In reading over the Rolling Stone article I was amazed at how superficial it was.
My personal background is from a small town in Illinois where I spent my time in high school being picked on by the jocks and what have you, plus all the esoteric intellectual stuff. The point here is that I am what I would consider (and most of the popular people in high school) to be a geek.
The portrayal of Jesse and Eric, although reflecting how some of the people out there will live, is only a small minority of people, even in the geek realm. My take on things is that most of the people that build their own computers and spend time online are not like what is depicted in this article. They are mostly just people like other people. They have problems and they desires like other people.
Using the internet does not give you any special powers or status. The internet is just a collection of information and a way to communicate. In essence it does not greatly differ from reading books or talking on the phone. Ideas and knowledge. This whole "subculture" thing is overdone.
I for one am sick and tired of hearing these articles on the internet culture. The internet is just a means for like-minded people to talk to one another.
Don't get me wrong, it is a great tool that can help provide opportunities to those that might not otherwise get them, like Eric and Jesse, but using the internet does not effect who a person is. These people would exist without the internet and have similar lifestyles. Its just the technology that is new.
I wouldn't be suprised if I get flamed for saying what I've said here, but I don't care. I just wanted a counter-statement to all this "subculture" talk on the internet.
If this is the kind of thing that gets your interest, try checking out the Institute For Neuroinformatics . In addition to building all of these sorts of vision chips, they also do work with real brain stuff, like anatomy and the like.
I did programming for them last fall, so I got to know some of the people doing the chip work. Rather than doing it for the reasons presented above (ie, weapons/AI) a lot of this is done in the mindset of pure research. These chips also give us a method to test some of the ideas we have about how brains work. After all, if you can build one, you can understand one.
In terms of making things like artificial eyes, we would first need to be able to track all of the neurons running from the eye to the rest of the brain, which is still out of the possibilities for the near future.
Slashdot Mirror
In reading over the Rolling Stone article I was amazed at how superficial it was.
My personal background is from a small town in Illinois where I spent my time in high school being picked on by the jocks and what have you, plus all the esoteric intellectual stuff. The point here is that I am what I would consider (and most of the popular people in high school) to be a geek.
The portrayal of Jesse and Eric, although reflecting how some of the people out there will live, is only a small minority of people, even in the geek realm. My take on things is that most of the people that build their own computers and spend time online are not like what is depicted in this article. They are mostly just people like other people. They have problems and they desires like other people.
Using the internet does not give you any special powers or status. The internet is just a collection of information and a way to communicate. In essence it does not greatly differ from reading books or talking on the phone. Ideas and knowledge. This whole "subculture" thing is overdone.
I for one am sick and tired of hearing these articles on the internet culture. The internet is just a means for like-minded people to talk to one another.
Don't get me wrong, it is a great tool that can help provide opportunities to those that might not otherwise get them, like Eric and Jesse, but using the internet does not effect who a person is. These people would exist without the internet and have similar lifestyles. Its just the technology that is new.
I wouldn't be suprised if I get flamed for saying what I've said here, but I don't care. I just wanted a counter-statement to all this "subculture" talk on the internet.
Take it as you will.
-Adam
If this is the kind of thing that gets your interest, try checking out the Institute For Neuroinformatics . In addition to building all of these sorts of vision chips, they also do work with real brain stuff, like anatomy and the like.
I did programming for them last fall, so I got to know some of the people doing the chip work. Rather than doing it for the reasons presented above (ie, weapons/AI) a lot of this is done in the mindset of pure research. These chips also give us a method to test some of the ideas we have about how brains work. After all, if you can build one, you can understand one.
In terms of making things like artificial eyes, we would first need to be able to track all of the neurons running from the eye to the rest of the brain, which is still out of the possibilities for the near future.
Cool stuff, though.