English to Spanish is very similar. I knew a guy who worked as a cook with all hispanic kitchen staff. He knew no spanish and they knew zero english, but they were able to understand each other well enough by him speaking english with a strong spanish accent and them speaking spanish with as much english accent as they could muster.
These things are still relatively rare, expensive, and nowhere near the level of completeness that most clickbait articles breathlessly written by a reporter with no technical knowledge would imply.
These are all things that people (especially reporters selling headlines) want very badly, but not necessarily things that will ever be able to become practical enough to make it out of R&D and into common use.
The lack of explanation of the interaction between the cloistered and common worlds rang a bit false
I haven't finished it yet, but so far it makes sense to me. They're basically the logical extrapolation if you take monks out of the middle ages and point their enthusiasm at knowledge instead of religion. Presumably it remained because of tradition and also wanting to only attract smart people who were serious about the pursuit of knowledge for knowledges sake without getting caught up in the specifics of implementation.
A system like that would also have a stabilizing influence on the planet. Remove the smart and curious from the general population (and genepool) and let them pursue knowledge in a way that won't take a destructive outlet (e.g. designing weapons for an unstable dictator). Leave the sheeple who are content to take soma and maintain the status quo as long as they're entertained.
I was as well, to the point I nearly shut it off and started looking for how to return it. I think it's a combination of the weird voice for the character talking, strange terms, and lack of context as to what's going on. Once I got a feel for what was actually happening it improved by several orders of magnitude. (I think the narrator toned down his voice acting a bit by then as well).
I hope it doesn't get edited. I enjoy the tangents and showing off of research (though I'll agree that the baroque cycle overdid it a bit). That's what makes his writing unique compared to other authors in those genres.
In my opinion the tangents were what made the books awesome. I particularly loved Tourings bike chain timing in Cryptonomicon, followed closely by relating the crew served machine gun to sawmill machinery. The bit where they come up with a complex algorithm to divvy up inherited goods on a 2d graph and use time on a supercomputer to calculate who gets what was also pretty good, though not technically a tangent.
I've been listening to anathem on audible and enjoying it greatly. I've actually started leaving for work during rush hour, since it means I get to listen for an extra 30 minutes in order to arrive at work 5 minutes sooner. win-win.
I've been listening to anathem on audible during my commute. I'm about halfway through and so far I'd put it up there with Snow Crash and Diamond Age (though I don't recommend it if you're not the sort of person who can intuitively guess the approximate meaning of a new word).
252mph in a straight line. Unless they're drag racing or on a course with lots of long straightways where that speed is actually obtainable, I'd imagine the low end torque from the electric car will probably help keep the average speeds pretty close.
The other problem is that new opportunities do not make up for the lost opportunities. It's not a one to one migration of workers. The assembly line that needed hundreds of workers now only needs a dozen or so to maintain the robots. There is a net reduction of jobs.
You missed the point I was making. Yes there's a loss in one field (e.g. automotive assembly lines). But as a result of automated assembly lines, there are gains in other fields (e.g. Anything having to do with supporting the infrastructure that makes cars and car manufacturing possible).
Who the fuck was talking about smartwatches? AC wasn't in the original sneering post, I haven't been throughout and you weren't when you started wittering on about $12 casio watches.
So no, I'm not getting a $350 smartwatch, so you're welcome not to tell me anything. Probably for the best, I'm unlikely to give you any credence anyway.
I think you need to work on your comprehension skills and/or re-read the thread again. You're awfully hostile over what probably amounts to a misunderstanding. If you're not advocating buying a needlessly expensive watch just to tell the time, then there's no disagreement here.
When I was getting my degree, I had to take an "ethics" class geared towards CS students. Towards the end of the semester, we started discussing AI and how morality may or may not apply to it. The half of the class who had actually done some machine learning and had backgrounds in AI got really annoyed with it because 100% of the hand wringing in the assigned reading was done by philosophers and "futurists" with horrible track records.
The worst part about it is that to someone who's actually worked with this kind of stuff, the doomsday people look about as silly as that one senator who was afraid an island might tip over if they landed too many marines on one side of it. It's just so stupid that it tends to put one at a loss for words on how to even begin refuting it.
The problem with robots is that they are replacing humans in a world where humans often define their own value by the things that they do.
I don't really see this as being a problem. It might temporarily displace some people when some new kind of automation replaces something (and change can be scary), generally the same advancing technology that caused the displacement opens up opportunities elsewhere.
The easiest kinds of jobs to automate are usually the most menial. Generally the automation of those kinds of jobs will cause the market to open up new job opportunities elsewhere. e.g. automating an automotive assembly line will initially displace those workers, but it also makes cars a lot cheaper, meaning more cars and more demand for the infrastructure to support them (roads and road maintenance, fuel, mechanics).
It's profit based in a system where there's no incentive to lower price, and lots of incentive for people to rack up huge bills with no immediate consequences. Someone could run crying to the doctor because they have a cold, demand every test and scan in the book be run, and it's less than $100 in co-pays with insurance. It's easy for them to rationalize it becuse "this is what I pay all this money every month for and I want to get the most out of it". The insurance buracracy doesn't really care as long as all the Is are dotted and Ts are crossed, but the accountants notice rising costs and make it harder for people with legitimate issues to get tests run next year.
What I mean is that in hindsight, it should have been completely predictable. The only reason it wasn't predicted was because of some false assumption, overlooked fact, or incorrect data.
"I never really saw anything not work in a predictable controlled fashion"
Accidents happen whenever something doesn't work in a predictable and controlled fashion and, believe me, accidents do happen. Oh! and butter does melt in your mouth.
But when you examine the accident after the fact, it usually turns out that it did happen in an incredibly predictable and controlled fashion. It's just that the events leading up to it weren't immediately obvious before the accident happened.
Yes, but you missed the point. The solution of pushing a fat guy in front of the train isn't believable. People hear it and get a gut feeling of "then it'll kill the fat guy plus the people on the tracks". That's where the hesitation comes from, not from the fact that they need to push the guy.
As someone who worked in IT and was usually the guy who got assigned all of the tricky problems, I never really saw anything not work in a predictable controlled fashion (at least once all of the facts were known, which wasn't always straightforward).
Slashdot Mirror
A gyrocopter is an aircraft and it requires a pilot's license.
Whether or not it's an ultralight is defined by weight and capabilities, not visual features.
English to Spanish is very similar. I knew a guy who worked as a cook with all hispanic kitchen staff. He knew no spanish and they knew zero english, but they were able to understand each other well enough by him speaking english with a strong spanish accent and them speaking spanish with as much english accent as they could muster.
These things are still relatively rare, expensive, and nowhere near the level of completeness that most clickbait articles breathlessly written by a reporter with no technical knowledge would imply.
These are all things that people (especially reporters selling headlines) want very badly, but not necessarily things that will ever be able to become practical enough to make it out of R&D and into common use.
The lack of explanation of the interaction between the cloistered and common worlds rang a bit false
I haven't finished it yet, but so far it makes sense to me. They're basically the logical extrapolation if you take monks out of the middle ages and point their enthusiasm at knowledge instead of religion. Presumably it remained because of tradition and also wanting to only attract smart people who were serious about the pursuit of knowledge for knowledges sake without getting caught up in the specifics of implementation.
A system like that would also have a stabilizing influence on the planet. Remove the smart and curious from the general population (and genepool) and let them pursue knowledge in a way that won't take a destructive outlet (e.g. designing weapons for an unstable dictator). Leave the sheeple who are content to take soma and maintain the status quo as long as they're entertained.
I was initially put off by the reader
I was as well, to the point I nearly shut it off and started looking for how to return it. I think it's a combination of the weird voice for the character talking, strange terms, and lack of context as to what's going on. Once I got a feel for what was actually happening it improved by several orders of magnitude. (I think the narrator toned down his voice acting a bit by then as well).
I hope it doesn't get edited. I enjoy the tangents and showing off of research (though I'll agree that the baroque cycle overdid it a bit). That's what makes his writing unique compared to other authors in those genres.
In my opinion the tangents were what made the books awesome. I particularly loved Tourings bike chain timing in Cryptonomicon, followed closely by relating the crew served machine gun to sawmill machinery. The bit where they come up with a complex algorithm to divvy up inherited goods on a 2d graph and use time on a supercomputer to calculate who gets what was also pretty good, though not technically a tangent.
If you liked snow crash and diamond age, you'll probably like anathem.
I've been listening to anathem on audible and enjoying it greatly. I've actually started leaving for work during rush hour, since it means I get to listen for an extra 30 minutes in order to arrive at work 5 minutes sooner. win-win.
I've been listening to anathem on audible during my commute. I'm about halfway through and so far I'd put it up there with Snow Crash and Diamond Age (though I don't recommend it if you're not the sort of person who can intuitively guess the approximate meaning of a new word).
the pages describing the broken tooth on Turing's bicycle as a metaphor for a substitution cypher were torturous. And tortuous.
I loved those parts when he goes off on a long nerdy tangent like that.
252mph in a straight line. Unless they're drag racing or on a course with lots of long straightways where that speed is actually obtainable, I'd imagine the low end torque from the electric car will probably help keep the average speeds pretty close.
The other problem is that new opportunities do not make up for the lost opportunities. It's not a one to one migration of workers. The assembly line that needed hundreds of workers now only needs a dozen or so to maintain the robots. There is a net reduction of jobs.
You missed the point I was making. Yes there's a loss in one field (e.g. automotive assembly lines). But as a result of automated assembly lines, there are gains in other fields (e.g. Anything having to do with supporting the infrastructure that makes cars and car manufacturing possible).
The most menial.
That turns out not really to be the case. If you had said the most repetitive jobs, I'd be more likely to buy it.
Yes, that's a good distinction and actually what I had meant to say. I had assembly lines and factory work in mind while I was typing the comment.
Who the fuck was talking about smartwatches? AC wasn't in the original sneering post, I haven't been throughout and you weren't when you started wittering on about $12 casio watches.
So no, I'm not getting a $350 smartwatch, so you're welcome not to tell me anything. Probably for the best, I'm unlikely to give you any credence anyway.
I think you need to work on your comprehension skills and/or re-read the thread again. You're awfully hostile over what probably amounts to a misunderstanding. If you're not advocating buying a needlessly expensive watch just to tell the time, then there's no disagreement here.
When I was getting my degree, I had to take an "ethics" class geared towards CS students. Towards the end of the semester, we started discussing AI and how morality may or may not apply to it. The half of the class who had actually done some machine learning and had backgrounds in AI got really annoyed with it because 100% of the hand wringing in the assigned reading was done by philosophers and "futurists" with horrible track records.
The worst part about it is that to someone who's actually worked with this kind of stuff, the doomsday people look about as silly as that one senator who was afraid an island might tip over if they landed too many marines on one side of it. It's just so stupid that it tends to put one at a loss for words on how to even begin refuting it.
The problem with robots is that they are replacing humans in a world where humans often define their own value by the things that they do.
I don't really see this as being a problem. It might temporarily displace some people when some new kind of automation replaces something (and change can be scary), generally the same advancing technology that caused the displacement opens up opportunities elsewhere.
The easiest kinds of jobs to automate are usually the most menial. Generally the automation of those kinds of jobs will cause the market to open up new job opportunities elsewhere. e.g. automating an automotive assembly line will initially displace those workers, but it also makes cars a lot cheaper, meaning more cars and more demand for the infrastructure to support them (roads and road maintenance, fuel, mechanics).
If you're getting a $350 smartwatch with a battery that barely lasts a day "just to know the time", then I really don't know what to tell you.
Maybe it's just possible that some people want to know the time, and would prefer to wear something they like to achieve that goal.
If they just wanted the time (and maybe some useful stopwatch and timer functions), they'd get a $12 casio.
It's profit based in a system where there's no incentive to lower price, and lots of incentive for people to rack up huge bills with no immediate consequences. Someone could run crying to the doctor because they have a cold, demand every test and scan in the book be run, and it's less than $100 in co-pays with insurance. It's easy for them to rationalize it becuse "this is what I pay all this money every month for and I want to get the most out of it". The insurance buracracy doesn't really care as long as all the Is are dotted and Ts are crossed, but the accountants notice rising costs and make it harder for people with legitimate issues to get tests run next year.
watermelons are my trigger you insensitive clod!
What I mean is that in hindsight, it should have been completely predictable. The only reason it wasn't predicted was because of some false assumption, overlooked fact, or incorrect data.
"I never really saw anything not work in a predictable controlled fashion"
Accidents happen whenever something doesn't work in a predictable and controlled fashion and, believe me, accidents do happen. Oh! and butter does melt in your mouth.
But when you examine the accident after the fact, it usually turns out that it did happen in an incredibly predictable and controlled fashion. It's just that the events leading up to it weren't immediately obvious before the accident happened.
Yes, but you missed the point. The solution of pushing a fat guy in front of the train isn't believable. People hear it and get a gut feeling of "then it'll kill the fat guy plus the people on the tracks". That's where the hesitation comes from, not from the fact that they need to push the guy.
As someone who worked in IT and was usually the guy who got assigned all of the tricky problems, I never really saw anything not work in a predictable controlled fashion (at least once all of the facts were known, which wasn't always straightforward).