I had pretty much the same experience, but it started a bit younger. Somewhere in 3rd or 4th grade I was labeled a "problem student" and generally disruptive, I was given an IQ test, and some other random tests. My IQ tested out to be rather high, and I did wonderful on the other tests (my reading level was 11th grade, for instance). But being that I was disruptive, they stuck me in the special education classes, and coerced my parents into doctor shopping to get me label as bona fide ADHD (under threat of expulsion, and CPS), completely ignoring the fact that I had the typical "nerdlike" focus, being able to dissect machines, do rudimentary coding (BASIC), or read for hours straight. Also ignoring the fact that I got high marks in the generally troublesome classes, such as math and science. These days I'd be erroneously slapped with the "aspergers" label.
I was stuck in special ed classes until my sophomore year of high school, when a teacher finally noticed that nothing was really wrong with me, and when given a semester's worth of work, I'd finish it in a week or two, and move on to personal projects quietly in the corner.
My best freind and neighbor at the time was 2 years ahead of me, and had the same problems. He didn't get disruptive though (just sullen and moody) so he got stuck into accelerated programs and gifted classes.
In high school I did terribly at everything but science courses. My math skills decayed terribly, since I spent most of my school life redoing 4th-5th grade math (special ed students couldn't really handle much more, it seems, higher math was replaced with idiotic "study skills" and "self-esteem" classes). Most of the other classes were just imbecilic, especially since I read copious amounts of books on topics I was interested in. I stopped caring. I discovered drugs, and the joys of being a small time dealer of hallucinogenic substances, and basically stuck around school to hang out in the computer lab and associate with our abnormally large "nerd" population (there was no real stigma to being a nerd at my high school, we weren't popular, but we weren't really picked on either). My attendance was terrible since my Dad worked odd hours and no one could ever complain to him. I either dropped out or was expelled my senior year, I'm still not entirely sure which, with a whopping 0.28 GPA. (though I do see it as almost the best time of my life, right after my first years in university)
I immediately got my GED (all scores in the 95th+ percentile but math), went to community college, raised my GPA to a 3.80, and went to university for philosophy and psychology, maintaining a solid GPA the whole time.
I tell every kid I know, whose smart but struggling with high school, to just drop out, get a GED, and work up your GPA at a cheap (but generally quality) community college. It erases pretty much all the nastiness you might accrue in high school. There is no point to high school. If you have any modicum of intellect you learn nothing, the vaunted socialization aspects are a joke and completely synthetic. None of it matters. You might as well just enjoy that period of your life (no real consequences, the feelings of immortality, the girls, the drugs, the rock and roll), and work out your future when you want to.
I guess the Left just loves the smell of Jewish genocide in the morning.
Just so you know, that line destroyed every single bit of credibility you might have had. Most (70-75%) Jews are Democrats, and liberals.
Also, hurting the Arabs in favor of the Jews (Israelis, to actually be specific, it isn't about Jews in general) is idiotic, and just as bigoted as your shallow stereotype of the left. Personally both sides could jump in a lake for all I care. Neither of them really deserve a shred of sympathy since they both act like bad neighbors and commit an atrocity a week against each other. Personally the international community should forcefully partition Israel into Arab and Jewish quarters, and treat them like the misbehaving children that they act like. No one should support either side, as such, until they learn to act civilized.
If I was elected King of the World for a day, one of my first acts would be to completely depopulate the so-called "Holy Land", moving all the naughty denizens to other, far flung places where they can't interfere with any other mature nation, and turn the whole hunk of cursed desert into an amusement park.
Or better, stick everyone who wants to claim that region on a space ship, and send them to the back of the moon, so they can go one killing each other for no reason whatsoever, but they can do so in a way that doesn't bother anyone else. Then all of the sensible Arabs and Jews can get on with their lives (which is probably a silent majority of both groups).
I don't care one lick who gets that irrelevant little sliver of land, the Jews can have it, the Muslims can have it, the Christians can have it, hell the Bahá'í can have it. Hell, for fun we should just give it to the Atheists, we can call it Nogodistan. Atheists have just as good a claim to it as the Jews, i.e. none.
As a licensed lefty, I restate, I have no sympathy of either. Someone should lay down a line, put one side on one side, and the other on the other, then station tons of men with guns along that line to keep them in check. Sure, the Muslim extremists would be sad, and the Zionists would be sad (and the Fungelical Christians in America as well), but who really cares? Most Fungelicals, Muslim extremists, and Zionists are batshit crazy, so should we really them have a say in anything that can effect the lives of others?
Have you missed the part in the video where they launch Office, and the usual Win7-style desktop shows up?
Notice, though, that they also had to go through the new "tablet" interface to do so. Also notice how he mentioned being able to run your desktop like a desktop as pretty much a completely marginal thing, with intonations of "why ever would you want to?"
Exactly. And so the video in question demos the new Windows UI style for tablets.
Nope. Its for tablets and PCs. He kept on pointing out how all of the silly gestures were also possible with a mouse. And stated a couple time that it was for basically every device that MS has their hands on, including PCs. Sorry to say, that we just saw Windows 8 for PC.
I'm just going to install Debian and tell everyone else to get bent. This is beginning to piss me off.
If it wasn't for my flagging PC gaming habit, and the fact that Linux makes the worlds worst HTPC, I would switch every computer in my house to OpenSuse and Debian unstable (though they're adopting Gnome Shell too, so a bit of a headache).
That said, I'm okay with Windows 7, though I will now live up to my old rule, when Vista came out, that it would be the last Microsoft OS I purchase. Apparently Win7 was a fluke, since its actually a pretty damn competent OS (1 BSOD since release with 24/7 uptime barring vacations and patch reboots, and that was my fault). I ditched OS X awhile back, and Lion has been making me think of scrapping my plans of upgrading my MacMini "kitchen computer". Ubuntu got ditched when Ubiquity became official, and they started acting like real asshats, pushing a bunch of moronic "social" crap on me, and decided that I, the Linux user, shouldn't be in control of my computer.
Grumble grumble. I suppose my life is pretty good when the main complaints I invest time and rage to is operating systems.
I see where your going, and there is some validity there.
But the larger question remains; why is everyone forcing tablet focused UIs on to desktops? That is the thing that perplexes me.
As for tablets... I don't see myself buying one until they get down to around $100 or less, and only then as a hobby device and not as any sort of tool. I don't see the point in having yet another device to carry around on top of my smart phone and sometimes my Nook (no, a tablet won't replace my Nook until they make one that has a display as good for reading as eink).
As a nerd, already have 5-6 computers in my house, almost one per room. I have a laptop. I have a Nook. I have a smart phone. What gap is the tablet going to fill? I don't even really see a real need (outside of hype) for "normal" customers... So another costly data-plan for a gimpy computer with a slightly annoying form-factor, that doesn't do anything that my $50 smart phone won't do, much less my $500 computer.
I have an odd feeling that the '10s will be considered the dark days of interface design. Between Ubiquity, Gnome 3, Windows 8, and OS X Lion, I have very little hope for the GUI. Have we really reached the time when KDE is the best GUI out there? It seems to be the only one not ripping out features in order to bring the bad parts of Tablet computing to the standard, traditional desktop.
My 24" non-touch monitor is not good for a tablet interface. Gestures, and other tablet conventions, don't translate well to tradional desktops. If my monitor was touch capable, it might be slightly better, though I would still have to do tedious frame dragging, which might be nice on a 10" screen, but would be somewhat arduous on a 24" one. It also doesn't work as well because I use my 24" desktop screen to do work, meaning having multiple applications open at one, rapidly switching between them, and having one or two open in the background for reference for the ones in the foreground. This is the desktop convention, it is very different than the tablet convention, which is about play, and focusing on one task at a time. This also doesn't wash very well on my smaller, conventional, laptop screen. It is absolutely horrendous for my 50" HTPC screen (though the tile interface might be nice on my TV, media box).
There was a very good reason that various devices had different interfaces. Various devices have different styles of use, both by their physical limitations and their purpose. Thus they have different GUIs to support their varioius use styles, and highlight their strengths. For some reason we decided this was a bad thing, and when about converting high use objects (desktops and laptops, bona fide PCs) to paradigms for low use objects (phones, tablets, and net tops).
This is somewhat ironic because the low use computers have gotten MORE useful. But for some reason the dumbed down GUI must be contagious.
Another thing; who actually CARES ABOUT TABLETS? Yes, they have marketing buzz, yes people consider them sexy. But how many people translated this PR department generated buzz to an actual purchase? How many people do you know that actually owns a tablet? I know one person, and their iPad largely sits forgotten since their phone does everything it does, but is actually portable and they have it with them by default. Who sits around on their PC pondering, "damn I wish this had a dumbed down tablet interface... because tablets are cool."?
Yet another thing; all of these new GUIs have something in common... developer arrogance. Old-style PC interfaces were generalists, and allowed you do do tasks in multiple ways. The new ones all decided that multi-tasking is passe, and we should be focusing on one task at a time. That is all well and fine, but PC GUIs have had the "maximize" button for some time to allow for that type of work-flow. Removing features so we can work in a way that pleases modern, buzz-addicted, developers is arrogant.
I don't care how sexy you think the iPad is, I don't want to use it. I don't want its interface. I don't want to work like someone at Apple (or Microsoft, or Gnome, or Canonical) wants me to. I want to work like I want to, no matter how that chaffs a developer's ass.
How the hell did the ugly, bastard Window's step-child GUI become the best? KDE was a laughing stock, but now its all there is (and the various Gnome 2 look a likes) for those of use who want a normal interface.
Also, radical change is not a good thing, especially radical change for the sake of radical change.
Its sad, Windows 7 almost gave me hope for Microsoft, it was the only OS they developed that I was looking forward to, and genuinely like using. Apparently it was a fluke.
Sorry for the rant, appearenly I have nothing better to do.
These are people in high school, not children. We had a class that touched on typing, word processors, and basic Windows operation in high school, but it wasn't CS, it was "intro to computer use", or somesuch. It was a nice thing in the early 90's, since many of the kids in our school didn't have access to computers yet. Its 2011, I'm guessing that most kids have a computer at home and use it rather frequently (this is high school).
Around the end of my sophomore year or beginning of my junior, they broke the program into two tiers, and started to offer actual programming. One bit contained "touch typing", and "basic word processing", "how to use windows"; the other has BASIC and intros to various languages. The latter program was called CS, the former was rolled into the business and vocational programs.
It's 2011, kids should know how to type by the time they get out of junior high. They should understand what they need to know about word processors and Windows by that time as well. Also, CS isn't "how to use a computer", it means something much deeper than that. The "how to use a computer" stuff is pure vocation, where CS is the nuts and bolts.
Amusingly, me and my friend were such terrors in the "typing" class (damn hunt and peckers typing at 80-100wpm), that the teacher kept us out of trouble by making us tear down all the old AT&T boxes (once you go green and black you never go back!), and help the people hired to set up all the new Windows machine labs. After he did this, me and my friend were his free techs, hunting down wire snags and bad cards, fixing bad installations, and sitting around his server room/office drinking coffee for credit (instead of actually having to participate in his classes...)
You are very emotionally invested in this topic, which is a little weird. Out side of the cult-ish, and largely irrational "whole food/organic/paleo/whatnot" crowd, I've never seen anyone really care to the extent that you seem to. From you tone, you also seemed to miss the fact that I wasn't typing most of that message as a representation of my own views, but of views that are out there.
I'm not really sure how food prices would go up with labeling in the first place. The price of labeling would be marginal, if even existent. I don't care if products with GMO in it is labeled, but products without it should be allowed to; so the price of adding a label wouldn't hurt producers of GMO food in the slightest. As for driving some customers away from GMO thanks to freer information, I don't see how this would have much of an effect on price either.
Allowing "organic" or "all natural" labels didn't change the price of non-organic foodstuffs. Or at least it didn't in any way that I've noticed. Being non-organic only hurts the market in a very small way, since most people don't care. You lose a small, fringe, portion of the market, who probably weren't a very imporant part of the "non-organic" market. Labels proclaiming the lack of "GMO" would be pretty much the same, and thus have very little, to no, effect on food prices.
If anything a slight reduction of buyers would lower prices via standard demand curves. Less buyers and a roughly equal supply means producers try to lower costs to move products. Also suppliers might want to lower price-points to make GMO containing products more attractive than labeled GMO free foodstuffs.
I really can't see the difference between being allowed to label something as organic, and being allowed to label something as GMO free. There isn't much evidence that organic foodstuffs is much better for you than non-organic, and there isn't much proof that non-organic food is harmful (just like GMO), but still they are allowed to label, and this label hasn't affected me, the customer, in any noticeable way besides opening up an avenue for choice.
I try my hardest to only buy organic, heirloom, tomatoes (they taste like tomatoes used to) instead of the giant, bright red, industrial ones. I haven't see the price of the non-organic ones sky-rocket because of my perfectly valid preferences. Even the organic ones have been declining, while the non-organic ones have been roughly the same. So why would a "non-GMO" label hurt, if "organic" one doesn't?
Another example is the no rBGH stickers on diary. I haven't seen products that don't have that label's prices to skyrocket. Hell, there is no real price difference between non-rBGH milk and unlabeled milk.
How would GMO labeling differ from these precedents. I don't see it.
My Kosher example still stands, since I agree with you (sans the tone); producers of non-Kosher food arent', and shouldn't be, required to label anything. But producers of kosher products should be allowed to label, even if it drives portions of the Jewish community away from things not labeled. Producers of non-Kosher foods are losing customers, though, thanks to having labeled alternative products.
So being allowed to label your food "kosher", or non-rBGH, or organic, is magically different than being able to label your food "non-GMO". I don't see it.
That "test" is a bit moronic. First, it wouldn't really be testing for "antisemitism" new or otherwise, it would be testing for "Anti-Israelism". These are still two seperate beasts, even if both are equally idiotic. One can still hate Israel with an irrational passion and not really hate Jews themselves as an ethic or religious group. There are groups of people who hate everything about the US (calling it the "great satan" and such), but might not hate Christians (the majority religious) or ex-European mutts (out main ethnic group).
One can hate Israel without hating Jews or Judaism.
The first “D” is the test of demonization. When the Jewish state is being demonized; when Israel’s actions are blown out of all sensible proportion; when comparisons are made between Israelis and Nazis and between Palestinian refugee camps and Auschwitz – this is anti- Semitism, not legitimate criticism of Israel.
This is the least objectionable criteria, but it is still a bit flawed. What happens if there are, indeed, legitimate, and educational, comparisons between Israel and other heinous acts throughout history? I'm not saying we can compare it to Nazi Germany yet, and indeed that comparison is distasteful, but that doesn't bar the fact that someday that may be a valid topic, and some may legitimately think so, and should be allowed to present their case without being gagged by the specter of racism.
Again, as a disclaimer, I doubt their case will hold much water, and it might belay their own irrational problems with the state and people of Israel.
The second “D” is the test of double standards. When criticism of Israel is applied selectively; when Israel is singled out by the United Nations for human rights abuses while the behavior of known and major abusers, such as China, Iran, Cuba, and Syria, is ignored; when Israel’s Magen David Adom, alone among the world’s ambulance services, is denied admission to the International Red Cross – this is anti-Semitism.
This is utterly fallacious. If the topic at hand is the practices of Israel, I shouldn't have to include ten pages of disclaimers stating that they aren't alone in being prone to occasional asshattery. Yes, other countries are capable of bad decisions and abuse, this does nothing to make any single one of there actions okay. It completely silences conversation, since in order to critique Israel I would have to first critique every other country which has ever done any similar action. We wouldn't expect the same criteria if I was going to critique Syria or Myanmar or any other less "important" country with faults. How dare you critique Myanmar without critiquing Israel as well! (I'm not comparing this two, ala your first law, just highlighting the inanity)
Its like the fallacy that you can't care about this social problem without acting againstt ALL social problems as well.
The third “D” is the test of delegitimization: when Israel’s fundamental right to exist is denied – alone among all peoples in the world – this too is anti-Semitism.
No, its anti-Israel, not antisemitism still. More so, it is just plain naive, Israel is here to stay for good or ill (depending on your views). I personally think Israel's government is bad, bordering on "evil". I have absolutely nothing against Jews, or even your average Israeli, I just dislike your Government. I feel the same about the Palestinians, but to a very slightly lesser degree since they have inflicted a smaller body count of innocent people than the Israeli government. Again notice the disclaimers, disclaimers I should not have to include, and wouldn't include if discussing any other country but Israel. I also REALLY dislike the U.S. government, but I obviously don't dislike Americans (I'm dating one, all my best friends are American, my parents are American, hell... I
However there is NO NONE ZERO scientific basis for labeling food as GMO or non-GMO.
Who cares? I don't WANT to eat it. I don't care if there is science involved or not, I just really don't want consume it.*
Perhaps we should bar labeling food as kosher or halal, since there is no scientific basis behind that either. It is unfair to producers of non-kosher or halal foodstuffs since it steers Jews and Muslims away from their foods for no real, scientific, reason.
* That was a rhetorical "I". I personally have nothing against GMOs, though I do think labeling and regulation is very important. Most GMO might be fine and dandy, but that isn't proof that ALL GMO is fine, or that all future products will also be fine. I also would probably boycott a fair amount of foods because I don't want to support some large companies involved in the GMO industry (Monsanto). I also always hold personal choice (no matter how nonsensical) above corporate interests.
More information is good as long as it doesn't hurt the bottom line of gigantic corporations (I'll throw in an "evil" too, if we're talking about Monsanto). Also, if 99% of the population are morons, we should also strip the ability to make free choices from the remaining 1% (to preserve a giant corporations profit margins).
I personally am a HUGE fan of food labeling. Food is the most important thing in the world, and the most important thing to human life itself. I have the right to know what I am eating, what risks it poses, and where it came from.
I have nothing again GM foods, per se. But claiming that they are risk free is absurd. Even if a majority of GMO's are fine and dandy, that doesn't preclude some of them not being good. GMO's should be regulated, observed, studied, and labeled with all of the pertinent information. Barring that (since economy is more important than people's right to be informed), products NOT containing modified foodstuffs should be allowed to label themselves as such.
Not requiring labels on GMOs is very different than allowing other producers to label their products as not containing them.
But then again I will always put people above corporations, even if those people are stupid. If a mass of stupid people making stupid choices cause Monsanto to go kaput, I'm fine with that. That's how the world works.
People can't make rational choices if there is no information. Everything with the term "free" in it (including markets and societies) require informed actors to function fully. Thus maximizing information makes pretty much everything better.
QM also has an unexplained wave function collapse which requires an observer whose form is never explained. There are therfore plenty of holes in our current theories to allow for a free agents.
I always thought the "observer effects" stuff was a bit of a kludge, mixed with some unfortunate phrasing. IANAQP (quantum physicist), so I really can't say either way, but it seems to me that the "observe effect" is a mask for some deep misunderstanding or lack of knowledge. It leads to all sorts of loopy or paradoxical problems, even more so than other bits of QM.
My other point was to refute the idea that any explanation of Free Will could not be scientific.
It might be. If we ever "proved" free will it would be within the scientific frame-work.
But beware of having a "free will of the gaps", it doesn't work very flatteringly for God. I find it much more likely that we will never be able to definitively prove it either way and thus we have more "hope born of ignorance" than actually having verifiable free will. Basically, the free will debate is very much like a religious debate.
I have faith in my own agency, but I might just be predestined to have faith in my own agency... so...
Which also brings up an interesting point, Christianity has had this same problem for a very long time; how can we be free if God is omnipotent/present? Which is worse than the scientific debate, since Christianity doctrinal depends on free will, which is paradoxical because of other bits of the doctrine. Actually, if the observe effect doesn't spring of our own ignorance, than free will within physics is pretty much the same as the previous arguments about free will within religious systems.
I admit, I'm playing around here a bit.
God I hate Slashdot sometimes. I wrote a fairly lengthy reply to this and for some reason it has disappeared. I need to learn to stop writing straight into the site.
It is amazing that a site that has around 90% of its population being code geeks is coded worse than 90% of other websites. And oddly our masters are either unaware of the problems, or apathetic to them (my money is on the latter). That said, I generally use an external editor, or at least ctrl-c the full text of my reply every time I finish a paragraph.
Go Slashdot. As much as I love you, you are a horrid source of daily frustration.
People started off with high optimism ~60 years ago, but that bubble burst ~50 years ago. Almost no one in the AI field has been trying to build a sentient machine, and if anyone said it was 10 years away I'd dismiss them as uninformed or a crank.
I dismiss most AI cheerleaders as cranks. I don't dismiss the normal, on the ground, researchers, just the people who make extraordinary claims about it. AI Prophets. AI, unlike most other fields, seems to be a bit infected by them. It has gotten better, but they still annoy the hell out of me.
I really doubt that some researcher will yell "Let there be AI", and there will be AI. It will be like most things, an almost accidental emergence from divergent research pathways.
Also, "we" don't define intelligence as "how close to human it is", as you would know if you had read Chapter 1 of any AI textbook currently in use.
That wasn't very helpful. I don't have an AI textbook handy, and Google and Wikipedia prove bad resources since they offer many different definitions.
You can't really deny that most people speak of AI as "human simulators" though, and that we will have "strong AI" once it acts like us.
It's a strange thing to find meaningless since it is an argument about whether your life actually has a meaning.
I don't see it as such. If tomorrow scientists proved without any doubt whatsoever that we didn't have free will, my life would tick on exactly the same as normal. Yes, I'd have the knowledge that "life is meaningless now", but we're wired to accept our own agency (even if said agency doesn't exist), and as such it is impossible to act in anyway that isn't motivated by (the illusion of) free will. The structure of all of my experiences leads me to subjectively accept free will as a fact (even if I know academically that it isn't), and no amount of science will really change that.
This flows from a couple things; the first is that scientific knowledge is always perceived as an abstraction. It isn't as "real" as my day to day experiences. I'm already quite sure that my life is meaningless from previous bits of scientific knowledge; such as the size of the universe and scope of time as compared to my meager existence. These facts don't change the fact that humans create subjective meaning, and exist as the center of experience, and thus have inflated importance.
I know, for example, that in a pitiful short period of time I will be dead. Barring some great forthcoming acts on my behalf, I will be completely forgotten within 100 or so years. After that period, I might have never well existed in the fist place. In a bigger scope, my existence is so insignificant to might as bell be non-existent. On a purely human level, I am one anonymous face among billions of others. Etc...
None of these bits of knowledge (all of which are true) really mar my sense of self-importance. Self-importance is a necessary fact of existence.
As is agency. How does one act as if one doesn't have the freedom to act?
That question is pretty much meaningless, unless one takes it as a Zen koan.
The Continental philosophers have been playing this game for a lot longer than we (rationalistic anglophones) have. There was much whinging about the probably lack of a God and thats effect on our perception of meaning in the mid 20th century by philosophers such as Sartre. Heidegger and Camus approached the same or similar issues at roughly the same time. We've been in doubt of our own meaning for quite some time, and yet we carry on. We have to, we're wired for it.
Life has no intrinsic meaning. All that exists is the ability for us, individuals, to create our own meaning. If somehow agency was destroyed tomorrow, this would mean that all of our individuals meanings are now intrinsic meanings... so... Life does have meaning.
If we don't have free will, we can only act as if we do if that's what was predetermined or happens due to random factors, we have no choice about it.
But if we discovered the lack of free will today, it changes nothing. We never had free will, even during our meaningful moments in the past. Does that discovery retroactively destroy all previous meaning? Will it actually change your life? Will you stop going to work, caring for your family, and occasionally going out with peers? How would this knowledge change anything? And if it did crush your inherent sense of meaning, then wouldn't that also be pre-determined, and thus something to just accept?
This is yet another "the nature of consciousness is unknowable" argument, which just leads to the idea that only a supreme being could possibly impart it to inanimate matter.
I got kicked off of an an Atheists forum once for saying that one can hold "free-will" to be probable without buying into "God doing it", or any other senseless theistic argument. Science isn't complete, it never will be. There may be something existing outside of the current realm of knowledge that confirms our day-to-day knowledge of our own agency. Hell, there may even exist non-theistic things outside the realm of science that will always be completely unknowable to science (or the hypothetico-deductive model) based purely on non-compatibility with our modeling techniques (I do not claim that these actually exist, or that I believe in them, but that that they could, theoretically, exist).
Saying that "scientism" is dumb, isn't the same as positing religion, or being anti-science.
I personally think its a debate at all because we don't really even know what consciousness is. We don't even have a meaningful definition.
Wait until the first true AI of significant power makes its appearance. Assuming it doesn't start out like Skynet and wipe us off the face of the planet, it's going to make for a lot of very red faces
And that is coming in the next 10 years, right? As it always has been, and we really aren't much closer to it than we were than when we first decided it would happen in 10 years, around 60 years ago. Though I'm still not even sure AI would actually be meaningful at all. We are not computers, and computer intelligence would be very different in function than we are. That what always annoys me about the AI crowd, simulating a human is pretty meaningless. The whole AI feild would be better called "human simulation", since it has very little to do with "intelligence" as an ill-defined broad term. This also boils down to definition, since for some reason we define "intelligence" as "how close to human is it".
If there was an intelligence that manifested itself in non-human terms, we would never recognize it as intelligent.
It seems to me though that there are basically two sides to this entire argument. Those who believe in Free Will rightly point out that it requires something beyond our current Physics. In fact something incredibly radical that is akin to the 'Spiritual'.
I am a philosophy nerd, but I really don't know one way or another whether free-will exists or not. Personally I find it a somewhat meaningless argument. if we don't have free will, we must still ultimately act as if we do. So either way, if either stance is actually provable, it matters not one bit to our day to day existence. Also, I find the determinism (or quantum probability crowd, like Dennet) argument to be a bit fallacious (even if correct, it still shares more with religion than non-determinism); any action that is presented as non-deterministic is disprove by the simple statement that one was determined to do such.
That said, saying that there can't exist currently unknown properties and laws in physics is pretty naive, and verges on pure hubris. In short, it is historically short-sided. I virtually guarantee that there exists things outside of the our current understandings. Whether these things allow free-will is a different story. Further, there will always be things existing outside of the physics-mathematical framework, since it is only a mere philosophical structure in which we shape pre-existing data points to meet. It does a damn good job, but there is no guarantee of completeness.
If something existed outside of the system, how could the system ever prove its existence using its own framework? We've collectively accepted the current model, and organize data into it based on previous acceptance of the model since that is how we see the world. Currently this model accepts determinism, this doesn't make it so, necessarily.
Back on topic, though... Just because you say there is something that we don't understand yet, doesn't make it spiritual. If Penrose thinks he found qualities within consciousness that are not compatible within the current framework, he is perfectly right in seeking, or postulating, something new. This is how science works. He might (and probably will) be proven to be completely wrong, but nothing is gained from not exploring that avenue.
I'm more a fan of just saying that the whole determinism vs. free-will debate is meaningless, and basically boils down to our won inability to actually define consciousness in any meaningful way.
We had a Sony receiver from the early-mid 80's that my girl friends parents gave us. I was a wondrous thing. Then it died, and we replaced it with a second-hand high-end Pioneer receiver from the early 80's, which is a slightly more wondrous thing, though it doesn't turn on with the nice "brang!" noise the Sony had.
Sony used to be a good brand, they were known for their quality, and long life. This started to go away in the mid-90s, though. I had a Sony stereo (over grown boombox) from 1992, hooked to a CD-player from 1993, they rocked. When I wanted something beefier in ~1996 I got another Sony (it was ugly as sin) and it died within a year, and had terrible sound. I got another, it died almost as quickly, and was uglier (fake chrome, bight colors, shaped like something from a B sci-fi movie!), and had worse sound, and the volume knob made everything crackle, it had no EQ outside of silly presets.
Finally I just moved on to using my computer as a music player, and using my iPod (gotten for free) with my old Sony stereo from 1992 via mic-in and radio.
I don't actually think that Sony devolved in quality much more than anyone else. Its damn hard to find good equipment, since everything is built as a disposable commodity these days. Without spending high premium rates (200-300% of the average), your getting crap that is going to die within a year or two, and has sub-bar build quality and bad audio/video/whatever its function is. There is no good brand at the consumer level.
I'm being general. Recently we ran into this with vacuum cleaners, our $400 vacuum died (we got it on a good deal, no box) 3 months after the warranty. We were going to buy a Dyson, and realized that it felt as cheap and crappy as the $100 store-brand specials, and was made with thinner, more bendy, plastics than most other, cheaper, vacuums. Why bother spending $500-600 for a piece of plastic shit? Even if it "works better", its going to die a couple months after warranty too. I miss my 150lb Kirby. It was built like a tank, and saved me going to the gym. Further, it was almost 30 years old and would have worked fine, but some damn sales-man convinced me that new=better.
90% of the time new != better. New = cheaper for the same price. New = greater profit margin for the manufacturer and no real consumer benefit.
would have thought this would cause a giant boost in popularity for KDE, at least among the die-hard Linux customizing type people, but I haven't seen that much of it. KDE, after all, still lets you customize it greatly (though honestly, it could still use a lot of work; I tried to set it in 4.6 so the titlebars of active windows would be bright green, and never was able to figure out how to get that to work), unlike Gnome, which appears to be doing its best to remove all configurability whatsoever.
I've pretty much moved on to 100% KDE now, as well. I like KDE, but it often frustrates me on a low level, it works but sometimes things could work just a bit better. I think most of the people who are alienated by Gnome Shell and Unity moved to XFCE and LXDE. I tried to use them, via Xubuntu, but it was too much like Gnome, so when it stopped being 100% Gnome-like I got annoyed. Better to move onto something truly different, I suppose. I've been on the verge, though, of switching over to mostly KDE for awhile, OpenSuse's implementation is very seductive. Once I got beyond apt, and realized that RPM wasn't completely evil (just mostly), I get along fine with my obscene amount of customization (but still the broken screensaver functionality).
The one down side, I've had this one installation for over a month now, and still haven't tweaked it quite to my liking. Which on Gnome would have been done within an hour or so. Go KDE!
While you certainly have the right to have a screensaver if you really want, I've abandoned the entire idea, as it's no longer needed for anything, and is just a throwback to the days of the CRT.
I know that they really aren't technically necessary, I just like them. On my main PC I have all my photos showing as a screensaver, and sometimes I sit in a big comfy chair on the other side of the room and zone out to it. On my smaller laptop I used to have the Xscreensaver "photo mosiac" going, and would often just stare at it when I was pondering work and working through ideas. On my HTPC/Media center box, I have all my album art and disc covers cycling, for much the same effect. On my old Mac I used the "flip clock" screensaver, since the room it was in didn't have any time telling devices in ready view (that and it was pretty good looking too, there is nothing wrong with aesthetics, after-all)
I also use the screensaver as a "sleep timer", since when my monitor falls asleep I know that I have around an hour before my box suspends. I suppose this knowledge isn't terribly useful, but I like to have it.
I find it odd though, that none of the three major Linux environments have deemed it necessary to support the feature, even if it is one of the most common things people fiddle with. Linux used to be for people who enjoyed endless tinkering and customization, now it seems its falling trap to the "get things done" problem, where everything needs to be a mere, joyless, appliance. Yes, GUI is seen as superfluous in the more gung-ho bits of the community, but that never stopped Gnome and KDE from being vastly more tweakable than Windows or OS X. Now we have a reversal.
I futzed around with Gnome Shell and Unity, and moved on to OpenSuse with KDE. I can't stand the fact that I can't customize my GUI anymore. The Gnome team's comments on this make Apple seem open and egalitarian. They sound down right arrogant about "making it right, so no one should change it, since we know better". Both Unity and Gnome Shell are less customization than OS X now. Hell, you have to wait 6 months to a year, with Gnome Shell, just to be allowed to change your screensaver. While KDE's screensaver abilities are continually broken, they at least pretend that you can modify them and add new ones.
Unity is just ugly, clunky, and completely breaks how I want to use my computer. Yes, "simplicity" is nice, but its now the only way to do things. Forcing it down my throat is annoying. I could be simplistically "task oriented" in Gnome 2, if I chose to be. If I wanted to be complex and cluttered, that was perfectly fine too.
On the whole I like Gnome Shell better. KDE annoys the hell out of me, but so far its better, their team doesn't seem quite as tyrannical about how I "should" use my PC. If the Gnome team ever decides I should be permitted to customize their meisterwerk to fit my aesthetics and work flow, I'll give it another chance. As for Unity, if I ever decide I want to use it, I'll dust off my old Mac and use it instead since Apple at least took the same philosophy and made it work (and not look dog ugly).
I think Canonical's days might be numbered, personally. I see the Debian flavor of Mint winning as the popular, new user friendly, distribution. Ubuntu might run off of its popular capital for a bit, but I don't see them really winning on design merits anymore.
Most of them have american viewpoints (i.e. pro capitalist, pro free market, pro libertarian, anti-left). Slashdot is heavily weighted towards americanized views of things.
Yes, Slashdot is "Americanized", being an American site, with a predominately American audience and user base. Luckily America is a very large place, with a large array of diverging view points. Hell, I know several anti-capitalist, anti-freemarket, anti-Libertarian (the capital "L" is very important, since Libertarian != libertarian, I'm the latter and I can't stand most of the former), pro-left Americans.
I love it, the people on the left perceive Slashdot has having an anti-left bias. But then every topic where the Libertarians come out they rant about the mods having a pro-left, anti-capitalist, anti-free market bias. To me, that means we're doing something right.
When the left thinks something has a right bias, and the right thinks that the same thing has a left bias, I'd say that thing is doing a damn good job. Often this is the case, since any source that doesn't support the majority of our views MUST be biased against us. I suppose, in the case of your comment, you can even generalize this to entire populations of countries.
Why not...uh...find out what made the classics classic and do a bit more of that?
Part of the problem is that the original team (from FFI to FFIX) all went away, the creative synergy (pardon the marketing speak) was awesome, but slowly they got promoted to non-creative rolls, or moved on to their own projects. One of my biggest problems with the new ones is that they got rid of Amano (the artist/character designer of every game up to X, sans VII and VIII) and stuck with the guy who did the graphics/design for FF:Tactics.
That and the plots became hugely political, not political as in "there is stuff behind the scenes", but as in "I'm watching interactive CSPAN, with swords", this is what killed XII for me, I just couldn't care one bit about the plot. The characters were okay... I didn't mind the gambit system, even. But the plot was boring. X was okay, until someone decided, for the first time in the franchise, to make the mini-game mandatory for progress. I don't want to play water-soccer, damn it. The theme was a bit wonky too, and it seemed smaller than all of the other games, less complex.
Looking back, there isn't a single "Squenix" era Final Fantasy game that I really liked. It might just be the fact that I'm older, though. My tastes may have changed. Though I have the whole original franchise (I-VI) on the DS, and still enjoy the hell out of them. Chronotrigger hasn't lost its spark either. The last Dragon Quest game on the PS2 was also brilliant.
I think Square had one of the best creative teams out there for a long period of time, and benefited greatly from it. These times are now long past.
The series has hit the same list as George Lucas and Spielberg (and basically every other creator trying to cash in off my childhood), I won't purchase, or watch, anything by them until I hear more unabashedly positive reviews than negative ones, starting a week after release (to minimize the shills, and paid reviews). Each positive review is worth 1 point, each negative is worth -1. If the balance hits a positive 10, then I'll go spend the money.
As a superfluous addendum, another problem I have with all next-gen JRPGs is that somehow they decided that I really don't want to play a game, I want to sit through two hours of dialogue before I'm allowed to do anything whatsoever. I remember when Xenosaga came out, I was really excited by it. But then I sat down to play it on my roomate's console, and got about 45 minutes into the dialogue, before deciding I had much better things to do with my life than stare at a screen, hitting "x" occasionally. I went and sat under a tree and read a book instead. Just to make it interactive, I occasionally waved my arms around and said "swish! BANG! Pow!". I figure I captured the experience well.
You may be correct, but I can't tell unless you have some citations proving your point.
Also, are you sure he's anti-US and not just anti-IS foreign policy? I'm massively anti-IS foreign policy, and not anti-US (some of my best friends are American, including me).
Slashdot Mirror
I had pretty much the same experience, but it started a bit younger. Somewhere in 3rd or 4th grade I was labeled a "problem student" and generally disruptive, I was given an IQ test, and some other random tests. My IQ tested out to be rather high, and I did wonderful on the other tests (my reading level was 11th grade, for instance). But being that I was disruptive, they stuck me in the special education classes, and coerced my parents into doctor shopping to get me label as bona fide ADHD (under threat of expulsion, and CPS), completely ignoring the fact that I had the typical "nerdlike" focus, being able to dissect machines, do rudimentary coding (BASIC), or read for hours straight. Also ignoring the fact that I got high marks in the generally troublesome classes, such as math and science. These days I'd be erroneously slapped with the "aspergers" label.
I was stuck in special ed classes until my sophomore year of high school, when a teacher finally noticed that nothing was really wrong with me, and when given a semester's worth of work, I'd finish it in a week or two, and move on to personal projects quietly in the corner.
My best freind and neighbor at the time was 2 years ahead of me, and had the same problems. He didn't get disruptive though (just sullen and moody) so he got stuck into accelerated programs and gifted classes.
In high school I did terribly at everything but science courses. My math skills decayed terribly, since I spent most of my school life redoing 4th-5th grade math (special ed students couldn't really handle much more, it seems, higher math was replaced with idiotic "study skills" and "self-esteem" classes). Most of the other classes were just imbecilic, especially since I read copious amounts of books on topics I was interested in. I stopped caring. I discovered drugs, and the joys of being a small time dealer of hallucinogenic substances, and basically stuck around school to hang out in the computer lab and associate with our abnormally large "nerd" population (there was no real stigma to being a nerd at my high school, we weren't popular, but we weren't really picked on either). My attendance was terrible since my Dad worked odd hours and no one could ever complain to him. I either dropped out or was expelled my senior year, I'm still not entirely sure which, with a whopping 0.28 GPA. (though I do see it as almost the best time of my life, right after my first years in university)
I immediately got my GED (all scores in the 95th+ percentile but math), went to community college, raised my GPA to a 3.80, and went to university for philosophy and psychology, maintaining a solid GPA the whole time.
I tell every kid I know, whose smart but struggling with high school, to just drop out, get a GED, and work up your GPA at a cheap (but generally quality) community college. It erases pretty much all the nastiness you might accrue in high school. There is no point to high school. If you have any modicum of intellect you learn nothing, the vaunted socialization aspects are a joke and completely synthetic. None of it matters. You might as well just enjoy that period of your life (no real consequences, the feelings of immortality, the girls, the drugs, the rock and roll), and work out your future when you want to.
I guess the Left just loves the smell of Jewish genocide in the morning.
Just so you know, that line destroyed every single bit of credibility you might have had. Most (70-75%) Jews are Democrats, and liberals.
Also, hurting the Arabs in favor of the Jews (Israelis, to actually be specific, it isn't about Jews in general) is idiotic, and just as bigoted as your shallow stereotype of the left. Personally both sides could jump in a lake for all I care. Neither of them really deserve a shred of sympathy since they both act like bad neighbors and commit an atrocity a week against each other. Personally the international community should forcefully partition Israel into Arab and Jewish quarters, and treat them like the misbehaving children that they act like. No one should support either side, as such, until they learn to act civilized.
If I was elected King of the World for a day, one of my first acts would be to completely depopulate the so-called "Holy Land", moving all the naughty denizens to other, far flung places where they can't interfere with any other mature nation, and turn the whole hunk of cursed desert into an amusement park.
Or better, stick everyone who wants to claim that region on a space ship, and send them to the back of the moon, so they can go one killing each other for no reason whatsoever, but they can do so in a way that doesn't bother anyone else. Then all of the sensible Arabs and Jews can get on with their lives (which is probably a silent majority of both groups).
I don't care one lick who gets that irrelevant little sliver of land, the Jews can have it, the Muslims can have it, the Christians can have it, hell the Bahá'í can have it. Hell, for fun we should just give it to the Atheists, we can call it Nogodistan. Atheists have just as good a claim to it as the Jews, i.e. none.
As a licensed lefty, I restate, I have no sympathy of either. Someone should lay down a line, put one side on one side, and the other on the other, then station tons of men with guns along that line to keep them in check. Sure, the Muslim extremists would be sad, and the Zionists would be sad (and the Fungelical Christians in America as well), but who really cares? Most Fungelicals, Muslim extremists, and Zionists are batshit crazy, so should we really them have a say in anything that can effect the lives of others?
Have you missed the part in the video where they launch Office, and the usual Win7-style desktop shows up?
Notice, though, that they also had to go through the new "tablet" interface to do so. Also notice how he mentioned being able to run your desktop like a desktop as pretty much a completely marginal thing, with intonations of "why ever would you want to?"
Exactly. And so the video in question demos the new Windows UI style for tablets.
Nope. Its for tablets and PCs. He kept on pointing out how all of the silly gestures were also possible with a mouse. And stated a couple time that it was for basically every device that MS has their hands on, including PCs. Sorry to say, that we just saw Windows 8 for PC.
I'm just going to install Debian and tell everyone else to get bent. This is beginning to piss me off.
If it wasn't for my flagging PC gaming habit, and the fact that Linux makes the worlds worst HTPC, I would switch every computer in my house to OpenSuse and Debian unstable (though they're adopting Gnome Shell too, so a bit of a headache).
That said, I'm okay with Windows 7, though I will now live up to my old rule, when Vista came out, that it would be the last Microsoft OS I purchase. Apparently Win7 was a fluke, since its actually a pretty damn competent OS (1 BSOD since release with 24/7 uptime barring vacations and patch reboots, and that was my fault). I ditched OS X awhile back, and Lion has been making me think of scrapping my plans of upgrading my MacMini "kitchen computer". Ubuntu got ditched when Ubiquity became official, and they started acting like real asshats, pushing a bunch of moronic "social" crap on me, and decided that I, the Linux user, shouldn't be in control of my computer.
Grumble grumble. I suppose my life is pretty good when the main complaints I invest time and rage to is operating systems.
I see where your going, and there is some validity there.
But the larger question remains; why is everyone forcing tablet focused UIs on to desktops? That is the thing that perplexes me.
As for tablets... I don't see myself buying one until they get down to around $100 or less, and only then as a hobby device and not as any sort of tool. I don't see the point in having yet another device to carry around on top of my smart phone and sometimes my Nook (no, a tablet won't replace my Nook until they make one that has a display as good for reading as eink).
As a nerd, already have 5-6 computers in my house, almost one per room. I have a laptop. I have a Nook. I have a smart phone. What gap is the tablet going to fill? I don't even really see a real need (outside of hype) for "normal" customers... So another costly data-plan for a gimpy computer with a slightly annoying form-factor, that doesn't do anything that my $50 smart phone won't do, much less my $500 computer.
I have an odd feeling that the '10s will be considered the dark days of interface design. Between Ubiquity, Gnome 3, Windows 8, and OS X Lion, I have very little hope for the GUI. Have we really reached the time when KDE is the best GUI out there? It seems to be the only one not ripping out features in order to bring the bad parts of Tablet computing to the standard, traditional desktop.
My 24" non-touch monitor is not good for a tablet interface. Gestures, and other tablet conventions, don't translate well to tradional desktops. If my monitor was touch capable, it might be slightly better, though I would still have to do tedious frame dragging, which might be nice on a 10" screen, but would be somewhat arduous on a 24" one. It also doesn't work as well because I use my 24" desktop screen to do work, meaning having multiple applications open at one, rapidly switching between them, and having one or two open in the background for reference for the ones in the foreground. This is the desktop convention, it is very different than the tablet convention, which is about play, and focusing on one task at a time. This also doesn't wash very well on my smaller, conventional, laptop screen. It is absolutely horrendous for my 50" HTPC screen (though the tile interface might be nice on my TV, media box).
There was a very good reason that various devices had different interfaces. Various devices have different styles of use, both by their physical limitations and their purpose. Thus they have different GUIs to support their varioius use styles, and highlight their strengths. For some reason we decided this was a bad thing, and when about converting high use objects (desktops and laptops, bona fide PCs) to paradigms for low use objects (phones, tablets, and net tops).
This is somewhat ironic because the low use computers have gotten MORE useful. But for some reason the dumbed down GUI must be contagious.
Another thing; who actually CARES ABOUT TABLETS? Yes, they have marketing buzz, yes people consider them sexy. But how many people translated this PR department generated buzz to an actual purchase? How many people do you know that actually owns a tablet? I know one person, and their iPad largely sits forgotten since their phone does everything it does, but is actually portable and they have it with them by default. Who sits around on their PC pondering, "damn I wish this had a dumbed down tablet interface... because tablets are cool."?
Yet another thing; all of these new GUIs have something in common... developer arrogance. Old-style PC interfaces were generalists, and allowed you do do tasks in multiple ways. The new ones all decided that multi-tasking is passe, and we should be focusing on one task at a time. That is all well and fine, but PC GUIs have had the "maximize" button for some time to allow for that type of work-flow. Removing features so we can work in a way that pleases modern, buzz-addicted, developers is arrogant.
I don't care how sexy you think the iPad is, I don't want to use it. I don't want its interface. I don't want to work like someone at Apple (or Microsoft, or Gnome, or Canonical) wants me to. I want to work like I want to, no matter how that chaffs a developer's ass.
How the hell did the ugly, bastard Window's step-child GUI become the best? KDE was a laughing stock, but now its all there is (and the various Gnome 2 look a likes) for those of use who want a normal interface.
Also, radical change is not a good thing, especially radical change for the sake of radical change.
Its sad, Windows 7 almost gave me hope for Microsoft, it was the only OS they developed that I was looking forward to, and genuinely like using. Apparently it was a fluke.
Sorry for the rant, appearenly I have nothing better to do.
These are children, not college students.
These are people in high school, not children. We had a class that touched on typing, word processors, and basic Windows operation in high school, but it wasn't CS, it was "intro to computer use", or somesuch. It was a nice thing in the early 90's, since many of the kids in our school didn't have access to computers yet. Its 2011, I'm guessing that most kids have a computer at home and use it rather frequently (this is high school).
Around the end of my sophomore year or beginning of my junior, they broke the program into two tiers, and started to offer actual programming. One bit contained "touch typing", and "basic word processing", "how to use windows"; the other has BASIC and intros to various languages. The latter program was called CS, the former was rolled into the business and vocational programs.
It's 2011, kids should know how to type by the time they get out of junior high. They should understand what they need to know about word processors and Windows by that time as well. Also, CS isn't "how to use a computer", it means something much deeper than that. The "how to use a computer" stuff is pure vocation, where CS is the nuts and bolts.
Amusingly, me and my friend were such terrors in the "typing" class (damn hunt and peckers typing at 80-100wpm), that the teacher kept us out of trouble by making us tear down all the old AT&T boxes (once you go green and black you never go back!), and help the people hired to set up all the new Windows machine labs. After he did this, me and my friend were his free techs, hunting down wire snags and bad cards, fixing bad installations, and sitting around his server room/office drinking coffee for credit (instead of actually having to participate in his classes...)
You are very emotionally invested in this topic, which is a little weird. Out side of the cult-ish, and largely irrational "whole food/organic/paleo/whatnot" crowd, I've never seen anyone really care to the extent that you seem to. From you tone, you also seemed to miss the fact that I wasn't typing most of that message as a representation of my own views, but of views that are out there.
I'm not really sure how food prices would go up with labeling in the first place. The price of labeling would be marginal, if even existent. I don't care if products with GMO in it is labeled, but products without it should be allowed to; so the price of adding a label wouldn't hurt producers of GMO food in the slightest. As for driving some customers away from GMO thanks to freer information, I don't see how this would have much of an effect on price either.
Allowing "organic" or "all natural" labels didn't change the price of non-organic foodstuffs. Or at least it didn't in any way that I've noticed. Being non-organic only hurts the market in a very small way, since most people don't care. You lose a small, fringe, portion of the market, who probably weren't a very imporant part of the "non-organic" market. Labels proclaiming the lack of "GMO" would be pretty much the same, and thus have very little, to no, effect on food prices.
If anything a slight reduction of buyers would lower prices via standard demand curves. Less buyers and a roughly equal supply means producers try to lower costs to move products. Also suppliers might want to lower price-points to make GMO containing products more attractive than labeled GMO free foodstuffs.
I really can't see the difference between being allowed to label something as organic, and being allowed to label something as GMO free. There isn't much evidence that organic foodstuffs is much better for you than non-organic, and there isn't much proof that non-organic food is harmful (just like GMO), but still they are allowed to label, and this label hasn't affected me, the customer, in any noticeable way besides opening up an avenue for choice.
I try my hardest to only buy organic, heirloom, tomatoes (they taste like tomatoes used to) instead of the giant, bright red, industrial ones. I haven't see the price of the non-organic ones sky-rocket because of my perfectly valid preferences. Even the organic ones have been declining, while the non-organic ones have been roughly the same. So why would a "non-GMO" label hurt, if "organic" one doesn't?
Another example is the no rBGH stickers on diary. I haven't seen products that don't have that label's prices to skyrocket. Hell, there is no real price difference between non-rBGH milk and unlabeled milk.
How would GMO labeling differ from these precedents. I don't see it.
My Kosher example still stands, since I agree with you (sans the tone); producers of non-Kosher food arent', and shouldn't be, required to label anything. But producers of kosher products should be allowed to label, even if it drives portions of the Jewish community away from things not labeled. Producers of non-Kosher foods are losing customers, though, thanks to having labeled alternative products.
So being allowed to label your food "kosher", or non-rBGH, or organic, is magically different than being able to label your food "non-GMO". I don't see it.
That "test" is a bit moronic. First, it wouldn't really be testing for "antisemitism" new or otherwise, it would be testing for "Anti-Israelism". These are still two seperate beasts, even if both are equally idiotic. One can still hate Israel with an irrational passion and not really hate Jews themselves as an ethic or religious group. There are groups of people who hate everything about the US (calling it the "great satan" and such), but might not hate Christians (the majority religious) or ex-European mutts (out main ethnic group).
One can hate Israel without hating Jews or Judaism.
The first “D” is the test of demonization. When the Jewish state is being demonized; when Israel’s actions are blown out of all sensible proportion; when comparisons are made between Israelis and Nazis and between Palestinian refugee camps and Auschwitz – this is anti- Semitism, not legitimate criticism of Israel.
This is the least objectionable criteria, but it is still a bit flawed. What happens if there are, indeed, legitimate, and educational, comparisons between Israel and other heinous acts throughout history? I'm not saying we can compare it to Nazi Germany yet, and indeed that comparison is distasteful, but that doesn't bar the fact that someday that may be a valid topic, and some may legitimately think so, and should be allowed to present their case without being gagged by the specter of racism.
Again, as a disclaimer, I doubt their case will hold much water, and it might belay their own irrational problems with the state and people of Israel.
The second “D” is the test of double standards. When criticism of Israel is applied selectively; when Israel is singled out by the United Nations for human rights abuses while the behavior of known and major abusers, such as China, Iran, Cuba, and Syria, is ignored; when Israel’s Magen David Adom, alone among the world’s ambulance services, is denied admission to the International Red Cross – this is anti-Semitism.
This is utterly fallacious. If the topic at hand is the practices of Israel, I shouldn't have to include ten pages of disclaimers stating that they aren't alone in being prone to occasional asshattery. Yes, other countries are capable of bad decisions and abuse, this does nothing to make any single one of there actions okay. It completely silences conversation, since in order to critique Israel I would have to first critique every other country which has ever done any similar action. We wouldn't expect the same criteria if I was going to critique Syria or Myanmar or any other less "important" country with faults. How dare you critique Myanmar without critiquing Israel as well! (I'm not comparing this two, ala your first law, just highlighting the inanity)
Its like the fallacy that you can't care about this social problem without acting againstt ALL social problems as well.
The third “D” is the test of delegitimization: when Israel’s fundamental right to exist is denied – alone among all peoples in the world – this too is anti-Semitism.
No, its anti-Israel, not antisemitism still. More so, it is just plain naive, Israel is here to stay for good or ill (depending on your views). I personally think Israel's government is bad, bordering on "evil". I have absolutely nothing against Jews, or even your average Israeli, I just dislike your Government. I feel the same about the Palestinians, but to a very slightly lesser degree since they have inflicted a smaller body count of innocent people than the Israeli government. Again notice the disclaimers, disclaimers I should not have to include, and wouldn't include if discussing any other country but Israel. I also REALLY dislike the U.S. government, but I obviously don't dislike Americans (I'm dating one, all my best friends are American, my parents are American, hell... I
However there is NO NONE ZERO scientific basis for labeling food as GMO or non-GMO.
Who cares? I don't WANT to eat it. I don't care if there is science involved or not, I just really don't want consume it.*
Perhaps we should bar labeling food as kosher or halal, since there is no scientific basis behind that either. It is unfair to producers of non-kosher or halal foodstuffs since it steers Jews and Muslims away from their foods for no real, scientific, reason.
* That was a rhetorical "I". I personally have nothing against GMOs, though I do think labeling and regulation is very important. Most GMO might be fine and dandy, but that isn't proof that ALL GMO is fine, or that all future products will also be fine. I also would probably boycott a fair amount of foods because I don't want to support some large companies involved in the GMO industry (Monsanto). I also always hold personal choice (no matter how nonsensical) above corporate interests.
More information is good as long as it doesn't hurt the bottom line of gigantic corporations (I'll throw in an "evil" too, if we're talking about Monsanto). Also, if 99% of the population are morons, we should also strip the ability to make free choices from the remaining 1% (to preserve a giant corporations profit margins).
I personally am a HUGE fan of food labeling. Food is the most important thing in the world, and the most important thing to human life itself. I have the right to know what I am eating, what risks it poses, and where it came from.
I have nothing again GM foods, per se. But claiming that they are risk free is absurd. Even if a majority of GMO's are fine and dandy, that doesn't preclude some of them not being good. GMO's should be regulated, observed, studied, and labeled with all of the pertinent information. Barring that (since economy is more important than people's right to be informed), products NOT containing modified foodstuffs should be allowed to label themselves as such.
Not requiring labels on GMOs is very different than allowing other producers to label their products as not containing them.
But then again I will always put people above corporations, even if those people are stupid. If a mass of stupid people making stupid choices cause Monsanto to go kaput, I'm fine with that. That's how the world works.
People can't make rational choices if there is no information. Everything with the term "free" in it (including markets and societies) require informed actors to function fully. Thus maximizing information makes pretty much everything better.
In GNOME, You Edit your Preferences.
Not any more.
QM also has an unexplained wave function collapse which requires an observer whose form is never explained. There are therfore plenty of holes in our current theories to allow for a free agents.
I always thought the "observer effects" stuff was a bit of a kludge, mixed with some unfortunate phrasing. IANAQP (quantum physicist), so I really can't say either way, but it seems to me that the "observe effect" is a mask for some deep misunderstanding or lack of knowledge. It leads to all sorts of loopy or paradoxical problems, even more so than other bits of QM.
My other point was to refute the idea that any explanation of Free Will could not be scientific.
It might be. If we ever "proved" free will it would be within the scientific frame-work.
But beware of having a "free will of the gaps", it doesn't work very flatteringly for God. I find it much more likely that we will never be able to definitively prove it either way and thus we have more "hope born of ignorance" than actually having verifiable free will. Basically, the free will debate is very much like a religious debate.
I have faith in my own agency, but I might just be predestined to have faith in my own agency... so...
Which also brings up an interesting point, Christianity has had this same problem for a very long time; how can we be free if God is omnipotent/present? Which is worse than the scientific debate, since Christianity doctrinal depends on free will, which is paradoxical because of other bits of the doctrine. Actually, if the observe effect doesn't spring of our own ignorance, than free will within physics is pretty much the same as the previous arguments about free will within religious systems.
I admit, I'm playing around here a bit.
God I hate Slashdot sometimes. I wrote a fairly lengthy reply to this and for some reason it has disappeared. I need to learn to stop writing straight into the site.
It is amazing that a site that has around 90% of its population being code geeks is coded worse than 90% of other websites. And oddly our masters are either unaware of the problems, or apathetic to them (my money is on the latter). That said, I generally use an external editor, or at least ctrl-c the full text of my reply every time I finish a paragraph.
Go Slashdot. As much as I love you, you are a horrid source of daily frustration.
People started off with high optimism ~60 years ago, but that bubble burst ~50 years ago. Almost no one in the AI field has been trying to build a sentient machine, and if anyone said it was 10 years away I'd dismiss them as uninformed or a crank.
I dismiss most AI cheerleaders as cranks. I don't dismiss the normal, on the ground, researchers, just the people who make extraordinary claims about it. AI Prophets. AI, unlike most other fields, seems to be a bit infected by them. It has gotten better, but they still annoy the hell out of me.
I really doubt that some researcher will yell "Let there be AI", and there will be AI. It will be like most things, an almost accidental emergence from divergent research pathways.
Also, "we" don't define intelligence as "how close to human it is", as you would know if you had read Chapter 1 of any AI textbook currently in use.
That wasn't very helpful. I don't have an AI textbook handy, and Google and Wikipedia prove bad resources since they offer many different definitions.
You can't really deny that most people speak of AI as "human simulators" though, and that we will have "strong AI" once it acts like us.
It's a strange thing to find meaningless since it is an argument about whether your life actually has a meaning.
I don't see it as such. If tomorrow scientists proved without any doubt whatsoever that we didn't have free will, my life would tick on exactly the same as normal. Yes, I'd have the knowledge that "life is meaningless now", but we're wired to accept our own agency (even if said agency doesn't exist), and as such it is impossible to act in anyway that isn't motivated by (the illusion of) free will. The structure of all of my experiences leads me to subjectively accept free will as a fact (even if I know academically that it isn't), and no amount of science will really change that.
This flows from a couple things; the first is that scientific knowledge is always perceived as an abstraction. It isn't as "real" as my day to day experiences. I'm already quite sure that my life is meaningless from previous bits of scientific knowledge; such as the size of the universe and scope of time as compared to my meager existence. These facts don't change the fact that humans create subjective meaning, and exist as the center of experience, and thus have inflated importance.
I know, for example, that in a pitiful short period of time I will be dead. Barring some great forthcoming acts on my behalf, I will be completely forgotten within 100 or so years. After that period, I might have never well existed in the fist place. In a bigger scope, my existence is so insignificant to might as bell be non-existent. On a purely human level, I am one anonymous face among billions of others. Etc...
None of these bits of knowledge (all of which are true) really mar my sense of self-importance. Self-importance is a necessary fact of existence.
As is agency. How does one act as if one doesn't have the freedom to act?
That question is pretty much meaningless, unless one takes it as a Zen koan.
The Continental philosophers have been playing this game for a lot longer than we (rationalistic anglophones) have. There was much whinging about the probably lack of a God and thats effect on our perception of meaning in the mid 20th century by philosophers such as Sartre. Heidegger and Camus approached the same or similar issues at roughly the same time. We've been in doubt of our own meaning for quite some time, and yet we carry on. We have to, we're wired for it.
Life has no intrinsic meaning. All that exists is the ability for us, individuals, to create our own meaning. If somehow agency was destroyed tomorrow, this would mean that all of our individuals meanings are now intrinsic meanings... so... Life does have meaning.
If we don't have free will, we can only act as if we do if that's what was predetermined or happens due to random factors, we have no choice about it.
But if we discovered the lack of free will today, it changes nothing. We never had free will, even during our meaningful moments in the past. Does that discovery retroactively destroy all previous meaning? Will it actually change your life? Will you stop going to work, caring for your family, and occasionally going out with peers? How would this knowledge change anything? And if it did crush your inherent sense of meaning, then wouldn't that also be pre-determined, and thus something to just accept?
This is yet another "the nature of consciousness is unknowable" argument, which just leads to the idea that only a supreme being could possibly impart it to inanimate matter.
I got kicked off of an an Atheists forum once for saying that one can hold "free-will" to be probable without buying into "God doing it", or any other senseless theistic argument. Science isn't complete, it never will be. There may be something existing outside of the current realm of knowledge that confirms our day-to-day knowledge of our own agency. Hell, there may even exist non-theistic things outside the realm of science that will always be completely unknowable to science (or the hypothetico-deductive model) based purely on non-compatibility with our modeling techniques (I do not claim that these actually exist, or that I believe in them, but that that they could, theoretically, exist).
Saying that "scientism" is dumb, isn't the same as positing religion, or being anti-science.
I personally think its a debate at all because we don't really even know what consciousness is. We don't even have a meaningful definition.
Wait until the first true AI of significant power makes its appearance. Assuming it doesn't start out like Skynet and wipe us off the face of the planet, it's going to make for a lot of very red faces
And that is coming in the next 10 years, right? As it always has been, and we really aren't much closer to it than we were than when we first decided it would happen in 10 years, around 60 years ago. Though I'm still not even sure AI would actually be meaningful at all. We are not computers, and computer intelligence would be very different in function than we are. That what always annoys me about the AI crowd, simulating a human is pretty meaningless. The whole AI feild would be better called "human simulation", since it has very little to do with "intelligence" as an ill-defined broad term. This also boils down to definition, since for some reason we define "intelligence" as "how close to human is it".
If there was an intelligence that manifested itself in non-human terms, we would never recognize it as intelligent.
It seems to me though that there are basically two sides to this entire argument. Those who believe in Free Will rightly point out that it requires something beyond our current Physics. In fact something incredibly radical that is akin to the 'Spiritual'.
I am a philosophy nerd, but I really don't know one way or another whether free-will exists or not. Personally I find it a somewhat meaningless argument. if we don't have free will, we must still ultimately act as if we do. So either way, if either stance is actually provable, it matters not one bit to our day to day existence. Also, I find the determinism (or quantum probability crowd, like Dennet) argument to be a bit fallacious (even if correct, it still shares more with religion than non-determinism); any action that is presented as non-deterministic is disprove by the simple statement that one was determined to do such.
That said, saying that there can't exist currently unknown properties and laws in physics is pretty naive, and verges on pure hubris. In short, it is historically short-sided. I virtually guarantee that there exists things outside of the our current understandings. Whether these things allow free-will is a different story. Further, there will always be things existing outside of the physics-mathematical framework, since it is only a mere philosophical structure in which we shape pre-existing data points to meet. It does a damn good job, but there is no guarantee of completeness.
If something existed outside of the system, how could the system ever prove its existence using its own framework? We've collectively accepted the current model, and organize data into it based on previous acceptance of the model since that is how we see the world. Currently this model accepts determinism, this doesn't make it so, necessarily.
Back on topic, though... Just because you say there is something that we don't understand yet, doesn't make it spiritual. If Penrose thinks he found qualities within consciousness that are not compatible within the current framework, he is perfectly right in seeking, or postulating, something new. This is how science works. He might (and probably will) be proven to be completely wrong, but nothing is gained from not exploring that avenue.
I'm more a fan of just saying that the whole determinism vs. free-will debate is meaningless, and basically boils down to our won inability to actually define consciousness in any meaningful way.
We had a Sony receiver from the early-mid 80's that my girl friends parents gave us. I was a wondrous thing. Then it died, and we replaced it with a second-hand high-end Pioneer receiver from the early 80's, which is a slightly more wondrous thing, though it doesn't turn on with the nice "brang!" noise the Sony had.
Sony used to be a good brand, they were known for their quality, and long life. This started to go away in the mid-90s, though. I had a Sony stereo (over grown boombox) from 1992, hooked to a CD-player from 1993, they rocked. When I wanted something beefier in ~1996 I got another Sony (it was ugly as sin) and it died within a year, and had terrible sound. I got another, it died almost as quickly, and was uglier (fake chrome, bight colors, shaped like something from a B sci-fi movie!), and had worse sound, and the volume knob made everything crackle, it had no EQ outside of silly presets.
Finally I just moved on to using my computer as a music player, and using my iPod (gotten for free) with my old Sony stereo from 1992 via mic-in and radio.
I don't actually think that Sony devolved in quality much more than anyone else. Its damn hard to find good equipment, since everything is built as a disposable commodity these days. Without spending high premium rates (200-300% of the average), your getting crap that is going to die within a year or two, and has sub-bar build quality and bad audio/video/whatever its function is. There is no good brand at the consumer level.
I'm being general. Recently we ran into this with vacuum cleaners, our $400 vacuum died (we got it on a good deal, no box) 3 months after the warranty. We were going to buy a Dyson, and realized that it felt as cheap and crappy as the $100 store-brand specials, and was made with thinner, more bendy, plastics than most other, cheaper, vacuums. Why bother spending $500-600 for a piece of plastic shit? Even if it "works better", its going to die a couple months after warranty too. I miss my 150lb Kirby. It was built like a tank, and saved me going to the gym. Further, it was almost 30 years old and would have worked fine, but some damn sales-man convinced me that new=better.
90% of the time new != better. New = cheaper for the same price. New = greater profit margin for the manufacturer and no real consumer benefit.
Sorry for the rant.
would have thought this would cause a giant boost in popularity for KDE, at least among the die-hard Linux customizing type people, but I haven't seen that much of it. KDE, after all, still lets you customize it greatly (though honestly, it could still use a lot of work; I tried to set it in 4.6 so the titlebars of active windows would be bright green, and never was able to figure out how to get that to work), unlike Gnome, which appears to be doing its best to remove all configurability whatsoever.
I've pretty much moved on to 100% KDE now, as well. I like KDE, but it often frustrates me on a low level, it works but sometimes things could work just a bit better. I think most of the people who are alienated by Gnome Shell and Unity moved to XFCE and LXDE. I tried to use them, via Xubuntu, but it was too much like Gnome, so when it stopped being 100% Gnome-like I got annoyed. Better to move onto something truly different, I suppose. I've been on the verge, though, of switching over to mostly KDE for awhile, OpenSuse's implementation is very seductive. Once I got beyond apt, and realized that RPM wasn't completely evil (just mostly), I get along fine with my obscene amount of customization (but still the broken screensaver functionality).
The one down side, I've had this one installation for over a month now, and still haven't tweaked it quite to my liking. Which on Gnome would have been done within an hour or so. Go KDE!
While you certainly have the right to have a screensaver if you really want, I've abandoned the entire idea, as it's no longer needed for anything, and is just a throwback to the days of the CRT.
I know that they really aren't technically necessary, I just like them. On my main PC I have all my photos showing as a screensaver, and sometimes I sit in a big comfy chair on the other side of the room and zone out to it. On my smaller laptop I used to have the Xscreensaver "photo mosiac" going, and would often just stare at it when I was pondering work and working through ideas. On my HTPC/Media center box, I have all my album art and disc covers cycling, for much the same effect. On my old Mac I used the "flip clock" screensaver, since the room it was in didn't have any time telling devices in ready view (that and it was pretty good looking too, there is nothing wrong with aesthetics, after-all)
I also use the screensaver as a "sleep timer", since when my monitor falls asleep I know that I have around an hour before my box suspends. I suppose this knowledge isn't terribly useful, but I like to have it.
I find it odd though, that none of the three major Linux environments have deemed it necessary to support the feature, even if it is one of the most common things people fiddle with. Linux used to be for people who enjoyed endless tinkering and customization, now it seems its falling trap to the "get things done" problem, where everything needs to be a mere, joyless, appliance. Yes, GUI is seen as superfluous in the more gung-ho bits of the community, but that never stopped Gnome and KDE from being vastly more tweakable than Windows or OS X. Now we have a reversal.
I futzed around with Gnome Shell and Unity, and moved on to OpenSuse with KDE. I can't stand the fact that I can't customize my GUI anymore. The Gnome team's comments on this make Apple seem open and egalitarian. They sound down right arrogant about "making it right, so no one should change it, since we know better". Both Unity and Gnome Shell are less customization than OS X now. Hell, you have to wait 6 months to a year, with Gnome Shell, just to be allowed to change your screensaver. While KDE's screensaver abilities are continually broken, they at least pretend that you can modify them and add new ones.
Unity is just ugly, clunky, and completely breaks how I want to use my computer. Yes, "simplicity" is nice, but its now the only way to do things. Forcing it down my throat is annoying. I could be simplistically "task oriented" in Gnome 2, if I chose to be. If I wanted to be complex and cluttered, that was perfectly fine too.
On the whole I like Gnome Shell better. KDE annoys the hell out of me, but so far its better, their team doesn't seem quite as tyrannical about how I "should" use my PC. If the Gnome team ever decides I should be permitted to customize their meisterwerk to fit my aesthetics and work flow, I'll give it another chance. As for Unity, if I ever decide I want to use it, I'll dust off my old Mac and use it instead since Apple at least took the same philosophy and made it work (and not look dog ugly).
I think Canonical's days might be numbered, personally. I see the Debian flavor of Mint winning as the popular, new user friendly, distribution. Ubuntu might run off of its popular capital for a bit, but I don't see them really winning on design merits anymore.
The further towards the fringe you are; the more biased against you everyone seems.
Most of them have american viewpoints (i.e. pro capitalist, pro free market, pro libertarian, anti-left). Slashdot is heavily weighted towards americanized views of things.
Yes, Slashdot is "Americanized", being an American site, with a predominately American audience and user base. Luckily America is a very large place, with a large array of diverging view points. Hell, I know several anti-capitalist, anti-freemarket, anti-Libertarian (the capital "L" is very important, since Libertarian != libertarian, I'm the latter and I can't stand most of the former), pro-left Americans.
I love it, the people on the left perceive Slashdot has having an anti-left bias. But then every topic where the Libertarians come out they rant about the mods having a pro-left, anti-capitalist, anti-free market bias. To me, that means we're doing something right.
When the left thinks something has a right bias, and the right thinks that the same thing has a left bias, I'd say that thing is doing a damn good job. Often this is the case, since any source that doesn't support the majority of our views MUST be biased against us. I suppose, in the case of your comment, you can even generalize this to entire populations of countries.
Why not...uh...find out what made the classics classic and do a bit more of that?
Part of the problem is that the original team (from FFI to FFIX) all went away, the creative synergy (pardon the marketing speak) was awesome, but slowly they got promoted to non-creative rolls, or moved on to their own projects. One of my biggest problems with the new ones is that they got rid of Amano (the artist/character designer of every game up to X, sans VII and VIII) and stuck with the guy who did the graphics/design for FF:Tactics.
That and the plots became hugely political, not political as in "there is stuff behind the scenes", but as in "I'm watching interactive CSPAN, with swords", this is what killed XII for me, I just couldn't care one bit about the plot. The characters were okay... I didn't mind the gambit system, even. But the plot was boring. X was okay, until someone decided, for the first time in the franchise, to make the mini-game mandatory for progress. I don't want to play water-soccer, damn it. The theme was a bit wonky too, and it seemed smaller than all of the other games, less complex.
Looking back, there isn't a single "Squenix" era Final Fantasy game that I really liked. It might just be the fact that I'm older, though. My tastes may have changed. Though I have the whole original franchise (I-VI) on the DS, and still enjoy the hell out of them. Chronotrigger hasn't lost its spark either. The last Dragon Quest game on the PS2 was also brilliant.
I think Square had one of the best creative teams out there for a long period of time, and benefited greatly from it. These times are now long past.
The series has hit the same list as George Lucas and Spielberg (and basically every other creator trying to cash in off my childhood), I won't purchase, or watch, anything by them until I hear more unabashedly positive reviews than negative ones, starting a week after release (to minimize the shills, and paid reviews). Each positive review is worth 1 point, each negative is worth -1. If the balance hits a positive 10, then I'll go spend the money.
As a superfluous addendum, another problem I have with all next-gen JRPGs is that somehow they decided that I really don't want to play a game, I want to sit through two hours of dialogue before I'm allowed to do anything whatsoever. I remember when Xenosaga came out, I was really excited by it. But then I sat down to play it on my roomate's console, and got about 45 minutes into the dialogue, before deciding I had much better things to do with my life than stare at a screen, hitting "x" occasionally. I went and sat under a tree and read a book instead. Just to make it interactive, I occasionally waved my arms around and said "swish! BANG! Pow!". I figure I captured the experience well.
You may be correct, but I can't tell unless you have some citations proving your point.
Also, are you sure he's anti-US and not just anti-IS foreign policy? I'm massively anti-IS foreign policy, and not anti-US (some of my best friends are American, including me).