The mammalian brain, especially the amygdala is widely believed to be the root of our emotions. This does not mean that our emotions are the same as animals' but the common belief that 'we can't change the way we feel' makes me wonder how far we've really evolved...
Most aspects of consciousness eg self-awareness, free will & rational thought are largely illusory anyway (think about programming a computer to do them). We are not as different from the animal kingdom as well like to think we are.
Microsoft has a revenue of around $25 billion now.
OS/2 was competetive for a long time, despite Microsoft's monopoly power.
Windows 3.x didn't cut it and Windows 95 was late (and native applications for it even later). That's when OS/2 got it's biggest opportunity with Warp and 10 million users. Before that, the cost of memory was a major factor.
IBM blew the marketing badly with Warp. There was this phenomenon of TeamOS/2 which was a bunch of unpaid enthusiasts that were pushing OS/2 harder than IBM did!
OS/2 v2.x required far more memory than Windows 3.x. In comparison, it looks like Bill Gates has been prescient about memory prices.
So that and everything else that has been mentioned has led us to where we are now. Windows 2000 was the first (just about) usable OS from Microsoft since DOS 6, IMO.
But users don't care about that. The vast majority will use what they've got rather than struggle with something else. They believe it's all operating systems that don't work rather than just Windows.
Linux doesn't have a hope in hell (unfortunately).
Dave.
What did they expect?
on
Pilot of My Soul
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Of course our behaviour is largely based on simple interactions between neurons and neuropeptides. What else is there?
However, consider that a piece of your brain the size of a grain of sand contains a billion synapses, belonging to 100,000 neurons, each of which having a unique function.
Consciousness, free will, love etc are all emergent properties of this most complex system.
IQ is a very narrow definition of intelligence. It is highly biased towards visually-oriented processing.
You will notice the world has been going in the same direction. Kids now have access to TV and computers.
Coincidence?
Dave.
Have you tried Liquid Audio?
on
Non-MP3 Codecs?
·
· Score: 1
Listen to any of the music from alt.binaries.sounds.aac
You need the WinAmp LQT plug-in as well.
Although it is proprietary, there are illegal copies of the encoder floating around.
128kbit files are pretty indistinguishable from CD quality, and by indistinguishable, I mean by musicians with their $5000 stereo system who've just got their ears cleaned.
Most of the files are 192kbit because these people are perfectionists.
I just hope Ogg gets this good.
Sooner or later, we'll meet some kind of limit with one of these standards (a la ZIP) at which point, everyone will have to re-rip their CDs. Until then, MP3 will stay.
WMA8 works comparatively well at 64kbit and under.
Dave.
Slashdot Mirror
The mammalian brain, especially the amygdala is widely believed to be the root of our emotions.
This does not mean that our emotions are the same as animals' but the common belief that 'we can't change the way we feel' makes me wonder how far we've really evolved...
Most aspects of consciousness eg self-awareness, free will & rational thought are largely illusory anyway (think about programming a computer to do them). We are not as different from the animal kingdom as well like to think we are.
Dave.
Microsoft has a revenue of around $25 billion now.
OS/2 was competetive for a long time, despite Microsoft's monopoly power.
Windows 3.x didn't cut it and Windows 95 was late (and native applications for it even later). That's when OS/2 got it's biggest opportunity with Warp and 10 million users. Before that, the cost of memory was a major factor.
IBM blew the marketing badly with Warp. There was this phenomenon of TeamOS/2 which was a bunch of unpaid enthusiasts that were pushing OS/2 harder than IBM did!
OS/2 v2.x required far more memory than Windows 3.x. In comparison, it looks like Bill Gates has been prescient about memory prices.
So that and everything else that has been mentioned has led us to where we are now. Windows 2000 was the first (just about) usable OS from Microsoft since DOS 6, IMO.
But users don't care about that. The vast majority will use what they've got rather than struggle with something else. They believe it's all operating systems that don't work rather than just Windows.
Linux doesn't have a hope in hell (unfortunately).
Dave.
Of course our behaviour is largely based on simple interactions between neurons and neuropeptides. What else is there?
However, consider that a piece of your brain the size of a grain of sand contains a billion synapses, belonging to 100,000 neurons, each of which having a unique function.
Consciousness, free will, love etc are all emergent properties of this most complex system.
Dave.
IQ is a very narrow definition of intelligence. It is highly biased towards visually-oriented processing.
You will notice the world has been going in the same direction. Kids now have access to TV and computers.
Coincidence?
Dave.
Listen to any of the music from alt.binaries.sounds.aac You need the WinAmp LQT plug-in as well. Although it is proprietary, there are illegal copies of the encoder floating around. 128kbit files are pretty indistinguishable from CD quality, and by indistinguishable, I mean by musicians with their $5000 stereo system who've just got their ears cleaned. Most of the files are 192kbit because these people are perfectionists. I just hope Ogg gets this good. Sooner or later, we'll meet some kind of limit with one of these standards (a la ZIP) at which point, everyone will have to re-rip their CDs. Until then, MP3 will stay. WMA8 works comparatively well at 64kbit and under. Dave.