Very true, being able to use a keyboard without looking is hardly Zen. (I call it 'typing'.) Ditto driving and walking.
But there is something to the Quake Zen (allowing that we're horribly butchering the meaning of 'Zen') beyond key memory. There's definitely a sort of 'altered state of consciousness' (*blech*) that can be invoked on top of the key memory. If nothing else, it shares with Zen an ability to utterly confound me whenever I try to explain it.
Both are as hardcoded into the brain as you get--for all intents are purposes I would consider them immutable. The problem is that they aren't just functions carried out by the brain, but are the entire basis for structure of the brain--it would not be totally incorrect to say that the brain's reason for being is to house five senses and run four limbs.
OTOH, in utero just might work, considering that in young children the frontal cortex may as well be unallocated pool of potential functionality (heh). You could probably get *something* going, although I can't see it being as natural as what we have been equiped with by nature--if for no other reason than because you can't actually use the areas built to handle sensory/motor tasks, as they're already in use. You'd be strapping a new sense onto networks designed for general cognitive tasks--such as language--that may or may not be suitable for sensory work. (Which raises another problem--aside from young children, the brain is spoken for: you'd have to take something offline, at least partially, to fit the new capabilities in.)
Of course, there might be problems trying to figure out how to do the procedure on the first place if the only patients are in utero.
Well, you couldn't actually do a brain in a jar; you need a lot of peripheral tissue and/or organs to keep the brain functioning properly. Bad things tend to happen when you remove hormones from brain (or any other) tissue, and then you need a nervous system to regulate the hormones, input from a body to said nervous system.... (Yes, you do need a body, or most of one anyway.)
I like the idea of network about computers; I don't know why, since it's probably the most perverse notion I've seen in the last few years, but still....
The only problem was that it was run by ZD. It's not so much that they're bad, it's just that the Amish know more about computing than ZD ever will, and probably do a better job explaining it. (Watch ZDTV News. *snicker*) I'd be happy if anyone took over--even MS, at this point--and actually transformed it into something that could rival, um, anyone, in tech news.
Realistically, though, there's even odds (heh) that this will utterly destroy the network. If Kate and Leo leave, they'll probably lose 90% of their audience.
I seem to recall that Allen's been distancing himself from MS for the past few years (at least). Perhaps I'm mistaken, but off the top of my head I can't remember him doing anything to help MS recently.
Simple: dead bodies react differently. That is one of the side-effects of being dead, after all. If nothing else, the corpse would be prone to more damage than a living human, as it lacks any healing ability, and quite a bit of flexibility. I'm not sure, but I'd wager than cadavers aren't very accurate models of e.g., cartalige or muscle damage, bruising, etc (the former being exagerated, the latter lore or less absent).
Plus, it would be a real pain in the ass to try to figure out just what happened to the cadaver. I don't relish spending six months running MRI's on a corpse to see what trauma it suffered when I can just have a volunteer tell me how he feels after the crash.
The Redherring article has one interesting tidbit, related to a much asked question from the last Transmeta story.
Its management team has been actively striking up partnerships with some of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturers. One of those partners is Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN)...
No, I meant the G400. It has *almost* all of the features I want--and a hulluva a lot more than nVidia and 3dfx--but there's just a few things missing that I expect to see on the next card. Things I was actually somewhat suprised to see weren't included. Things I can't remember at the moment. Oh, well, there were important to me when I bought the TNT2 (instead of waiting for the G400).
(Full-screen antialiasing would be nice (yes, I need it for some things). Some tweaks here and there, maybe geometry accel, though I don't really need it at this point.)
3dfx fails to deliver in so many other interesting ways, though. IIRC, the Voodoo4 was supposed to be released last month, then this month, then 'really early next year', and so on.
No hype? What about the T-Buffer? If you read over some of interviews with 3dfx's marketting people, you'd think it was the greatest innovation since VGA graphics. (And the Voodoo4 is the second coming, just so you know....) They may not be official hype-mongers, but 'unofficialy' they're just as bad (note: I said just as bad; I'm not defending nVidia, I'm attacking 3dfx).
Not to mention dumb. (No, I don't give a crap about fill-rate, I want *quality*. 40 fps is fine, now give me 32bit color, dammit!)
*coughcough* That was fun. Anyway, at this point I'm a dedicated nVidia owner, mostly because of my beloved Hercules TNT2. I would have gone with Matrox, but they were just half a generation down from what I wanted; the G600 (or whatever) will almost certainly be my next card, if it can do what I expect.
The GeForce supports OpenGL and Direct3D, but not Glide, which happens to be the Voodoo's native API. The Voodoo supports all three, at varying qualities. So, if a game is released *only* under Glide, you won't be able to play it on a GeForce; otherwise, you're fine. Now, two caveats:
(1) Very, very, few games are Glide only. Don't worry about it. The sole exception I know of recently was the initial Unreal Tounrey demo.
(2) Creative Labs ships all of their cards with a Unified Driver that allows you to use Glide with a TNT/TNT2/GeForce. It works quite well, from what I've heard (again, on the UT Demo).
As for the others, Savage seems to have a proprietary API of some sort. Then again, no one buys Savage;-)
I never said you could do it *now*; in fact, I said you can't, agreeing with the previous post. But if this idea catches on, and apparently it has, then you *will* be able to in, say, five years. (Or one or two, if we're lucky.)
This is exactly what happened with PC's. A few years ago (well, several) you basically had a built-in everything--graphics, sound, processors, etc--or if you were lucky, a marginally compatable slot or two. As the demand for modular, standardized systems grew, this began to change, bringing us to the (more or less) open systems we have today.
My point was that as the notebook-as-desktop idea catches on, people will demand the same degree of modularity and standardization, and the manufacturers will meet this demand. There's a large enough population of gamers alone to support the companies that go this route. (As I said, I would love a notebook that could run Evolva at a decent frame-rate, even if it was a little pricy.)
Smaller: My case is ~2.5 feet tall, and is mostly empty (but useful) space.
Quieter: 11 fans and 2 hds do not a quite computer make.
blah blah blah....
Anyway, you're missing the point. In fact, you're so far from the point I had to hike out to send this.
PC's were in the same position a few years ago that you claim notebooks are in now. They were expensive, proprietary, difficult or impossible to upgrade, etc. Guess what? Things change. Now their (fairly) cheap, (mostly) open and (relatively) easy to upgrade. The same will come to pass in notebook tech as it migrates to the desktop. People will demand that their waffle sized computer have slots for their shiny new NV11, and some company will comply. Then they'll want to be able to upgrade processors, and another company will comply. And so on. If you're still looking for over-priced lock-ins, try the workstation market.
Anyway, you can't stop it; the lower-end of the market demands it. The iMac is a laptop (Powerbook mobo's, etc) in a big colorful case, and people love it. Some are starting to complain about the limited upgrade path (i.e., none), and hopefully Apple will do something about that. The reason they're doing so well is that most people don't care about proprietariness; they want a computer that works, without having to know anything about it. That is what this tech will give them (though it's not really at any advantage over the current systems in this). However, this does not mean that we will *all* be using iMac's (see above paragraph).
So, in five years, you'll see basically what you do now. Compaq, Gateway, Apple, etc. selling all-in-one miniPC's for the average consumer, while those of use with more refined tastes will order our Abit mobo's and Transmeta processors and slap together monstrously overpowered notebooks. I fail to see the downside. (Esp. if I can get dual processors, firewire and an NV1x in something I can take to LANparties in a backpack.;-)
I take it you don't like guns (and apparently neither does at least one moderator). I'm baffled, though, as to why you think this is at all relevant to the topic; why, one could even say you're 'off-topic'....
(I'll leave it to others to question your general cluefulness on this subject.)
Re:Wasnt Tesla wrong about a lot of things
on
Lightning On Demand
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· Score: 1
Very roughly: no theory can be true, in any 'real' sense, because we have no access to vast parts of reality (hehe, that sounded silly).
One convenient example is physics. We can't know, for certain, that any particles actually exist; while there's good reason to think they do, we can't prove that they aren't, for example, gremlins that happen to behave as if they were particles for their own amusement (physicists may have better reason to believe this;-). For the most part, physics doesn't tell us about the world, but about the mathemetics that is used to predict that behavior of the world. At the classical level, these are similar, but as you go deeper the math is more and more abstracted from reality. As you look at the math involved in quantum mechanics, it begins to look less and less like a viable way to construct a universe. (If someone can explain what a QM 'particle' is, beyond the mathematics involved, and in a way that makes any sense ontologically, I'm give them a cookie.) Truthfullness is right out, which brings us to the alternative....
What the theories are is useful. Newtonian physics is extremely useful, and in Newton's day, encompassed most of what physics was needed for (i.e., you don't need QM in the 18th Century). Today it is less useful in some areas, but for the most part it works quite well. Thus it is 'true' to the extent that it works, and nothing better has come along. QM works well, and so is true in some sense, even though the meaning of it beyond the equations is still up in the air. (Compare the common Copenhagan interpretation with, say, Bohm's equally useful interpretation--same math, same results--and tell me we have any idea what's going on below classical physics.)
Incidentally, during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, there was movement, of sorts, that attempted to recast 'knowledge', esp. scientific knowledge, in a pragmatic light. Instead of claiming that we really know about the world, we would simply have knowledge that worked, or that was good enough for the purposes at hand. For some reason this never really caught on, even though it has many advantages over the alternative.
Re:Wasnt Tesla wrong about a lot of things
on
Lightning On Demand
·
· Score: 1
What was so great about this man if so many of his theories were reasonably disproved.
I do hope you know that >99% of all the theories in history have been disproved. That doesn't mean the people who created them don't deserve some credit; discovering what's wrong is as important as discovering what's right, esp. since what former tends to lead to the latter. (In this case, theories of an aether are useful as tests of modern theories, which should have superior explanatory value. They do, so they have succeeded.)
Aristotle was wrong about almost everything he investigated, but few people seriously ask why he is respected. So was Newton (the bulk of Newton's writing wasn't on his successful physical theories). The same could turn out to be true for Einstein (and likely will, if history is any indication).
For the benefit of the readers, I'm skip the explanation of why no theory is true...;-)
I apologize for the brevity of the following; I'd like to explain these points, but I'm just too tired to do so.
The mood controller will not work. Not for another few decades at least. Why you ask?
This is an excellent paper about the current state of affective neuroscience. Read it and ponder the implications. If that doesn't bore you to death, try Panksepp "Affective Neuroscience", which is even better.
Briefly, the problems are as follows.
(1) We've only this known this system exists for a few years, and still do not know its boundaries.
(2) Beyond some minimal lesion studies and some neuropharmacology, we have no idea of the functional make up the said system.
(3) The system is among the oldest in the brain, possibly the oldest, if you include some of it's more primitive components. (The PAG actually rides on the top of the brain-stem, for example.)
(4) It is also, however, the single largest system in the brain, encompassing most of the limbic system, and the right frontal and temporal lobes.
(5) The primitive subsystems (again, such as the PAG) are absolutely vital for continued existence, both mentally and biologically, and are also extremely sensitive to disturbances. They do not take well to probing. Lesions tend to have nasty repercussions, such as permanent stupor.
(6) Presumably the simpler subsystems are easier to manipulate. Unfortunately, they do not directly implement the emotions people wish to alter, e.g. depression, various antisocial behaviors. (Schizophrenia is a frontal lobe problem, and apparently architectural; it'll have to wait for nanotech, at least.) Those are built on stack upon stack of higher systems, several hundred million years worth, at least.
(7) It is largely a chemical system. Silicon chips are not at their best in chemistry. As an added bonus, the neurotransmitters involves must be used for proper function; you can't sidestep the problem with direct electrical stimulation, as in the cortex, because of the interaction between subsystems.
(8) All of that aside, neurosurgery is only slightly more scientific and reliably than alchemy. No one has ever tried anything this complicated (the implants to control seizures and the cat thing don't even come close), and no one in their right mind should expect it to work the first time.
"We have to be careful extrapolating the results to humans," Slesin said. "But the amount of energy going into these animals is really small and not all that different, potentially, from a cell phone."
It sounds suspiciously like they were using actual cell-phone levels of radiation.
This reminds me of the lab test they used to show that some artificial sweetener caused cancer by given the rats a dose equivalent to something like a cup of the stuff (that's probably a exaggeration; but it was a *huge* amount of sweetener). Basically guarantied that the rats would die of *something*. Then one call to the FDA....
You're absolutely right. The problem is that many, and I fear most, councilors *aren't* more qualified. The two at my local High school are there primary because (1) they need someone to do class/career/college planning, and (2) the principle is never around, and does very little anyway, so someone has to hold things together.
AFAICT, they do very little 'counseling' at all. This may be because of more pressing matters (e.g., num. 2), but from my experience, they're simply unqualified. Our fscking *student councilors* do an infinitely better job, and I'm sure you can imagine how little that consoles their victims.
Incidentally (and OT), at my former school (an 'alternative school'; I was one of oh-so dangerous philosophy/lit psycho's) I was very friendly with several of the district councilors. The only one who stood any chance of doing any good, IMO, left to become a real teacher. The rest were of the worst granola-school theory of counseling. (I can still remember vividly being asked to explain not only who Dan Dennett was, but why I was reading him, what about his work (Brainchildren) interested me. And 'AI is neat' didn't cut it; I had to be deeply touched. I'd hate to think what would have happened if I'd been armed;-)
To be honest, I'm more than a little leery about trusting science news from Wired (or any other 'news' source, for that matter). It would have been nice to have some more info of the experiment.
Now speculation.
The big problem, IMO, with applying these results to humans is that we shouldn't have to. If cell-phone use results in memory loss, cell-phone users should have noticed something a long time ago (or people studying cell-phone users, anyway). And conversely, it should be simple enough to verify the results by studying cell-phone users. Considering that lab rats seem to be vulnerable to everything known to man, I'm not really convinced.
This is more than what I want them to do. This is what the editors of other publications do.
I never said it wasn't. Yet. It isn't.
Then what else is he?
A maintainer. Poster. Webmaster. Whatever. But he's more of an editor than I am.
I for one assume that the posts should be edited, notification is not required.
Except that notification *is* what professional and reputable journals/newpapers/etc do. It's part of what makes them professionals. Go look in your local newspapers blurb of letter submission. It should say that they will (not) be edited to length, content, etc.
The reason that is their is simple, to most of us with developed cerebrums: you said "I for one assume...". You aren't supposed to *assume* anything; the editors are supposed to make very clear what will be done with your work (if for no other reason than because you own it). I could assume that my paper will automatically be published, but it won't be. Editors tell you that, very plainly. I could assume that submitting it on a stone tablet is OK; that's why most journals specify media. I could assume that mailing stories to Taco is fine; tht's why he tells you to use the Submit Story link. Getting a clue yet?
There, I've fed you enough text to feed a family of trolls. Move on.
And it's part of human nature for the pissed on to be, well, pissed about it. Then the smarter of the pissed-on write stories/get someone to write stories about their plight, get posted on/., and have responses like 'it's part of human nature to piss on the weak'.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, Fox News is reporting the cops have been using tear gas in places, and there've been more arrests. As you said, things are getting uglier.
Very true, being able to use a keyboard without looking is hardly Zen. (I call it 'typing'.) Ditto driving and walking.
But there is something to the Quake Zen (allowing that we're horribly butchering the meaning of 'Zen') beyond key memory. There's definitely a sort of 'altered state of consciousness' (*blech*) that can be invoked on top of the key memory. If nothing else, it shares with Zen an ability to utterly confound me whenever I try to explain it.
Both are as hardcoded into the brain as you get--for all intents are purposes I would consider them immutable. The problem is that they aren't just functions carried out by the brain, but are the entire basis for structure of the brain--it would not be totally incorrect to say that the brain's reason for being is to house five senses and run four limbs.
OTOH, in utero just might work, considering that in young children the frontal cortex may as well be unallocated pool of potential functionality (heh). You could probably get *something* going, although I can't see it being as natural as what we have been equiped with by nature--if for no other reason than because you can't actually use the areas built to handle sensory/motor tasks, as they're already in use. You'd be strapping a new sense onto networks designed for general cognitive tasks--such as language--that may or may not be suitable for sensory work. (Which raises another problem--aside from young children, the brain is spoken for: you'd have to take something offline, at least partially, to fit the new capabilities in.)
Of course, there might be problems trying to figure out how to do the procedure on the first place if the only patients are in utero.
Well, you couldn't actually do a brain in a jar; you need a lot of peripheral tissue and/or organs to keep the brain functioning properly. Bad things tend to happen when you remove hormones from brain (or any other) tissue, and then you need a nervous system to regulate the hormones, input from a body to said nervous system.... (Yes, you do need a body, or most of one anyway.)
I like the idea of network about computers; I don't know why, since it's probably the most perverse notion I've seen in the last few years, but still....
The only problem was that it was run by ZD. It's not so much that they're bad, it's just that the Amish know more about computing than ZD ever will, and probably do a better job explaining it. (Watch ZDTV News. *snicker*) I'd be happy if anyone took over--even MS, at this point--and actually transformed it into something that could rival, um, anyone, in tech news.
Realistically, though, there's even odds (heh) that this will utterly destroy the network. If Kate and Leo leave, they'll probably lose 90% of their audience.
I seem to recall that Allen's been distancing himself from MS for the past few years (at least). Perhaps I'm mistaken, but off the top of my head I can't remember him doing anything to help MS recently.
Simple: dead bodies react differently. That is one of the side-effects of being dead, after all. If nothing else, the corpse would be prone to more damage than a living human, as it lacks any healing ability, and quite a bit of flexibility. I'm not sure, but I'd wager than cadavers aren't very accurate models of e.g., cartalige or muscle damage, bruising, etc (the former being exagerated, the latter lore or less absent).
Plus, it would be a real pain in the ass to try to figure out just what happened to the cadaver. I don't relish spending six months running MRI's on a corpse to see what trauma it suffered when I can just have a volunteer tell me how he feels after the crash.
The Redherring article has one interesting tidbit, related to a much asked question from the last Transmeta story.
Its management team has been actively striking up partnerships with some of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturers. One of those partners is Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN)...
TI, of course, has fabs....
No, I meant the G400. It has *almost* all of the features I want--and a hulluva a lot more than nVidia and 3dfx--but there's just a few things missing that I expect to see on the next card. Things I was actually somewhat suprised to see weren't included. Things I can't remember at the moment. Oh, well, there were important to me when I bought the TNT2 (instead of waiting for the G400).
(Full-screen antialiasing would be nice (yes, I need it for some things). Some tweaks here and there, maybe geometry accel, though I don't really need it at this point.)
3dfx fails to deliver in so many other interesting ways, though. IIRC, the Voodoo4 was supposed to be released last month, then this month, then 'really early next year', and so on.
No hype? What about the T-Buffer? If you read over some of interviews with 3dfx's marketting people, you'd think it was the greatest innovation since VGA graphics. (And the Voodoo4 is the second coming, just so you know....) They may not be official hype-mongers, but 'unofficialy' they're just as bad (note: I said just as bad; I'm not defending nVidia, I'm attacking 3dfx).
Not to mention dumb. (No, I don't give a crap about fill-rate, I want *quality*. 40 fps is fine, now give me 32bit color, dammit!)
*coughcough* That was fun. Anyway, at this point I'm a dedicated nVidia owner, mostly because of my beloved Hercules TNT2. I would have gone with Matrox, but they were just half a generation down from what I wanted; the G600 (or whatever) will almost certainly be my next card, if it can do what I expect.
The GeForce supports OpenGL and Direct3D, but not Glide, which happens to be the Voodoo's native API. The Voodoo supports all three, at varying qualities. So, if a game is released *only* under Glide, you won't be able to play it on a GeForce; otherwise, you're fine. Now, two caveats:
;-)
(1) Very, very, few games are Glide only. Don't worry about it. The sole exception I know of recently was the initial Unreal Tounrey demo.
(2) Creative Labs ships all of their cards with a Unified Driver that allows you to use Glide with a TNT/TNT2/GeForce. It works quite well, from what I've heard (again, on the UT Demo).
As for the others, Savage seems to have a proprietary API of some sort. Then again, no one buys Savage
*thump*
I never said you could do it *now*; in fact, I said you can't, agreeing with the previous post. But if this idea catches on, and apparently it has, then you *will* be able to in, say, five years. (Or one or two, if we're lucky.)
This is exactly what happened with PC's. A few years ago (well, several) you basically had a built-in everything--graphics, sound, processors, etc--or if you were lucky, a marginally compatable slot or two. As the demand for modular, standardized systems grew, this began to change, bringing us to the (more or less) open systems we have today.
My point was that as the notebook-as-desktop idea catches on, people will demand the same degree of modularity and standardization, and the manufacturers will meet this demand. There's a large enough population of gamers alone to support the companies that go this route. (As I said, I would love a notebook that could run Evolva at a decent frame-rate, even if it was a little pricy.)
OK, let me have a shot at this....
;-)
Smaller: My case is ~2.5 feet tall, and is mostly empty (but useful) space.
Quieter: 11 fans and 2 hds do not a quite computer make.
blah blah blah....
Anyway, you're missing the point. In fact, you're so far from the point I had to hike out to send this.
PC's were in the same position a few years ago that you claim notebooks are in now. They were expensive, proprietary, difficult or impossible to upgrade, etc. Guess what? Things change. Now their (fairly) cheap, (mostly) open and (relatively) easy to upgrade. The same will come to pass in notebook tech as it migrates to the desktop. People will demand that their waffle sized computer have slots for their shiny new NV11, and some company will comply. Then they'll want to be able to upgrade processors, and another company will comply. And so on. If you're still looking for over-priced lock-ins, try the workstation market.
Anyway, you can't stop it; the lower-end of the market demands it. The iMac is a laptop (Powerbook mobo's, etc) in a big colorful case, and people love it. Some are starting to complain about the limited upgrade path (i.e., none), and hopefully Apple will do something about that. The reason they're doing so well is that most people don't care about proprietariness; they want a computer that works, without having to know anything about it. That is what this tech will give them (though it's not really at any advantage over the current systems in this). However, this does not mean that we will *all* be using iMac's (see above paragraph).
So, in five years, you'll see basically what you do now. Compaq, Gateway, Apple, etc. selling all-in-one miniPC's for the average consumer, while those of use with more refined tastes will order our Abit mobo's and Transmeta processors and slap together monstrously overpowered notebooks. I fail to see the downside. (Esp. if I can get dual processors, firewire and an NV1x in something I can take to LANparties in a backpack.
I take it you don't like guns (and apparently neither does at least one moderator). I'm baffled, though, as to why you think this is at all relevant to the topic; why, one could even say you're 'off-topic'....
(I'll leave it to others to question your general cluefulness on this subject.)
I've already changed my sig ;-)
Very roughly: no theory can be true, in any 'real' sense, because we have no access to vast parts of reality (hehe, that sounded silly).
;-). For the most part, physics doesn't tell us about the world, but about the mathemetics that is used to predict that behavior of the world. At the classical level, these are similar, but as you go deeper the math is more and more abstracted from reality. As you look at the math involved in quantum mechanics, it begins to look less and less like a viable way to construct a universe. (If someone can explain what a QM 'particle' is, beyond the mathematics involved, and in a way that makes any sense ontologically, I'm give them a cookie.) Truthfullness is right out, which brings us to the alternative....
One convenient example is physics. We can't know, for certain, that any particles actually exist; while there's good reason to think they do, we can't prove that they aren't, for example, gremlins that happen to behave as if they were particles for their own amusement (physicists may have better reason to believe this
What the theories are is useful. Newtonian physics is extremely useful, and in Newton's day, encompassed most of what physics was needed for (i.e., you don't need QM in the 18th Century). Today it is less useful in some areas, but for the most part it works quite well. Thus it is 'true' to the extent that it works, and nothing better has come along. QM works well, and so is true in some sense, even though the meaning of it beyond the equations is still up in the air. (Compare the common Copenhagan interpretation with, say, Bohm's equally useful interpretation--same math, same results--and tell me we have any idea what's going on below classical physics.)
Incidentally, during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, there was movement, of sorts, that attempted to recast 'knowledge', esp. scientific knowledge, in a pragmatic light. Instead of claiming that we really know about the world, we would simply have knowledge that worked, or that was good enough for the purposes at hand. For some reason this never really caught on, even though it has many advantages over the alternative.
What was so great about this man if so many of his theories were reasonably disproved.
;-)
I do hope you know that >99% of all the theories in history have been disproved. That doesn't mean the people who created them don't deserve some credit; discovering what's wrong is as important as discovering what's right, esp. since what former tends to lead to the latter. (In this case, theories of an aether are useful as tests of modern theories, which should have superior explanatory value. They do, so they have succeeded.)
Aristotle was wrong about almost everything he investigated, but few people seriously ask why he is respected. So was Newton (the bulk of Newton's writing wasn't on his successful physical theories). The same could turn out to be true for Einstein (and likely will, if history is any indication).
For the benefit of the readers, I'm skip the explanation of why no theory is true...
I apologize for the brevity of the following; I'd like to explain these points, but I'm just too tired to do so.
The mood controller will not work. Not for another few decades at least. Why you ask?
This is an excellent paper about the current state of affective neuroscience. Read it and ponder the implications. If that doesn't bore you to death, try Panksepp "Affective Neuroscience", which is even better.
Briefly, the problems are as follows.
(1) We've only this known this system exists for a few years, and still do not know its boundaries.
(2) Beyond some minimal lesion studies and some neuropharmacology, we have no idea of the functional make up the said system.
(3) The system is among the oldest in the brain, possibly the oldest, if you include some of it's more primitive components. (The PAG actually rides on the top of the brain-stem, for example.)
(4) It is also, however, the single largest system in the brain, encompassing most of the limbic system, and the right frontal and temporal lobes.
(5) The primitive subsystems (again, such as the PAG) are absolutely vital for continued existence, both mentally and biologically, and are also extremely sensitive to disturbances. They do not take well to probing. Lesions tend to have nasty repercussions, such as permanent stupor.
(6) Presumably the simpler subsystems are easier to manipulate. Unfortunately, they do not directly implement the emotions people wish to alter, e.g. depression, various antisocial behaviors. (Schizophrenia is a frontal lobe problem, and apparently architectural; it'll have to wait for nanotech, at least.) Those are built on stack upon stack of higher systems, several hundred million years worth, at least.
(7) It is largely a chemical system. Silicon chips are not at their best in chemistry. As an added bonus, the neurotransmitters involves must be used for proper function; you can't sidestep the problem with direct electrical stimulation, as in the cortex, because of the interaction between subsystems.
(8) All of that aside, neurosurgery is only slightly more scientific and reliably than alchemy. No one has ever tried anything this complicated (the implants to control seizures and the cat thing don't even come close), and no one in their right mind should expect it to work the first time.
Off to bed now.
Actually, this quote makes me wonder:
"We have to be careful extrapolating the results to humans," Slesin said. "But the amount of energy going into these animals is really small and not all that different, potentially, from a cell phone."
It sounds suspiciously like they were using actual cell-phone levels of radiation.
This reminds me of the lab test they used to show that some artificial sweetener caused cancer by given the rats a dose equivalent to something like a cup of the stuff (that's probably a exaggeration; but it was a *huge* amount of sweetener). Basically guarantied that the rats would die of *something*. Then one call to the FDA....
You're absolutely right. The problem is that many, and I fear most, councilors *aren't* more qualified. The two at my local High school are there primary because (1) they need someone to do class/career/college planning, and (2) the principle is never around, and does very little anyway, so someone has to hold things together.
;-)
AFAICT, they do very little 'counseling' at all. This may be because of more pressing matters (e.g., num. 2), but from my experience, they're simply unqualified. Our fscking *student councilors* do an infinitely better job, and I'm sure you can imagine how little that consoles their victims.
Incidentally (and OT), at my former school (an 'alternative school'; I was one of oh-so dangerous philosophy/lit psycho's) I was very friendly with several of the district councilors. The only one who stood any chance of doing any good, IMO, left to become a real teacher. The rest were of the worst granola-school theory of counseling. (I can still remember vividly being asked to explain not only who Dan Dennett was, but why I was reading him, what about his work (Brainchildren) interested me. And 'AI is neat' didn't cut it; I had to be deeply touched. I'd hate to think what would have happened if I'd been armed
Well, that was therapeutic.
To be honest, I'm more than a little leery about trusting science news from Wired (or any other 'news' source, for that matter). It would have been nice to have some more info of the experiment.
Now speculation.
The big problem, IMO, with applying these results to humans is that we shouldn't have to. If cell-phone use results in memory loss, cell-phone users should have noticed something a long time ago (or people studying cell-phone users, anyway). And conversely, it should be simple enough to verify the results by studying cell-phone users. Considering that lab rats seem to be vulnerable to everything known to man, I'm not really convinced.
'More of an editor' should be 'no more of an editor'. Apparently, I'm correct (either way).
This is more than what I want them to do. This is what the editors of other publications do.
I never said it wasn't. Yet. It isn't.
Then what else is he?
A maintainer. Poster. Webmaster. Whatever. But he's more of an editor than I am.
I for one assume that the posts should be edited, notification is not required.
Except that notification *is* what professional and reputable journals/newpapers/etc do. It's part of what makes them professionals. Go look in your local newspapers blurb of letter submission. It should say that they will (not) be edited to length, content, etc.
The reason that is their is simple, to most of us with developed cerebrums: you said "I for one assume...". You aren't supposed to *assume* anything; the editors are supposed to make very clear what will be done with your work (if for no other reason than because you own it). I could assume that my paper will automatically be published, but it won't be. Editors tell you that, very plainly. I could assume that submitting it on a stone tablet is OK; that's why most journals specify media. I could assume that mailing stories to Taco is fine; tht's why he tells you to use the Submit Story link. Getting a clue yet?
There, I've fed you enough text to feed a family of trolls. Move on.
And it's part of human nature for the pissed on to be, well, pissed about it. Then the smarter of the pissed-on write stories/get someone to write stories about their plight, get posted on /., and have responses like 'it's part of human nature to piss on the weak'.
Welcome to fatalism.
But I must say, WinAMD isn't nearly as catchy as Wintel.. ;-P
;-)
Well, there's always WindAmd. Spelling's a bit off, but I agree with the sentiment