> In early civilization some tribes claimed to see centurions (half-men/half-horse)
I think you mean centaurs. Centurions were Roman officers in charge of a group of men of size 100, hence the "cent" as in "century" and "percent" and "cent".
Although to many (what used to be called in more romantic times) inferior cultures, the appearance of a bunch of men on horseback, or a centurion with his battalion, would both strike fear.
But then again, given part of the magician's trick is to make it seem precisely like they're not cheating that you could still, rightly, suspect her of fraud.
Look at it this way: If she were a fraud, would she be behaving any differently? Some of the more sophisticated know the fuzzy orbs in pictures, for example, are out-of-focus, brightly lit floating dust in the foreground (easily reproduceable and known for a century by photographers), and will explain it as thus to establish their "honesty".
> If telepathy is some sort of enhanced intuition, then maybe the ability > depends heavily on the environment and situation. For example, being in > a very familiar room triggering telepathic abilities. Unfortunately, > this would render telepathy unprovable.
Scott "Dilbert" Adams wrote a book, "God's Debris", in which God explains things, one of which is psychic ability. He explains it isn't a psychic thing per se, but that such people are just highly intelligent in being able to predict the future.
How does one deal with that? Very simply, remember Randi's Rule: Before you explain a phenomenon, first determine it exists. No such ability exists, regardless of whatever mechanisms one might, pointlessly, use to explain them.
And in your example, being in a very familiar room's effect could be easily tested. Anyone who believes they have psychic abilities, but they must be in a very familiar room, is eminently testable. Experts in all known tricks magicians use to fake results will watch closely to guard against accidental (or, shockingly, deliberate) use of these methods.
Well, they do have selective pressure applied to their populations, and occasional exchanges of design and capabilities, producing new models that, if they sell well (reproduce a lot) succeed in both reproducing a lot more [b]and[/b] passing on their designs and abilities to future generations.
Well, last night at 2 AM I said to my IM buddy from high school, "My mom got this new issue of People, and damn, if Lindsay doesn't look good in it; I think I'm gonna go to bed and crank one off to it." and he said, "You sick f***!"
And had they not picked the same card, this little story would not have been posted, just as it wasn't for the millions of other times twins did not pick the same card, which you are not hearing about.
With countless millions of things happening every second, the likelihood of one of them once in awhile doing something rare and odd is extremely high, statistically inevitable.
The real issue is when you try to reproduce it in a controlled setting.
> First of all AI has no meaning in any game that's you against > the world in some impossible odds, because if the opposition > can actually think, then it is really impossible. For example > you'll never see an AI in a MMORPG capable of coming up with > the idea that killing whoever can heal is smart.
The standard MMORPG concept is "extremely tough, but offensively weak guys, extremely powerful but squishy other guys, and semi-squishy to very squishy healers".
Such a group would get destroyed on a regular basis by any semi-intelligent AI. Nail the healers and/or blasters first, then chew down the tanks [i]at your leisure[/i].
You are exactly correct. Thus the AI cannot be allowed to do this because people would leave the game. Indeed, the idiocy is compounded by the "taunt" command for tanks, which artificially takes the aggro away from the squishies, [b]making the AI even stupider[/b] because, in a role-playing sense, the AI is leaving their desired task (hitting a squishy) to idiotically go punch a tank sticking his tongue out at him.
Where's the AI General Patton to keep reassuring his minions, "Keep on target, stay on the healer..."
Re:Editorial Oversight != Truth (i.e. FOX News)
on
When Wikipedia Fails
·
· Score: 1
> I love the way the two sides demonize each other for doing the exact same thing. It's amusing.
> Ah yes... slashdot's moderation and karma system. It is excellent at producing . . . groupthink? Let's face it.
As someone whose karma was pegged high at 50 before they stopped showing it as a number, I can say it doesn't do me much good. I'd rather use it as a reward to expand my.sig to 256 characters rather than the lame 120 or so.
What person, even the most religious, would grant the government the power to regulate sexuality between consenting adults?
Hell, Jesus said how to live, he didn't say, "and force others to live that way" -- that's the way to drive people from Christianity, not attract them to it.
It occurs to me to not bother -- possibly within the lifetime of children now, we will be brain-wired to each other to read, write, and transmit thoughts directly, converted to digital speech.
Then, soon thereafter, full brain immersion in a virtual world, ala The Matrix, followed soon after that by full, true upload into the virtual world, with nothing but some robots out in the "real world" to care for everything.
With no worries or cares anymore, people will occasionally want to live "the way humanity used to", and will either go to a special virtual world, or actually occupy an instantiated body on a special planet and live the life of breathing, eating, and pooping.
They'll have to have a (temporary) mind wipe, of course, so they wouldn't know they'd be there. Then
> a push for simpler spelling. Instead of 'weigh' it would be 'way.' > 'Dictionary' would be 'dikshunery' and so forth.
"Weigh", I can see (although I imagine a slightly different vestigal muscle movement in my tongue with "weigh" vs. "way".
However, I refuse to misspell "dictionary" because of the way some uneducated buffoons mispronounce it.
It's not pronounced "diksunhery", it's pronounced "dictshunery". And wouldn't "dikshunery" be pronounced "dikshunery", as in farm-er? dik shun er ee?
The proper rewrite would be to have what, 40-something new letters, each corresponding to the basic sounds of the language? A letter for sh, for oo as in book, for oo as in boot, for hard and soft a, etc.
> Home computers are marketed with slogans like "Ultimate Performance," > but the truth is they're engineered to run cool, quiet, and slow > compared to commercial servers.
Will Ferrel as Angry Dad at Dinner Table: I drive a Dodge Stratus, and surf with an Intel Celeron!
Celeron, like accelerate! It's fast...wicked fast!
Bill Hicks, immitating an adman: "Ahhh, today we made arsenic a children's food additive. G'nite, honey!"
We assume they'd be shorter on a higher g planet (assuming no deliberate genetic changes). But is that the case? They'd be shorter because it's "harder for bones to grow upward"? At the cellular level, that difference in gravity isn't even noticeable.
And, long-term, fighting against gravity is a small downside, but the upside of tallness greatly outweighs it, or else we wouldn't be as relatively gigantic as we are.
It's true that more severe gravities, 4x-10x+, would offer much more problems with simply falling down, but that would also tend to evolve organisms that are better at recovering/avoiding stumbles, and are tougher so as to absorb simple falls better.
Nah, predicting a shorter race on a mildly higher g planet I'd consider evidence for something made up precisely because that would not be the case, especially for a transplanted species like humans, even after a million years of evolution.
Do AIM users get email? If I quit AOL, could I still use my email there via the web site? If so, is there anything special I'd have to do to make myself an AIM user?
I have used AOL for years, but only as my "permanent" email address for online registrations of one sort or another. I currently run "BYOA", or their Bring Your Own Access plan.
> "How to do smart software development even when facing impossible schedules."
Here's the answer: "Remember that study from last year that found the top programmers were 4x as productive as the average programmers, and that there were things the top programmers could do that average programmers couldn't, no matter how long they were given? Hire some of them guys."
The UK parliament (of "parliamentary supremacy" fame) passes a law seizing Microsoft's UK assets, revoking MS's copyrights, and allocating a bunch of money for developing a secure alternative to _all_ Microsoft software
A half billion is spent developing this OS, which nobody uses because it doesn't run Microsoft Office or Quake Oblivion: World of Villains
EU governments lose tens of billions in taxes due to the MS OS not being sold anymore but rather bootlegged.
Government officials will not admit they did wrong.
> Growing up, I was ravaged by mosquitoes daily in the summers.
Speaking of which, if I were God (remember to vote for me instead of Yahweh next time), instead of parasitic insects, I'd have populated the world with flying creatures that attacked you and forced you to have an orgasm.
Slashdot Mirror
> In early civilization some tribes claimed to see centurions (half-men/half-horse)
I think you mean centaurs. Centurions were Roman officers in charge of a group of men of size 100, hence the "cent" as in "century" and "percent" and "cent".
Although to many (what used to be called in more romantic times) inferior cultures, the appearance of a bunch of men on horseback, or a centurion with his battalion, would both strike fear.
Hehe, "romantic times", I slay me...
But then again, given part of the magician's trick is to make it seem precisely like they're not cheating that you could still, rightly, suspect her of fraud.
Look at it this way: If she were a fraud, would she be behaving any differently? Some of the more sophisticated know the fuzzy orbs in pictures, for example, are out-of-focus, brightly lit floating dust in the foreground (easily reproduceable and known for a century by photographers), and will explain it as thus to establish their "honesty".
> If telepathy is some sort of enhanced intuition, then maybe the ability
> depends heavily on the environment and situation. For example, being in
> a very familiar room triggering telepathic abilities. Unfortunately,
> this would render telepathy unprovable.
Scott "Dilbert" Adams wrote a book, "God's Debris", in which God explains things, one of which is psychic ability. He explains it isn't a psychic thing per se, but that such people are just highly intelligent in being able to predict the future.
How does one deal with that? Very simply, remember Randi's Rule: Before you explain a phenomenon, first determine it exists. No such ability exists, regardless of whatever mechanisms one might, pointlessly, use to explain them.
And in your example, being in a very familiar room's effect could be easily tested. Anyone who believes they have psychic abilities, but they must be in a very familiar room, is eminently testable. Experts in all known tricks magicians use to fake results will watch closely to guard against accidental (or, shockingly, deliberate) use of these methods.
I won't be holding my breath.
> Well iPods don't breed
Well, they do have selective pressure applied to their populations, and occasional exchanges of design and capabilities, producing new models that, if they sell well (reproduce a lot) succeed in both reproducing a lot more [b]and[/b] passing on their designs and abilities to future generations.
So I guess your wrong.
Well, last night at 2 AM I said to my IM buddy from high school, "My mom got this new issue of People, and damn, if Lindsay doesn't look good in it; I think I'm gonna go to bed and crank one off to it." and he said, "You sick f***!"
Coinkeydink? I don't think so!
And had they not picked the same card, this little story would not have been posted, just as it wasn't for the millions of other times twins did not pick the same card, which you are not hearing about.
With countless millions of things happening every second, the likelihood of one of them once in awhile doing something rare and odd is extremely high, statistically inevitable.
The real issue is when you try to reproduce it in a controlled setting.
> First of all AI has no meaning in any game that's you against
> the world in some impossible odds, because if the opposition
> can actually think, then it is really impossible. For example
> you'll never see an AI in a MMORPG capable of coming up with
> the idea that killing whoever can heal is smart.
The standard MMORPG concept is "extremely tough, but offensively weak guys, extremely powerful but squishy other guys, and semi-squishy to very squishy healers".
Such a group would get destroyed on a regular basis by any semi-intelligent AI. Nail the healers and/or blasters first, then chew down the tanks [i]at your leisure[/i].
You are exactly correct. Thus the AI cannot be allowed to do this because people would leave the game. Indeed, the idiocy is compounded by the "taunt" command for tanks, which artificially takes the aggro away from the squishies, [b]making the AI even stupider[/b] because, in a role-playing sense, the AI is leaving their desired task (hitting a squishy) to idiotically go punch a tank sticking his tongue out at him.
Where's the AI General Patton to keep reassuring his minions, "Keep on target, stay on the healer..."
> I love the way the two sides demonize each other for doing the exact same thing. It's amusing.
That sounds like something Hitler would say >:(
> Ah yes... slashdot's moderation and karma system. It is excellent at producing . . . groupthink? Let's face it.
.sig to 256 characters rather than the lame 120 or so.
As someone whose karma was pegged high at 50 before they stopped showing it as a number, I can say it doesn't do me much good. I'd rather use it as a reward to expand my
What person, even the most religious, would grant the government the power to regulate sexuality between consenting adults?
Hell, Jesus said how to live, he didn't say, "and force others to live that way" -- that's the way to drive people from Christianity, not attract them to it.
The way to eternal salvation is Jesusopensource! Can't you see? CAN'T YOU SEE? :rollseyes
Here's a troll: It would be a shame if a governmental looter-based society were to destroy Microsoft.
It occurs to me to not bother -- possibly within the lifetime of children now, we will be brain-wired to each other to read, write, and transmit thoughts directly, converted to digital speech.
Then, soon thereafter, full brain immersion in a virtual world, ala The Matrix, followed soon after that by full, true upload into the virtual world, with nothing but some robots out in the "real world" to care for everything.
With no worries or cares anymore, people will occasionally want to live "the way humanity used to", and will either go to a special virtual world, or actually occupy an instantiated body on a special planet and live the life of breathing, eating, and pooping.
They'll have to have a (temporary) mind wipe, of course, so they wouldn't know they'd be there. Then
oh
Fuck.
> a push for simpler spelling. Instead of 'weigh' it would be 'way.'
> 'Dictionary' would be 'dikshunery' and so forth.
"Weigh", I can see (although I imagine a slightly different vestigal muscle movement in my tongue with "weigh" vs. "way".
However, I refuse to misspell "dictionary" because of the way some uneducated buffoons mispronounce it.
It's not pronounced "diksunhery", it's pronounced "dictshunery". And wouldn't "dikshunery" be pronounced "dikshunery", as in farm-er? dik shun er ee?
The proper rewrite would be to have what, 40-something new letters, each corresponding to the basic sounds of the language? A letter for sh, for oo as in book, for oo as in boot, for hard and soft a, etc.
> Home computers are marketed with slogans like "Ultimate Performance,"
> but the truth is they're engineered to run cool, quiet, and slow
> compared to commercial servers.
Will Ferrel as Angry Dad at Dinner Table: I drive a Dodge Stratus, and surf with an Intel Celeron!
Celeron, like accelerate! It's fast...wicked fast!
Bill Hicks, immitating an adman: "Ahhh, today we made arsenic a children's food additive. G'nite, honey!"
We assume they'd be shorter on a higher g planet (assuming no deliberate genetic changes). But is that the case? They'd be shorter because it's "harder for bones to grow upward"? At the cellular level, that difference in gravity isn't even noticeable.
And, long-term, fighting against gravity is a small downside, but the upside of tallness greatly outweighs it, or else we wouldn't be as relatively gigantic as we are.
It's true that more severe gravities, 4x-10x+, would offer much more problems with simply falling down, but that would also tend to evolve organisms that are better at recovering/avoiding stumbles, and are tougher so as to absorb simple falls better.
Nah, predicting a shorter race on a mildly higher g planet I'd consider evidence for something made up precisely because that would not be the case, especially for a transplanted species like humans, even after a million years of evolution.
I thought that was a water pope?
Oh, wait, that's an Aquapope.
Wild turkeys are not domesticated, well-fed, fat, round, bowling balls with wings for a bird 1/3 its size.
Ahh, "They're hitting the ground like wet sacks of cement!"
Do AIM users get email? If I quit AOL, could I still use my email there via the web site? If so, is there anything special I'd have to do to make myself an AIM user?
I have used AOL for years, but only as my "permanent" email address for online registrations of one sort or another. I currently run "BYOA", or their Bring Your Own Access plan.
Eat it, chumps!
BTW, that purple jumpsuit from Voyager might fetch a lot more if it were actually worn by Jeri Lynn Ryan...if ya know what ahm sayin'...
> "How to do smart software development even when facing impossible schedules."
Here's the answer: "Remember that study from last year that found the top programmers were 4x as productive as the average programmers, and that there were things the top programmers could do that average programmers couldn't, no matter how long they were given? Hire some of them guys."
I have to admit, the "equal" one is considerably less hot than the two domineering ones. "Black over white", the one girl's on the floor. Smokin'!
Er, I mean, disturbing.
This old wives tale has been over for twenty years. I was watching when the BBC officially threw in the towel on the "billion wars".
In 1990.
> Growing up, I was ravaged by mosquitoes daily in the summers.
Speaking of which, if I were God (remember to vote for me instead of Yahweh next time), instead of parasitic insects, I'd have populated the world with flying creatures that attacked you and forced you to have an orgasm.
> Termed the "self-healing minefield", the individual mines are capable
> of detecting an enemy breach and then moving to seal the gap.
God, that sounds awesome! I can't wait to play this game, see the enemy clear a spot, then some troops waltz in later and bam! Gibbbbbbbb!