There is now a 720,000 year record from the Antarctica ice-core correlating CO2 levels and global temperatures. It agrees with earlier extracted cores that "only" go back a few hundred thousand years, as well as one going back about 120,000 years. Furthermore, more recent climate changes and CO2 levels track closely to the most recent parts of the cores. Finally, the results from the past 100 years of recorded global temperature records fall right in line.
Fact: CO2 levels are off the charts and rising so fast they'd make your head spin - along with global temperatures, which are starting to pick up steam (pun intended) - *if* you bothered to look at the actual *data* rather than read the anti-intellectual denier propaganda, or rely on your local anecdotal subjective experience.
The records from the past 720,000 years of global temperatures are freely and openly available online, if you just dared to check it out - the actual scientific data from the original source, that is, not the creationist deniers or, for that matter, the advocates of science and reason. Just look at the actual source information. If you dare, which I doubt.
'Cause then, you'd have to face an inconvenient truth. Better to blather on about how it used to be worse in the ol' days, when you was a youngun' - probably in the 1990's.
For the first time in human history the facts are freely available for any citizen to check out, unrestricted and unfettered by government, business or advocacy. Including, incidentally, answers to all the foolish questions you just asked above, but can't be bothered to research for yourself.
So, with all this raw data and sourced analysis available, what do most folks like you do? Parrot talk radio and reminisce about the good ol' days. Wow. We truly are fucked.
As Kurzweil and many others have pointed out, we don't need to simulate every single neuron and synapse, let alone every single neurotransmitter molecule, in order to simulate the operations of an intelligent brain. Rather, research now focuses on simulating cognitive processes at a much higher symbolic level. The results, from auditory simulations of human audio processing to an artificial pancreas, show that many complex biochemical processes can be simulated to the required level of detail without bothering with simulating down to the quantum level or anywhere near it.
The math represented thus becomes quite different, and, given a simple extrapolation of accelerating returns regarding computing power per cost, show that within a decade we *will* have the processing ability to create a functional digital brain at the complexity level of a human brain. This doesn't automatically mean that model will be instantly intelligent, but, when you factor in our accelerating understanding and ability to model abstract thought processes in software on top of our ability to model the physical functions of the brain, it is not unreasonable to suppose that we will produce true digital intelligence by way of a bottom-up simulation of brain processes. Add in the accelerating returns principle, and, within a few years after that, our digital model wil have processing power thousands and then millions of time that of a single brain, which in turn, even before sentience can be used to help us refine our behavioral models of thought processes-- and the likelyhood that it will cross the threshold of intelligence approaches certainty.
It is only a matter of time, and the surprising thing is, if one simply projects the curve outward, how soon it will likely happen.
It is a front created by the video game industry equivalent of the RIAA.
The Video Game Voters Network is a project sponsored by the Entertainment Software Association, a trade group representing America's video game publishers.
They don't have gameplayers' interests at heart, they have their DRM-locked wallets at heart.
It is anarchy. Big difference. If it were democratic, it would work--and it wouldn't be on the verge of extinction (relevance has long past).
Democracy is not the lack of controls, it merely placed power, collectively, in the hands of the members of a society, rather than in the hands of an elite.
The relevant information is not the raw number, but the trend. If you see Firefox gaining 1% every month of so, then is is reasonable to conclude that Firefox is gaining marketshare--in fact, it is even reasonable to assume that that gain is about 1% per month, since statistical anomalies and distortions caused by "AOL tweaking their cache configs" averages out to noise in a long-term trend.
While you are right that an accurate snapshot is impossible, snapshots only matter to magazine writers facing a deadline. In both the economic and intellectual marketplaces, what matters is the trend.
In 2003, box office receipts accounted for less than 20% of a movie's revenues. Home entertainment provides more than 80%. Since then, the shift from theater to home has only accelerated. Last year, Walmart alone accounted for more than a third of studio revenues in video and DVD.
Home sales account for an even greater percentage of profits for the studios, given the high costs of theater promotion.
In fact, most studios expect to *lose* money as long as a film is in the theaters. The purpose of theater release is to build recognition and audience awareness, NOT to make money - not any more.
So, using your number of $10 million for Serenity's opening weekend, the movie can expect to make around $55-$65 million, if not more (given the strong cult fan base for the series and a lot of initial hesitation, given precedent of lousy films based on TV series).
Epstein uses the example of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which made only $8.1 mil in its opening weekend in the theaters--but sold over 1.5 million DVDs during its first week in the stores.
Reading the posts here is amazing. Why would you think that spending 50% of your time on counterproductive deception and bullshit is a reasonable tradeoff?
Why spend at least half your waking hours being treated like a child, or, worse, a wageslave?
For what? At the end of the day, is the cost-benefit balance really worth it?
Work for yourself. Work for a small company where people care about each other. Work on an Open Source project--spend the time you would spend battling bureaucracy finding funding so you can do it full-time. Work for a non-profit doing some good for the world--certainly the skills you have are in desperate demand where they make the most difference. Work as a consultant - corporations will give you much less crap if you come in from the outside and they are paying for your time--and you'll probably work half the hours and make the same net, at least.
If what you are doing doesn't make a difference, why do it? We all have finite lifespans on this Earth - why waste half of them on bullshit? I just don't understand. I left corporate America twenty years ago and never looked back. I read these posts and just shake my head.
It's not just a waste of your time. It is the root of our political problems, too. Corporations train us for passivity and helplessness. They train us to compromise. Like frogs in slowly heated water, they train us to adjust, to adapt, to think that warm crap is an airbed.
It is this kind of passive aquiescence to useless authority and wasted powergames that makes for passive citizens who put up with governments that are just as useless and wasteful. We don't blink at corrupt, greedy politicians looking out for their own, because we spend most of our productive energy working for corporations led by corrupt, greedy executives.
And folks think an MBA is a good qualification for political leader, and the marketplace is a good model for government.... No wonder we're in the mess we're in!
Thank goodness someone else said it. I'm tired of getting shat on, dissed and dismissed for talking about this stuff for the past ten years - it is why I left the industry.
You can't change this from within the system, the vacant $uits have too much power and they simply don't care. You can't change it from outside the system, the system is too insular and amoral and is not responsive to common sense, or even examples of dissident innovative success like Katamari Damacy - and consumers,sadly don't drive markets, any more than voters drive candidates, they follow them - serve them quality, and they will cherish it, feed them crap, and they will worship it - and the other nine-tenths will simply turn off, tune out, and play solitaire instead.
The only way to change it is by treating the mainstream, commercial game industry as damage and routing around it, creating alternatives - not just alternative developers creating alternative games, but alternative distribution, alternative revenue models, alternative value systems.
90% of the potential market is waiting. Some of us are trying to do something about it. And it's nice to have some cover from folks who obviously Get It [tm]. The article was brilliant, and any developer who doesn't pay attention, who thinks they know better, deserves the STDs they'll get from the pimps who write their paychecks.
These treads prevent the snakebot from stalling or becoming stuck on rough terrain because, similar to a tire touching a road, t the treads propel the robot forward like a tire touching a road. Historically, scientists haven't had much success with wheeled and tracked robots on rough terrain because they constantly stall.
The explosion in value in those cases is actually a result of Reed's Law, which states that the connectivity value of Group Forming Networks (GFNs) grows at 2^n
Coincidentally, West Wing aired an episode a week ago, on December 15, called "Impact Winter", in which a large asteroid was detected close to Earth, on a probable collision course, after being obscured by the blind spot caused by the Sun's glare.
Many fansites were moaning about West Wing having jumped the shark for featuring such an absurd plot device...
Basketball is big business. Baseball is big business. I hear that people used watch a lot of things called comedies: it seems like there would be a lot of money to be made from a successful merger of what makes basketball and baseball compelling with what makes comedies compelling, though we've been trying that for decades with little success.
The real significance is precisely NOT about profit, or better-faster-smarter ways to make it.
As I explain here: "A LEVER LONG ENOUGH: Value driven enterprise in the networked information economy" http://www.consortiuminfo.org/bulletins/ sep04.php# feature
Folks seem to forget that Google is a business, not a charity or an open source project. The purpose of Google is profit, not making the world a better place.
Use alternatives. Don't be an accomplice to Chinese tyranny.
Slashdot Mirror
Sigh.
There is now a 720,000 year record from the Antarctica ice-core correlating CO2 levels and global temperatures. It agrees with earlier extracted cores that "only" go back a few hundred thousand years, as well as one going back about 120,000 years. Furthermore, more recent climate changes and CO2 levels track closely to the most recent parts of the cores. Finally, the results from the past 100 years of recorded global temperature records fall right in line.
Fact: CO2 levels are off the charts and rising so fast they'd make your head spin - along with global temperatures, which are starting to pick up steam (pun intended) - *if* you bothered to look at the actual *data* rather than read the anti-intellectual denier propaganda, or rely on your local anecdotal subjective experience.
The records from the past 720,000 years of global temperatures are freely and openly available online, if you just dared to check it out - the actual scientific data from the original source, that is, not the creationist deniers or, for that matter, the advocates of science and reason. Just look at the actual source information. If you dare, which I doubt.
'Cause then, you'd have to face an inconvenient truth. Better to blather on about how it used to be worse in the ol' days, when you was a youngun' - probably in the 1990's.
For the first time in human history the facts are freely available for any citizen to check out, unrestricted and unfettered by government, business or advocacy. Including, incidentally, answers to all the foolish questions you just asked above, but can't be bothered to research for yourself.
So, with all this raw data and sourced analysis available, what do most folks like you do? Parrot talk radio and reminisce about the good ol' days. Wow. We truly are fucked.
As Kurzweil and many others have pointed out, we don't need to simulate every single neuron and synapse, let alone every single neurotransmitter molecule, in order to simulate the operations of an intelligent brain. Rather, research now focuses on simulating cognitive processes at a much higher symbolic level. The results, from auditory simulations of human audio processing to an artificial pancreas, show that many complex biochemical processes can be simulated to the required level of detail without bothering with simulating down to the quantum level or anywhere near it.
The math represented thus becomes quite different, and, given a simple extrapolation of accelerating returns regarding computing power per cost, show that within a decade we *will* have the processing ability to create a functional digital brain at the complexity level of a human brain. This doesn't automatically mean that model will be instantly intelligent, but, when you factor in our accelerating understanding and ability to model abstract thought processes in software on top of our ability to model the physical functions of the brain, it is not unreasonable to suppose that we will produce true digital intelligence by way of a bottom-up simulation of brain processes. Add in the accelerating returns principle, and, within a few years after that, our digital model wil have processing power thousands and then millions of time that of a single brain, which in turn, even before sentience can be used to help us refine our behavioral models of thought processes-- and the likelyhood that it will cross the threshold of intelligence approaches certainty.
It is only a matter of time, and the surprising thing is, if one simply projects the curve outward, how soon it will likely happen.
It is a front created by the video game industry equivalent of the RIAA.
The Video Game Voters Network is a project sponsored by the Entertainment Software Association, a trade group representing America's video game publishers.
They don't have gameplayers' interests at heart, they have their DRM-locked wallets at heart.
explains slashdot articles!
Hope they got that dube bug fixed
Also, is it just me
Yes.
It is anarchy. Big difference. If it were democratic, it would work--and it wouldn't be on the verge of extinction (relevance has long past).
Democracy is not the lack of controls, it merely placed power, collectively, in the hands of the members of a society, rather than in the hands of an elite.
Usenet is not a democracy.
The relevant information is not the raw number, but the trend. If you see Firefox gaining 1% every month of so, then is is reasonable to conclude that Firefox is gaining marketshare--in fact, it is even reasonable to assume that that gain is about 1% per month, since statistical anomalies and distortions caused by "AOL tweaking their cache configs" averages out to noise in a long-term trend.
While you are right that an accurate snapshot is impossible, snapshots only matter to magazine writers facing a deadline. In both the economic and intellectual marketplaces, what matters is the trend.
As Edward J. Epstein explained more fully in Slate back in May:
http://www.slate.com/id/2118819
In 2003, box office receipts accounted for less than 20% of a movie's revenues. Home entertainment provides more than 80%. Since then, the shift from theater to home has only accelerated. Last year, Walmart alone accounted for more than a third of studio revenues in video and DVD.
Home sales account for an even greater percentage of profits for the studios, given the high costs of theater promotion.
In fact, most studios expect to *lose* money as long as a film is in the theaters. The purpose of theater release is to build recognition and audience awareness, NOT to make money - not any more.
So, using your number of $10 million for Serenity's opening weekend, the movie can expect to make around $55-$65 million, if not more (given the strong cult fan base for the series and a lot of initial hesitation, given precedent of lousy films based on TV series).
Epstein uses the example of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which made only $8.1 mil in its opening weekend in the theaters--but sold over 1.5 million DVDs during its first week in the stores.
Taradise.
Don't rent yourself to a corporation.
Reading the posts here is amazing. Why would you think that spending 50% of your time on counterproductive deception and bullshit is a reasonable tradeoff?
Why spend at least half your waking hours being treated like a child, or, worse, a wageslave?
For what? At the end of the day, is the cost-benefit balance really worth it?
Work for yourself. Work for a small company where people care about each other. Work on an Open Source project--spend the time you would spend battling bureaucracy finding funding so you can do it full-time. Work for a non-profit doing some good for the world--certainly the skills you have are in desperate demand where they make the most difference. Work as a consultant - corporations will give you much less crap if you come in from the outside and they are paying for your time--and you'll probably work half the hours and make the same net, at least.
If what you are doing doesn't make a difference, why do it? We all have finite lifespans on this Earth - why waste half of them on bullshit? I just don't understand. I left corporate America twenty years ago and never looked back. I read these posts and just shake my head.
It's not just a waste of your time. It is the root of our political problems, too. Corporations train us for passivity and helplessness. They train us to compromise. Like frogs in slowly heated water, they train us to adjust, to adapt, to think that warm crap is an airbed.
It is this kind of passive aquiescence to useless authority and wasted powergames that makes for passive citizens who put up with governments that are just as useless and wasteful. We don't blink at corrupt, greedy politicians looking out for their own, because we spend most of our productive energy working for corporations led by corrupt, greedy executives.
And folks think an MBA is a good qualification for political leader, and the marketplace is a good model for government.... No wonder we're in the mess we're in!
"Technology" is a tool. A means to an end. It is not an end unto itself.
Zzzzzzzz
I, for one, welcome our new simulated Overlords.
Will Wright announces the new SimBrain.
All Your Brain Are Belong To Us
Simbody STOP me...
Thank goodness someone else said it. I'm tired of getting shat on, dissed and dismissed for talking about this stuff for the past ten years - it is why I left the industry.
You can't change this from within the system, the vacant $uits have too much power and they simply don't care. You can't change it from outside the system, the system is too insular and amoral and is not responsive to common sense, or even examples of dissident innovative success like Katamari Damacy - and consumers,sadly don't drive markets, any more than voters drive candidates, they follow them - serve them quality, and they will cherish it, feed them crap, and they will worship it - and the other nine-tenths will simply turn off, tune out, and play solitaire instead.
The only way to change it is by treating the mainstream, commercial game industry as damage and routing around it, creating alternatives - not just alternative developers creating alternative games, but alternative distribution, alternative revenue models, alternative value systems.
90% of the potential market is waiting. Some of us are trying to do something about it. And it's nice to have some cover from folks who obviously Get It [tm]. The article was brilliant, and any developer who doesn't pay attention, who thinks they know better, deserves the STDs they'll get from the pimps who write their paychecks.These treads prevent the snakebot from stalling or becoming stuck on rough terrain because, similar to a tire touching a road, t the treads propel the robot forward like a tire touching a road. Historically, scientists haven't had much success with wheeled and tracked robots on rough terrain because they constantly stall.
You confuse "value" with $$, padewan. Only on the Dark Side are they one and the same.
The explosion in value in those cases is actually a result of Reed's Law, which states that the connectivity value of Group Forming Networks (GFNs) grows at 2^n
See Reed's Locus, "That Sneaky Exponential",
http://www.reed.com/Papers/GFN/reedslaw.html
"If Jeb lands the wing-suit without a parachute and survives--he is going to be my hero," added Cani.
Coincidentally, West Wing aired an episode a week ago, on December 15, called "Impact Winter", in which a large asteroid was detected close to Earth, on a probable collision course, after being obscured by the blind spot caused by the Sun's glare.
Many fansites were moaning about West Wing having jumped the shark for featuring such an absurd plot device...
Total computer and video game *software* sales, US, 2003:
$7 billion.
(The $10 billion figures includes console HARDWARE sales. It inflates the stated size of game revenues by over 40%)
Total movie box office sales, US, 2003: $9 billion.
Add in DVD/VHS sales and rentals (another $22.4 billion) for a total in the US of
$31.4 billion.
And how about actual audience?
Total units sold, computer and video games, 2003:
239.3 million.
Total movie tickets sold, US (just actual movie tickets, not units of DVD/VHS sold/rented):
1.5 BILLION. With a B.
'nuff said.
Basketball is big business. Baseball is big business. I hear that people used watch a lot of things called comedies: it seems like there would be a lot of money to be made from a successful merger of what makes basketball and baseball compelling with what makes comedies compelling, though we've been trying that for decades with little success.
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/bulletins/sep04.php# feature
The real significance is precisely NOT about profit, or better-faster-smarter ways to make it.
/ sep04.php# feature
As I explain here:
"A LEVER LONG ENOUGH:
Value driven enterprise in the networked information economy"
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/bulletins
Only mobsters will have Flash.
Folks seem to forget that Google is a business, not a charity or an open source project. The purpose of Google is profit, not making the world a better place.
Use alternatives. Don't be an accomplice to Chinese tyranny.