I agree that they are like AOL, but don't agree that social networking will "die down" anymore than "getting online" would ever die down.
Facebook will eventually be replaced (or be made relatively irrelevant) by an open solution that works better and fosters innovation, just as the web as we know it made AOL's proprietary environment irrelevant.
He's just talking about the same voice-activated, computer-controlled house they've been promising us since 1950. How does he know that yet another random voice recognition program will suddenly make it possible?
Because it actually does it?
(and its a reasonable guess that it works as advertised, because Apple has a pretty good track record of waiting until the time is right, and releasing something that is not half-baked)
Well some office environments have a lot of people talking on phones, I don't see why this is so much worse, especially if it works well enough that people don't have to over-enunciate and constantly correct it.
So there are environments where it isn't appropriate to use, just as there are environments where its not appropriate to talk on a phone, use a smartphone, etc. So?
Although I'm not sold on the "use the best language for the job" mentality, I have better things to do than learn new languages and port my code from one to another. I see no reason why a single language can't do everything from user scripts to systems development, while maintaining elegance and expressiveness. Not saying that language has been invented yet (or will be any time soon), but still.
I mean, rat's are cheap. If its brain functions are going bad, get a new rat. This is what is wrong with science, they have no clue as to real world problems.
And, of course, MS and Apple won't adopt it--making it real useful, just as long as all your visitors happen to be using Chrome or some future version of Firefox.
So make it compile to Javascript for browsers that don't support it natively.
Personally I think it would be pretty sweet if Google made V8 support Coffescript natively, both in Chrome and Node.js. But if they were also to build in some of what they've got with Closure, they've got something.
...they should open source it and let another organization do something with it. Mozilla would be a prime candidate, since that's basically what they did with the remains of netscape.
WebOS has a lot going for it, in the sense that its main API is based on Javascript/Html5, which lends itself well to being opened up. Android may be open source, but building it on java resulted in it being less than open.
Well they can always do the same thing by creating pages that do such things. Link to a bunch of tech sites, then put a link to the dating site.
Google is very good at detecting this sort of insincere promotion, and compensating for it. That's probably the the hardest problem, and the one most core to its business, that Google addresses. For someone to actually game the system, they end up having to work pretty hard to make good content and appear sincere, and in the end, they might actually be making a more positive than negative impact.
I see no reason why Google can't apply the same expertise they apply to links on pages, to +1's. The nice thing is that they end up with so much more data, that it becomes even harder to game it because each individual has such a tiny influence.
No, despite Poundstone's conclusions, range voting is terrible. A smart (i.e. strategic) voter in a range system would simply vote 0 or 100 for every candidate (giving 100 to all candidates that they prefer to the one they feel is most likely to win, zero to the others). But then all those good people trying to vote "honestly" would have less influence.
Approval is a very good system, as it doesn't really offer an choice between honesty and strategy. You vote strategically by default.
(although Condorcet systems such as Schulze are better, because you don't even have to think about how others are likely to vote, except in extremely contrived cases)
Maybe initially, but over time a system like this would erode the two party system. There is little reason for two parties if you don't have the vote splitting effect that we have in our current system. Their power would go away since centrist candidates would have the advantage in a system with approval voting.
Having multiple winners doesn't make sense in many contexts. (are we going to have multiple presidents?)
Remember that when a system like this is in place, it doesn't just change who wins, it changes who runs. More centrist candidates would run, that appeal to everyone, not one side or the other. The two party system we see, where everyone is either in one party or the other, isn't because of human nature, it is forced upon us by a broken voting system (see Duverger's law)
"Non-mainstream" isn't really the result, as it would tend to pick centrist candidates, which by some definitions are more mainstream than those on either end.
There is a concept called "range voting", which allows you to rank anything between 0 and 100 (or whatever). (a variation of that is 3 levels: like, dislike, and neutral)
Problem is, it is severely broken, as anyone using it strategically would simply vote everyone either 0 or 100. Those who vote sincerely end up disenfranchised, as their vote is not very effective. A better solution would be to rank the candidate, but then the best method of tabulation is not 100% clear.
Approval, as is, is a pretty good system though. You are effectively forced to vote strategically, rather than being given a choice between "honest" and "smart".
Right and left are relative. Generally they are relative to "center", which could be defined as the median or average view, within the voting population. It doesn't matter if people in other countries are far to another direction, just as it doesn't matter whether people in the distant past or distant future have different views.
I agree that Schulze is better, but Approval is a huge step in the right direction. The biggest problem with Approval is that you need to know who others are likely to vote for if you are to vote most effectively (you should typically approve all candidates that you prefer [or consider equal] to the one you think is most likely to win). This explains the issues pretty well: http://karmatics.com/voting/movienite.html
Technically, it eliminates the main reason for parties to form in the first place, which is to minimize the effects of vote-splitting by way of reducing similar candidates on the ballot. Instead of parties, there might simply be organizations that promote their agendas and the thereby promote all candidates that advance those agendas.
In the end, we get centrist candidates. Elections would be a lot less dramatic and exciting, but I think we can live with that.
I don't disagree with that, I just think the "X lives will be saved" statements are probably way off, because they don't account for this effect.
Humans balance lots of priorities, safety being one of them. When you change another variable, you can expect people to adjust their behavior to keep the same balance of safety vs. convenience/money/etc. There isn't a lot you can do about it, it's human nature, and actually it's quite rational.
...about how many lives will be saved, is that they don't take into account that once in place, people rely on them, and change their behavior accordingly. So if I feel like my car is going to alert me if I am likely to hit something, I don't feel so obliged to pay close attention to my driving -- effectively canceling out much of their effect.
Terrible ergonomics. Your hand will block the view when using the mouse as it's meant to be used, and so see it you have to take your eyes off the screen. Seems like a bad idea to me.
Yeah, dopamine is essentially the brain's implementation of happiness/pleasure. It basically causes the brain to weight its circuitry to cause previously followed decision paths to be more likely to be followed in the future. You should expect that dopamine is produced whenever experiencing pleasure, so this article to me is a big "Duh!"
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that they are like AOL, but don't agree that social networking will "die down" anymore than "getting online" would ever die down.
Facebook will eventually be replaced (or be made relatively irrelevant) by an open solution that works better and fosters innovation, just as the web as we know it made AOL's proprietary environment irrelevant.
...if you are allowed to have complex raw materials.
Fire self replicates. Fallen-down dominoes self-replicate. The line between "chain reaction" and "self replication" is very blurry.
He's just talking about the same voice-activated, computer-controlled house they've been promising us since 1950. How does he know that yet another random voice recognition program will suddenly make it possible?
Because it actually does it?
(and its a reasonable guess that it works as advertised, because Apple has a pretty good track record of waiting until the time is right, and releasing something that is not half-baked)
Well some office environments have a lot of people talking on phones, I don't see why this is so much worse, especially if it works well enough that people don't have to over-enunciate and constantly correct it.
So there are environments where it isn't appropriate to use, just as there are environments where its not appropriate to talk on a phone, use a smartphone, etc. So?
Yeah well they are google, I think they can put someone on that task.
The whole point is to make it appropriate for complex apps.
And you really think google would make it so you have to tweak it for IE?
Well Dart is coming out in a couple days.
Although I'm not sold on the "use the best language for the job" mentality, I have better things to do than learn new languages and port my code from one to another. I see no reason why a single language can't do everything from user scripts to systems development, while maintaining elegance and expressiveness. Not saying that language has been invented yet (or will be any time soon), but still.
I mean, rat's are cheap. If its brain functions are going bad, get a new rat. This is what is wrong with science, they have no clue as to real world problems.
Geez.
So make it compile to Javascript for browsers that don't support it natively.
Personally I think it would be pretty sweet if Google made V8 support Coffescript natively, both in Chrome and Node.js. But if they were also to build in some of what they've got with Closure, they've got something.
...they should open source it and let another organization do something with it. Mozilla would be a prime candidate, since that's basically what they did with the remains of netscape.
WebOS has a lot going for it, in the sense that its main API is based on Javascript/Html5, which lends itself well to being opened up. Android may be open source, but building it on java resulted in it being less than open.
Well they can always do the same thing by creating pages that do such things. Link to a bunch of tech sites, then put a link to the dating site.
Google is very good at detecting this sort of insincere promotion, and compensating for it. That's probably the the hardest problem, and the one most core to its business, that Google addresses. For someone to actually game the system, they end up having to work pretty hard to make good content and appear sincere, and in the end, they might actually be making a more positive than negative impact.
I see no reason why Google can't apply the same expertise they apply to links on pages, to +1's. The nice thing is that they end up with so much more data, that it becomes even harder to game it because each individual has such a tiny influence.
I mean, what's at the outer edge? A wall?
No, despite Poundstone's conclusions, range voting is terrible. A smart (i.e. strategic) voter in a range system would simply vote 0 or 100 for every candidate (giving 100 to all candidates that they prefer to the one they feel is most likely to win, zero to the others). But then all those good people trying to vote "honestly" would have less influence.
Approval is a very good system, as it doesn't really offer an choice between honesty and strategy. You vote strategically by default.
(although Condorcet systems such as Schulze are better, because you don't even have to think about how others are likely to vote, except in extremely contrived cases)
Maybe initially, but over time a system like this would erode the two party system. There is little reason for two parties if you don't have the vote splitting effect that we have in our current system. Their power would go away since centrist candidates would have the advantage in a system with approval voting.
Having multiple winners doesn't make sense in many contexts. (are we going to have multiple presidents?) Remember that when a system like this is in place, it doesn't just change who wins, it changes who runs. More centrist candidates would run, that appeal to everyone, not one side or the other. The two party system we see, where everyone is either in one party or the other, isn't because of human nature, it is forced upon us by a broken voting system (see Duverger's law)
"Non-mainstream" isn't really the result, as it would tend to pick centrist candidates, which by some definitions are more mainstream than those on either end.
There is a concept called "range voting", which allows you to rank anything between 0 and 100 (or whatever). (a variation of that is 3 levels: like, dislike, and neutral) Problem is, it is severely broken, as anyone using it strategically would simply vote everyone either 0 or 100. Those who vote sincerely end up disenfranchised, as their vote is not very effective. A better solution would be to rank the candidate, but then the best method of tabulation is not 100% clear. Approval, as is, is a pretty good system though. You are effectively forced to vote strategically, rather than being given a choice between "honest" and "smart".
Right and left are relative. Generally they are relative to "center", which could be defined as the median or average view, within the voting population. It doesn't matter if people in other countries are far to another direction, just as it doesn't matter whether people in the distant past or distant future have different views.
I agree that Schulze is better, but Approval is a huge step in the right direction. The biggest problem with Approval is that you need to know who others are likely to vote for if you are to vote most effectively (you should typically approve all candidates that you prefer [or consider equal] to the one you think is most likely to win). This explains the issues pretty well: http://karmatics.com/voting/movienite.html
Technically, it eliminates the main reason for parties to form in the first place, which is to minimize the effects of vote-splitting by way of reducing similar candidates on the ballot. Instead of parties, there might simply be organizations that promote their agendas and the thereby promote all candidates that advance those agendas. In the end, we get centrist candidates. Elections would be a lot less dramatic and exciting, but I think we can live with that.
I don't disagree with that, I just think the "X lives will be saved" statements are probably way off, because they don't account for this effect. Humans balance lots of priorities, safety being one of them. When you change another variable, you can expect people to adjust their behavior to keep the same balance of safety vs. convenience/money/etc. There isn't a lot you can do about it, it's human nature, and actually it's quite rational.
Then you have the problem that people will turn it off, or just not buy/support the technology in the first place if it is too annoying.
...about how many lives will be saved, is that they don't take into account that once in place, people rely on them, and change their behavior accordingly. So if I feel like my car is going to alert me if I am likely to hit something, I don't feel so obliged to pay close attention to my driving -- effectively canceling out much of their effect.
Terrible ergonomics. Your hand will block the view when using the mouse as it's meant to be used, and so see it you have to take your eyes off the screen. Seems like a bad idea to me.
Yeah, dopamine is essentially the brain's implementation of happiness/pleasure. It basically causes the brain to weight its circuitry to cause previously followed decision paths to be more likely to be followed in the future. You should expect that dopamine is produced whenever experiencing pleasure, so this article to me is a big "Duh!"