The "that phone" he refers to is Openmoko (which is a platform, not a phone). I presume he *really* means the Neo FreeRunner.
Here's an edited copy of an earlier post I put up about the Neo FreeRunner: FIC produces a totally open phone. The firmware for the GSM is closed, but I believe that's a legal requirement in most areas.
The Neo 1973 & Neo FreeRunner are linux ARM computers with full GPS, bluetooth, GSM/GPRS, USB (client & unpowered host) and 480 x 640 touchscreens. The FreeRunner also has two accelerometers and wi-fi. You can buy the Neo 1973 now (<-- no longer accurate; you can only buy used 1973s while FIC is gearing up to produce FreeRunner), and the FreeRunner is expected in March or April.
You can (of course) play video, music, and run PDA apps on the devices. You can also view PDFs and the web, use bluetooth keyboards (or bluetooth anything else, for that matter), or do anything that you or someone else cares to port from the desktop, assuming the hardware resources are sufficient.
I've been playing with my Neo 1973 (currently recommended only for people willing to debug, and tolerate alpha level software) for a few weeks, and I'm having a great time with it.
Not only the software is open - you can get CAD files for the case, and schematics as well. There are also i2c, etc. bus standards used so adding new hardware is easy as well, if you're so inclined. Obviously the real market there is for a cottage industry distributing neos with extra hardware built-in, but the hobbyist can experiment at home, too.
Check out the Openmoko wiki for much more information about Openmoko and the Neo phones.
When I conserve, the amount I conserved is, well, conserved. So it is patently obvious that conservation works, unless the average slob decides to be more wasteful based on the smaller group's conservation, which I don't think is the case.
There will always be people who don't do anything for the common good if they don't have to. However, your fatalistic attitude sounds to me like an excuse for *you* not doing anything for the common good that you don't have to. Even if not, others will take it as an excuse for themselves.
I agree that it is far better if we can figure out ways to make people want to do the right thing. If we can make capitalism encourage good behavior, I'm all for it.
However, there have been times in the past when whole cultures did the right thing from social pressure. In fact, a lot of that happens now - there is a lot of vandalism and theft that could take place, but doesn't mostly from social pressure.
If it is really true that people can't be bothered to do what is necessary for the whole society to survive when it would be to their short term benefit to do otherwise, we are doomed. And rightly so.
Your argument appears to be that one entity can't be more intelligent than another, which is obvious BS. Some humans are just obviously more intelligent in many arenas than others are, as evidenced by consistent success. John Von Neumann was just vastly smarter on essentially anything having to do with language or logic than 99.99% of humanity.
Obviously intelligence can contribute to increasing intelligence: Von Neumann laid some of the foundation for modern computing, and modern computing obviously makes people more intelligent both by presenting useful summaries and simulations of data and by performing tedious logic flawlessly and very rapidly.
Whether that feedback loop of intelligence (as defined by the ability to increase our ability to exert influence over the world) enhancing intelligence will continue to grow exponentially or if there is somehow a limit that we will start to approach is an open question. But your baseless assertion that intelligence won't continue to advance is just wrong.
Note that the singularity doesn't mean we will achieve superhuman AI. It just means that the rate of increase in knowledge and capability will go so far that we can't predict from one day to the next what the advances might be like. That could be done by augmenting all (or most) human intelligence to or beyond supergenius levels, by building software that lets people work together with each other and computers with each entity double-checked and doing the things at which they're most effective, or by building strong AI, or many other means.
The notion of singularity is simply the result of noticing that the rate of technical advances is increasing, that technical advances enable more and faster technical advances, and extrapolating.
Uh, I don't think there's ever been a rule in D&D that said players should roll to see if their characters trip when they run...
I do agree that people get too obsessed with the rules sometimes (including me). The DM should never disallow the character to do something simply because he can't find the rules for it, and it is OK to make up a simple rule for something if it is not easily covered (or found) in the rules.
I always at the least ended up with a number of house rules when I ran games.
You mean, if it takes 2^1024 seconds to solve the problem this year, then next year it will only take 2^1023 seconds (half the time), and the year after that it will take only 2^1022 seconds, etc.
It looks to me as if Grover's Algorithm should allow solving every NP problem in time proportional to the square root of the minimum number of operations a classical computer would require.
This moves a huge class of problems from not solvable in less than millions of years to solvable in about one year, which seems like a pretty big impact to me...
I understand that as a complexity scientist, reduction that only halves the exponent of the number of operations is of merely practical importance and therefore barely worthy of notice, but to the rest of the world it could be a Big Deal.
I don't know where you live, but in the US, our constitution lays out the purpose of copyright in Article I, Section 8: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
This clause, along with clauses that prohibit the federal government from doing anything not laid out in the constitution, gives a very explicit purpose for copyright in the US. Copyright statutes that serve another purpose are illegal.
FIC produces a phone that qualifies. The firmware for the GSM is closed, but I believe that's a legal requirement in most areas.
The Neo 1973 & Neo FreeRunner are linux ARM computers with full GPS, bluetooth, GSM/GPRS, USB (client & unpowered host) and 480 x 640 touchscreens. The FreeRunner also has two accelerometers and wi-fi. You can buy the Neo 1973 now, and the FreeRunner is expected in March or April.
You can (of course) play video, music, and run PDA apps on the devices. You can also view PDFs and the web, use bluetooth keyboards (or bluetooth anything else, for that matter), or do anything that you or someone else cares to port from the desktop, assuming the hardware resources are sufficient.
I've been playing with my Neo 1973 (currently recommended only for people willing to debug, and tolerate alpha level software) for a few weeks, and I'm having a great time with it.
Not only the software is open - you can get CAD files for the case, and schematics as well. There are also i2c, etc. bus standards used so adding new hardware is easy as well, if you're so inclined. Obviously the real market there is for a cottage industry distributing neos with extra hardware built-in, but the hobbyist can experiment at home, too.
In terms of how hospitals get paid and who gets treated, I'm not actually particularly down on the current US system. The bone I was picking was with the notion of just not treating people who couldn't pay, as the great-grandparent post was suggesting.
I also think that there are ultra-expensive treatments that are life saving, but probably shouldn't be made available to people who can't pay for them.
I do believe our health system in the US is broken. Drug companies have too much influence over what doctors prescribe; there isn't enough funding for non-patentable treatments; there aren't low-skill, low-cost alternatives for simple ailments & injuries; malpractice costs are out of control; there aren't good mechanisms to make low manufacturing cost (but patented) drugs available to people who can't pay the drug company's arbitrary price. I don't know what the situation is like in other countries, but I know we could do lots better than we are now.
Congratulations, you totally kick your own straw man's ass in debate.
I didn't say I do nothing to help the poor. I said I don't have the fortitude to do as much as I could. And I didn't say "make the rich do it alone". I said, let's get everyone working on it together.
It's always funny how an admission that you don't meet your own ideals is turned into a fault. I think I am more likely to strive to do better if I can hold a higher ideal for myself than I meet right now, rather than fool myself into thinking I'm wonderful.
I actually agree with your conclusion (given the false dichotomy you've given) to prefer Bob to have to pay for insurance. That said...
What kind of heartless asshole thinks only people who have money should get treated at a hospital? Money is far from the best measure of the worth of a person. Yes, there is a disproportionate number of worthless people who have no money. HOWEVER, there are also a disproportionate number of worthless people who are stinking rich. And there are a disproportionate number of wonderful people who are a great boon to humanity who have almost no money. People much better than I: all of the people out there teaching Head Start, all the people out there volunteering in the Peace Corps, working at rehab centers, and just plenty of normal people working the job within their abilities that helps the most, while raising decent children. If I don't have the fortitude to take the loss of income to go do the right thing, at least I can work towards a society that supports those who do.
Er, coincidence certainly does exist. Three one-in-a-thousand events have a one-in-a-billion chance of occurring together, completely coincidentally.
I'm not arguing that this particular event is coincidental, but you're being just as blind as your tone implies others are if you think events never coincide just by chance. The important thing is to have some idea of just how unlikely it is for obviously related events to coincide. (In this case, fantastically unlikely.)
Excellent point. I was looking at the corner detection as an alternative to SIFT, and I didn't see how that could be the case. I can see how it could be a great addition, though.
Or maybe you could walk around looking through smart glasses, with many things you see enhanced by unobtrusive tags. When you shop, it can tell you which items are made in sweatshops, or are cheaper somewhere else you plan to go later, or have a recall notice. When you drive, it can flag cars that have been identified as risky drivers. When you deal with people, you can see whether other people like you have identified them as trustworthy.
On a phone it's a little more limited, but at least you could get the product information while shopping.
Their use of a cellphone is pretty lackluster, other than as a proof of concept. The capabilities of SIFT are new to me, and impressive as hell.
First, simply that one should have the right to carry on with your business without being stopped by the police. If you are doing nothing wrong, the police can stop you and if you happen not to have the correct papers on you, now you have committed a crime. It turns from a free society where one assumes their rights are secure, to one in which you must get permission from the state simply to exist.
Second, it allows a police officer to harass you. If you do something (or are something) that they simply don't like, not only can they select as the one person from a crowd who must 'show their papers', but moreover now they know who you are and where you live, and can look up vastly more information later. If they decide they don't like you, they can come to your home.
Finally, why are such identifications necessary? Why can't I simply secure my finances with a password, without disclosing my identity? For some things, you need to provide collateral (hotel rental, buying a home, etc), and identifying yourself makes sense. But why must I identify myself to deposit money in a bank, buy something which I pay for up front, etc? The only possible reason is to give power to these other entities and to the government which ostensibly should be serving you, not controlling you.
Copying a friend's music in your home (or vice versa) isn't illegal, whether it's audio tapes or CDs using digital audio media. Thanks to the AHRA of 1992, you pay a 'tax' on every blank audio tape and audio CD for the right to make copies of friends' tapes. This is how the RIAA responded to the last wave of copying that was going to "destroy the industry".
Of course, that tax goes only to the RIAA, not independent artists. So every time you tape your local band, you paid the RIAA for the band's music.
Yes, all bets are off completely if you install software on your machine from some untrusted entity. Don't do that.
I recognize that for end users that's not currently a real option. It would be nice if people could trivially specify a list of CAs, one of whom must sign a piece of software before it can be installed w/o entering a password to a prompt with flashing lights & sirens. This would be like trusted computing, only it would actually help the end user rather than fuck them.
Either distributed trust networks (e.g. the kind that result from key signing parties and pseudo-transitive key signatures) or central authority trust networks (a la Verisign et al) eliminate the possibility of man in the middle attacks.
That probably doesn't really impact man in the middle attacks on P2P systems, but it surely does impact MITM attacks on financial institutions.
It really doesn't have too much bearing on your point, which I mostly agree with.
I recommend everyone interested in science to read What Remains to be Discovered by John Maddox, which talks about horizontal gene transfer, particularly by endogenous retroviruses. Of course, as the title indicates, it talks about lots more than that. Maddox was the editor in chief at Nature magazine for 30 years, and had glowing recommendations from Richard Feynmann and Richard Dawkins, among others.
Your argument sounds kind of circular - don't use gold; it's not really worth anything. Use something valuable, but don't actually set it aside to back the dollar.
The ideal is to use something that is not 'useful', but is in limited quantity, so it means something that it backs the dollar. Gold sounds like a pretty good candidate to me.
That said, as much as it appeals to my repressed libertarian side, I don't think backing currency is a good idea. It takes away the power to nudge the economy away from recession and inflation by increasing or reducing the number of dollars in circulation. In fact, maybe it's just my ignorance, but I don't see how lending on margins could be done at all with backed dollars...
I can't understand how you can possibly argue that it's better to use a language that makes it easy to make a certain class of common mistakes (buffer overflows, using uninitialized memory) than to use one that makes those mistakes impossible?
I programmed in C++ for about 7 years before I moved to Java. I think I was fairly hot stuff in C++ - I was very adept with the STL (I started using it when the only freely available implementation was the HP one, and I wrote several sophisticated frameworks that have now been duplicated in boost). Even so, everyone occasionally fails to initialize memory, or fails to bounds check, and so ends up with a bug that just causes phantom behavior. Until you can duplicate it in an emulation type environment like Purify, finding the source of the error is nigh on impossible.
Now I write code in Java. Occasionally I need to resort to a JNI call to some C or C++ code, but mostly it does everything I want done, and when I fail to initialize memory, or overwrite bounds, I get a stack trace that tells me what I did wrong & exactly what calls were going on when it happened.
Java is far from perfect - I personally prefer Python for most things. But using C/C++ to write application code, unless you have very strict memory requirements on the target platform, is just crazy.
Can you explain any way that the device you're describing is more usable than one with one function per button? I'm all for rethinking design and having alternatives, and I can see that aesthetically, your device would be more appealing to some people.
But I far prefer a rewind button, fast forward button, etc. and I find it hard to fathom how what you're describing is an improvement. Why spend time learning how to use a device that could work just like all the other media playback devices I use?
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The "that phone" he refers to is Openmoko (which is a platform, not a phone). I presume he *really* means the Neo FreeRunner.
Here's an edited copy of an earlier post I put up about the Neo FreeRunner:
FIC produces a totally open phone. The firmware for the GSM is closed, but I believe that's a legal requirement in most areas.
The Neo 1973 & Neo FreeRunner are linux ARM computers with full GPS, bluetooth, GSM/GPRS, USB (client & unpowered host) and 480 x 640 touchscreens. The FreeRunner also has two accelerometers and wi-fi. You can buy the Neo 1973 now (<-- no longer accurate; you can only buy used 1973s while FIC is gearing up to produce FreeRunner), and the FreeRunner is expected in March or April.
You can (of course) play video, music, and run PDA apps on the devices. You can also view PDFs and the web, use bluetooth keyboards (or bluetooth anything else, for that matter), or do anything that you or someone else cares to port from the desktop, assuming the hardware resources are sufficient.
I've been playing with my Neo 1973 (currently recommended only for people willing to debug, and tolerate alpha level software) for a few weeks, and I'm having a great time with it.
Not only the software is open - you can get CAD files for the case, and schematics as well. There are also i2c, etc. bus standards used so adding new hardware is easy as well, if you're so inclined. Obviously the real market there is for a cottage industry distributing neos with extra hardware built-in, but the hobbyist can experiment at home, too.
Check out the Openmoko wiki for much more information about Openmoko and the Neo phones.
When I conserve, the amount I conserved is, well, conserved. So it is patently obvious that conservation works, unless the average slob decides to be more wasteful based on the smaller group's conservation, which I don't think is the case.
There will always be people who don't do anything for the common good if they don't have to. However, your fatalistic attitude sounds to me like an excuse for *you* not doing anything for the common good that you don't have to. Even if not, others will take it as an excuse for themselves.
I agree that it is far better if we can figure out ways to make people want to do the right thing. If we can make capitalism encourage good behavior, I'm all for it.
However, there have been times in the past when whole cultures did the right thing from social pressure. In fact, a lot of that happens now - there is a lot of vandalism and theft that could take place, but doesn't mostly from social pressure.
If it is really true that people can't be bothered to do what is necessary for the whole society to survive when it would be to their short term benefit to do otherwise, we are doomed. And rightly so.
Your argument appears to be that one entity can't be more intelligent than another, which is obvious BS. Some humans are just obviously more intelligent in many arenas than others are, as evidenced by consistent success. John Von Neumann was just vastly smarter on essentially anything having to do with language or logic than 99.99% of humanity.
Obviously intelligence can contribute to increasing intelligence: Von Neumann laid some of the foundation for modern computing, and modern computing obviously makes people more intelligent both by presenting useful summaries and simulations of data and by performing tedious logic flawlessly and very rapidly.
Whether that feedback loop of intelligence (as defined by the ability to increase our ability to exert influence over the world) enhancing intelligence will continue to grow exponentially or if there is somehow a limit that we will start to approach is an open question. But your baseless assertion that intelligence won't continue to advance is just wrong.
Note that the singularity doesn't mean we will achieve superhuman AI. It just means that the rate of increase in knowledge and capability will go so far that we can't predict from one day to the next what the advances might be like. That could be done by augmenting all (or most) human intelligence to or beyond supergenius levels, by building software that lets people work together with each other and computers with each entity double-checked and doing the things at which they're most effective, or by building strong AI, or many other means.
The notion of singularity is simply the result of noticing that the rate of technical advances is increasing, that technical advances enable more and faster technical advances, and extrapolating.
Uh, I don't think there's ever been a rule in D&D that said players should roll to see if their characters trip when they run...
I do agree that people get too obsessed with the rules sometimes (including me). The DM should never disallow the character to do something simply because he can't find the rules for it, and it is OK to make up a simple rule for something if it is not easily covered (or found) in the rules.
I always at the least ended up with a number of house rules when I ran games.
You mean, if it takes 2^1024 seconds to solve the problem this year, then next year it will only take 2^1023 seconds (half the time), and the year after that it will take only 2^1022 seconds, etc.
Which is not at all the same thing...
It looks to me as if Grover's Algorithm should allow solving every NP problem in time proportional to the square root of the minimum number of operations a classical computer would require.
This moves a huge class of problems from not solvable in less than millions of years to solvable in about one year, which seems like a pretty big impact to me...
I understand that as a complexity scientist, reduction that only halves the exponent of the number of operations is of merely practical importance and therefore barely worthy of notice, but to the rest of the world it could be a Big Deal.
I don't know where you live, but in the US, our constitution lays out the purpose of copyright in Article I, Section 8:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
This clause, along with clauses that prohibit the federal government from doing anything not laid out in the constitution, gives a very explicit purpose for copyright in the US. Copyright statutes that serve another purpose are illegal.
FIC produces a phone that qualifies. The firmware for the GSM is closed, but I believe that's a legal requirement in most areas.
The Neo 1973 & Neo FreeRunner are linux ARM computers with full GPS, bluetooth, GSM/GPRS, USB (client & unpowered host) and 480 x 640 touchscreens. The FreeRunner also has two accelerometers and wi-fi. You can buy the Neo 1973 now, and the FreeRunner is expected in March or April.
You can (of course) play video, music, and run PDA apps on the devices. You can also view PDFs and the web, use bluetooth keyboards (or bluetooth anything else, for that matter), or do anything that you or someone else cares to port from the desktop, assuming the hardware resources are sufficient.
I've been playing with my Neo 1973 (currently recommended only for people willing to debug, and tolerate alpha level software) for a few weeks, and I'm having a great time with it.
Not only the software is open - you can get CAD files for the case, and schematics as well. There are also i2c, etc. bus standards used so adding new hardware is easy as well, if you're so inclined. Obviously the real market there is for a cottage industry distributing neos with extra hardware built-in, but the hobbyist can experiment at home, too.
In terms of how hospitals get paid and who gets treated, I'm not actually particularly down on the current US system. The bone I was picking was with the notion of just not treating people who couldn't pay, as the great-grandparent post was suggesting.
I also think that there are ultra-expensive treatments that are life saving, but probably shouldn't be made available to people who can't pay for them.
I do believe our health system in the US is broken. Drug companies have too much influence over what doctors prescribe; there isn't enough funding for non-patentable treatments; there aren't low-skill, low-cost alternatives for simple ailments & injuries; malpractice costs are out of control; there aren't good mechanisms to make low manufacturing cost (but patented) drugs available to people who can't pay the drug company's arbitrary price. I don't know what the situation is like in other countries, but I know we could do lots better than we are now.
Congratulations, you totally kick your own straw man's ass in debate.
I didn't say I do nothing to help the poor. I said I don't have the fortitude to do as much as I could. And I didn't say "make the rich do it alone". I said, let's get everyone working on it together.
It's always funny how an admission that you don't meet your own ideals is turned into a fault. I think I am more likely to strive to do better if I can hold a higher ideal for myself than I meet right now, rather than fool myself into thinking I'm wonderful.
I actually agree with your conclusion (given the false dichotomy you've given) to prefer Bob to have to pay for insurance. That said...
What kind of heartless asshole thinks only people who have money should get treated at a hospital? Money is far from the best measure of the worth of a person. Yes, there is a disproportionate number of worthless people who have no money. HOWEVER, there are also a disproportionate number of worthless people who are stinking rich. And there are a disproportionate number of wonderful people who are a great boon to humanity who have almost no money. People much better than I: all of the people out there teaching Head Start, all the people out there volunteering in the Peace Corps, working at rehab centers, and just plenty of normal people working the job within their abilities that helps the most, while raising decent children. If I don't have the fortitude to take the loss of income to go do the right thing, at least I can work towards a society that supports those who do.
Er, coincidence certainly does exist. Three one-in-a-thousand events have a one-in-a-billion chance of occurring together, completely coincidentally.
I'm not arguing that this particular event is coincidental, but you're being just as blind as your tone implies others are if you think events never coincide just by chance. The important thing is to have some idea of just how unlikely it is for obviously related events to coincide. (In this case, fantastically unlikely.)
Excellent point. I was looking at the corner detection as an alternative to SIFT, and I didn't see how that could be the case. I can see how it could be a great addition, though.
Thanks again!
Is corner detection in the same league as far as doing object recognition in a real environment as SIFT?
Could you give a quick list of those? I would love to read up on them.
Thanks!
Or maybe you could walk around looking through smart glasses, with many things you see enhanced by unobtrusive tags. When you shop, it can tell you which items are made in sweatshops, or are cheaper somewhere else you plan to go later, or have a recall notice. When you drive, it can flag cars that have been identified as risky drivers. When you deal with people, you can see whether other people like you have identified them as trustworthy.
On a phone it's a little more limited, but at least you could get the product information while shopping.
Their use of a cellphone is pretty lackluster, other than as a proof of concept. The capabilities of SIFT are new to me, and impressive as hell.
First, simply that one should have the right to carry on with your business without being stopped by the police. If you are doing nothing wrong, the police can stop you and if you happen not to have the correct papers on you, now you have committed a crime. It turns from a free society where one assumes their rights are secure, to one in which you must get permission from the state simply to exist.
Second, it allows a police officer to harass you. If you do something (or are something) that they simply don't like, not only can they select as the one person from a crowd who must 'show their papers', but moreover now they know who you are and where you live, and can look up vastly more information later. If they decide they don't like you, they can come to your home.
Finally, why are such identifications necessary? Why can't I simply secure my finances with a password, without disclosing my identity? For some things, you need to provide collateral (hotel rental, buying a home, etc), and identifying yourself makes sense. But why must I identify myself to deposit money in a bank, buy something which I pay for up front, etc? The only possible reason is to give power to these other entities and to the government which ostensibly should be serving you, not controlling you.
The real problem is that people don't give a crap about the constitution.
Copying a friend's music in your home (or vice versa) isn't illegal, whether it's audio tapes or CDs using digital audio media. Thanks to the AHRA of 1992, you pay a 'tax' on every blank audio tape and audio CD for the right to make copies of friends' tapes. This is how the RIAA responded to the last wave of copying that was going to "destroy the industry".
Of course, that tax goes only to the RIAA, not independent artists. So every time you tape your local band, you paid the RIAA for the band's music.
Cool, eh?
Yes, all bets are off completely if you install software on your machine from some untrusted entity. Don't do that.
I recognize that for end users that's not currently a real option. It would be nice if people could trivially specify a list of CAs, one of whom must sign a piece of software before it can be installed w/o entering a password to a prompt with flashing lights & sirens. This would be like trusted computing, only it would actually help the end user rather than fuck them.
Either distributed trust networks (e.g. the kind that result from key signing parties and pseudo-transitive key signatures) or central authority trust networks (a la Verisign et al) eliminate the possibility of man in the middle attacks.
That probably doesn't really impact man in the middle attacks on P2P systems, but it surely does impact MITM attacks on financial institutions.
Cross species gene transport absolutely does happen naturally. See the Wikipedia entry on horizontal gene transfer.
It really doesn't have too much bearing on your point, which I mostly agree with.
I recommend everyone interested in science to read What Remains to be Discovered by John Maddox, which talks about horizontal gene transfer, particularly by endogenous retroviruses. Of course, as the title indicates, it talks about lots more than that. Maddox was the editor in chief at Nature magazine for 30 years, and had glowing recommendations from Richard Feynmann and Richard Dawkins, among others.
Your argument sounds kind of circular - don't use gold; it's not really worth anything. Use something valuable, but don't actually set it aside to back the dollar.
The ideal is to use something that is not 'useful', but is in limited quantity, so it means something that it backs the dollar. Gold sounds like a pretty good candidate to me.
That said, as much as it appeals to my repressed libertarian side, I don't think backing currency is a good idea. It takes away the power to nudge the economy away from recession and inflation by increasing or reducing the number of dollars in circulation. In fact, maybe it's just my ignorance, but I don't see how lending on margins could be done at all with backed dollars...
I can't understand how you can possibly argue that it's better to use a language that makes it easy to make a certain class of common mistakes (buffer overflows, using uninitialized memory) than to use one that makes those mistakes impossible?
I programmed in C++ for about 7 years before I moved to Java. I think I was fairly hot stuff in C++ - I was very adept with the STL (I started using it when the only freely available implementation was the HP one, and I wrote several sophisticated frameworks that have now been duplicated in boost). Even so, everyone occasionally fails to initialize memory, or fails to bounds check, and so ends up with a bug that just causes phantom behavior. Until you can duplicate it in an emulation type environment like Purify, finding the source of the error is nigh on impossible.
Now I write code in Java. Occasionally I need to resort to a JNI call to some C or C++ code, but mostly it does everything I want done, and when I fail to initialize memory, or overwrite bounds, I get a stack trace that tells me what I did wrong & exactly what calls were going on when it happened.
Java is far from perfect - I personally prefer Python for most things. But using C/C++ to write application code, unless you have very strict memory requirements on the target platform, is just crazy.
Can you explain any way that the device you're describing is more usable than one with one function per button? I'm all for rethinking design and having alternatives, and I can see that aesthetically, your device would be more appealing to some people.
But I far prefer a rewind button, fast forward button, etc. and I find it hard to fathom how what you're describing is an improvement. Why spend time learning how to use a device that could work just like all the other media playback devices I use?