Wouldn't this be one way to prove the existence of a soul?
If a ebrain George appeas self conscious, and answers a Turing test as well as I do, would this ebrain George have a soul? Or does it prove that there is no soul?
IMHO, we should first have a permanent base on the moon, before we can even start thinking of going to Mars. The moon is relatively close, so if anything goes wrong, the astronauts are back in a few days.
Yes, the moon is a few days away versus 18 months away, but how many scenarios are there that would make that difference important?
Explosive decompression?
"This is Houston, could you all hold your breath for a few days"
Other than the loss of food or water, I think the Moon would be just as inaccessible as Mars would be, practically speaking.
Plus I think Mars has better resources for getting back than the moon, ie. refining O2 out of the atmosphere and making methane with hydrogen shipped with the landing party.
Check out the Mars Society, they'll explain it better.
Why is this stuff always reported on BBC but ignored by the American media? It's our fscking satellite. Still, this means the NASA mailing list will start getting interesting again...
There's no prurient interest, no shocking expose, no government waste, just plain old science, and too boring to bring in good ratings.
You'd think the television networks would be happy about these people, after all, it means their advertising can reach even more people./I.
But the networks can't count those netcasts when they figure in how many people are watching the show and the ads, so they can't charge more to the advertisers.
In fact, they would probably lose audience as people prefer to watch the shows on their computer instead of being force fed it through the network.
Online games, such as Ultima Online, and Everquest, have this same sort of community problem, and in many ways, it is even worse. These sorts of games attract the sort of people that cause these problems, and even worse, tend to reward them for their actions.
I agree, but you forgot to mention Quake.
I played my first online Quake a few weeks ago in our Y2K bunker, awaiting an onslaught of calls that never came. Since we had idle time, my co-workers introduced me to Quake.
I thought it was a neat virtual environment, but as soon as I started to explore it, my co-workers started shooting at me! I thought we got along great, but they had no hesitation in launching rockets at me, and the big blue spiral thing was terrible!
Eventually I felt I had to respond in kind, to teach them a lesson, but it never worked out that way, and I ended up with 7 kills to their 30 or so.
So how do you make people act civilly and politely in Quake?
It's a shame that there are people who have a lot to contribute to Slashdot don't feel that they can handle it here.
However, I think if posters would lurk for a few weeks, and learn there place in the community, they would rarely be flamed.
I've been online and participating in USENET discussions since 1993. I can count the number of times that I've been flamed without reason (I'm not counting my trolling) on one hand.
I've spent most of my online time in rec.music.gdead. I got into the Dead in 1987, as they were riding a tidal wave of popularity, you can even call me a touchhead, I'm amused by that name.
When I first showed up in rec.music.gdead, did I start spouting off that I was the voice of the Deadheads, by virtue of seeing 6 concerts and being able to write? Hell no, I would have been flamed to a crisp, and would have fled r.m.gd, posting a few whines about the unkind folks that resided there.
Instead I lurked, and I lurked, and I lurked. I saw that there were other people that could write, that had seen far more shows than I, hundreds, even thousands. There were people that were on a first name basis with the band members There were people that first saw them when they were playing a pizza parlor in 1965.
Then, I contributed. Mostly small funny pieces, sometimes a personal anecdote, but always conscience that what I said should be relevant, and shouldn't have been said before. I got into a many long discussions that usually ended in me appreciating someone else's viewpoint, and they appreciating mine. I made many net.friends, and even some real ones. I got tapes, lots and lots of tapes, and CDs. Very rarely did I get flamed.
Now, onto to Slashdot. I'm fairly geeky, though not an ubergeek. Weeks go by without me coding, and when I do it's most likely PostScript, a shell script, or html. I haven't coded C in years, never C++, or Python, or HTK, or any other of those newer languages. I've never chatted on IRC or with ICQ (firewalls at work, too busy at home). I've never built my own kernel, or downloaded my own distribution. About the only Open Source software that I consider myself skilled in is Samba. I wasn't really tormented in high school.
Now, look at where I post. Do I post long imflammatory posts about the leading figures in the Linux community? No, I barely know who they are.
Do I engage in flaming discussions about Gnome vs KDE? Nope, I barely use them, most of my Linux and FreeBSD work is using them as a server.
When I post, it's about Lego, writing, girls and music, things that I know a bit about.
In short, I try to post about things I know, and about things that I have experience in. Do I ever get flamed? Not very often.
Jon, I feel bad that you get such vitriolic flames, but I think it's unavoidable for a few reasons. One, you stick out like a lightening rod, and create a lot of flash and noise, for which Andover should be thanking you for.
Second, I think that a lot of Slashdotter's resent you trying to become their spokesperson. A lot of Slashdotter's have their own self image tied up in their geekiness, they may not get dates, they may get picked on in high school, but they make up for that by exulting in their geekhood. Perhaps they feel that you don't have the empathy for what they've gone through, you've never paid your dues, and they feel you are acting like the rich society person volunteering a few hours in the soup kitchen, and grabbing the microphone from the real geeks.
I have to admit, I would like to the comments on Slashdot become fewer, and better. The trolls are fun a first, but the same joke told 20 times a day wears thin, please vary your material.
Oh yeah, thanks Slashdot for allowing me to revel in my Geekness.
I've read the Rolling Stone article, it won't fly, Hollywood will make some changes. Really, 100 minute of watching geeks play with computers?
Jesse and Eric will be good looking, but too caught up in the thrill of hacking to get chicks.
They'll crack into a highly guarded computer and find a dangerous plot against the USA, hatched by Dr. Evil.
They try to alert the authorities, but the only ones who believe them will be a young, bodacious FBI agent in Chicago (played by Christina Ricci). Unfortunately, in doing so, they alert the minions of Dr. Evil.
They try to make a break for it from Boise to Chicago. One geeky girl who has a thing for Jesse (played by Natalie Portman), comes along.
They have thrilling adventures. Midway to Chicago they hook up with the FBI agent and have more thrilling adventures, with helicopters, gun play and fighting. They have sex with the geeky girl and the agent.
A corporation of this size and magnitude can only mean one thing...the lowering of the LCD across the board (which was why I was on AOL for less than 24 hours, you can only insult my intelligence so much, then I'll realize it;^D). OTOH, if they can stream the original Space Ghost and Chuck Jones cartoons to my screen, maybe I'll join up again (maybe with the Uranium edition).
I lower my LCD every night, when I power off my laptop.
Mars shows evidence of a pretty big impact itself. It's been theorized that Olypis Mons was formed when Mars was smacked by something big (we're talking planet-shattering size here) and then rehardened before the momentum of the rock was completely used up. As a result, the whole planet is sort of an odd shape.
I believe the Iludium P-38 Space Modulator was running NT, and had a BSOD, causing a Mars shattering ka-boom.
Some psylocybe mushroom spores can survive in space as well. You don't hear these over-dramatic public science writers claiming that we're descended from trippy alien 'shrooms do you.
Well, there's Terrance McKenna.
No, wait, he just thinks we co-evolved with trippy mushrooms, it's the DMT that he thinks is from another dimension.
IDG's Samba Administrator's Handbook, but it shouldn't win, as one of the co-authors spends too much time reloading Slashdot, and would probably blow the prize money on Lego and computers.
I have a close relative who is a single mom. She just turned 30, and has about given up on men.
Part of the problem is that she goes to single bars to find men, which is about the worst way to find someone.
She's mentioned that she wants to find someone like me, but in reality, when I was single and looking, our paths would never have crossed.
How does she go about finding a nice, geeky guy who is not scared away by an instant family?
She did just get on AOL (no flames please, she lives an hour away, doesn't no anyone computer savvy any closer, and she needed an easy to use ISP, as she was computer illiterate a few months ago) and I want to help her with a homepage.
Never mind "fumbling the future", what about fumbling the present?! Just curious if you have any views on Xerox's earnings slump.. What is being done to turn things around, and do you have any faith in it? What's the consensus?>
I do work for Xerox, so take this all with a grain of salt.
Right now I think Xerox is a little undervalued, and lots of stocks are way overvalued.
A lot of Xerox's profits come from big-iron sales, the $250,000 dollar 135 print per minute station wagon sized monsters. Historically these have sold very well in the 4rth quarter, I think becuase sales reps try to make their yearly figures look good by busting their butts at the end of the year.
This year, sales of the big-iron products weren't as good, and I blame Y2K. Companies were loathe to buy something expensive when the world was about to end. Fourth quarter profits weren't what people were used to, and the price is down.
Now that it's over, I think sales will pick up and the Xerox stock price will go up again.
Warning, I do have a fair amount of my 401K money in Xerox stock, so I could be trying to influence the marketplace.
Let me guess this straight. Xerox management is smart enough to know that basic research eventually generates revenue, so they create PARC. But they are stupid enough to ignore:
1) The GUI 2) Electronic paper 3) Handwriting recognition
You can add to your list, just after 1)
1.1) The laser printer 1.2) The mouse 1.3) Lots of work on lan's 1.4) Page Description Languages
The canonical book on this is "Fumbling the Future", and the whole thing is a sore point here at Xerox.
Truth be told, most of the failures happened in the late 70's and early 80's, when the Xerox managers were more focused on selling copiers than anything in the computer age.
Xerox did market some very nice GUI-driven computers, but they were priced like Sun's isntead of like Mac's, and died in the marketplace.
Nowadays, Xerox is more aggressive about patenting, licensing and selling anything that comes out of PARC, and trying to avoid another fumbling the future scenario.
Slashdot Mirror
That was hilarious, you must save these and post them somewhere where they'll be saved for eternity.
George
Because a brick is a terrible thing to waste.
I would have loved a test like this when I applied to college, though I didn't need it due to my rocking SATs.
I does seem like a novell way to get an impression of someone.
George
Dang that's harsh, especially considering all the spare modems I have sitting around, well, a 19.2, 14.4 and some PCMCIA ones.
We need a modem bank where we can donate old modems, too slow for American lines, but just right for old infrastructure.
George
It's been too long since I watched the series, but don't Daleks have a organic component?
IIRC from Birth of the Daleks, they were little fetusy things that got shoved into the big cylinders.
George
And after I posted that, I thought to myself
"How would you tell the difference?"
"You could ask the machine if it had a consciousness."
How would it know if it had a consciousness? Maybe it just thinks it has a consciousnes."
"It thinks? It thinks therefor it is... Or maybe it just thinks it is."
I'm still confusing myself.
I know what you mean.
Better add a few top notch philosophers to that thelogian team.
George
Wouldn't this be one way to prove the existence of a soul?
If a ebrain George appeas self conscious, and answers a Turing test as well as I do, would this ebrain George have a soul? Or does it prove that there is no soul?
Where are the theologians when we need them?
George
IMHO, we should first have a permanent base on the moon, before we can even start thinking of going to Mars. The moon is relatively close, so if anything goes wrong, the astronauts are back in a few days.
Yes, the moon is a few days away versus 18 months away, but how many scenarios are there that would make that difference important?
Explosive decompression?
"This is Houston, could you all hold your breath for a few days"
Other than the loss of food or water, I think the Moon would be just as inaccessible as Mars would be, practically speaking.
Plus I think Mars has better resources for getting back than the moon, ie. refining O2 out of the atmosphere and making methane with hydrogen shipped with the landing party.
Check out the Mars Society, they'll explain it better.
George
Why is this stuff always reported on BBC but ignored by the American media? It's our fscking satellite. Still, this means the NASA mailing list will start getting interesting again...
There's no prurient interest, no shocking expose, no government waste, just plain old science, and too boring to bring in good ratings.
George
Unlike some place like Admitit.
George
You'd think the television networks would be happy about these people, after all, it means their advertising can reach even more people./I.
But the networks can't count those netcasts when they figure in how many people are watching the show and the ads, so they can't charge more to the advertisers.
In fact, they would probably lose audience as people prefer to watch the shows on their computer instead of being force fed it through the network.
George
It seems that you managed to enjoy the game without grasping the entire point :-) :-)
Wha-a-a-a-a-t?
You mean the point of the game is to kill people?
The point of online deathamtch Quake is to kill your buds?
Does Katz know about this?
I can see the next Slashdot article:
"Rampart aggression and violence in Deathmatch Quake and how to stop it"
George
Online games, such as Ultima Online, and Everquest, have this same sort of community problem, and in many ways, it is even worse. These sorts of games attract the sort of people that cause these problems, and even worse, tend to reward them for their actions.
I agree, but you forgot to mention Quake.
I played my first online Quake a few weeks ago in our Y2K bunker, awaiting an onslaught of calls that never came. Since we had idle time, my co-workers introduced me to Quake.
I thought it was a neat virtual environment, but as soon as I started to explore it, my co-workers started shooting at me! I thought we got along great, but they had no hesitation in launching rockets at me, and the big blue spiral thing was terrible!
Eventually I felt I had to respond in kind, to teach them a lesson, but it never worked out that way, and I ended up with 7 kills to their 30 or so.
So how do you make people act civilly and politely in Quake?
George
It's a shame that there are people who have a lot to contribute to Slashdot don't feel that they can handle it here.
However, I think if posters would lurk for a few weeks, and learn there place in the community, they would rarely be flamed.
I've been online and participating in USENET discussions since 1993. I can count the number of times that I've been flamed without reason (I'm not counting my trolling) on one hand.
I've spent most of my online time in rec.music.gdead. I got into the Dead in 1987, as they were riding a tidal wave of popularity, you can even call me a touchhead, I'm amused by that name.
When I first showed up in rec.music.gdead, did I start spouting off that I was the voice of the Deadheads, by virtue of seeing 6 concerts and being able to write? Hell no, I would have been flamed to a crisp, and would have fled r.m.gd, posting a few whines about the unkind folks that resided there.
Instead I lurked, and I lurked, and I lurked. I saw that there were other people that could write, that had seen far more shows than I, hundreds, even thousands. There were people that were on a first name basis with the band members There were people that first saw them when they were playing a pizza parlor in 1965.
Then, I contributed. Mostly small funny pieces, sometimes a personal anecdote, but always conscience that what I said should be relevant, and shouldn't have been said before. I got into a many long discussions that usually ended in me appreciating someone else's viewpoint, and they appreciating mine. I made many net.friends, and even some real ones. I got tapes, lots and lots of tapes, and CDs. Very rarely did I get flamed.
Now, onto to Slashdot. I'm fairly geeky, though not an ubergeek. Weeks go by without me coding, and when I do it's most likely PostScript, a shell script, or html. I haven't coded C in years, never C++, or Python, or HTK, or any other of those newer languages. I've never chatted on IRC or with ICQ (firewalls at work, too busy at home). I've never built my own kernel, or downloaded my own distribution. About the only Open Source software that I consider myself skilled in is Samba. I wasn't really tormented in high school.
Now, look at where I post. Do I post long imflammatory posts about the leading figures in the Linux community? No, I barely know who they are.
Do I engage in flaming discussions about Gnome vs KDE? Nope, I barely use them, most of my Linux and FreeBSD work is using them as a server.
When I post, it's about Lego, writing, girls and music, things that I know a bit about.
In short, I try to post about things I know, and about things that I have experience in. Do I ever get flamed? Not very often.
Jon, I feel bad that you get such vitriolic flames, but I think it's unavoidable for a few reasons. One, you stick out like a lightening rod, and create a lot of flash and noise, for which Andover should be thanking you for.
Second, I think that a lot of Slashdotter's resent you trying to become their spokesperson. A lot of Slashdotter's have their own self image tied up in their geekiness, they may not get dates, they may get picked on in high school, but they make up for that by exulting in their geekhood. Perhaps they feel that you don't have the empathy for what they've gone through, you've never paid your dues, and they feel you are acting like the rich society person volunteering a few hours in the soup kitchen, and grabbing the microphone from the real geeks.
I have to admit, I would like to the comments on Slashdot become fewer, and better. The trolls are fun a first, but the same joke told 20 times a day wears thin, please vary your material.
Oh yeah, thanks Slashdot for allowing me to revel in my Geekness.
George
I've read the Rolling Stone article, it won't fly, Hollywood will make some changes. Really, 100 minute of watching geeks play with computers?
Jesse and Eric will be good looking, but too caught up in the thrill of hacking to get chicks.
They'll crack into a highly guarded computer and find a dangerous plot against the USA, hatched by Dr. Evil.
They try to alert the authorities, but the only ones who believe them will be a young, bodacious FBI agent in Chicago (played by Christina Ricci). Unfortunately, in doing so, they alert the minions of Dr. Evil.
They try to make a break for it from Boise to Chicago. One geeky girl who has a thing for Jesse (played by Natalie Portman), comes along.
They have thrilling adventures. Midway to Chicago they hook up with the FBI agent and have more thrilling adventures, with helicopters, gun play and fighting. They have sex with the geeky girl and the agent.
They get to Chicago and foil Dr. Evil's plans.
If you want particular's, let my agent know.
George
A corporation of this size and magnitude can only mean one thing...the lowering of the LCD across the board (which was why I was on AOL for less than 24 hours, you can only insult my intelligence so much, then I'll realize it ;^D). OTOH, if they can stream the original Space Ghost and Chuck Jones cartoons to my screen, maybe I'll join up again (maybe with the Uranium edition).
I lower my LCD every night, when I power off my laptop.
George
I have no moderator points, and I must mark as funny
George
No, it's the elves he thinks are from another dimension. The DMT, just like the gifts, cannot cross the boundaries.
Aha, thanks for the correction.
George
Mars shows evidence of a pretty big impact itself. It's been theorized that Olypis Mons was formed when Mars was smacked by something big (we're talking planet-shattering size here) and then rehardened before the momentum of the rock was completely used up. As a result, the whole planet is sort of an odd shape.
I believe the Iludium P-38 Space Modulator was running NT, and had a BSOD, causing a Mars shattering ka-boom.
George
Some psylocybe mushroom spores can survive in space as well. You don't hear these over-dramatic public science writers claiming that we're descended from trippy alien 'shrooms do you.
Well, there's Terrance McKenna.
No, wait, he just thinks we co-evolved with trippy mushrooms, it's the DMT that he thinks is from another dimension.
George
oh well, there's always www.realdoll.com
Realdoll is too pricey for me, I prefer RealHamster.
Ahh, that soft, silky fur, those bulging cheeks!
George
IDG's Samba Administrator's Handbook, but it shouldn't win, as one of the co-authors spends too much time reloading Slashdot, and would probably blow the prize money on Lego and computers.
George
I have a close relative who is a single mom. She just turned 30, and has about given up on men.
Part of the problem is that she goes to single bars to find men, which is about the worst way to find someone.
She's mentioned that she wants to find someone like me, but in reality, when I was single and looking, our paths would never have crossed.
How does she go about finding a nice, geeky guy who is not scared away by an instant family?
She did just get on AOL (no flames please, she lives an hour away, doesn't no anyone computer savvy any closer, and she needed an easy to use ISP, as she was computer illiterate a few months ago) and I want to help her with a homepage.
Thanks,
George
From an earlier Salon article, or you can just jump to their sites, Digital Sexsations, and SafeSexPlus.
Disclaimer: I am not a customer, really, not me, nope.
George
Never mind "fumbling the future", what about fumbling the present?! Just curious if you have any views on Xerox's earnings slump.. What is being done to turn things around, and do you have any faith in it? What's the consensus?>
I do work for Xerox, so take this all with a grain of salt.
Right now I think Xerox is a little undervalued, and lots of stocks are way overvalued.
A lot of Xerox's profits come from big-iron sales, the $250,000 dollar 135 print per minute station wagon sized monsters. Historically these have sold very well in the 4rth quarter, I think becuase sales reps try to make their yearly figures look good by busting their butts at the end of the year.
This year, sales of the big-iron products weren't as good, and I blame Y2K. Companies were loathe to buy something expensive when the world was about to end. Fourth quarter profits weren't what people were used to, and the price is down.
Now that it's over, I think sales will pick up and the Xerox stock price will go up again.
Warning, I do have a fair amount of my 401K money in Xerox stock, so I could be trying to influence the marketplace.
George
Let me guess this straight. Xerox management is smart enough to know that basic research eventually generates revenue, so they create PARC. But they are stupid enough to ignore:
1) The GUI
2) Electronic paper
3) Handwriting recognition
You can add to your list, just after 1)
1.1) The laser printer
1.2) The mouse
1.3) Lots of work on lan's
1.4) Page Description Languages
The canonical book on this is "Fumbling the Future", and the whole thing is a sore point here at Xerox.
Truth be told, most of the failures happened in the late 70's and early 80's, when the Xerox managers were more focused on selling copiers than anything in the computer age.
Xerox did market some very nice GUI-driven computers, but they were priced like Sun's isntead of like Mac's, and died in the marketplace.
Nowadays, Xerox is more aggressive about patenting, licensing and selling anything that comes out of PARC, and trying to avoid another fumbling the future scenario.
I think the lawsuit falls under this category.
George