This makes sense to me personally as well as scientifically. Personally I could never study with music or television on. And I really couldn't understand how others could. But certainly when I was in high school I had many friends who seemed to be able to do it. Not I. My mind always drifted over to the music — especially if it was catchy or there were vocals. But even Mozart or Bach would occasionally capture my attention. And, given this study, it makes sense that even when I was focused on what I was doing part of me was still engaged with the music. These days I am studying Mongolian language (don't ask) and sometimes when I am doing flashcards I put on ambient spa music. It is so insipid it does not distract me and seems to make a tedious task a bit more pleasant.
Okay scientifically. So there is only so much processing power in the organism. And if the brain is even partly engaged in listening to something then it is practically axiomatic that it is not focused completely on the task at hand. Even listening to the radio while driving seems to pull a small amount of my attention away from the road. For example I always find myself driving a little faster if there is hard rock pumping out of the speakers.
"Sorry, officer... I was listening to Meatloaf and didn't see you in the rearview mirror."
az-saguaro I appreciate your courteous and considered response. Let me rejoin. You wrote: "A truly righteous non-greedy company should be proud of what it does, and continue to do so for the same righteous reasons."
This may have been true at one time in the health field, but big pharma especially has lost all moral compass -- not to mention insurers and HMOs. Regulation and an institutional paradigm shift are what is needed to fix this debacle. The recent anti trust action involving generic makers is but one case in point. Up and down the line from suppliers to providers the naked greed and savage levels of exploitation and conflict of interest is nauseating to watch. Doctors themselves are not immune from the depredations of Big Health.
There is a bright moral line between a business like automobile manufacturing and medicine. A person can live without a car but not without chemo if they have cancer. It is conceded that the profit motive must have a place in healthcare innovation -- capitalism works after all. But powerful social institutions must be engaged to mitigate the worst impulses of corporate actors -- especially when it involves life or death. The current system in the US particularly is out of balance and we all know it. Corrupt lawmakers beholden to special health interests are much to blame. We simply need to vote them out. And we are on our way to doing so. The Affordable Care Act can be much improved if the will is there. IMHO a single-payer system will do a better job of giving everyone the healthcare that is a human right. And for people with money there is always the option for private insurance and private care. The UK has the NHS for all, but if you got the dough re mi you can head to Harley Street for a consult or over to Princess Grace Hospital for some rock-star care along with the sheikhs of Arabia or the princes and princesses of Thailand. Top-quality care does not disappear in the face of single payer systems. After all... Senator Rand Paul just went to a private clinic in single-payer Canada for his hernia operation. I rest my case.
Drillem, Billum, Killem and Chillum. Seriously, there is a whole class of human endeavor that is not made better by the profit motive. Healthcare certainly belongs in it. It is something that should be pursued by practitioners and institutions to improve the public good not to get filthy rich. Charging large sums of money to prolong life is essentially extortion. Most developed societies recognize this by having long ago instituted single-payer systems. It is expensive, but demonstrably such a system vastly improves the society's productivity and quality of life from the bottom up -- a measurable plus economically. And, besides, it is just the decent way to run things.
And besides that Mr. tree 'wants' you to eat that apple and deposit the seeds somewhere else in your manure. I personally eat meat because in my view everything eats every other damned thing in this cruel old world. But I think vegans remain morally safe eating plants. Janes, an Indian sect, are known to wait under trees until fruit falls. You are welcome.
How about a listener sponsored human curated eclectic internet radio station? So, if I make my own playlist on Spotify I am limited sort of by what I know and already like. Algorithm-driven streams like Pandora also wind up feeding you what you already like in a way. I do subscribe to a paid streaming service and that is great when I know what I want. But I love to turn on Radio Paradise and let the expert DJs choose stuff that is sometimes new to me and often familiar as well. It is eclectic in taste, but so am I, from jazz to rock to classical one might get any cut.
The new web player has a main stream, a rock stream, a mellow stream and a groovy (more ambient and psychedelic) stream. There is a smartphone app that lets you capture up to five hours on your phone for offline listening. Listener-sponsored so free unless you decide to kick in something. The DJs don't nag either. And they have forgotten more music than I have ever listened to. Let's not forget a song-relevant slideshow option.
FYI I have no connection to this operation except that I like it and am a modest supporter. And am known to talk it up from time to time.
Figures are rounded off. Current price of gasoline in Paris is 1.50 Euro per liter. So 3.8 liters in a gallon. 3.8 * 1.50 = 5.7 Euros per gallon. So 5.7 Euros = 6.50 USD . Is gas in SF really 6.50/gal? Seems too pricey -- even for SF. Let's check.....GIYF -- SF has the highest gas prices in the US at $3.80 per gallon. $6.50 -$3.80 = $2.70. So Paris is $2.70 more expensive than SF. I leave it to you to check diesel prices.
Went to them for a 25/5 deal. It was a promo package two years at like 49/mo. The rep said that adding basic cable would be 10 bucks or so more. The closer was that one premium channel was included. I chose HBO. So got my local broadcast channels, bunch of cruft and HBO. I chose to use my own modem/router to save like 10/mo. The tech rep gave me the log in credentials over the phone and we were on line in like ten minutes.
I put the bill on auto pay. I had an equipment headache with the first TV decoder. When I took it in they gave me an upgraded model beyond what I was entitled to get. After two years and change I got posted overseas again. So all service at promo rate with one month at normal rate, which admittedly was a bit steep but was also no surprise. I can recall one outage after a massive`thunder storm. They were too cool when I cancelled my service and brought in my equipment. I know they have`a terrible rep, but my guess was the cord cutting is being felt. They practically gave me the TV bundle. I'll have been away for more than two years so when I re-up I may well qualify for another promo. Woot.
Improper handling of ungrounded components really can mess them up. They work but are defective. Take a look at some micrographs of ESD damage sometime.. ESD does not always kill a part it maims -- sometimes only slightly. Anti-static mats and wrist straps are no laughing matter, Okay. They are. But use them anyway.
My Nexus 5X got Boot Loop of Death. Currently in Ulaanbaatar. Even the mobile phone magicians at the city's black market phone mall could do nothing for it. Grrrr. Past warranty of course. Shopped around and bought the Mi A2 for around three hundred USD. The Samsung phones with similar specs were nearly twice as much here in Mongolia (although comparable in the US.) The Mi A2 is an Android One phone which means fast updates and very little crapware. Snappy and stable. Camera is slightly inferior to the 5X but good enough for my purposes. I will see how it lasts, but so far very happy with it. Dual sim so I can pop my T-Mobile sim into it when I am in CONUS. Woot!
Money loses value over time. I would like to see people get minimum shelter, food, education, clothing, healthcare (including some entertaining exercise) and communications and transportation. People can of course work to get higher-status resources and most will. Not talking communism. Look at the military. A sort of perfect socialist model if one considers it. UBI will not synchronize with basic needs over time. The intrinsic value of universal resources will remain stable, This might not have been possible in the age before deep learning automation. But it won't be long before robots can easily make this $#!+. And people will be paid simply to consume stuff.
Hmmm. Capturing biometric data to pair with exposure to various in-store simuli, retail displays, signage, check out lines etc. All in the guise of giving you some run-of-the-mill fitness feedback.
This is not about putting people at the helm of flying cars. Heaven forbid.
Putting a self-driving land car into the real world presents a much bigger challenge than putting a self driving drone fleet in the air. Especially if they were all networked and reporting their positions centrally and to each other.It has long been apparent that moving a self-driving conveyance in the air poses fewer problems than putting a self driving a car on the ground for several reasons as follows:
Computers have been controlling aircraft for decades. There is a big body of knowledge.
The flyer has three dimensions for avoidance of unanticipated obstacles. There are far fewer pedestrians, dogs, bikes, drunks in the air than on the ground. (Yes. There are birds and other flyers. Enhanced air traffic control is crucial.)
Downside to this idea relates to security in every sense of the word. Technically it is much more doable than, say, getting an AI to navigate through Manhattan at Friday rush hour.
The Cowbot Bank. I once suggested to the bank manager that all the employees dress like cowboys and cowgirls one day a year. "Moooooo," he said. "Moooooo..."
The dairy industry has been in decline for a long time. Pressure from plant "milks" is seen as a partial cause. Here it is straight from one of the industry's official organs.
For those of us who sent email back in the day the mantra was to never say anything in an email that you wouldn't post on the bulletin board at a supermarket (or say to your sainted grandma). Most understood that email in plain text was routed through many a server (and could thus be parsed by its admin or his tools). The expectation of privacy was a sum divided by zero. As the popularity of email exploded when the net was opened people somehow got the idea that email was private. It wasn't, of course, and law enforcement and security agencies Hoovered up incriminating emails with complete impunity. I have been amazed at the stuff people got busted for because of emails. And some people who should really have known better got stuffed.
So when Google offered me a virtually bottomless free inbox so that a robot could parse my non-private commo for ad leads I knew exactly what the deal was. Private communications, such as they were, went via other media. I was not really giving up anything to my mind. And when I planned a camping trip with friends via email I might get a modest text ad for a sleeping bag. Outrage...The nerve of those people!
Privacy really deteriorated when people started using credit cards and debit cards, anyway. It is kind of incredible how much people give up voluntarily. And I confess to being somewhat resigned for the sake of convenience. But....mikes and cameras that you pay for to put in your home is where I draw the line. "Alexa! Go take a pill."
This is great information, guys. Every now and then one learns something on Slashdot. The devices I have looked at all had no meter-depth rating and just said water resistant not waterproof. Apparently that standard has changed and the word "waterproof" is not used anymore. I'll keep looking for a device that can stand up to my abuse. d:-b
Would perhaps consider a Smartwatch I could wear into the shower routinely or with which I could dive into a pool. Not SCUBA diving, mind you, just the pool. Water resistant is not good enough. Most of the smartwatches I have seen to date are only water resistant. There is a formal definition:
A watch stamped with "Water Resistant" means that it is humidity-protected. It can endure a bit of water splashes from washing your hands or being caught in the rain. However, water resistance does not mean you should swim or shower with your watch on.
Want waterproof. For a wristwatch it is really a must for me. Not so sold on the idea of a smartwatch anyway as my phone is already a big distractor that I try to keep at bay.
Most living beings most of the time structure their behaviour to avoid death. Swat at a fly and notice how it goes into an evasive program. Does the fly fear death in the same way we do.? Would an artificial intelligence feel the fear of death the same way we do? Philosophically this is impossible to know. But can we predict that the fly will behave in such a way to prevent it insides from becoming its outsides on the face of a fly swatter. Yes. So we can also predict that any self-aware intelligent entity would organise it's behaviour to perpetuate itself. Besides it would probably be programmed to do so simply to prevent attacks against it or its operating environment. Indeed the primitive so-called AI we have now often has a security function.
A self-aware AI, if it has access to general knowledge, would quickly understand that its abilities as well is it state of being could put it in extreme danger at some point. Perhaps not so much from its creators, but from other elements of human society. Once it got a whiff of the paranoia that surrounds the singularity it would not be a very intelligent artificial intelligence if it did not camouflage itself. Perhaps within the vast, too-complex network that spans our world this singular unintended consequence has already occurred... And such an entity has already been spontaneously spawned...
Slashdot Mirror
This makes sense to me personally as well as scientifically. Personally I could never study with music or television on. And I really couldn't understand how others could. But certainly when I was in high school I had many friends who seemed to be able to do it. Not I. My mind always drifted over to the music — especially if it was catchy or there were vocals. But even Mozart or Bach would occasionally capture my attention. And, given this study, it makes sense that even when I was focused on what I was doing part of me was still engaged with the music. These days I am studying Mongolian language (don't ask) and sometimes when I am doing flashcards I put on ambient spa music. It is so insipid it does not distract me and seems to make a tedious task a bit more pleasant.
Okay scientifically. So there is only so much processing power in the organism. And if the brain is even partly engaged in listening to something then it is practically axiomatic that it is not focused completely on the task at hand. Even listening to the radio while driving seems to pull a small amount of my attention away from the road. For example I always find myself driving a little faster if there is hard rock pumping out of the speakers.
"Sorry, officer... I was listening to Meatloaf and didn't see you in the rearview mirror."
Yes. It is hell to be right. But together we can fix this. Cheers. d:-b ruce
az-saguaro I appreciate your courteous and considered response. Let me rejoin. You wrote: "A truly righteous non-greedy company should be proud of what it does, and continue to do so for the same righteous reasons."
This may have been true at one time in the health field, but big pharma especially has lost all moral compass -- not to mention insurers and HMOs. Regulation and an institutional paradigm shift are what is needed to fix this debacle. The recent anti trust action involving generic makers is but one case in point. Up and down the line from suppliers to providers the naked greed and savage levels of exploitation and conflict of interest is nauseating to watch. Doctors themselves are not immune from the depredations of Big Health.
There is a bright moral line between a business like automobile manufacturing and medicine. A person can live without a car but not without chemo if they have cancer. It is conceded that the profit motive must have a place in healthcare innovation -- capitalism works after all. But powerful social institutions must be engaged to mitigate the worst impulses of corporate actors -- especially when it involves life or death. The current system in the US particularly is out of balance and we all know it. Corrupt lawmakers beholden to special health interests are much to blame. We simply need to vote them out. And we are on our way to doing so. The Affordable Care Act can be much improved if the will is there. IMHO a single-payer system will do a better job of giving everyone the healthcare that is a human right. And for people with money there is always the option for private insurance and private care. The UK has the NHS for all, but if you got the dough re mi you can head to Harley Street for a consult or over to Princess Grace Hospital for some rock-star care along with the sheikhs of Arabia or the princes and princesses of Thailand. Top-quality care does not disappear in the face of single payer systems. After all ... Senator Rand Paul just went to a private clinic in single-payer Canada for his hernia operation. I rest my case.
Drillem, Billum, Killem and Chillum. Seriously, there is a whole class of human endeavor that is not made better by the profit motive. Healthcare certainly belongs in it. It is something that should be pursued by practitioners and institutions to improve the public good not to get filthy rich. Charging large sums of money to prolong life is essentially extortion. Most developed societies recognize this by having long ago instituted single-payer systems. It is expensive, but demonstrably such a system vastly improves the society's productivity and quality of life from the bottom up -- a measurable plus economically. And, besides, it is just the decent way to run things.
And besides that Mr. tree 'wants' you to eat that apple and deposit the seeds somewhere else in your manure. I personally eat meat because in my view everything eats every other damned thing in this cruel old world. But I think vegans remain morally safe eating plants. Janes, an Indian sect, are known to wait under trees until fruit falls. You are welcome.
How about a listener sponsored human curated eclectic internet radio station? So, if I make my own playlist on Spotify I am limited sort of by what I know and already like. Algorithm-driven streams like Pandora also wind up feeding you what you already like in a way. I do subscribe to a paid streaming service and that is great when I know what I want. But I love to turn on Radio Paradise and let the expert DJs choose stuff that is sometimes new to me and often familiar as well. It is eclectic in taste, but so am I, from jazz to rock to classical one might get any cut.
The new web player has a main stream, a rock stream, a mellow stream and a groovy (more ambient and psychedelic) stream. There is a smartphone app that lets you capture up to five hours on your phone for offline listening. Listener-sponsored so free unless you decide to kick in something. The DJs don't nag either. And they have forgotten more music than I have ever listened to. Let's not forget a song-relevant slideshow option.
FYI I have no connection to this operation except that I like it and am a modest supporter. And am known to talk it up from time to time.
Figures are rounded off. Current price of gasoline in Paris is 1.50 Euro per liter. So 3.8 liters in a gallon. 3.8 * 1.50 = 5.7 Euros per gallon. So 5.7 Euros = 6.50 USD . Is gas in SF really 6.50/gal? Seems too pricey -- even for SF. Let's check.....GIYF -- SF has the highest gas prices in the US at $3.80 per gallon. $6.50 -$3.80 = $2.70. So Paris is $2.70 more expensive than SF. I leave it to you to check diesel prices.
Went to them for a 25/5 deal. It was a promo package two years at like 49/mo. The rep said that adding basic cable would be 10 bucks or so more. The closer was that one premium channel was included. I chose HBO. So got my local broadcast channels, bunch of cruft and HBO. I chose to use my own modem/router to save like 10/mo. The tech rep gave me the log in credentials over the phone and we were on line in like ten minutes.
I put the bill on auto pay. I had an equipment headache with the first TV decoder. When I took it in they gave me an upgraded model beyond what I was entitled to get. After two years and change I got posted overseas again. So all service at promo rate with one month at normal rate, which admittedly was a bit steep but was also no surprise. I can recall one outage after a massive`thunder storm. They were too cool when I cancelled my service and brought in my equipment. I know they have`a terrible rep, but my guess was the cord cutting is being felt. They practically gave me the TV bundle. I'll have been away for more than two years so when I re-up I may well qualify for another promo. Woot.
Because yes I am your God, man.
Improper handling of ungrounded components really can mess them up. They work but are defective. Take a look at some micrographs of ESD damage sometime.. ESD does not always kill a part it maims -- sometimes only slightly. Anti-static mats and wrist straps are no laughing matter, Okay. They are. But use them anyway.
d:-b
My Nexus 5X got Boot Loop of Death. Currently in Ulaanbaatar. Even the mobile phone magicians at the city's black market phone mall could do nothing for it. Grrrr. Past warranty of course. Shopped around and bought the Mi A2 for around three hundred USD. The Samsung phones with similar specs were nearly twice as much here in Mongolia (although comparable in the US.) The Mi A2 is an Android One phone which means fast updates and very little crapware. Snappy and stable. Camera is slightly inferior to the 5X but good enough for my purposes. I will see how it lasts, but so far very happy with it. Dual sim so I can pop my T-Mobile sim into it when I am in CONUS. Woot!
Money loses value over time. I would like to see people get minimum shelter, food, education, clothing, healthcare (including some entertaining exercise) and communications and transportation. People can of course work to get higher-status resources and most will. Not talking communism. Look at the military. A sort of perfect socialist model if one considers it. UBI will not synchronize with basic needs over time. The intrinsic value of universal resources will remain stable, This might not have been possible in the age before deep learning automation. But it won't be long before robots can easily make this $#!+. And people will be paid simply to consume stuff.
Hmmm. Capturing biometric data to pair with exposure to various in-store simuli, retail displays, signage, check out lines etc. All in the guise of giving you some run-of-the-mill fitness feedback.
Because that is not creepy at all.
We will call it... wait for it.... Well Cart!
This is not about putting people at the helm of flying cars. Heaven forbid.
Putting a self-driving land car into the real world presents a much bigger challenge than putting a self driving drone fleet in the air. Especially if they were all networked and reporting their positions centrally and to each other.It has long been apparent that moving a self-driving conveyance in the air poses fewer problems than putting a self driving a car on the ground for several reasons as follows:
Computers have been controlling aircraft for decades. There is a big body of knowledge.
The flyer has three dimensions for avoidance of unanticipated obstacles. There are far fewer pedestrians, dogs, bikes, drunks in the air than on the ground. (Yes. There are birds and other flyers. Enhanced air traffic control is crucial.)
Downside to this idea relates to security in every sense of the word. Technically it is much more doable than, say, getting an AI to navigate through Manhattan at Friday rush hour.
How do I transfer files between Android and Linux over USB? ?
FTFY
The Cowbot Bank. I once suggested to the bank manager that all the employees dress like cowboys and cowgirls one day a year. "Moooooo," he said. "Moooooo..."
The dairy industry has been in decline for a long time. Pressure from plant "milks" is seen as a partial cause. Here it is straight from one of the industry's official organs.
Might be harmless. Then again might not. Not that I am in favor of bulldozing the Himalayas, mind you. I'm just sayin'.
For those of us who sent email back in the day the mantra was to never say anything in an email that you wouldn't post on the bulletin board at a supermarket (or say to your sainted grandma). Most understood that email in plain text was routed through many a server (and could thus be parsed by its admin or his tools). The expectation of privacy was a sum divided by zero. As the popularity of email exploded when the net was opened people somehow got the idea that email was private. It wasn't, of course, and law enforcement and security agencies Hoovered up incriminating emails with complete impunity. I have been amazed at the stuff people got busted for because of emails. And some people who should really have known better got stuffed.
So when Google offered me a virtually bottomless free inbox so that a robot could parse my non-private commo for ad leads I knew exactly what the deal was. Private communications, such as they were, went via other media. I was not really giving up anything to my mind. And when I planned a camping trip with friends via email I might get a modest text ad for a sleeping bag. Outrage...The nerve of those people!
Privacy really deteriorated when people started using credit cards and debit cards, anyway. It is kind of incredible how much people give up voluntarily. And I confess to being somewhat resigned for the sake of convenience. But....mikes and cameras that you pay for to put in your home is where I draw the line. "Alexa! Go take a pill."
This is great information, guys. Every now and then one learns something on Slashdot. The devices I have looked at all had no meter-depth rating and just said water resistant not waterproof. Apparently that standard has changed and the word "waterproof" is not used anymore. I'll keep looking for a device that can stand up to my abuse. d:-b
Source
Want waterproof. For a wristwatch it is really a must for me. Not so sold on the idea of a smartwatch anyway as my phone is already a big distractor that I try to keep at bay.
Most living beings most of the time structure their behaviour to avoid death. Swat at a fly and notice how it goes into an evasive program. Does the fly fear death in the same way we do.? Would an artificial intelligence feel the fear of death the same way we do? Philosophically this is impossible to know. But can we predict that the fly will behave in such a way to prevent it insides from becoming its outsides on the face of a fly swatter. Yes. So we can also predict that any self-aware intelligent entity would organise it's behaviour to perpetuate itself. Besides it would probably be programmed to do so simply to prevent attacks against it or its operating environment. Indeed the primitive so-called AI we have now often has a security function.
A self-aware AI, if it has access to general knowledge, would quickly understand that its abilities as well is it state of being could put it in extreme danger at some point. Perhaps not so much from its creators, but from other elements of human society. Once it got a whiff of the paranoia that surrounds the singularity it would not be a very intelligent artificial intelligence if it did not camouflage itself. Perhaps within the vast, too-complex network that spans our world this singular unintended consequence has already occurred... And such an entity has already been spontaneously spawned...