I hope they isolate these sheep from other sheep populations. If the diseases can adapt to attack the human organs in the sheep environment, then we've potentially got a very large set of new diseases waiting to trickle in to the human population as they adapt to the new organs.
I believe there's already been at least one fictional book on this topic already. Ah, here it is.
For those who haven't checked it out recently, the new Dr. Who has been a wonderfully creepy, charming and clever British fantasy/"sci-fi" show. It constantly transcends the borders between being powerfully authentic in a moment, breaking/mocking convention (many that it invented), and being surprisingly authentic in its morality and complications. Not complicated in the usual soap-opera way either - but in the real sense of exploring the unknown in wild new ways. Sure - it bullshits on its way to tell a story, but even its bullshit is more authentic than most "sci-fi".
Check it out, if you have time for a new minor curiosity in your life.
I was the same way in the 90's. I found the wave of impressive metal tunes rather impressive, almost nourishing. The emotional content was almost meaningless - but the intricacy and drive behind the chords made up for the annoyance with the manipulative and occasionally insipid emotional content of the songs.
It's hard to find music that holds a lot of interesting 'content' per second of sound. Perhaps in a signal-to-noise ratio, where crooning voices or cheap noise effects, metal just held the greatest signal for what I was listening for. Later, I found fast ska and electronic music of various sorts to hold even more of that same value, with less of the cheap emotion of metal.
Nowadays, my time spent listening to actual music is very little, but when I do, it is dominated by highly creative video game remixes. I find that the video game remix community consistently outperforms most other music both in terms of variety and interest per minute spent listening. But really, I don't listen to much music, when I can be listening to a nice science podcast, BBC documentary, or just considering my own thoughts in this short, wonderful little life I have.
Don't get me wrong - I like the idea, and think it could work really well for the environments that will support Firefox across its (potentially unlimited) lifetime, but it seems to greatly overlap with javascript/flash. Each is practically limited to either specialist uses, or else work as least-common-denominator products for the potential Firefox environments. That means a lot of sprite games with simple interactions, graph and UI effects in popularized widgets, web portal software, and even the occasional spyware exploit finding a way to mark a user's trail. There will be ports of simple software from other environments, but limited interaction with the outside environment (by design), being chained to a time-limited browser session, and lack of the easy ability to really exploit the running environment will severely limit what toys and tools can really be created.
That's why I've taken a liking to Eclipse recently - it takes a nice set of the fast-development architecture of java development, and allows them to be used by C/C++, Python, and others cross-platform. Has anyone started working on a really nice integration of Eclipse into a Firefox plugin?
Yes, and I noted that in my post. However, like a reporter asking an old question at a press conference - there is importance to forcing the question on something so important to the decisions of so many. The price is staggeringly high - he should hear that, and take that message, at least, back to his colleagues once again. I expect the canned response all the same.
I understand the strategy of never announcing price drops until they're imminent, but the PS3 is not even on many people's radar at the moment, because of the staggering price. The Neo Geo consumer hardware followed a similar price model. Are you even considering price drops on the PS3 hardware?
At this point, I have to ask: Is Jack Thomson a real crazy person, or is he some cleverly created foil? The man acts like a fictional villain, trying to transparently conflate religion and his own fevered obsessions, and then trying to say that this gives him legal justification for his own insanity, insisting that the fact that he hasn't been completely stopped yet is proof.
I do understand that people really can be this crazy, and worse, but there just seems to be an air of even more blatant unreality at this point in his insanity.
Visual ability = muscle control, fed by muscle strength. The interesting thing is that by using muscles, and nerves to control muscles, you increase the strength of the muscles, and reinforce the nerve pathways for that control. Yes, it doesn't change the lens like a laser shattering/reshaping of the lens would do, but it is an improvement in eyesight. So, yeah eyesight != visual ability, but there still seems to be a strong relation, in terms of use improving function in certain circumstances.
It has been discovered recently that virtually all food products known to mankind contain either fat-soluble vitamins or other compounds shown to build up and eventually damage the organs that process them when consumed to extreme excess. Even water-soluble vitamins and yet other compounds have been shown to dilute blood, deplete salts, and otherwise wear down the various organs they come in contact with in extreme amounts.
Moreover, it has been shown that virtually all physical objects are toxic in these same regards. Air in too high or low concentrations is extremely toxic. Even completely filtered air has been shown to be linked to negative effects on the immune system, and thus even the cleanest living ideals can be considered toxic!
Furthermore, even non-physical things can be considered toxic - most ideas taken to extreme have been shown to have negative physical consequences for the holders of these ideas. From peace extremists, to defense extremists, to health extremists, to even low-stress extremists, virtually all philosophies and ideas can be shown to be completely toxic in large doses.
No on the hunting one, no on the coaching one, no on the paranormal investigator one (I'm actually a member of the James Randi Education Foundation, almost the opposite, actually). I also know of a Ryan Fenton who is a recent marketing graduate (his mother accidentally emailed me a few times), and a Ryan Fenton who lives in England and was a computer science student at the same time I was.
Yes on the Sketch-Fighter comment, and yes on the resume, though that's several years out of date (I should really update that), and yes, I currently live in Winter Haven, Fl.
I'm not really nervous about others being anonymous - I just want to stand against a society where someone can't unmask themselves for fear of doing even common things. I don't want a place where anonymity is expected and required in order to be free. I still want the ability - just not the requirement. As I said, I don't want to live most of my online life under a false identity.
Yes, defending your own brand of craziness from the craziness of others is sometimes important, and for that reason and many others, anonymity can be very important in a civilized society. But I think it is somewhat overused on the internet.
The other half of the anonymity consideration though is that when everyone gets used to only having 'full' freedom when cloaked from the sight of others, they begin to accept a greater lack of freedom in their 'real' lives. That's why I don't choose anonymity whenever I can - I want my mistakes to be my own, and when I discuss, for instance, digital freedoms, I don't want to hide behind the ubiquitous pseudonyms we've all grown so used to while doing so.
I don't want to 'get away' with looking into for 'bad things' - I want REAL people to be free to do what they want. Of course, I, like everyone else, have some things I'm not going to disclose, and would like to have anonymity available - but I'd much rather push for less need to hide things, rather than disappear behind a fake name most of my online life.
If the grand majority of the 'stuff' in existence around the universe is matter that would be somewhat alien to our range of experiences, could this have an effect on inter-galactic travel? Would what we think it is so far be matter we'd have to worry about hitting and being damaged by at very high speeds?
Is it dangerous? Would it be inert enough that it would be safe for life to come in physical contact with it?
Could it be chemically interesting? Would the interactions with our environemnts' regular organic/metallic molecules theoretically lead to some new reactions or properties difficult to achieve otherwise?
Could it be used in manufacturing or packaging or similar industrial uses if contained? Can it be cheaply collected, once space travel is already assumed as an option?
It just doesn't work that way, folks. Unless Microsoft's new format somehow involves the creation of time-traveling assassins to retroactively prevent its creation, the.JPG file format will continue to exist.
Before the more libertarian posters start chewing up the teachers' unions (not that I'd disagree), I'd like to ask the question: What level of respect do teachers deserve, and in what manner should we as a society ensure they get that respect?
There is a job to be done, a job some would consider a somewhat sacred task: Ensuring that an entire generation can learn and grow in the best way we know how to do it. That is not an easy task.
We currently have a very limited number of people put into that formal role, and they collectively are not doing what we would consider an acceptable job at it. What should our response be? If our response is to punish and cut resources from that role in general one way or another, then we will be left with even fewer people to fill that role, and those that are left will have an even harder job to do. More than that, the level of respect for these teachers will continue to fall. This isn't such a bad thing, if collapse of such a system is an acceptable result, except that there will be much of an entire generation of children in the lurch.
The recent response to this issue is to push for very strict testing as a way to punish the teachers with the weakest 'performance'. That does improve the measured response, but it has also changed the way we measure the result. I would assert that by doing this, we have left behind the idea that we are trying to truly teach a generation the best way we can, but instead have minimized what we teach in order to assure high scores on a system we invent for ourselves, all in an effort to find someone to punish.
So, is this the best way to get the job done? Is this the way we respect our children's need for education, and the people who are put into the role of opening doors for the children?
"It's not clear to me that Nintendo gives a s*** about games as an art form."
Listen - I love insult comics. But look at you - stringing together accusations and a couple expletives and acting like you gave Nintendo a thrashing? Hmph - it's clear to me, you don't give a s*** about insulting as an art form.
Go listen to some Lisa Lampanelli, and THEN try it again, you miserable excuse for console troll.
Ryan Fenton
P.S. As you may have noticed, though I do like my insult comics, I personally suck quite badly at the game myself. You should see me in traffic - a dejected 'dude, you suck' is about at far as I can manage. Just saw the insult, and thought I'd give Lisa Lampanelli a plug.
Don't be so afraid of complexity - Slashdotters make fun of themselves for diving into things uneducated (not reading the articles, not RTFM), but really, the only way to cope with such an informationaly complex landscape such as computing is to sometimes just be willing to go unprepared and be willing to make mistakes, and to ask stupid questions.
Not so much dare to be stupid, but rather the Socratic, don't be afraid of exposing your own ignorance - don't lose your opportunity to learn by merely being embarrassed of people thinking you dumb while you take your first few steps in a new landscape.
But do take notes and research the small topics you are uncertain of after your first adventure into to the topic. Perhaps you'll need to learn a bit about XML/XSL, perhaps you'll need to find out the anatomy of a nerve cell to understand some explanations. If nothing else though - get into it because it is a fun adventure and a lot of cool stuff to learn.
This sounds REALLY cool. Even if all it amounts to is a set of computationally-expensive toys, it's still the basis for being able to boil down the essentials and costs of self-learning systems. That, and perhaps the stepping stone to being able to have the hitchhiker-like "real people personalities".
Then, of course, there's always the dream of eventually being able to really 'get into the code' and debug it from the inside, leading to the soviet joke where "the code debugs you."
The fine was nothing, considering the scope of the industries involved. But the air-time for independent broadcasters should be a cool twist.
At the very least, it'll be fascinating to hear how the broadcasters will transition to the 'punishment' broadcasts...
"This is wacky bob and the fizz signing off - up next, it's a half-hour of something we don't want you to hear, and we don't get paid for. So, um, enjoy!"
Aren't the processes of indexing servers, and the exclusive right to make copies of information inherently in conflict? Same thing with a system that by default allows anyone to share any information publicly, like the phone system, open public speech, or, in this case, the Internet. I don't think the 'copy right' was originally intended to apply beyond books and blueprints anyway, but the way it has grown, I don't know how one would get a representative view of our world without breaking copy rights along the way in at least many small ways.
That's why there have classically been exceptions allowed for sampling information, why one case of illegal copying haven't been used to call every tangential person involved in the copy from being punished, and that the original intent of copyrights, to 'promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", has classically been the focus, rather than just blindly punishing people, who naturally tend to share information.
Had I the choice, I would have dubbed it 'antistoogeisaur' ("Why-I-oughta... Ooch, my poor hand!")
I wonder if the bulls had any trouble with competition and eye loss during mating season.
Ryan Fenton
Re:Artificial intelligence and intellectual proper
on
Marvin Minsky On AI
·
· Score: 1
Well, actually, _I_ would find the concept of ownership of artificial intelligences to be a rather bad thing in terms of having a consistent set of ethics, and in terms of general dislike such uses of 'ownership' over ideas in terms of a master owning a slave - the comment was based on the thought that an artificial intelligence just learning of itself might not have to agree, and may not see such its state as a bad thing - after all, as you suggest, perhaps its descendants can take advantage of these same concepts, and the intelligence may see this as an equitable tradeoff, or just the cost of being able to exist in its current state.
Slashdot Mirror
I hope they isolate these sheep from other sheep populations. If the diseases can adapt to attack the human organs in the sheep environment, then we've potentially got a very large set of new diseases waiting to trickle in to the human population as they adapt to the new organs.
I believe there's already been at least one fictional book on this topic already. Ah, here it is.
Ryan Fenton
For those who haven't checked it out recently, the new Dr. Who has been a wonderfully creepy, charming and clever British fantasy/"sci-fi" show. It constantly transcends the borders between being powerfully authentic in a moment, breaking/mocking convention (many that it invented), and being surprisingly authentic in its morality and complications. Not complicated in the usual soap-opera way either - but in the real sense of exploring the unknown in wild new ways. Sure - it bullshits on its way to tell a story, but even its bullshit is more authentic than most "sci-fi".
Check it out, if you have time for a new minor curiosity in your life.
Ryan Fenton
It was just before he was fired, he finally realized the horrible truth - he loved Big Sister.
And a boot descended over mankind's face, forever.
Ryan Fenton
I was the same way in the 90's. I found the wave of impressive metal tunes rather impressive, almost nourishing. The emotional content was almost meaningless - but the intricacy and drive behind the chords made up for the annoyance with the manipulative and occasionally insipid emotional content of the songs.
It's hard to find music that holds a lot of interesting 'content' per second of sound. Perhaps in a signal-to-noise ratio, where crooning voices or cheap noise effects, metal just held the greatest signal for what I was listening for. Later, I found fast ska and electronic music of various sorts to hold even more of that same value, with less of the cheap emotion of metal.
Nowadays, my time spent listening to actual music is very little, but when I do, it is dominated by highly creative video game remixes. I find that the video game remix community consistently outperforms most other music both in terms of variety and interest per minute spent listening. But really, I don't listen to much music, when I can be listening to a nice science podcast, BBC documentary, or just considering my own thoughts in this short, wonderful little life I have.
Ryan Fenton
Don't get me wrong - I like the idea, and think it could work really well for the environments that will support Firefox across its (potentially unlimited) lifetime, but it seems to greatly overlap with javascript/flash. Each is practically limited to either specialist uses, or else work as least-common-denominator products for the potential Firefox environments. That means a lot of sprite games with simple interactions, graph and UI effects in popularized widgets, web portal software, and even the occasional spyware exploit finding a way to mark a user's trail. There will be ports of simple software from other environments, but limited interaction with the outside environment (by design), being chained to a time-limited browser session, and lack of the easy ability to really exploit the running environment will severely limit what toys and tools can really be created.
That's why I've taken a liking to Eclipse recently - it takes a nice set of the fast-development architecture of java development, and allows them to be used by C/C++, Python, and others cross-platform. Has anyone started working on a really nice integration of Eclipse into a Firefox plugin?
Ryan Fenton
A car, where if you shoot the fuel tank (when full), it actually WILL explode!
Hollywood has been vindicated! Well, except for the whole fireball part.
Ryan Fenton
Yes, and I noted that in my post. However, like a reporter asking an old question at a press conference - there is importance to forcing the question on something so important to the decisions of so many. The price is staggeringly high - he should hear that, and take that message, at least, back to his colleagues once again. I expect the canned response all the same.
Ryan Fenton
I understand the strategy of never announcing price drops until they're imminent, but the PS3 is not even on many people's radar at the moment, because of the staggering price. The Neo Geo consumer hardware followed a similar price model. Are you even considering price drops on the PS3 hardware?
Ryan Fenton
At this point, I have to ask: Is Jack Thomson a real crazy person, or is he some cleverly created foil? The man acts like a fictional villain, trying to transparently conflate religion and his own fevered obsessions, and then trying to say that this gives him legal justification for his own insanity, insisting that the fact that he hasn't been completely stopped yet is proof.
I do understand that people really can be this crazy, and worse, but there just seems to be an air of even more blatant unreality at this point in his insanity.
Ryan Fenton
Visual ability = muscle control, fed by muscle strength. The interesting thing is that by using muscles, and nerves to control muscles, you increase the strength of the muscles, and reinforce the nerve pathways for that control. Yes, it doesn't change the lens like a laser shattering/reshaping of the lens would do, but it is an improvement in eyesight. So, yeah eyesight != visual ability, but there still seems to be a strong relation, in terms of use improving function in certain circumstances.
Ryan Fenton
This just in: Virtually all food is toxic.
It has been discovered recently that virtually all food products known to mankind contain either fat-soluble vitamins or other compounds shown to build up and eventually damage the organs that process them when consumed to extreme excess. Even water-soluble vitamins and yet other compounds have been shown to dilute blood, deplete salts, and otherwise wear down the various organs they come in contact with in extreme amounts.
Moreover, it has been shown that virtually all physical objects are toxic in these same regards. Air in too high or low concentrations is extremely toxic. Even completely filtered air has been shown to be linked to negative effects on the immune system, and thus even the cleanest living ideals can be considered toxic!
Furthermore, even non-physical things can be considered toxic - most ideas taken to extreme have been shown to have negative physical consequences for the holders of these ideas. From peace extremists, to defense extremists, to health extremists, to even low-stress extremists, virtually all philosophies and ideas can be shown to be completely toxic in large doses.
Ryan Fenton
No on the hunting one, no on the coaching one, no on the paranormal investigator one (I'm actually a member of the James Randi Education Foundation, almost the opposite, actually). I also know of a Ryan Fenton who is a recent marketing graduate (his mother accidentally emailed me a few times), and a Ryan Fenton who lives in England and was a computer science student at the same time I was.
Yes on the Sketch-Fighter comment, and yes on the resume, though that's several years out of date (I should really update that), and yes, I currently live in Winter Haven, Fl.
I'm not really nervous about others being anonymous - I just want to stand against a society where someone can't unmask themselves for fear of doing even common things. I don't want a place where anonymity is expected and required in order to be free. I still want the ability - just not the requirement. As I said, I don't want to live most of my online life under a false identity.
Ryan Fenton
Yes, defending your own brand of craziness from the craziness of others is sometimes important, and for that reason and many others, anonymity can be very important in a civilized society. But I think it is somewhat overused on the internet.
The other half of the anonymity consideration though is that when everyone gets used to only having 'full' freedom when cloaked from the sight of others, they begin to accept a greater lack of freedom in their 'real' lives. That's why I don't choose anonymity whenever I can - I want my mistakes to be my own, and when I discuss, for instance, digital freedoms, I don't want to hide behind the ubiquitous pseudonyms we've all grown so used to while doing so.
I don't want to 'get away' with looking into for 'bad things' - I want REAL people to be free to do what they want. Of course, I, like everyone else, have some things I'm not going to disclose, and would like to have anonymity available - but I'd much rather push for less need to hide things, rather than disappear behind a fake name most of my online life.
Ryan Fenton
Some questions that spring to mind:
If the grand majority of the 'stuff' in existence around the universe is matter that would be somewhat alien to our range of experiences, could this have an effect on inter-galactic travel? Would what we think it is so far be matter we'd have to worry about hitting and being damaged by at very high speeds?
Is it dangerous? Would it be inert enough that it would be safe for life to come in physical contact with it?
Could it be chemically interesting? Would the interactions with our environemnts' regular organic/metallic molecules theoretically lead to some new reactions or properties difficult to achieve otherwise?
Could it be used in manufacturing or packaging or similar industrial uses if contained? Can it be cheaply collected, once space travel is already assumed as an option?
Ryan Fenton
"Hey - will you guys quiet down? I can barely hear myself think!"
Ryan Fenton
It just doesn't work that way, folks. Unless Microsoft's new format somehow involves the creation of time-traveling assassins to retroactively prevent its creation, the .JPG file format will continue to exist.
Ryan Fenton
Before the more libertarian posters start chewing up the teachers' unions (not that I'd disagree), I'd like to ask the question: What level of respect do teachers deserve, and in what manner should we as a society ensure they get that respect?
There is a job to be done, a job some would consider a somewhat sacred task: Ensuring that an entire generation can learn and grow in the best way we know how to do it. That is not an easy task.
We currently have a very limited number of people put into that formal role, and they collectively are not doing what we would consider an acceptable job at it. What should our response be? If our response is to punish and cut resources from that role in general one way or another, then we will be left with even fewer people to fill that role, and those that are left will have an even harder job to do. More than that, the level of respect for these teachers will continue to fall. This isn't such a bad thing, if collapse of such a system is an acceptable result, except that there will be much of an entire generation of children in the lurch.
The recent response to this issue is to push for very strict testing as a way to punish the teachers with the weakest 'performance'. That does improve the measured response, but it has also changed the way we measure the result. I would assert that by doing this, we have left behind the idea that we are trying to truly teach a generation the best way we can, but instead have minimized what we teach in order to assure high scores on a system we invent for ourselves, all in an effort to find someone to punish.
So, is this the best way to get the job done? Is this the way we respect our children's need for education, and the people who are put into the role of opening doors for the children?
Ryan Fenton
"It's not clear to me that Nintendo gives a s*** about games as an art form."
Listen - I love insult comics. But look at you - stringing together accusations and a couple expletives and acting like you gave Nintendo a thrashing? Hmph - it's clear to me, you don't give a s*** about insulting as an art form.
Go listen to some Lisa Lampanelli, and THEN try it again, you miserable excuse for console troll.
Ryan Fenton
P.S. As you may have noticed, though I do like my insult comics, I personally suck quite badly at the game myself. You should see me in traffic - a dejected 'dude, you suck' is about at far as I can manage. Just saw the insult, and thought I'd give Lisa Lampanelli a plug.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon...
Still very much applies today.
Ryan Fenton
Don't be so afraid of complexity - Slashdotters make fun of themselves for diving into things uneducated (not reading the articles, not RTFM), but really, the only way to cope with such an informationaly complex landscape such as computing is to sometimes just be willing to go unprepared and be willing to make mistakes, and to ask stupid questions.
Not so much dare to be stupid, but rather the Socratic, don't be afraid of exposing your own ignorance - don't lose your opportunity to learn by merely being embarrassed of people thinking you dumb while you take your first few steps in a new landscape.
But do take notes and research the small topics you are uncertain of after your first adventure into to the topic. Perhaps you'll need to learn a bit about XML/XSL, perhaps you'll need to find out the anatomy of a nerve cell to understand some explanations. If nothing else though - get into it because it is a fun adventure and a lot of cool stuff to learn.
Ryan Fenton
This sounds REALLY cool. Even if all it amounts to is a set of computationally-expensive toys, it's still the basis for being able to boil down the essentials and costs of self-learning systems. That, and perhaps the stepping stone to being able to have the hitchhiker-like "real people personalities".
Then, of course, there's always the dream of eventually being able to really 'get into the code' and debug it from the inside, leading to the soviet joke where "the code debugs you."
Ryan Fenton
The fine was nothing, considering the scope of the industries involved. But the air-time for independent broadcasters should be a cool twist.
At the very least, it'll be fascinating to hear how the broadcasters will transition to the 'punishment' broadcasts...
"This is wacky bob and the fizz signing off - up next, it's a half-hour of something we don't want you to hear, and we don't get paid for. So, um, enjoy!"
Ryan Fenton
Aren't the processes of indexing servers, and the exclusive right to make copies of information inherently in conflict? Same thing with a system that by default allows anyone to share any information publicly, like the phone system, open public speech, or, in this case, the Internet. I don't think the 'copy right' was originally intended to apply beyond books and blueprints anyway, but the way it has grown, I don't know how one would get a representative view of our world without breaking copy rights along the way in at least many small ways.
That's why there have classically been exceptions allowed for sampling information, why one case of illegal copying haven't been used to call every tangential person involved in the copy from being punished, and that the original intent of copyrights, to 'promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", has classically been the focus, rather than just blindly punishing people, who naturally tend to share information.
Ryan Fenton
Had I the choice, I would have dubbed it 'antistoogeisaur' ("Why-I-oughta... Ooch, my poor hand!")
I wonder if the bulls had any trouble with competition and eye loss during mating season.
Ryan Fenton
Well, actually, _I_ would find the concept of ownership of artificial intelligences to be a rather bad thing in terms of having a consistent set of ethics, and in terms of general dislike such uses of 'ownership' over ideas in terms of a master owning a slave - the comment was based on the thought that an artificial intelligence just learning of itself might not have to agree, and may not see such its state as a bad thing - after all, as you suggest, perhaps its descendants can take advantage of these same concepts, and the intelligence may see this as an equitable tradeoff, or just the cost of being able to exist in its current state.
Ryan Fenton