All officially atheist countries are oppresive: Therefore all atheists are oppressors? Therefore no non-atheists are oppressors? Therefore no non-officially atheist country is oppresive?
I think you are trying to make a point but you haven't got the guts to come out and say it. Even as an AC... Sad really.
There are no religions (or non-religions) that have acheived official national status that *haven't* commited an atrocity or two, but I'm sure you'll point out why your religion's were *special* or *justified* somehow.
I am an atheist and I couldn't give a s***t about the professed religion or lack of it of any regime, unless they use it as an excuse to beat the crap out of people.
Tom
Re:Alright I see something here but.
on
Nanosystems
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· Score: 1
Nanotechnology will move fast precisely because it isn't big science like the space race and fusion. It can be done relatively cheaply in a distributed way. The human genome project is a good model for it and I think it will come a lot sooner than people think.
The problems with the Turing test are that it is too hard and that it can produce false negatives. After all a machine could be truly intelligent and not human at all.
(I hadn't spotted the 5 minute rule, is it Turing's or a bolt-on?)
Okay, maybe not too exited but considering that less than 10 years ago respected scientists were arguing that you could not build *Anything At All* at this scale it's a reasuring achievement.
I'm still hoping I live long enough to join the Introdus;-)
The easiest way to make a big cut in NASA's budget would be to shut down the space station (What have they to show for it after 10+ years and who knows how many billions? - a lot of paper!) and Venture Star - who needs it, leave it to private enterprise! - NASA shouldn't be building launchers anymore.
The research space shots are getting cheaper with a better return, leave 'em alone.
If NASA just did basic engineering and scientific research and left the rest to Industry we would all be better off. (And I'm not an American)
BigTom
Re:Not again NASA... Conventinal Rockets
on
NASA's X-37
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· Score: 1
In my opinion Bifrost is the weakest section in Marshall's plan. His costing for the tunnel is *way* too low. He ignores the cost of an undersea High tension cable (Very high) and I still haven't seen a convincing way of keeping the massdriver tunnel in a vacuum while chucking a launch vehicle out of it at hyper-sonic velocities.
(Shame 'cos I think Aquarius might work and Asgard is way cool;-))
We don't need radical alternative technologies yet. What we need is reliable technologies run at operational levels similar to airlines. Its operations that cost, not fuel.
(Does anyone have any hard information on the viability of the *skinny* spacesuit? I know they are popular with Pournelle and others but I cannot find any hard research on them)
So? If you don't like it, and there is enough people who agree then fork it and start your own GUI project (GnomeAc?)the way you want it. You'll have a good working base to start from. If you're right all the non-RH developers will drift off Gnome to GnomeAc and you'll get the GUI you want. RH will have lost control.
If you can't be bothered then it obviously doesn't matter that much and we can all get on with something else.
What if RH recruit most of the Gnome developers and SUSE recruit most of the KDE developers and Netscape recruit most of the Mozilla developers (okay, they've already get-em;-)) and Caldera..., and Corel... and...? So what? So they push their favoured bit over the others by throwing developer effort at it in an effort to make it the defacto standard? So What?
Its open source. The competition and different design philosophies mean that the community is unlikely to be locked into a blind alley.
Personally, as long as the license is right, the more full time focused developers the better. The process still has all of its benefits and the work is never wasted. If RH decided to recruit 100 developers to try and bury KDE what would happen? They would probably put themselves out of business, KDE would still be there, *and so would all the code*. We win again.
The danger is when they start withholding the source.
If you are looking for warning signs - watch the licence policy, not the recruiting policy.
I think you should read the chinese room thought experiment and its rebutalls. In your penultimate paragraph you make a series of statements, I think each is contestable:
IS it possible to make a machine that is completely indestiguishable from a human that is not concious (has a soul by your definition)?
While it may be true *In Principle* that any algorithm can be worked out on paper it is certainly not true in practice (speed, and many other factors (such as paper supply:)) are real issues).
If the mind IS the system perhaps the soul IS the system too?
If you haven't read The Minds I by Dennet and Hofstadter, Conciousness Explained by Dennet and The Society of Mind by Minsky you really should. You should probably read some Penrose too. There are more but I cannot remember them right now.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think VAJ on Windows is any more bloated than JB, VC or Net Beans. It was, but they've caught up now ;-)
It is the best of the Java IDEs IMHO.
Tom
And your point is?
All officially atheist countries are oppresive:
Therefore all atheists are oppressors?
Therefore no non-atheists are oppressors?
Therefore no non-officially atheist country is oppresive?
I think you are trying to make a point but you haven't got the guts to come out and say it. Even as an AC... Sad really.
There are no religions (or non-religions) that have acheived official national status that *haven't* commited an atrocity or two, but I'm sure you'll point out why your religion's were *special* or *justified* somehow.
I am an atheist and I couldn't give a s***t about the professed religion or lack of it of any regime, unless they use it as an excuse to beat the crap out of people.
Tom
Nanotechnology will move fast precisely because it isn't big science like the space race and fusion. It can be done relatively cheaply in a distributed way. The human genome project is a good model for it and I think it will come a lot sooner than people think.
Tom
But they will be in the 2.4 kernel which may still be out before W2K ;-)
Tom
Yes but the test requires a *human* judge ;->
Tom
The problems with the Turing test are that it is too hard and that it can produce false negatives. After all a machine could be truly intelligent and not human at all.
(I hadn't spotted the 5 minute rule, is it Turing's or a bolt-on?)
Tom
The Turing Test is carefully stated.
Nothing has even come close to passing it yet.
Tom
The full test?
No.
Tom
Even Imperial aren't standard.
If you sell US pints in an English pub you'll have a riot!
Tom
That's cool,
Let's do both.
Tom
We want both.
We need the autonomous robot research so that our nanorobots will know what to do.
We need the nanotechnology so our robots can self repair better.
Tom
Okay, maybe not too exited but considering that less than 10 years ago respected scientists were arguing that you could not build *Anything At All* at this scale it's a reasuring achievement.
;-)
I'm still hoping I live long enough to join the Introdus
Tom
The easiest way to make a big cut in NASA's budget would be to shut down the space station (What have they to show for it after 10+ years and who knows how many billions? - a lot of paper!) and Venture Star - who needs it, leave it to private enterprise! - NASA shouldn't be building launchers anymore.
The research space shots are getting cheaper with a better return, leave 'em alone.
If NASA just did basic engineering and scientific research and left the rest to Industry we would all be better off. (And I'm not an American)
BigTom
In my opinion Bifrost is the weakest section in Marshall's plan. His costing for the tunnel is *way* too low. He ignores the cost of an undersea High tension cable (Very high) and I still haven't seen a convincing way of keeping the massdriver tunnel in a vacuum while chucking a launch vehicle out of it at hyper-sonic velocities.
;-))
(Shame 'cos I think Aquarius might work and Asgard is way cool
We don't need radical alternative technologies yet. What we need is reliable technologies run at operational levels similar to airlines. Its operations that cost, not fuel.
(Does anyone have any hard information on the viability of the *skinny* spacesuit? I know they are popular with Pournelle and others but I cannot find any hard research on them)
BigTom
So? If you don't like it, and there is enough people who agree then fork it and start your own GUI project (GnomeAc?)the way you want it. You'll have a good working base to start from. If you're right all the non-RH developers will drift off Gnome to GnomeAc and you'll get the GUI you want. RH will have lost control.
If you can't be bothered then it obviously doesn't matter that much and we can all get on with something else.
BigTom
What if RH recruit most of the Gnome developers and SUSE recruit most of the KDE developers and Netscape recruit most of the Mozilla developers (okay, they've already get-em ;-)) and Caldera ..., and Corel ... and ...? So what? So they push their favoured bit over the others by throwing developer effort at it in an effort to make it the defacto standard? So What?
Its open source. The competition and different design philosophies mean that the community is unlikely to be locked into a blind alley.
Personally, as long as the license is right, the more full time focused developers the better. The process still has all of its benefits and the work is never wasted. If RH decided to recruit 100 developers to try and bury KDE what would happen? They would probably put themselves out of business, KDE would still be there, *and so would all the code*. We win again.
The danger is when they start withholding the source.
If you are looking for warning signs - watch the licence policy, not the recruiting policy.
BigTom
I think you should read the chinese room thought experiment and its rebutalls. In your penultimate paragraph you make a series of statements, I think each is contestable:
:)) are real issues).
IS it possible to make a machine that is completely indestiguishable from a human that is not concious (has a soul by your definition)?
While it may be true *In Principle* that any algorithm can be worked out on paper it is certainly not true in practice (speed, and many other factors (such as paper supply
If the mind IS the system perhaps the soul IS the system too?
If you haven't read The Minds I by Dennet and Hofstadter, Conciousness Explained by Dennet and The Society of Mind by Minsky you really should. You should probably read some Penrose too. There are more but I cannot remember them right now.
Rgds
Tom