New PC games cost $50. As time goes on, their retail price drops significantly. CDs keep their value (not resale value, but re-releases) for a much longer period time, somewhere settling around the $13.00 range even for CDs that are 20+ years old. In that sense, the record company can continue making revenue from them for years, whereas games stop selling completely after a short window of opportunity.
2. The average mainstream PC game costs much more to make then an album (I'm basing this off years of observing game development houses closing down all the time, and a relatively few number of bands/artists/record companies that have ever filed for bankruptcy). A bad game can put a company out of business. Artists at least have other revenue streams (live appearences, merchandising) so they aren't dependant on a single method of earning income. This is one reason why people feel worse about stealing video games than they do music.
3. If you visit many game forums and websites, you'll see plenty of complaints about the $50 price on most new games.
The other fact you need to face is the best way to secure employment is not through classifieds and monster.com, but personal contact with people in the field.
Very true, but don't count out monster. I got my current post-graduation job through monster (my employer found me) and I also secured 3 other interviews through them, including one with Blue Sky Studios of Ice Age fame. Didn't get that job, though heh.
How will they verify that a work I submit is my own? Can they ensure all material will be in the public domain? What is to stop me from submitting an unfamous, yet copyrighted peice of artwork?
People have been saying that here in the comments, but here is the description:
The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
A final installment in the series that began with "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is taken from the late author's previously unpublished personal files and features the same offbeat adventures of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and their companions.
I am a huge "Hitchhiker's Guide" fan and have read all the previous books (most recently all together in the "Ultimate" version). The ending was one of the best of any series I have ever read and to try and tack anything anything else on top of that would ruin the closure for me.
Slashdot Mirror
I just posted the letter I sent to my representative.
Who's saner? A.L.I.C.E. or Dr. Wallace?
Great interview. Probably the best I've ever read on Slashdot (and I'll definitely come back eventually to read everything I glazed over). Does anyone else think it's strange that the leading AI researcher in the world is a self described "mental patient?" I think it's pretty cool.
I especially liked this line:
It may be that future generations come to view what we call "consciousness" the same way we see the Earth at the center of Ptolemy's solar system, as an anthropocentric illusion useful for explaining the unexplainable. Perhaps after a new Copernicus pulls the wool from our eyes, the central role of "consciousness" in intelligence will move to the periphery of our knowledge system, if not disappear entirely.
Rock on. Even if we do have souls, they probably don't affect us at all.
It is time for everyone to start faxing their Congressmen. E-mail is too easy to ignore, and snailmail takes too long if it even gets there.
Contact your Congressman, although many don't have fax numbers on their website. You can always call.
He was the antithesis of the Wizards in attitude yet had tremendous power that you get the feeling was only hinted at
Good point about the Wizards vs Tom, although Tolkien comes right out and says Tom is an extremely powerful being. I think Tom could have worked into the story just fine if he had more influence on the plot/characters or less time spent on him and his realm.
Also, I don't think that second-guessing Tolkien is something that I'd condone.
No matter how brilliant, every artists in every medium has his weak moments. Personally, I find it hard to know if I like something objectively unless I can see at least a few flaws in it.
I realize that it has nothing to do with the plot of the book
Tom actually does advance the plot a bit. *SPOILER WARNING*
The hobbits flee into the forest, get caught, and Tom frees them. I would have been fine with that being in the book/movie, but Tolkein drags it on for far too many pages afterwards. You're right that we differ on how we see books. I think any subject given a large number of pages should have significant influence on the plot or character development. Tolkein has already set up the world nicely with an entire book (The Hobbit) and doesn't need to introduce it again. I think it should have been edited out.
I was extremely glad they cut out the Tom Bombadil scenes from the book. It was the most boring and meaningless section of the entire trilogy and it would have died on screen. Seeing the hobbits get sucked in by the trees would be neat, but I can live without that.
I think I'll rent Fellowship when it comes out in August and then buy it in November. It's a great movie and one of the best book to movie adaptations I've ever seen.
In Philadelphia, venues like the Grape Street Pub do much more than promote their own shows. They are trying to build a thriving original music scene in philly, especially with the compilations they sell and put out on the web.
Local music magazines are also much better at promoting local musicians to the people who will actually come out to see them. Origivation is a good example for Philadelphia.
Ben Garvey
Acoustic Rock : http://www.bengarvey.com
"You'd only need 4 "fingers" to do a guitar and maybe a motor to move them up and down the fretboard"
I think it would be easier to get the robot to play open chords with 6 "fingers" than to play barred chords with 4.
The ultimate test would be to have the ukelele play with a robotic drummer and put a robotic voice over top of it (like Dr. Sbaitso or the voice from OK Computer)
Awesome prank. Remember that "Bill Gates will send you $1000 if you forward this..." email that was sent around extensively a few years ago? My friend sent it to me and everyone he knew one day, because he claimed "It was worth his time just in case it was true."
I modified my header information and sent him a nice form letter thanking him for participating in Microsoft's email tracking software beta and told him to send a self addressed stamped envelope to Microsoft so he could get his $1000 check. I gave him an address and a confirmation number, too. I didn't tell him about it for 2 years and finally one day he brought the subject up. The sucker had sent the self addressed stamped envelope and Microsoft just sent it back to him. He said he figured "it was worth the 66 cents in case it was true". haha.
Who else can see paypal becoming a "have money sent to you, but only be allowed to be spent on ebay" type of service?
I do not. If paypal becomes the universal standard for person to person financial transactions online, they stand to make much more money than if they only sold "ebay bucks."
The insurance cost of having the actors climb around rocks for 10 minutes each episode is astounding.
His point is that nationwide more white wealthy families with money to spend identify with the Smarts more than they do with the Pattersons. The concern for Alexis Patterson is only centered in Milwaukee because she is black, and people outside the Milwaukee area wouldn't care about her. (I believe this is what Katz is trying to say)
Personally, I think the story of Elizabeth Smart's disappearence has at least something to do with the publicity it has received. Not many kidnappings occur with a definite witness (the sister) and in the home while the entire family is there.
I agree with John Katz that media is made up of shallow whores with more bias in their story selection than their actual content.
"Currently 1000 users == 1000 streams. An intelligent switch looks at the content, says broadcast one stream to the 1000 users. Sounds simple. Not, though. Check articles on "Layer 4" switches." I thought you weren't supposed to cross the streams?
Everyone knows you can make the statistics saw whatever you want them to. Many of the sightings were probably for the same alien encounter.
Colour will also help features that will make the notes harder to fake.
How does changing the color hurt counterfeiters? Before, you could print any denomination with your ink, but if they change the colors you'll probably only want to print one type and stick with it. That doesn't sound like a huge setback to me, since I hear the margin is pretty high from cost to sale of counterfeit money.
We'll see any real asteroid threats about 3 days sooner.
At least this opens the possibility that Lucas could redo Episode I.
How dare he ruin the series by making changes to it after it was released.
Ooh a new halflife patch!
Good point, but there is a difference.
1. New PC games cost $50. As time goes on, their retail price drops significantly. CDs keep their value (not resale value, but re-releases) for a much longer period time, somewhere settling around the $13.00 range even for CDs that are 20+ years old. In that sense, the record company can continue making revenue from them for years, whereas games stop selling completely after a short window of opportunity.
2. The average mainstream PC game costs much more to make then an album (I'm basing this off years of observing game development houses closing down all the time, and a relatively few number of bands/artists/record companies that have ever filed for bankruptcy). A bad game can put a company out of business. Artists at least have other revenue streams (live appearences, merchandising) so they aren't dependant on a single method of earning income. This is one reason why people feel worse about stealing video games than they do music.
3. If you visit many game forums and websites, you'll see plenty of complaints about the $50 price on most new games.
The other fact you need to face is the best way to secure employment is not through classifieds and monster.com, but personal contact with people in the field.
Very true, but don't count out monster. I got my current post-graduation job through monster (my employer found me) and I also secured 3 other interviews through them, including one with Blue Sky Studios of Ice Age fame. Didn't get that job, though heh.
(2 people = $8 tickets x 2, popcorn = $4, 2 drinks = $7, candy = $4 = 16 + 4 + 7 + 4 = $31 just for the movie experience).
Skip the snacks. $16 is a bit more reasonable. Do you really need popcorn, soda, and candy?
Also, seeing Yoda's big scene at home just can't be the same as experiencing it for the first time with a room full of people.
How will they verify that a work I submit is my own? Can they ensure all material will be in the public domain? What is to stop me from submitting an unfamous, yet copyrighted peice of artwork?
He's being sarcastic.
I am a huge "Hitchhiker's Guide" fan and have read all the previous books (most recently all together in the "Ultimate" version). The ending was one of the best of any series I have ever read and to try and tack anything anything else on top of that would ruin the closure for me.