According to every metastudy I've ever seen on the subject, while nutrition is important - as long as you're getting a minimum of basic staple foods, and not too much of some things - then you're generally at optimal diet.
Bodies cope with what they get, as long as they start off healthy. Get some organ damage, and yeah - low sodium diet becomes important. The body just gets stupid when it gets too much and runs out of place for something, like fat soluble vitamins or metals, and for some folks, sugars.
"Super foods" are a nice concept - but they almost never have a payoff worth the cost. The closest to a decent return are the simpler ones - oats, veggies, fruits, berries (take your pick) - but the fashionable over-specific ones tend to be single-study hype train events. Other effects end up largely negligible when looked into - for instance diet-based anti-oxidents don't tend to translate to preventing cell damage to a very large extent, other than taking the place of other foods.
Seeking general happiness and quality of life are "healthier" than trying to pick the perfect food.
But, I suppose if eating cockroach extract makes you happy - then cool for you. Just... mention what it is to folks BEFORE you offer it to anyone. And don't don't be terribly offended if people roll their eyes or just walk away when you explain that it is "cruelty free cockroach milk."
Slight clarification - the actual declaration is where there's no mention of algorithm. The silly article writer linking to the declaration does erroneously mention algorithm for some reason. Seems to happen a lot in science journalism the same way. Journalists are not paid enough to use accurate terms, I guess.
Yeah - I looked at the article. No mention of algorithm. Algorithms are too simple for human rights to apply to in almost all cases.
The summary is wrong - these folks are making an argument more about big data systems that let their data skew in ways that may end up with unethical results if used blindly.
And that's a fair point - it's also a point made in most Computer Ethics classes for decades now, as part of most computer science degree paths.
>Are you talking about the alt+Left or Right ? 'Because when I read "..denying them a voice..", my thoughts turn to what happens when a conservative is booked to speak at a university. Perhaps you are speaking generally?
Yeah - I'm speaking generally. It can theoretically apply on the left just as well on the right. It just happens to be easier to find in the right in our culture and recent history. That's also why I mentioned the era of 'yellow journalism' - yes, most of the insanity was on the newspapers in favor of the southern causes, but there were lots of cruel forms of populism around that era, and lots of celebrations of those sentiments all around.
The difference is that now, if you go to the alt-left side of things, that brand of cruel populism gets you rejected by the vast majority of folks. Relatively humorless images of torturing their enemies won't get you many friends. On the alt-right though, the same humorless sentiments have been the bread and butter of the community for years - the joy is in the cruelty, and it is mainstream. Not all applaud it, but it's not rejected on the right anymore, and it hasn't been for some time..
That's why it isn't really comedy. The aim isn't the same as the jokes you're used to with openly repeatable comedy. It's closer to the stupidest parts of grade school than proper jokes.
Have you ever listened to Rush Limbaugh? There's some odd sorts of laughs there - but most of the joy intended is not the laughing kind of joy - but the "oh, we really showed those fools what's what" kind of joy.
It's the same kind of joy you might get from hearing an MC really lay into another MC, when it isn't even really laughing material.
That same form of joy has come in the form of cruelty dominating the commenting landscape of Facebook and the like. Of drawing a picture of your opponent being tortured, of denying them a voice, of denying the group they belong to a voice. Of feeling like you're proving you're on the winning side.
It's all endorphins - but in this case, it's different than laughing humor.
We are currently ruled by some of the worst people of our nation.
Why? Because of joy.
"What? Joy?" You may ask. Yes - joy, the emotion of joy - that little element of discovering something that pleases you.
Americans discovered that amongst the boring moments of their lives, and amidst the confusing cycles of our politics, the thing that brought them the most joy, was the crude, often cruel mockery of difference.
It's not quite comedy, in the professional sense - even the most crude professional comedians would find this kind of humor career destroying. See Kathy Griffin to see what happens when one wonders into that territory.
But the conservative movement doesn't really have comedians - instead, they have a unique brand of cruelty that takes the place of open comedy.
It's not always about laughing - it's about joy, the joy of knowing how you are treating your enemy, the joy of cruelty, of punishing difference. At all levels, from online sharing, to the highest offices.
This isn't new - there were large amounts of this spread across newspapers in the era of 'yellow journalism' - it's actually kind of shocking to read some of the stuff around the civil war. And we're kind of returning to that state of political cruelty - cruelty ahead of everything else.
And that's what Trump represents more than anything else - cruelty in place of political strategy, cruelty in the guise of comedy, cruelty as the dominant force in a major political party. And cruelty called common sense and wisdom in our popular culture.
Think of all the worst things we've imagined about science.
Nature has done all those most horrible things on a scale millions of times larger already.
Nature kills millions of people with radiation each year.
Nature makes self-replicating killing machines each day.
Nature has groups killing sub-groups within a species for random non-reasons, leading to extinctions in each era of life.
All the worst-case scenarios science is accused of slippery-sloping down have happened with nature, and WILL happen with nature over time.
Science lets us pick and choose the parts of nature we want to see more of. Yeah - we're still stumbling on nasty notes as part of that remix - but the sound of science so far has been amazingly good so far overall.
I'd completely understand if what they were protesting is corporate manipulation of science - that's worthy of protest and debate. But protesting the science itself? As in, our foundational shared understanding of nature? Might as well protest language.
The definition still stands on its own, I'd say - if you're willing to say that harm through self-defense is a socially accepted minimal form of evil, just like many others we've improved over time as society has become more peaceful. That, or extend the definition to also include self-defense. I just don't find it parsimonious as part of my definition.
Also, note, that there's a distinction between evil and monstrous. Normal people do lots of little evil things in most societies with this definition- especially as children. This kind of evil isn't something that can be controlled in beings who who have to experience to learn, so much as minimized as being required or helpful as a system of interactions by a society.
That's why it's a decent definition for me - I find it the best match - but I can see how others might be motivated to only define evil by rare factors, to avoid calling 'normal' people's actions even infinitesimally evil. Usually because they just want evil to be something they don't like, and good to be something they like.
Not in most cultures. Most tend to define preventing harm to others as not a self gain, more of a selfless act. In cases where folks are 'defending themselves' for gain though... yeah, there's often some perceived evil intention there.
There's a few cultures, like Jains though where even self-defense isn't considered a complete excuse for harm.
It's usually a sliding scale - everyone has some encroachment into potential evil, and it takes a LOT to be considered unable to be part of most societies.
>Winning honestly at chess is evil by this definition, especially if it is a high-stakes game that will direct significant monetary sums and professional reputation to the winner. You would be intentionally causing a harm to your opponent to benefit yourself.
See: lack of actual harm. If you added perhaps using cruel tricks to give you an unfair advantage, then yeah - you're getting in the direction of evil. But just exchanging moves and winning doesn't connect those dots, for most cultures. I'm just attempting to match common sense for most cultures with this definition of evil.
If the bet were large enough to harm either party to a large extent, then the evil may be more in the act of setting up the bet, more than the game. Like, in many cultures there's stories of devil's contests - fiddling contests and the like aren't the immorality in those stories. It's in settings up the contest with the intent to likely harm.
I've found that the best definition of evil that applies across all culture and times is the following:
Intentionally harming others to benefit yourself.
Whether that benefit is emotional, resources, or a political cause, it's all in the direction of what most cultures would consider more and more evil.
Without harm, it's generally more mischief or taboo, and without any form of benefit from that harm, it's generally considered more madness/confusion or misunderstanding. Without intention, it's considered an accident, though blatant enough recklessness its own intention in many cases.
Discarding the intention to avoid evil, because it might make you more money is definitely going in the evil direction in my book at least.
Listen - "virtual reality" is nice as a concept - but it's the same as any simulation. Yes - you can add arbitrary 'immersion' by adding various kinds of haptics, biofeedback, etc. reflecting body state and the like, but it's still virtual reality with just keyboard/mouse lame headset.
It's all just what you want to add to it - but like with most simulations, the additional features tend to fade into the background once you acclimatize to them.
And no matter how 'good' you make the simulation, because it IS a simulation, there is always going to strong pressures to use shorthands for longer experiences, injecting an artifice into the medium as it evolves. Books do this, movies do this, radio did this - all expressive works do this.
I currently categorize virtual reality as a relatively shallow extension of regular computer simulations. It's not as shallow as say, 3D movies are to regular movies - but in the same sense as only needing say, a mouse pointer, or simple indicator of position you're controlling - the same would hold for Virtual Reality - perhaps a couple of dots contrasting well enough with the background to know what you'd interact with with your arms, or controller, or whatever.
You don't even really need the dots if you can have the interactions themselves convey whatever you were controlling in-game/utility.
Like, if you were just doing an interactive map program, you could follow smartphone logic, and just have hand movements to drag/zoom around that map. Same with an interactive movie theater app on no-interface mode. As long as you didn't expect everything to be a body simulation experience, there doesn't have to be any limitation - the headset is just a large-aspect virtual monitor for some uses.
Until they elect a gameshow host as president, start banning research, and screwing over everyone that doesn't kowtow.
I wonder how Trump is going to be remembered, once it isn't seen as important for half the population that he be seen as somehow respectable. In retrospect, most conservatives see George W. Bush as a big mistake... it'll be interesting to see how that pans out.
Why do we have to keep switching to these idiotic reactionary anti-science folks so often? What ideals does it serve? It always seems like such madness - madness yelling that it deserves respect as it disrespects everything else.
Listen - I can empathize with the guy. I've made big complicated systems worth lots of money too. I also don't see much personal value in some of it either.
But it's not anywhere near as 'hopeless' or 'worsening' than he'd put on it. Communities of 'bad' folks will form anywhere, and the open nature of the internet means that random encroachment into 'good' communities will scale with the number of folks entering the system, and the tools they are using.
But that doesn't make it useless. Rome fell, and it wasn't useless. Everything turns to the music of entropy in different ways. Experience shapes what comes after.
Would it really be 'hope', if the system never had to change, or be superseded by something better?
Reddit has some amazing communities in it - and endless challenges to it. Heck, I'm still here on Slashdot, so I'm definitely OK with being nice in the face of adversity and strife - so I don't see much of an issue for Reddit at the moment at least.
The kids will be fine, and so will randos online, on average.
Lots of folks here are allergic to the idea of the public interest having any role in public policy. I understand where you're coming from - "if it isn't helping me now..."
But here's the thing - properly funding public research is WAY cheaper than these ruthless extortion tactics we've turned healthcare into for the past few decades.
I mean, it's crazy cheaper to prioritize a working public healthcare, and yes, research programs.
As in, most of the rest of the world would consider how we run things a complete joke.
But somehow, because it involves some sort of public interest at play... it's somehow seen as a threat(?)
But somehow, these stories after stories of business people deciding to extort folks, with such calculated corporate smiles on their faces are seen as not a threat.
Which is rather odd - those same folks would see Andy Griffith as a misty memory ideal don't see how basically that's exactly the kind of cruel selfishness personified that he ranted at in half of the episodes of his show.
It's just so bizarre to see what passes for debate and morality in discussions on Slashdot these days.
There used to be such a thing as a concept of a common, shared good in this nation. It still exists in most modern industrialized nations.
This isn't pining for some golden era of the past - I mean, I occasionally like to read random archives of old US newspapers to get some context - and man, there's been a lot of eras of irrational hatred and general horribleness in America. Folks have certainly been trying to put their thumb on the scale and harm others for their own benefit throughout the past.
Given that context though - there were still some limits that we're currently running completely without now. Even war had limits, and cruelty their limits.
Today's republicans seem afraid that their entire thought system will disintegrate, and are just tearing at every seam of society to try and dig every final advantage they can. But the more they play the cruelest and most disingenuous kinds of games, the more they assure that outcome.
I try and maintain a perspective that is at least aware of how the world actually acts - not just America. And man, we've just been crazy lately. I do have hope that the kids will learn from this though , perhaps get a new Roosevelt-like era after the next big depression.
Shared governance CAN function - just like non-monopolistic business interests can serve the public good. You just have to have SOME sense that refuses to allow someone like Trump to hold office in the public mindset.
What happens when they have buildings filled to the brim with software engineers working on projects/components, but each new component has a small chance of adding a new bluescreen on a subset of machines?
The whole point of Windows 10 was supposed to be that it was the end-state, the stage where all further upgrades would be updates to this. But lashing another sail onto the boat doesn't seem to be adding the thust expected, or bring the income desired.
They really wanted the Windows Store to be the future too - just like Metro was going to be the perfect union of touch-phone interfaces and desktop interactions (well, by forcing everything to just be touch-phone, and insulting anyone that disagreed).
But no one uses Windows Store. It most certainly is not an improvement on the flawed Apple store or other marketplaces.
Then there's the data gathering. I'm sure they market that information to folks (in aggregate) - but I'm also pretty sure that they aren't going to see the returns they might dream about for selling access to that information, compared to their dreams of being some super-Google.
Probably the biggest source of instability has been the DRM and protection systems. Locks and keys designed to, well, lock things up on anything being off tend to... lock things up. And there's teams of teams constantly working on those.
Windows is still a money machine. PC sales aren't at peak at the instant, but there's still mountains of money for selling OS licenses on most new systems.
So, they bounce between ideas still - cross compatibility with XBox game images - but they link it with Windows Store, so it's basically like signing a cult marriage contract. Strait up ports of some games, but the same Store logic kills that idea. Tools to help manage things - but they keep making the interface Metro compatible, so folks drop it as soon as they can find a better tool.
The overall story is that they still have folks there dreaming that their failed pet ideas are still the future, an unlimited income stream that just needs tweaking. They need to identify that, and get past those folks - especially if they're managers.
Then be OK with just making the best OS they can, without trying to loop everything back into some infinite income stream. The golden goose is good enough - work on the nest, NOT a butcher shop.
Basically, anything Trump flavored has had a pretty heavy tilt in its moderation, towards the pro-Trump. I've worked in a lot of rural areas, and the brand of angry conservatism/superlibertarianism is pretty rare among IT/Software guys. But for some reason, it's hyper-represented on Slashdot in the past few years.
Not that folks can't hold that view - it just seems disproportionate, compared to the population.
The last console I worked with was PS3, but I think a bit of market delay here is a good idea.
An upgrade over this generation of hardware wouldn't get you much over a PS4. Sure, some percent increase - but it would feel more like being forced into an upgrade cycle, rather than really buying to get some new important capability with the new system.
Don't get me wrong - a top-of-the-line video card and SSD would make for a transformation of the 4k experience and all... but it would make for a $1400 console at the moment.
Better for Sony to let the manufacturers know what they want, get the plants tooled, techniques tested, then make that same console for $500 in a couple of years. In the meantime, everyone can develop with expensive PC testbed dev kits, then the manufacturers can test that everything can function and pass those same tests.
That, and we still haven't seen the likes of Kingdom Hearts 3 on the PS4 - the development cycle on games is still catching up with PS4-level development. Give your local devs some breathing room.
Frequently during holiday periods (high mail flow), postal hubs take on outside contractors to handle those overflows. And those guys can be real scummy, to say the least.
One Christmas, I sent a care package to grandparents, including gift cards, and those were removed from the packaging, slit open from the envelopes, snapshot/sold as images with codes online, then thrown back in the package outside the envelopes. I was able to track it down (with a postal inspector and Amazon) to one of these overflow contractors, and although there's a few cases where they've been caught with hundreds of stolen gift cards - the relationship with the contracting organizations largely shield these crooks pretty constantly.
The Post Office can't hire extra real folks - because they're held to a crazy (Republican) demand that every employee get an absurd portion of their benefits completely pre-paid for life into a pool - way more than any other organization is held to - just as one of many attempts to strangle the organization. So, they're forced to play these games, and shield the folks screwing with the mail, lest they be unable to cover during holiday periods.
I can only imagine who the contracting groups are paying off to make this all possible, along with this latest mail-intercept racket.
There's going to be kids that are going to see videos and attempt to recreate any flaw - just like there's plenty of pennies smashed on train tracks over the years (not really dangerous, but if kids could be jailed for intent...), there's going to be flaws in any automated system by random folks you can't "teach a lesson to."
One of the biggest purposes of having an automated system approaching computerization ("robot", if that's what gets clicks), is that you can spot flaws, and ALTER the system to better adapt to changing needs, rather than rely on pure punishment to cover faults.
Folks can use the power of misleading information to kill eachother in a lot of ways, poison and war being classic examples - and yeah, those should be punished, but they should also be used to make systems that work better.
Overall, these things still make the world better, and less randomly susceptible to harm. The analogue equivalent has more holes in virtually every case, we're just more used to them. From almost all past technology (non-weapon) , we're better off after going through the learning process than if we feared it forever, or remained only conservative in our approach.
So yeah - punish folks that have actual intent to harm just like anything, but you can't stop folks from playing with the world around them, and the new stuff in it.
If anyone ever asks why political stuff gets a section on Slashdot: It's because this stuff matters.
Technology is shaped by the limits imposed on it.
Your computer can only interact with another computer if there is a connection between you.
Very rich organizations own those connections, and charge eachother large amounts of money for those systems of connections.
They are owned by shareholders that demand more money each year.
Thus, unless there is a constant fight against it, you will pay a higher and higher rate than inflation, an increased amount for each method of communicating with other computers.
Net neutrality is part of that fight. Giving up on net neutrality is very much like giving up your side of that fight, without any meaningful promise of extra services.
Which is especially galling, because those same groups have constantly renegged on actual promises for better service for prices in the past.
Compared to virtually every other modern economy, they offer the US the worst value per dollar. And they will force these trends onto other countries with time.
It's fine if you want to be libertarian - but the libertarian ideal also has to include each side negotiating with full force. Giving up net neutrality is giving up your side of the argument completely, since there is no meaningful competition on the horizon for most of this. You're just agreeing to pay more over time forever, for no real reason, your only option is to pay more at each branching path.
Also, if you're someone outside the US, that cares about liberal democracy and technology - you do kind of have to worry at least a little about the pretty massive operations Russia has been enacting on democracies world-wide, not just the US.
I see the problem more like - this isn't really doing anything on a scale needed to detect/prevent international sabotage, this is just closing the barn door a YEAR AFTER the cows were already eaten.
Technology has a role to play in all this - but it's not clear if companies are able or willing to play any kind of role, or if various nations can actually do anything to preserve democracy without going crazy.
That's the more interesting issue underneath it all.
I've always been able to sign up for facebook (since it existed anyway) - but I still haven't seen a reason to.
It was old to me when it was new - chat interfaces, friendly reminders that always tend to linger on advertisers and lingering invitations to third party fees/services. I couldn't see any difference between it and basically every thing it was imitating, And always, always demanding you provide it a method of hooking into you with what I saw as shallow database references.
It's not a matter of privacy or security paranoia - I just had no desire to play that game since I saw those same games played in the BBS era, and the early national networks. They're all the same kind of scummy, and for my tastes, I found I was better catered to as the 'odd man out' in groups than as another contestant in the facebook game.
From every video I've seen and friend-on-a-phone using time on the service I've ever seen, I've never seen a hint of anything more to it. Any examples of content on Facebook that anyone has ever seen that are actually more than promotional contest giveaways, and chat/email/scheduling analogues?
Life is about focus - Facebook always seemed the wrong thing to focus on, after seeing every other social network. I was always looking for a 'need' that justified it, just never found any - and I enjoyed every second I did not use with it.
Oddly enough, I did see the movie - and I didn't really seen to miss any reference.
When I was in college, I took two semesters of graphics - but this was in the late DOS era. Early OpenGL existed, but because this was a real theoretical college class on graphics - we built a real raytracer from pure math from c-code and assembler rather than trying to stick to some arbitrary industry standard.
Cubes, spheres, torus, lighting, reflections, we did it all, piece by piece in glorious 640x350. It was ugly, and eerie, but really fascinating in terms of seeing pure mathematical expressions becoming 3d objects, pixel by pixel.
Since then, I've worked in several jobs frequently involving 'proper' graphics, even worked on a bunch of professional shipped games (mostly gameplay and systems, occasionally worked everywhere though) - and I can appreciate the need to use all the tricks that we do to make origami worlds, everything angled to the camera, but I really did enjoy creating worlds of actual objects, and having the camera pull its own shell of perspective out of the scene instead.
Which is how most assets are sort of created, actually, in the asset creation tools. You model the object, rip the polygons out how you can, create meshes and surfaces, and then try and cheat on everything to make it seem like the 'real' object again as cheaply as you can get away with. It's not quite raytracing outside a few tools, but it's an interesting hybrid.
Raytracers are a cool educational tool - but I can also see why they're only really trotted out when CPU manufacturers want to push for a race to buy more CPUs. They don't scale as well as modern techniques - and although there's some neat tricks you can do when you have your assets really 'present' mathematically (Demoscene stuff does this occasionally), it's usually not a better tradeoff than using the abstraction tools available to make it all work faster.
Slashdot Mirror
According to every metastudy I've ever seen on the subject, while nutrition is important - as long as you're getting a minimum of basic staple foods, and not too much of some things - then you're generally at optimal diet.
Bodies cope with what they get, as long as they start off healthy. Get some organ damage, and yeah - low sodium diet becomes important. The body just gets stupid when it gets too much and runs out of place for something, like fat soluble vitamins or metals, and for some folks, sugars.
"Super foods" are a nice concept - but they almost never have a payoff worth the cost. The closest to a decent return are the simpler ones - oats, veggies, fruits, berries (take your pick) - but the fashionable over-specific ones tend to be single-study hype train events. Other effects end up largely negligible when looked into - for instance diet-based anti-oxidents don't tend to translate to preventing cell damage to a very large extent, other than taking the place of other foods.
Seeking general happiness and quality of life are "healthier" than trying to pick the perfect food.
But, I suppose if eating cockroach extract makes you happy - then cool for you. Just... mention what it is to folks BEFORE you offer it to anyone. And don't don't be terribly offended if people roll their eyes or just walk away when you explain that it is "cruelty free cockroach milk."
Ryan Fenton
Slight clarification - the actual declaration is where there's no mention of algorithm. The silly article writer linking to the declaration does erroneously mention algorithm for some reason. Seems to happen a lot in science journalism the same way. Journalists are not paid enough to use accurate terms, I guess.
Ryan Fenton
Yeah - I looked at the article. No mention of algorithm. Algorithms are too simple for human rights to apply to in almost all cases.
The summary is wrong - these folks are making an argument more about big data systems that let their data skew in ways that may end up with unethical results if used blindly.
And that's a fair point - it's also a point made in most Computer Ethics classes for decades now, as part of most computer science degree paths.
Ryan Fenton
>Are you talking about the alt+Left or Right ? 'Because when I read "..denying them a voice..", my thoughts turn to what happens when a conservative is booked to speak at a university. Perhaps you are speaking generally?
Yeah - I'm speaking generally. It can theoretically apply on the left just as well on the right. It just happens to be easier to find in the right in our culture and recent history. That's also why I mentioned the era of 'yellow journalism' - yes, most of the insanity was on the newspapers in favor of the southern causes, but there were lots of cruel forms of populism around that era, and lots of celebrations of those sentiments all around.
The difference is that now, if you go to the alt-left side of things, that brand of cruel populism gets you rejected by the vast majority of folks. Relatively humorless images of torturing their enemies won't get you many friends. On the alt-right though, the same humorless sentiments have been the bread and butter of the community for years - the joy is in the cruelty, and it is mainstream. Not all applaud it, but it's not rejected on the right anymore, and it hasn't been for some time..
Ryan Fenton
That's why it isn't really comedy. The aim isn't the same as the jokes you're used to with openly repeatable comedy. It's closer to the stupidest parts of grade school than proper jokes.
Have you ever listened to Rush Limbaugh? There's some odd sorts of laughs there - but most of the joy intended is not the laughing kind of joy - but the "oh, we really showed those fools what's what" kind of joy.
It's the same kind of joy you might get from hearing an MC really lay into another MC, when it isn't even really laughing material.
That same form of joy has come in the form of cruelty dominating the commenting landscape of Facebook and the like. Of drawing a picture of your opponent being tortured, of denying them a voice, of denying the group they belong to a voice. Of feeling like you're proving you're on the winning side.
It's all endorphins - but in this case, it's different than laughing humor.
We are currently ruled by some of the worst people of our nation.
Why? Because of joy.
"What? Joy?" You may ask. Yes - joy, the emotion of joy - that little element of discovering something that pleases you.
Americans discovered that amongst the boring moments of their lives, and amidst the confusing cycles of our politics, the thing that brought them the most joy, was the crude, often cruel mockery of difference.
It's not quite comedy, in the professional sense - even the most crude professional comedians would find this kind of humor career destroying. See Kathy Griffin to see what happens when one wonders into that territory.
But the conservative movement doesn't really have comedians - instead, they have a unique brand of cruelty that takes the place of open comedy.
It's not always about laughing - it's about joy, the joy of knowing how you are treating your enemy, the joy of cruelty, of punishing difference. At all levels, from online sharing, to the highest offices.
This isn't new - there were large amounts of this spread across newspapers in the era of 'yellow journalism' - it's actually kind of shocking to read some of the stuff around the civil war. And we're kind of returning to that state of political cruelty - cruelty ahead of everything else.
And that's what Trump represents more than anything else - cruelty in place of political strategy, cruelty in the guise of comedy, cruelty as the dominant force in a major political party. And cruelty called common sense and wisdom in our popular culture.
Ryan Fenton
Think of all the worst things we've imagined about science.
Nature has done all those most horrible things on a scale millions of times larger already.
Nature kills millions of people with radiation each year.
Nature makes self-replicating killing machines each day.
Nature has groups killing sub-groups within a species for random non-reasons, leading to extinctions in each era of life.
All the worst-case scenarios science is accused of slippery-sloping down have happened with nature, and WILL happen with nature over time.
Science lets us pick and choose the parts of nature we want to see more of. Yeah - we're still stumbling on nasty notes as part of that remix - but the sound of science so far has been amazingly good so far overall.
I'd completely understand if what they were protesting is corporate manipulation of science - that's worthy of protest and debate. But protesting the science itself? As in, our foundational shared understanding of nature? Might as well protest language.
Ryan Fenton
The definition still stands on its own, I'd say - if you're willing to say that harm through self-defense is a socially accepted minimal form of evil, just like many others we've improved over time as society has become more peaceful. That, or extend the definition to also include self-defense. I just don't find it parsimonious as part of my definition.
Also, note, that there's a distinction between evil and monstrous. Normal people do lots of little evil things in most societies with this definition- especially as children. This kind of evil isn't something that can be controlled in beings who who have to experience to learn, so much as minimized as being required or helpful as a system of interactions by a society.
That's why it's a decent definition for me - I find it the best match - but I can see how others might be motivated to only define evil by rare factors, to avoid calling 'normal' people's actions even infinitesimally evil. Usually because they just want evil to be something they don't like, and good to be something they like.
Ryan Fenton
>Defines self-defence as evil.
Not in most cultures. Most tend to define preventing harm to others as not a self gain, more of a selfless act. In cases where folks are 'defending themselves' for gain though... yeah, there's often some perceived evil intention there.
There's a few cultures, like Jains though where even self-defense isn't considered a complete excuse for harm.
It's usually a sliding scale - everyone has some encroachment into potential evil, and it takes a LOT to be considered unable to be part of most societies.
Ryan Fenton
>Winning honestly at chess is evil by this definition, especially if it is a high-stakes game that will direct significant monetary sums and professional reputation to the winner. You would be intentionally causing a harm to your opponent to benefit yourself.
See: lack of actual harm. If you added perhaps using cruel tricks to give you an unfair advantage, then yeah - you're getting in the direction of evil. But just exchanging moves and winning doesn't connect those dots, for most cultures. I'm just attempting to match common sense for most cultures with this definition of evil.
If the bet were large enough to harm either party to a large extent, then the evil may be more in the act of setting up the bet, more than the game. Like, in many cultures there's stories of devil's contests - fiddling contests and the like aren't the immorality in those stories. It's in settings up the contest with the intent to likely harm.
Ryan Fenton
I've found that the best definition of evil that applies across all culture and times is the following:
Intentionally harming others to benefit yourself.
Whether that benefit is emotional, resources, or a political cause, it's all in the direction of what most cultures would consider more and more evil.
Without harm, it's generally more mischief or taboo, and without any form of benefit from that harm, it's generally considered more madness/confusion or misunderstanding. Without intention, it's considered an accident, though blatant enough recklessness its own intention in many cases.
Discarding the intention to avoid evil, because it might make you more money is definitely going in the evil direction in my book at least.
Ryan Fenton
Listen - "virtual reality" is nice as a concept - but it's the same as any simulation. Yes - you can add arbitrary 'immersion' by adding various kinds of haptics, biofeedback, etc. reflecting body state and the like, but it's still virtual reality with just keyboard/mouse lame headset.
It's all just what you want to add to it - but like with most simulations, the additional features tend to fade into the background once you acclimatize to them.
And no matter how 'good' you make the simulation, because it IS a simulation, there is always going to strong pressures to use shorthands for longer experiences, injecting an artifice into the medium as it evolves. Books do this, movies do this, radio did this - all expressive works do this.
I currently categorize virtual reality as a relatively shallow extension of regular computer simulations. It's not as shallow as say, 3D movies are to regular movies - but in the same sense as only needing say, a mouse pointer, or simple indicator of position you're controlling - the same would hold for Virtual Reality - perhaps a couple of dots contrasting well enough with the background to know what you'd interact with with your arms, or controller, or whatever.
You don't even really need the dots if you can have the interactions themselves convey whatever you were controlling in-game/utility.
Like, if you were just doing an interactive map program, you could follow smartphone logic, and just have hand movements to drag/zoom around that map. Same with an interactive movie theater app on no-interface mode. As long as you didn't expect everything to be a body simulation experience, there doesn't have to be any limitation - the headset is just a large-aspect virtual monitor for some uses.
Ryan Fenton
Until they elect a gameshow host as president, start banning research, and screwing over everyone that doesn't kowtow.
I wonder how Trump is going to be remembered, once it isn't seen as important for half the population that he be seen as somehow respectable. In retrospect, most conservatives see George W. Bush as a big mistake... it'll be interesting to see how that pans out.
Why do we have to keep switching to these idiotic reactionary anti-science folks so often? What ideals does it serve? It always seems like such madness - madness yelling that it deserves respect as it disrespects everything else.
Listen - I can empathize with the guy. I've made big complicated systems worth lots of money too. I also don't see much personal value in some of it either.
But it's not anywhere near as 'hopeless' or 'worsening' than he'd put on it. Communities of 'bad' folks will form anywhere, and the open nature of the internet means that random encroachment into 'good' communities will scale with the number of folks entering the system, and the tools they are using.
But that doesn't make it useless. Rome fell, and it wasn't useless. Everything turns to the music of entropy in different ways. Experience shapes what comes after.
Would it really be 'hope', if the system never had to change, or be superseded by something better?
Reddit has some amazing communities in it - and endless challenges to it. Heck, I'm still here on Slashdot, so I'm definitely OK with being nice in the face of adversity and strife - so I don't see much of an issue for Reddit at the moment at least.
The kids will be fine, and so will randos online, on average.
Ryan Fenton
Lots of folks here are allergic to the idea of the public interest having any role in public policy. I understand where you're coming from - "if it isn't helping me now..."
But here's the thing - properly funding public research is WAY cheaper than these ruthless extortion tactics we've turned healthcare into for the past few decades.
I mean, it's crazy cheaper to prioritize a working public healthcare, and yes, research programs.
As in, most of the rest of the world would consider how we run things a complete joke.
But somehow, because it involves some sort of public interest at play... it's somehow seen as a threat(?)
But somehow, these stories after stories of business people deciding to extort folks, with such calculated corporate smiles on their faces are seen as not a threat.
Which is rather odd - those same folks would see Andy Griffith as a misty memory ideal don't see how basically that's exactly the kind of cruel selfishness personified that he ranted at in half of the episodes of his show.
It's just so bizarre to see what passes for debate and morality in discussions on Slashdot these days.
Ryan Fenton
There used to be such a thing as a concept of a common, shared good in this nation. It still exists in most modern industrialized nations.
This isn't pining for some golden era of the past - I mean, I occasionally like to read random archives of old US newspapers to get some context - and man, there's been a lot of eras of irrational hatred and general horribleness in America. Folks have certainly been trying to put their thumb on the scale and harm others for their own benefit throughout the past.
Given that context though - there were still some limits that we're currently running completely without now. Even war had limits, and cruelty their limits.
Today's republicans seem afraid that their entire thought system will disintegrate, and are just tearing at every seam of society to try and dig every final advantage they can. But the more they play the cruelest and most disingenuous kinds of games, the more they assure that outcome.
I try and maintain a perspective that is at least aware of how the world actually acts - not just America. And man, we've just been crazy lately. I do have hope that the kids will learn from this though , perhaps get a new Roosevelt-like era after the next big depression.
Shared governance CAN function - just like non-monopolistic business interests can serve the public good. You just have to have SOME sense that refuses to allow someone like Trump to hold office in the public mindset.
Make America Less Crazy Again.
Ryan Fenton
What happens when they have buildings filled to the brim with software engineers working on projects/components, but each new component has a small chance of adding a new bluescreen on a subset of machines?
The whole point of Windows 10 was supposed to be that it was the end-state, the stage where all further upgrades would be updates to this. But lashing another sail onto the boat doesn't seem to be adding the thust expected, or bring the income desired.
They really wanted the Windows Store to be the future too - just like Metro was going to be the perfect union of touch-phone interfaces and desktop interactions (well, by forcing everything to just be touch-phone, and insulting anyone that disagreed).
But no one uses Windows Store. It most certainly is not an improvement on the flawed Apple store or other marketplaces.
Then there's the data gathering. I'm sure they market that information to folks (in aggregate) - but I'm also pretty sure that they aren't going to see the returns they might dream about for selling access to that information, compared to their dreams of being some super-Google.
Probably the biggest source of instability has been the DRM and protection systems. Locks and keys designed to, well, lock things up on anything being off tend to... lock things up. And there's teams of teams constantly working on those.
Windows is still a money machine. PC sales aren't at peak at the instant, but there's still mountains of money for selling OS licenses on most new systems.
So, they bounce between ideas still - cross compatibility with XBox game images - but they link it with Windows Store, so it's basically like signing a cult marriage contract. Strait up ports of some games, but the same Store logic kills that idea. Tools to help manage things - but they keep making the interface Metro compatible, so folks drop it as soon as they can find a better tool.
The overall story is that they still have folks there dreaming that their failed pet ideas are still the future, an unlimited income stream that just needs tweaking. They need to identify that, and get past those folks - especially if they're managers.
Then be OK with just making the best OS they can, without trying to loop everything back into some infinite income stream. The golden goose is good enough - work on the nest, NOT a butcher shop.
Ryan Fenton
Basically, anything Trump flavored has had a pretty heavy tilt in its moderation, towards the pro-Trump. I've worked in a lot of rural areas, and the brand of angry conservatism/superlibertarianism is pretty rare among IT/Software guys. But for some reason, it's hyper-represented on Slashdot in the past few years.
Not that folks can't hold that view - it just seems disproportionate, compared to the population.
Ryan Fenton
The last console I worked with was PS3, but I think a bit of market delay here is a good idea.
An upgrade over this generation of hardware wouldn't get you much over a PS4. Sure, some percent increase - but it would feel more like being forced into an upgrade cycle, rather than really buying to get some new important capability with the new system.
Don't get me wrong - a top-of-the-line video card and SSD would make for a transformation of the 4k experience and all... but it would make for a $1400 console at the moment.
Better for Sony to let the manufacturers know what they want, get the plants tooled, techniques tested, then make that same console for $500 in a couple of years. In the meantime, everyone can develop with expensive PC testbed dev kits, then the manufacturers can test that everything can function and pass those same tests.
That, and we still haven't seen the likes of Kingdom Hearts 3 on the PS4 - the development cycle on games is still catching up with PS4-level development. Give your local devs some breathing room.
Ryan Fenton
Frequently during holiday periods (high mail flow), postal hubs take on outside contractors to handle those overflows. And those guys can be real scummy, to say the least.
One Christmas, I sent a care package to grandparents, including gift cards, and those were removed from the packaging, slit open from the envelopes, snapshot/sold as images with codes online, then thrown back in the package outside the envelopes. I was able to track it down (with a postal inspector and Amazon) to one of these overflow contractors, and although there's a few cases where they've been caught with hundreds of stolen gift cards - the relationship with the contracting organizations largely shield these crooks pretty constantly.
The Post Office can't hire extra real folks - because they're held to a crazy (Republican) demand that every employee get an absurd portion of their benefits completely pre-paid for life into a pool - way more than any other organization is held to - just as one of many attempts to strangle the organization. So, they're forced to play these games, and shield the folks screwing with the mail, lest they be unable to cover during holiday periods.
I can only imagine who the contracting groups are paying off to make this all possible, along with this latest mail-intercept racket.
Ryan Fenton
There's going to be kids that are going to see videos and attempt to recreate any flaw - just like there's plenty of pennies smashed on train tracks over the years (not really dangerous, but if kids could be jailed for intent...), there's going to be flaws in any automated system by random folks you can't "teach a lesson to."
One of the biggest purposes of having an automated system approaching computerization ("robot", if that's what gets clicks), is that you can spot flaws, and ALTER the system to better adapt to changing needs, rather than rely on pure punishment to cover faults.
Related Obligitory XKCD:
https://xkcd.com/1958/
Folks can use the power of misleading information to kill eachother in a lot of ways, poison and war being classic examples - and yeah, those should be punished, but they should also be used to make systems that work better.
Overall, these things still make the world better, and less randomly susceptible to harm. The analogue equivalent has more holes in virtually every case, we're just more used to them. From almost all past technology (non-weapon) , we're better off after going through the learning process than if we feared it forever, or remained only conservative in our approach.
So yeah - punish folks that have actual intent to harm just like anything, but you can't stop folks from playing with the world around them, and the new stuff in it.
Ryan Fenton
If anyone ever asks why political stuff gets a section on Slashdot: It's because this stuff matters.
Technology is shaped by the limits imposed on it.
Your computer can only interact with another computer if there is a connection between you.
Very rich organizations own those connections, and charge eachother large amounts of money for those systems of connections.
They are owned by shareholders that demand more money each year.
Thus, unless there is a constant fight against it, you will pay a higher and higher rate than inflation, an increased amount for each method of communicating with other computers.
Net neutrality is part of that fight. Giving up on net neutrality is very much like giving up your side of that fight, without any meaningful promise of extra services.
Which is especially galling, because those same groups have constantly renegged on actual promises for better service for prices in the past.
Compared to virtually every other modern economy, they offer the US the worst value per dollar. And they will force these trends onto other countries with time.
It's fine if you want to be libertarian - but the libertarian ideal also has to include each side negotiating with full force. Giving up net neutrality is giving up your side of the argument completely, since there is no meaningful competition on the horizon for most of this. You're just agreeing to pay more over time forever, for no real reason, your only option is to pay more at each branching path.
Ryan Fenton
Hey - it undoubtedly makes for traffic/income!
Also, if you're someone outside the US, that cares about liberal democracy and technology - you do kind of have to worry at least a little about the pretty massive operations Russia has been enacting on democracies world-wide, not just the US.
I see the problem more like - this isn't really doing anything on a scale needed to detect/prevent international sabotage, this is just closing the barn door a YEAR AFTER the cows were already eaten.
Technology has a role to play in all this - but it's not clear if companies are able or willing to play any kind of role, or if various nations can actually do anything to preserve democracy without going crazy.
That's the more interesting issue underneath it all.
Ryan Fenton
I've always been able to sign up for facebook (since it existed anyway) - but I still haven't seen a reason to.
It was old to me when it was new - chat interfaces, friendly reminders that always tend to linger on advertisers and lingering invitations to third party fees/services. I couldn't see any difference between it and basically every thing it was imitating, And always, always demanding you provide it a method of hooking into you with what I saw as shallow database references.
It's not a matter of privacy or security paranoia - I just had no desire to play that game since I saw those same games played in the BBS era, and the early national networks. They're all the same kind of scummy, and for my tastes, I found I was better catered to as the 'odd man out' in groups than as another contestant in the facebook game.
From every video I've seen and friend-on-a-phone using time on the service I've ever seen, I've never seen a hint of anything more to it. Any examples of content on Facebook that anyone has ever seen that are actually more than promotional contest giveaways, and chat/email/scheduling analogues?
Life is about focus - Facebook always seemed the wrong thing to focus on, after seeing every other social network. I was always looking for a 'need' that justified it, just never found any - and I enjoyed every second I did not use with it.
Oddly enough, I did see the movie - and I didn't really seen to miss any reference.
Ryan Fenton
When I was in college, I took two semesters of graphics - but this was in the late DOS era. Early OpenGL existed, but because this was a real theoretical college class on graphics - we built a real raytracer from pure math from c-code and assembler rather than trying to stick to some arbitrary industry standard.
Cubes, spheres, torus, lighting, reflections, we did it all, piece by piece in glorious 640x350. It was ugly, and eerie, but really fascinating in terms of seeing pure mathematical expressions becoming 3d objects, pixel by pixel.
Since then, I've worked in several jobs frequently involving 'proper' graphics, even worked on a bunch of professional shipped games (mostly gameplay and systems, occasionally worked everywhere though) - and I can appreciate the need to use all the tricks that we do to make origami worlds, everything angled to the camera, but I really did enjoy creating worlds of actual objects, and having the camera pull its own shell of perspective out of the scene instead.
Which is how most assets are sort of created, actually, in the asset creation tools. You model the object, rip the polygons out how you can, create meshes and surfaces, and then try and cheat on everything to make it seem like the 'real' object again as cheaply as you can get away with. It's not quite raytracing outside a few tools, but it's an interesting hybrid.
Raytracers are a cool educational tool - but I can also see why they're only really trotted out when CPU manufacturers want to push for a race to buy more CPUs. They don't scale as well as modern techniques - and although there's some neat tricks you can do when you have your assets really 'present' mathematically (Demoscene stuff does this occasionally), it's usually not a better tradeoff than using the abstraction tools available to make it all work faster.
Ryan Fenton