while robots may not have wills of their own, any machine can be given the wheel of it's creator. All you need to do is give the machine motivator (i.e. give it a drive to build stuff, defuse terrorist bombs, or kill enemy soldiers) and the creativity to figure out how, and the machine WILL do things that seem very much like free-will. The problem is figuring out how to motivate it...design a simple ApproachingGoal?()function, and have it keep doing what it is doing while goals are being reached, otherwise change.
It is very much like that security robot that zaphod reprograms in Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe to get into the building... You did read the book, didn't you?!
Keep in mind that a Methanol fuel-cell will only emit CO2, which is the same as what humans emit. I don't know the exact quantities, but i can only guess it would be like having a few extra passengers on the plane. Similarly, hydrogen cells emit H20, as do humans.
I loved the erector sets. When legos came out, they were almost exclusively static objects, as in none of the stuff could move. Erector sets, hwever, were great for that, and only after a few years did lego come out with the movable blocks and stuff. Now however, they are pretty much even. The erector sets do look cooler though.
I keep hearing people say that the reason there are no alternate AOL clients is that AOL changes the protocol if it decides people are using alternate clients. However, as far as i can tell, the only way AOL can see what client you are using is through the identification packet that is sent during logon. If the client is designed to properly fudge the identification, AOL would never know, and in fact they'd think you were using a plain old AOL client.
Can someone please tell me if i understand this properly?
Obviously if there are only 3 in the world, htis machine was prety valuable (10000 pounds, i think?). The article was sparse with details, but i think it was stolen during public viewing day(?). That was clearly a bad idea, given the rarity of the item.
Also, IANAL but since the machine was returned sans vital parts, the guy could've been charged with some other stuff, like vandalism or defacing government property or something similar. Stealing it was not a bright idea, since a machine like that is hard to sell without arousing suspicion, and is useless for anything else.
Am i the only one who noticed that by definition, screen savers are usually only activated when no one is around to see them? Unless the computer is in a highly public place and never gets used, which is not likely, the only people to see the ads would be the ones who come into the rooms in the mornings to turn them on(in the case of lab computers).
As for the student's personal computers, i don't see why anyone would volunteer to put adware on their computer unless they were paid for it. That is a waste of money though, because i know i would just turn off the monitor overnight and earn free cash.
Unless they are planning to put the ads into the desktop backgrounds(which is usually obscured by the Apps i run), I can't see how the ads would reach the audience needed to maintain profitability.
Would you trade in some of your personal freedom to be safer from terrorists?"
The problem with this is, no matter how much freedom you give up, there is still a chacne that a terrorist can kill you. I wouldn't mind giving up my rights if a I had absolute, 100%, unbreakable protection for terrorists. However, because no such protection exists, I think I'll keep my freedoms, since either way I run the risk of being killed in an incident.
Besides, the odds are much, much greater that I will die from natural or non-terrorist related incidents.
First of all, I would like to say that I love playing devil's advocate, just to see how people defend their logic. That said, I have a few ideas to put forth:
First, although the freedoms given to us by the Constitution and Bill of Rights were (and are) critical to the development of our society as it stands today, they area also the very same liberties that allow people to commit these acts of terrorism. As long as like-minded people are allowed to meet and communicate with each other, we will ALWAYS have to deal with the problems of extremist people doing bad things. Also, the fact that religion is virtually unrestricted/unmonitored means that those same extremists can feel safe and justified in beleiving that what they do is O.K.
The real problem though, is that with the advancement of technology, people have not only gained the ability to do amazing things for the benefit of good, that same technology has ability to amplify the effect of anybody who wants to do bad things. In the past, the most that a crazy person could do(depending on the timeframe you look at), was club/knife/shoot some people. Now, those same people end up slaughtering hundreds or thousands of innocent people. Of course, this applies to good technology too.
We can't(and shouldn't) really stop these things, so in the end we will just have to deal with them. How we choose to do so will determine the fate of this country, whether we go towards Orwell's 1984, or whether democracy and freedom continue to flourish.
Please don't flame, I am simply trying to represent BOTH sides of this argument. And what the hell, it's only karma.
BTW, can someone email me a link/document to using HTML text formatting on slashdot, and what commands it does and doesn't allow? Thanx!
Slashdot Mirror
while robots may not have wills of their own, any machine can be given the wheel of it's creator. All you need to do is give the machine motivator (i.e. give it a drive to build stuff, defuse terrorist bombs, or kill enemy soldiers) and the creativity to figure out how, and the machine WILL do things that seem very much like free-will. The problem is figuring out how to motivate it...design a simple ApproachingGoal?()function, and have it keep doing what it is doing while goals are being reached, otherwise change. It is very much like that security robot that zaphod reprograms in Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe to get into the building... You did read the book, didn't you?!
Keep in mind that a Methanol fuel-cell will only emit CO2, which is the same as what humans emit. I don't know the exact quantities, but i can only guess it would be like having a few extra passengers on the plane. Similarly, hydrogen cells emit H20, as do humans.
"...and Microsoft officials say they're convinced new computers will walk out of the shops..."
Is this a subtle reference to their future plans?
I loved the erector sets. When legos came out, they were almost exclusively static objects, as in none of the stuff could move. Erector sets, hwever, were great for that, and only after a few years did lego come out with the movable blocks and stuff. Now however, they are pretty much even. The erector sets do look cooler though.
Does anyone have a link to a good translation of the article? The translation at altavista is incomprehensible!
Thanks!
I keep hearing people say that the reason there are no alternate AOL clients is that AOL changes the protocol if it decides people are using alternate clients. However, as far as i can tell, the only way AOL can see what client you are using is through the identification packet that is sent during logon. If the client is designed to properly fudge the identification, AOL would never know, and in fact they'd think you were using a plain old AOL client.
Can someone please tell me if i understand this properly?
Obviously if there are only 3 in the world, htis machine was prety valuable (10000 pounds, i think?). The article was sparse with details, but i think it was stolen during public viewing day(?). That was clearly a bad idea, given the rarity of the item.
Also, IANAL but since the machine was returned sans vital parts, the guy could've been charged with some other stuff, like vandalism or defacing government property or something similar. Stealing it was not a bright idea, since a machine like that is hard to sell without arousing suspicion, and is useless for anything else.
Am i the only one who noticed that by definition, screen savers are usually only activated when no one is around to see them? Unless the computer is in a highly public place and never gets used, which is not likely, the only people to see the ads would be the ones who come into the rooms in the mornings to turn them on(in the case of lab computers).
As for the student's personal computers, i don't see why anyone would volunteer to put adware on their computer unless they were paid for it. That is a waste of money though, because i know i would just turn off the monitor overnight and earn free cash.
Unless they are planning to put the ads into the desktop backgrounds(which is usually obscured by the Apps i run), I can't see how the ads would reach the audience needed to maintain profitability.
Let the flaming commence!!
You should have that cough looked at!
Besides, the odds are much, much greater that I will die from natural or non-terrorist related incidents.
First of all, I would like to say that I love playing devil's advocate, just to see how people defend their logic. That said, I have a few ideas to put forth: First, although the freedoms given to us by the Constitution and Bill of Rights were (and are) critical to the development of our society as it stands today, they area also the very same liberties that allow people to commit these acts of terrorism. As long as like-minded people are allowed to meet and communicate with each other, we will ALWAYS have to deal with the problems of extremist people doing bad things. Also, the fact that religion is virtually unrestricted/unmonitored means that those same extremists can feel safe and justified in beleiving that what they do is O.K. The real problem though, is that with the advancement of technology, people have not only gained the ability to do amazing things for the benefit of good, that same technology has ability to amplify the effect of anybody who wants to do bad things. In the past, the most that a crazy person could do(depending on the timeframe you look at), was club/knife/shoot some people. Now, those same people end up slaughtering hundreds or thousands of innocent people. Of course, this applies to good technology too. We can't(and shouldn't) really stop these things, so in the end we will just have to deal with them. How we choose to do so will determine the fate of this country, whether we go towards Orwell's 1984, or whether democracy and freedom continue to flourish. Please don't flame, I am simply trying to represent BOTH sides of this argument. And what the hell, it's only karma. BTW, can someone email me a link/document to using HTML text formatting on slashdot, and what commands it does and doesn't allow? Thanx!