First: being watched by automated systems may be an unavoidable aspect of the future. Crying about it is as fruitless as being upset about the increase in population. In books by Zindell, a favorite sci-fi author of mine, he takes it for granted that in the future, noone will venture outside without a face mask on. In his world, revealing your face is a very personal gesture. It may sound bad and dehumanizing, but it may be something we can adapt to fairly painlessly.
In other words, we will get used to being watched, just as we've gotten used to all of the cultural changes that have occurred in the last 10,000 years.
Here in the UK, people have gotten used to the idea of there being cctv's all over the place in public. It hasn't fundamentally altered the way they live their lives.
Second: Moving from human-based memory to machine based memory has a number of advantages, not the least of which is fewer faulty arrests. I imagine that wrongly incarcerated people (and their loved ones) would take great issue with your stance that reliance on human memory is a "good thing".
Like they've got a toy version of the system working for a restricted set of locations in a brightly lit and clean environ using relatively hi-rez pictures.
But it's going to scale up very badly because this is a horribly difficult problem, even for people, who've got brains heavily optimized for recognizing visual images. I lived in Boston for 12 years, and if you showed me a picture of a random house on a street, I sure as hell couldn't tell you where it was, even from a 2 megabyte jpg on a sunny day. Now consider doing it through a grainy cell phone camera in arbitrary lighting conditions for any city in the world?
Ferget it.
They are just looking to build up some VC funding, like so many other flaky tech startups. My guess is that they've got a runaway delusional complex about the practicalities of implementing this.
Or maybe they're banking on the development of quantum computing before they have to go to market?
Is that D&D has many rules and abilities that are activated or deactivated on a very short time scale, ie seconds. Even in fast running PNP game, you have minutes to think about what you'll be doing in each 6 seconds.
In a computer game, 6 seconds is 6 seconds, and there's no way that a well designed character can make good use of his various abilities and feats.
This is an interesting idea, and I'd been keen to believe it. But there are some severe methodological issues, first that subjects are pressing a button to indicate that they've solved the problem based on their phenomological experience. As far as I can tell from reading this bit, they could be picking up any of a variety of mental processes that have nothing to do with the insight experience. Most obviously, it could merely be the intent to push the button.
Hopefully the real experiment is more bulletproof than this fluff piece suggests.
From the article: Organizers hope the Flashmob concept can eventually be applied to problems requiring high-powered computing such as the study of global warming or AIDS research.
Cmon, do they really think people are going to crowd together in a high school gym to do AIDS research?
Of course not. What an obvious attempt to put a facade of legitimicy onto a publicity stunt. As with all Flashmobs, this one is just an attempt to gain attention. This line sums it up nicely:
"I just want to be part of history," said Glenn Montano, a USF senior majoring in computer science.
It's not kinda scary, it's incredibly scary. When donating to someone in a neighborhood dominated by the opposition, you have to give serious thought to the possibility of getting a rock through your window.
I'm all for disclosure of funding, but this information should be regulated in some way. Maybe only released in complete detail to specific organizations?
It ain't pretty no matter what solution you lean towards.
Going to take them a week of showering to feel clean again after having sunk so low in their careers to be modelling wearable computers to a room full of pasty geeks.
Having to "rate" my friends could possibly be the worst concept to hit social networking
Not at all. The idea is a good one, if the social network is to have any useful value for interpersonal networking, it has to know the strength of the links. If I'm trying to chart a path to Bob, the network needs to know which are the "close-friend" links, which are more likely to hold up and be worth something.
I won't get very far trying to use a chain of 3 barely acquainted people to get from Alice to Bob
The fundamental law of social environments is that it takes effort to be well noticed, and online social networks certainly do not violate that principle. They just change the fitness landscape a bit by allowing those who aren't equipped with f2f social graces to compete.
But as it turns out, if you're a dork in real life, you're usually a dork online too. People that are popular in real life but not so much online generally just haven't invested the time required to build an online presence.
In other words, the same basic laws of social interaction apply, you just get to interact with more people.
The future of the film industry is going to be amazing as filmmakers are finally unshackled from the limitations of physics in creating special effects. Imaginations are going to run unchecked, and thousands of great stories that have been trapped in the realm of books and cartoon will be unleashed.
LOTR, SpiderMan, and Xmen (as well as numerous other great CGI movies) were just the appetizer for the feast of fantasy we'll be dining on during the next 20 years. It's going to be fantastic.
Yes, Will Smith starring in a hollywood remake of an Isaac Asimov series.
Imagine hearing this prediction back in the days of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
Back then I'd have sooner believed that the LOTR movies would someday made, and made very well by the same guy who made the campy horror comedy Bad Taste.
Articles like this are not written to make insightful points, that are written to waste your time by making stupid (but funny) ones. By posting it to slashdot you have made their goddamned month, wasting 10,000X the amount of time they can normally get people to waste.
Congratulations on being trolled by a troll that tells you it's trolling before it trolls you.
Interpretations challenges have limitations. You cannot throw up pictures of fire trucks because then it's suddenly language and culture dependent. Same with facial recognition.
In fact there are damned few interpretation challenges that cross language and cultural barriers. The problem is not so easy as you might think.
Development isn't a linear process. A team could have been 99% complete with a superior design than a team that was 100% complete with an inferior design.
Or maybe the real competition won't test them in the same way as the obstacle course.
Slashdot Mirror
Try Buddhism, which certainly doesn't fit this mold.
Although some would argue that Buddhism in its purest form isn't a religion.
But change this guy's mods to interesting, it certainly isn't insightful.
A few quick points.
First: being watched by automated systems may be an unavoidable aspect of the future. Crying about it is as fruitless as being upset about the increase in population. In books by Zindell, a favorite sci-fi author of mine, he takes it for granted that in the future, noone will venture outside without a face mask on. In his world, revealing your face is a very personal gesture. It may sound bad and dehumanizing, but it may be something we can adapt to fairly painlessly.
In other words, we will get used to being watched, just as we've gotten used to all of the cultural changes that have occurred in the last 10,000 years.
Here in the UK, people have gotten used to the idea of there being cctv's all over the place in public. It hasn't fundamentally altered the way they live their lives.
Second: Moving from human-based memory to machine based memory has a number of advantages, not the least of which is fewer faulty arrests. I imagine that wrongly incarcerated people (and their loved ones) would take great issue with your stance that reliance on human memory is a "good thing".
for kids!
That a gyroscope that's been running for years just happens to stop hours after a new crew arrives.
We all know someone pushed the wrong button.
This is information that would have been more useful to me YESTERDAY!
Like they've got a toy version of the system working for a restricted set of locations in a brightly lit and clean environ using relatively hi-rez pictures.
But it's going to scale up very badly because this is a horribly difficult problem, even for people, who've got brains heavily optimized for recognizing visual images. I lived in Boston for 12 years, and if you showed me a picture of a random house on a street, I sure as hell couldn't tell you where it was, even from a 2 megabyte jpg on a sunny day. Now consider doing it through a grainy cell phone camera in arbitrary lighting conditions for any city in the world?
Ferget it.
They are just looking to build up some VC funding, like so many other flaky tech startups. My guess is that they've got a runaway delusional complex about the practicalities of implementing this.
Or maybe they're banking on the development of quantum computing before they have to go to market?
Thank you for this informative reply. It's very concise and useful. The study seems very well controlled.
:)
Sorry I didn't read the article, but I've got alot to do in a given day
Is that D&D has many rules and abilities that are activated or deactivated on a very short time scale, ie seconds. Even in fast running PNP game, you have minutes to think about what you'll be doing in each 6 seconds.
In a computer game, 6 seconds is 6 seconds, and there's no way that a well designed character can make good use of his various abilities and feats.
This is an interesting idea, and I'd been keen to believe it. But there are some severe methodological issues, first that subjects are pressing a button to indicate that they've solved the problem based on their phenomological experience. As far as I can tell from reading this bit, they could be picking up any of a variety of mental processes that have nothing to do with the insight experience. Most obviously, it could merely be the intent to push the button.
Hopefully the real experiment is more bulletproof than this fluff piece suggests.
What those apparently puddles of yellowish brown liquid in the pics near the bottom are? Just how powerful is this thing anyway?
Yes, storing your perishable food reserves under a cloth soaked with unclean, unsafe water is brilliant.
From the article:
Organizers hope the Flashmob concept can eventually be applied to problems requiring high-powered computing such as the study of global warming or AIDS research.
Cmon, do they really think people are going to crowd together in a high school gym to do AIDS research?
Of course not. What an obvious attempt to put a facade of legitimicy onto a publicity stunt. As with all Flashmobs, this one is just an attempt to gain attention. This line sums it up nicely:
"I just want to be part of history," said Glenn Montano, a USF senior majoring in computer science.
At least he's being honest.
There's got to be some country on earth in which AOL could set up a shell account to pull this off.
It's not kinda scary, it's incredibly scary. When donating to someone in a neighborhood dominated by the opposition, you have to give serious thought to the possibility of getting a rock through your window.
I'm all for disclosure of funding, but this information should be regulated in some way. Maybe only released in complete detail to specific organizations?
It ain't pretty no matter what solution you lean towards.
Going to take them a week of showering to feel clean again after having sunk so low in their careers to be modelling wearable computers to a room full of pasty geeks.
Within 120 days Microsoft is required "to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation
The real hangup here is that this means they'll have to *write* it, not just release it.
Having to "rate" my friends could possibly be the worst concept to hit social networking
Not at all. The idea is a good one, if the social network is to have any useful value for interpersonal networking, it has to know the strength of the links. If I'm trying to chart a path to Bob, the network needs to know which are the "close-friend" links, which are more likely to hold up and be worth something.
I won't get very far trying to use a chain of 3 barely acquainted people to get from Alice to Bob
The fundamental law of social environments is that it takes effort to be well noticed, and online social networks certainly do not violate that principle. They just change the fitness landscape a bit by allowing those who aren't equipped with f2f social graces to compete.
But as it turns out, if you're a dork in real life, you're usually a dork online too. People that are popular in real life but not so much online generally just haven't invested the time required to build an online presence.
In other words, the same basic laws of social interaction apply, you just get to interact with more people.
For programming to get "good" it's going to have to get unfun. No more will long haired super cool geniuses plug away for hours on end.
It'll have to be a managed engineering process with all the fun and excitement of a CPA convention.
After decades of war across the galaxy, I'm glad that Astronauts and Robots have joined forces to save mankind.
The future of the film industry is going to be amazing as filmmakers are finally unshackled from the limitations of physics in creating special effects. Imaginations are going to run unchecked, and thousands of great stories that have been trapped in the realm of books and cartoon will be unleashed.
LOTR, SpiderMan, and Xmen (as well as numerous other great CGI movies) were just the appetizer for the feast of fantasy we'll be dining on during the next 20 years. It's going to be fantastic.
Yes, Will Smith starring in a hollywood remake of an Isaac Asimov series.
Imagine hearing this prediction back in the days of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
Back then I'd have sooner believed that the LOTR movies would someday made, and made very well by the same guy who made the campy horror comedy Bad Taste.
Oh wait....
nevermind.
Articles like this are not written to make insightful points, that are written to waste your time by making stupid (but funny) ones. By posting it to slashdot you have made their goddamned month, wasting 10,000X the amount of time they can normally get people to waste.
Congratulations on being trolled by a troll that tells you it's trolling before it trolls you.
Interpretations challenges have limitations. You cannot throw up pictures of fire trucks because then it's suddenly language and culture dependent. Same with facial recognition.
In fact there are damned few interpretation challenges that cross language and cultural barriers. The problem is not so easy as you might think.
Development isn't a linear process. A team could have been 99% complete with a superior design than a team that was 100% complete with an inferior design.
Or maybe the real competition won't test them in the same way as the obstacle course.