Better question: why only US politics? Oh, that's right, because Slashdot is run by americans and they think they're arrogant enough to think they are the only country that matters.
when you can buy a $12,000 machine to do the same job That's a great argument you make, except nothing that is programmed and isn't a mass market product costs $12,000. You're not going to buy a machine that can stock shelves, do cleaning, and painting. These are going to be seperate machines and they're each going to cost millions of dollars. The market for these machines? The same traditional market: production lines. It's just way too cheap to hire unskilled labor than it is to buy a machine to replace them - unless the job is dangerous - and sometimes not even then.
Now, of course, if someone was to design and build a robot, completely for their own interest, that could build copies of itself, *and* do useful work like stocking shelves, those robots would be essentially free (or at least, cost of parts) so such a person would be motivated to setup a production line and sell mass quantities of them.. unfortunately we're a long long way away from that still.
I don't exactly think there's a competitive market out there for MRI machine size. Maybe cost, or safety.. but hey, maybe bullshit technology like this is exactly what is needed to attract the government funding needed to make them. I'm all for it.. I can't imagine ever being able to download into a computer until MRI is cheap and available to experimenters.
The reason why the machines kept humans around was clearly revealed by the reliable narator in the third movie: the architect. It's really simple: the AI isn't that great. They need humans for all those traditional AI sci-fi reasons: we're more creative, intuitive, etc.
This is so true. My most enjoyable moment in Second Life was when I happened upon a floating pontoon on a river. There didn't seem to be much point to it, but I found the movement on the water interesting, so I entered the pontoon and sat down. Shortly after, I thought I heard a sound. I looked around, but apart from some trees gently swaying backwards and forwards on the bank, I didn't see anyone. The movement of the pontoon was very gentle and calming, then I heard the noise again. I had stereo headphones on and the audio system in Second Life is sufficiently accurate that you can localize where sounds are coming from. So I looked up. There I saw some bamboo hanging from strings. As I watched, the wind blew through the bamboo and they knocked together. That's where the sound game from. I sat there for about half an hour watching the bamboo, and the sky. It was starting to get dark and the wind was picking up. Soon I was hearing a lot of noise from the wind chime. But I thought maybe I could hear something else.. like a higher pitched noise. That's when I noticed there was another pontoon in the distance. In fact, I could see about five pontoons, scattered across the water. I got up and went to one of the other pontoons, it had a wind chime in it too, but this one appears to have metal bars hanging from strings instead of bamboo. It made a much higher pitched sound. I then went to the pontoon that appeared to be in the middle of the other four.. it had no chime, but I could hear all the other chimes as the wind blew. It was a very enchanting sound.
At the risk of spoiling the moment, I had to take a sneak peak at the wind chime. I expected to see a script, and possibly even some form of connection to the other chimes. There was no script.. these were literally objects hanging on strings, banging against each other when they were pushed around by the wind. Of course, the sounds the objects make on a collision is defined by a sound material.. it doesn't emerge from the properties of the object or anything, but knowing what I know of today's technology, this was still pretty impressive to me. Other people probably just think it is easy to get a computer simulation to do that.
Couldn't agree with you more. Another person who would agree with you is Eben Moglen. He hates the vested interests so much he uses his legal skills to shorten patent lifetimes on drugs developed at his university. Best thing is, they can't even fire him. That's what tenure is for.
You can't have a university without professors (by definition). You can't have a university network without a university (by definition). Therefore, without professors there is no university network.
Unfortunately, by that logic, you can say undergraduates don't need tor access, unless they're in a class where tor use has been assigned as an academic need.. etc. It seems that "security" to some people means "make everyone ask for permission to do everything".
He's a professor. Without professors, there is no university. With the possible exception of flooding the network so that it is unusable, he should be free to do anything he wants with the network.
All he is standing up for is his right to be insubordinate to his superiors. No. He is the superior.. they are just punk kids, hired by the IT department, who think they have an open mandate.
I could say a lot of BAD things about *university* ITS, but I'd probably get me in far more trouble than it is worth to say them out loud. Wow, you don't even go there anymore and you're afraid to speak out against these people? WTF? Who you guys got running the network over there? The Mafia?
I think maybe there's something you're overlooking: a university is not a business. I know that folks in the US might be shocked to hear me say this.. after all, universities are run as if they are businesses, and typically in a more cutthroat fashion than regular businesses, but how many businesses do you know, outside the aviation industry, that receive regular funding from the government? The university network belongs to the people and, although that doesn't give people the right to do whatever they want on the network, it does mean that university IT has a responsibility to ensure civil liberties are not trampled. If they don't like that, then they shouldn't have taken government funding.
Slashdot Mirror
At least the other guy had the sense to post anonymously. Feel like telling the world how much of a racist you are too?
Better question: why only US politics? Oh, that's right, because Slashdot is run by americans and they think they're arrogant enough to think they are the only country that matters.
Go back to bed Johnny, the adults are talking.
And if you knew anything of the history of computers, you'd understand why robots working minimum wage jobs is still so far away.
Now, of course, if someone was to design and build a robot, completely for their own interest, that could build copies of itself, *and* do useful work like stocking shelves, those robots would be essentially free (or at least, cost of parts) so such a person would be motivated to setup a production line and sell mass quantities of them.. unfortunately we're a long long way away from that still.
I actually think RMS is 100% right. The difference is, I can be bought.
I don't exactly think there's a competitive market out there for MRI machine size. Maybe cost, or safety.. but hey, maybe bullshit technology like this is exactly what is needed to attract the government funding needed to make them. I'm all for it.. I can't imagine ever being able to download into a computer until MRI is cheap and available to experimenters.
They suicide when you try to open them.. I didn't think I'd have to explain that.
Or, ya know, hardware. Which can be made tamperproof by suicide mechanisms.
The reason why the machines kept humans around was clearly revealed by the reliable narator in the third movie: the architect. It's really simple: the AI isn't that great. They need humans for all those traditional AI sci-fi reasons: we're more creative, intuitive, etc.
Hey, if The Matrix can call a human being a battery, you can call ANYTHING a battery.
This is so true. My most enjoyable moment in Second Life was when I happened upon a floating pontoon on a river. There didn't seem to be much point to it, but I found the movement on the water interesting, so I entered the pontoon and sat down. Shortly after, I thought I heard a sound. I looked around, but apart from some trees gently swaying backwards and forwards on the bank, I didn't see anyone. The movement of the pontoon was very gentle and calming, then I heard the noise again. I had stereo headphones on and the audio system in Second Life is sufficiently accurate that you can localize where sounds are coming from. So I looked up. There I saw some bamboo hanging from strings. As I watched, the wind blew through the bamboo and they knocked together. That's where the sound game from. I sat there for about half an hour watching the bamboo, and the sky. It was starting to get dark and the wind was picking up. Soon I was hearing a lot of noise from the wind chime. But I thought maybe I could hear something else.. like a higher pitched noise. That's when I noticed there was another pontoon in the distance. In fact, I could see about five pontoons, scattered across the water. I got up and went to one of the other pontoons, it had a wind chime in it too, but this one appears to have metal bars hanging from strings instead of bamboo. It made a much higher pitched sound. I then went to the pontoon that appeared to be in the middle of the other four.. it had no chime, but I could hear all the other chimes as the wind blew. It was a very enchanting sound.
At the risk of spoiling the moment, I had to take a sneak peak at the wind chime. I expected to see a script, and possibly even some form of connection to the other chimes. There was no script.. these were literally objects hanging on strings, banging against each other when they were pushed around by the wind. Of course, the sounds the objects make on a collision is defined by a sound material.. it doesn't emerge from the properties of the object or anything, but knowing what I know of today's technology, this was still pretty impressive to me. Other people probably just think it is easy to get a computer simulation to do that.
Wow. Someone who actually knows how to respond to a semantics argument. Good to hear.
Fire a professor? hahaha. You really don't have a clue do you?
Couldn't agree with you more. Another person who would agree with you is Eben Moglen. He hates the vested interests so much he uses his legal skills to shorten patent lifetimes on drugs developed at his university. Best thing is, they can't even fire him. That's what tenure is for.
You can't have a university without professors (by definition). You can't have a university network without a university (by definition). Therefore, without professors there is no university network.
Unfortunately, by that logic, you can say undergraduates don't need tor access, unless they're in a class where tor use has been assigned as an academic need.. etc. It seems that "security" to some people means "make everyone ask for permission to do everything".
That sounds like the kind of question an editor would ask.
Hmmmm..
Or, ya know, you could use BOTH. Shocking.
I beg to differ. Without the professors there *is* no university network.
Places like Sun Labs have something similar to tenure. In fact, Sun Labs runs a heck of a lot like a postgraduate university.
I think maybe there's something you're overlooking: a university is not a business. I know that folks in the US might be shocked to hear me say this.. after all, universities are run as if they are businesses, and typically in a more cutthroat fashion than regular businesses, but how many businesses do you know, outside the aviation industry, that receive regular funding from the government? The university network belongs to the people and, although that doesn't give people the right to do whatever they want on the network, it does mean that university IT has a responsibility to ensure civil liberties are not trampled. If they don't like that, then they shouldn't have taken government funding.
Good to see some university professors still have integrity.