Mr. Kurzweil, first let me say thank you for your work and very interesting books. I want to ask your thoughts on why we don't see any evolved life in the universe. From your work on the Singularity it seems clear that the process of evolution into hybrid life forms or even digital ones is a future step for us carbon life. If this process occurs (which it appears to be), and given the amount of possible Goldilocks planets in the universe, and the 13+ billion years of evolution, why are we not seeing an overwhelming amount of visitors, or at least "others out there". And how do you align this apparent gap with your theory of the cyborg evolution?
Anatoli Brouchkov is a soft-spoken guy with silver hair, and when he lets out a reserved chuckle, his eyes light up like he was belly laughing.
Why are we focusing on inconsequential shit?
because its like the cannibal who lives next door that no one suspected.... You don't expect a mild-mannered reporter to be Superman and you don't expect a soft spoken well educated affable scientist to be that nuts... Its inconsequential but relevant to our own wonder at why the hell would he take that step/risk.
While arguing about logical fallacies you've failed to address the original point entirely; A sample size of one is a problem, guys. It can't disprove the null hypothesis. It doesn't matter how many observations you make in the control group; At the very best, the ideal case, you'll succeed in identifying properties of this brain not present in all those other brains, but what you could be identifying may have absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. It could just as easily be another property, like his love of Justin Bieber (hey, if we're going to allow a sample size of one to be scientifically valid, I'm bringing time travel back -- so no bitching).
But the sample size it not 1. The article is claiming two things: CC thickness is correlated to Intelligence (which the article should have backed up with references), and two: Einstein's CC was thicker then normal. It is thus drawing a rather thin correlation to a correlation. But the sample size is not 1 because the article is not trying to say that since Einstein had a large CC and was intelligent, then CC thickness must mean higher intelligence.
This is not about perception it is about facts, and correlation. Fact: Einstein had a much higher then normal/average intelligence. Fact (but not well understood or even well researched so I would call it a weak fact): thicker corpus collosum is correlated to higher intelligence. Fact (according to one study which measured the thickness of Einstein's corpus collosum using photos): Einstein's CC was thicker then normal. Ergo, there could be a connection between Einstein's CC and his intelligence (if that correlations prove true in the long run).
maybe that they are more intelligent. I'm not trolling, I'm somewhat serious. I also don't think correlation means more then just that: correlation (like ice cream and drownings), but it could. So lets stay open and keep looking for answers.
no. The sample size which his brain is being compared to is much larger. He is the not the sample size, he is being compared to the known correlation of intelligence and corpus collosum thickness. Check it on google to find more research results.
I've read a lot about neuroscience discoveries and interesting abnormalities and didn't know the direct correlation between the corpus collosum thickness and intelligence. Ok, so when someone claims something like this article I think - bah... another stupid claim about Einstein. But this time there is some merit to the claim. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2754582/
And yes, his other brain differences were know for a while, so this seems to be a new revelation based on new evidence of the correlation and the discovered photos.
It sure doesn't read like TOR was compromised. It was the Gmail account DPR left when first advertising SR on a shrooms site. The FBI (if they aren't just covering for the NSA) do seem to have caught DPR through old fashioned sleuth work. Yes, they managed to copy a server but they still couldn't get the names out of it, only link the messages and transaction dates to other events they tracked down to DPR after tentatively identifying him using Gmail, Google+ and LinkedIn.
Ouch.
I thought the/. community was better educated. Oceanography has nothing to do with most of the questions asked. Acidification, yes! Sharks, not so much...
I missed the original question phase, or we would have had a few more on point questions:
1. What do you think about geo-engineering. Do you think its plausible, if not possible to artificially target open ocean prochlorococcus growth as a way to increase CO2 absorption, and if so, what do you think the risks would be?
2. The recent work in Infrasound and its deleterious affects on marine mammals, along with the Navy's heavy use of the thermocline for underwater communication all point to a dark future for whales. Do you have any thoughts on what to do, or how to avoid/rehabilitate these areas in the same way that the endangered species act helped their overall populations?
There are hundreds of free-for-download Access Control software packages which will read the serial number from a RFID card. You don't need to go through the trouble of building a new package. The hard part is that most good AC systems don't use the serial from a smart card, they use one of the sectors on the chip. This is usually locked with a PKI method of encryption and thus much harder to break. He mentioned HID, which uses their own proprietary PKI (such as Legic does), but there are many standards such as DESFire which are open and manage access to the chip sectors. What the article is really talking about is normal 125MHz prox cards which are not secure and yes, widely used in the USA but not in Europe.
The real way to crack even the HID encryption is to get behind the reader and capture the Wigand (text) output from the reader which does the encryption handshake for you. Watch out for tampers, but its not hard in any interior space, just look in the false ceiling for the controller and tap in where the cables enter it. Much easier then all this non-sense.
Simple, use captcha type audio to trip up bots. All calls allowed through either from the white list or through a quick Turing test (captcha).
1. Use a white list of all known contacts, and let all from the list directly through.
2. All not recognized calls are given a short recording: "press 123 to continue your call". Rotate the numbers and vary the voice message to ensure its not being translated by the bot. Get creative with Captcha type sentances: How many toes do you have...
Nothing too difficult, and nothing too costly.
Where's my 50K?
The largest problem that most scientists face, is that most people get involved in Science because they are not good with people. LEARN HOW TO COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY! That is the best advice to give anyone going into any area of science. If you don't volunteer as a journalist, spend the time communicating in some productive way. Practice practice practice. The better you get, the more entertaining you are, the more likely you'll be pushed up to the very top of your profession and with it have more fun at your job then all the others stuck in a lab somewhere. Trust me, learn to communicate and your life will be more enriched, both financially and professionally.
Sorry, but that is just emotional. The Government does 1000 times more to assist the poor than Church groups do. In fact, many of the NGO Church groups take money from the Government to give the help you are describing. Churches, Mosques, Temples are all businesses. You can say they are businesses for good purposes, but they are businesses none the less. A better way would be to start a business and call it based on my "faith" in Widgets. Then register as a Religious based NPO and take advantage of the same zero tax status as the others. Thus we could all stop paying taxes. (I'm being ironic of course).
The power to tax is the power to destroy? LOL. Yes, but its easier just to declare a Church unlawful, and leave it at that. Congress can destroy something like a church without needing to tax it to death. By your logic, Congress should dissolve since it "might" run afoul of the constitution. Taxes are not to destroy the payer, they are to distribute money to areas which the individual can not reach, and the group requires to benefit the social good. Yes, of course there are boondogles coming out of congress, but that's just the nature of democracy.
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Winston Churchill
German law is already clear: The owner of the connection is responsible for the traffic on the connection. If there is wireless, it must be secured in such a way to ensure that others are not using or misusing the connection to download or share infringing material. Either way, the owner is responsible. Now that the connection address can be subpoena'd for the real owner name it means that a lot of lawsuits are coming in Germany.
You're measuring something which has too many variables. Test your theory on a smaller environment, such as in a single shop, and you see that cameras do deter crime. The rate varies depending on the camera location and visibility, and also will vary over time. The greatest drop is seen closest to the installation, and then it falls off a bit over time.
Tickets for illegal driving habits are a positive cash flow for the ticking agency, and thus an incentive to follow to completion. Tracking an individual for criminal activity (such as your hit and run) is a cost center activity which, no matter what you think about the system, costs money. Yes, it keeps the police in a job, but ultimately the amount of incidents versus man hours to process makes each decision a prioritization. Your illegal turn on a scooter brings in 100 quid (or so) and finding and procecuting a hit and run (when you appear not to be dead) is put in the prioritization cue with the rest of the more severe crimes. It has nothing to do with CCTV and everything to do with economics and prioritization of available man hours. More cops and more of the petty crime gets investigated. Simple math.
That all said, CCTV makes the investigation faster and in many cases simpler then without it. That is the point of the artical IMHO. More cameras means that the priority list I spoke of dips down farther into petter crimes simply because Cops need less time per incident to investigate and take to the prosecutor.
Slashdot Mirror
Mr. Kurzweil, first let me say thank you for your work and very interesting books. I want to ask your thoughts on why we don't see any evolved life in the universe. From your work on the Singularity it seems clear that the process of evolution into hybrid life forms or even digital ones is a future step for us carbon life. If this process occurs (which it appears to be), and given the amount of possible Goldilocks planets in the universe, and the 13+ billion years of evolution, why are we not seeing an overwhelming amount of visitors, or at least "others out there". And how do you align this apparent gap with your theory of the cyborg evolution?
Anatoli Brouchkov is a soft-spoken guy with silver hair, and when he lets out a reserved chuckle, his eyes light up like he was belly laughing.
Why are we focusing on inconsequential shit?
because its like the cannibal who lives next door that no one suspected.... You don't expect a mild-mannered reporter to be Superman and you don't expect a soft spoken well educated affable scientist to be that nuts... Its inconsequential but relevant to our own wonder at why the hell would he take that step/risk.
Interesting.... so you would suggest using Voice?
While arguing about logical fallacies you've failed to address the original point entirely; A sample size of one is a problem, guys. It can't disprove the null hypothesis. It doesn't matter how many observations you make in the control group; At the very best, the ideal case, you'll succeed in identifying properties of this brain not present in all those other brains, but what you could be identifying may have absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. It could just as easily be another property, like his love of Justin Bieber (hey, if we're going to allow a sample size of one to be scientifically valid, I'm bringing time travel back -- so no bitching).
But the sample size it not 1. The article is claiming two things: CC thickness is correlated to Intelligence (which the article should have backed up with references), and two: Einstein's CC was thicker then normal. It is thus drawing a rather thin correlation to a correlation. But the sample size is not 1 because the article is not trying to say that since Einstein had a large CC and was intelligent, then CC thickness must mean higher intelligence.
This is not about perception it is about facts, and correlation. Fact: Einstein had a much higher then normal/average intelligence. Fact (but not well understood or even well researched so I would call it a weak fact): thicker corpus collosum is correlated to higher intelligence. Fact (according to one study which measured the thickness of Einstein's corpus collosum using photos): Einstein's CC was thicker then normal. Ergo, there could be a connection between Einstein's CC and his intelligence (if that correlations prove true in the long run).
maybe that they are more intelligent. I'm not trolling, I'm somewhat serious. I also don't think correlation means more then just that: correlation (like ice cream and drownings), but it could. So lets stay open and keep looking for answers.
all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average... The Lake Wobegon effect is good for something, no?
no. The sample size which his brain is being compared to is much larger. He is the not the sample size, he is being compared to the known correlation of intelligence and corpus collosum thickness. Check it on google to find more research results.
it is just correlation, not a causation. That is a much higher bar to clear.
I've read a lot about neuroscience discoveries and interesting abnormalities and didn't know the direct correlation between the corpus collosum thickness and intelligence. Ok, so when someone claims something like this article I think - bah... another stupid claim about Einstein. But this time there is some merit to the claim. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2754582/ And yes, his other brain differences were know for a while, so this seems to be a new revelation based on new evidence of the correlation and the discovered photos.
It sure doesn't read like TOR was compromised. It was the Gmail account DPR left when first advertising SR on a shrooms site. The FBI (if they aren't just covering for the NSA) do seem to have caught DPR through old fashioned sleuth work. Yes, they managed to copy a server but they still couldn't get the names out of it, only link the messages and transaction dates to other events they tracked down to DPR after tentatively identifying him using Gmail, Google+ and LinkedIn. Ouch.
So does it restart, shut down or turn on the webcam and start up chat roulette? I can think of a few gestures done regularly in front of a PC.
I thought the /. community was better educated. Oceanography has nothing to do with most of the questions asked. Acidification, yes! Sharks, not so much...
I missed the original question phase, or we would have had a few more on point questions:
1. What do you think about geo-engineering. Do you think its plausible, if not possible to artificially target open ocean prochlorococcus growth as a way to increase CO2 absorption, and if so, what do you think the risks would be?
2. The recent work in Infrasound and its deleterious affects on marine mammals, along with the Navy's heavy use of the thermocline for underwater communication all point to a dark future for whales. Do you have any thoughts on what to do, or how to avoid/rehabilitate these areas in the same way that the endangered species act helped their overall populations?
There are hundreds of free-for-download Access Control software packages which will read the serial number from a RFID card. You don't need to go through the trouble of building a new package. The hard part is that most good AC systems don't use the serial from a smart card, they use one of the sectors on the chip. This is usually locked with a PKI method of encryption and thus much harder to break. He mentioned HID, which uses their own proprietary PKI (such as Legic does), but there are many standards such as DESFire which are open and manage access to the chip sectors. What the article is really talking about is normal 125MHz prox cards which are not secure and yes, widely used in the USA but not in Europe. The real way to crack even the HID encryption is to get behind the reader and capture the Wigand (text) output from the reader which does the encryption handshake for you. Watch out for tampers, but its not hard in any interior space, just look in the false ceiling for the controller and tap in where the cables enter it. Much easier then all this non-sense.
hah... RTFA on myself
Simple, use captcha type audio to trip up bots. All calls allowed through either from the white list or through a quick Turing test (captcha). 1. Use a white list of all known contacts, and let all from the list directly through. 2. All not recognized calls are given a short recording: "press 123 to continue your call". Rotate the numbers and vary the voice message to ensure its not being translated by the bot. Get creative with Captcha type sentances: How many toes do you have... Nothing too difficult, and nothing too costly. Where's my 50K?
The largest problem that most scientists face, is that most people get involved in Science because they are not good with people. LEARN HOW TO COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY! That is the best advice to give anyone going into any area of science. If you don't volunteer as a journalist, spend the time communicating in some productive way. Practice practice practice. The better you get, the more entertaining you are, the more likely you'll be pushed up to the very top of your profession and with it have more fun at your job then all the others stuck in a lab somewhere. Trust me, learn to communicate and your life will be more enriched, both financially and professionally.
What about using the newly discovered Higgs Boson? Couldn't that be used to more precisely define 1Kg mass?
Sorry, but that is just emotional. The Government does 1000 times more to assist the poor than Church groups do. In fact, many of the NGO Church groups take money from the Government to give the help you are describing. Churches, Mosques, Temples are all businesses. You can say they are businesses for good purposes, but they are businesses none the less. A better way would be to start a business and call it based on my "faith" in Widgets. Then register as a Religious based NPO and take advantage of the same zero tax status as the others. Thus we could all stop paying taxes. (I'm being ironic of course). The power to tax is the power to destroy? LOL. Yes, but its easier just to declare a Church unlawful, and leave it at that. Congress can destroy something like a church without needing to tax it to death. By your logic, Congress should dissolve since it "might" run afoul of the constitution. Taxes are not to destroy the payer, they are to distribute money to areas which the individual can not reach, and the group requires to benefit the social good. Yes, of course there are boondogles coming out of congress, but that's just the nature of democracy. "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Winston Churchill
They already are penalized: The software gets a bad reputation and is no longer purchased or used.
I think nothing more needs to be said...
German law is already clear: The owner of the connection is responsible for the traffic on the connection. If there is wireless, it must be secured in such a way to ensure that others are not using or misusing the connection to download or share infringing material. Either way, the owner is responsible. Now that the connection address can be subpoena'd for the real owner name it means that a lot of lawsuits are coming in Germany.
You're measuring something which has too many variables. Test your theory on a smaller environment, such as in a single shop, and you see that cameras do deter crime. The rate varies depending on the camera location and visibility, and also will vary over time. The greatest drop is seen closest to the installation, and then it falls off a bit over time.
please read my previous comment above. Its about economics and cash flow.
Tickets for illegal driving habits are a positive cash flow for the ticking agency, and thus an incentive to follow to completion. Tracking an individual for criminal activity (such as your hit and run) is a cost center activity which, no matter what you think about the system, costs money. Yes, it keeps the police in a job, but ultimately the amount of incidents versus man hours to process makes each decision a prioritization. Your illegal turn on a scooter brings in 100 quid (or so) and finding and procecuting a hit and run (when you appear not to be dead) is put in the prioritization cue with the rest of the more severe crimes. It has nothing to do with CCTV and everything to do with economics and prioritization of available man hours. More cops and more of the petty crime gets investigated. Simple math. That all said, CCTV makes the investigation faster and in many cases simpler then without it. That is the point of the artical IMHO. More cameras means that the priority list I spoke of dips down farther into petter crimes simply because Cops need less time per incident to investigate and take to the prosecutor.