As I said, it is fairly, blatantly clear (for the 15+-year-old crowd) that it's human against machine.
Except that all the guard and cops they were gunning down where people, and when shot in the Matrix they died. I think 15 year olds a smart enough to know this, since the movie expicitly tells you.
So, the experts that agree with you are the real ones, and those that don't just have an agenda. Funny that/
If your worried about a young child seeing sex in a movie, because its something they can't understand. 15-17 year old? Hell, its nothing new to them, many of them have already had sex.
15-17 year olds aren't children. They aren't adults either, which is why they, and society, has a lot of problems figuiring out how they fit.
There is evidendnce that the onset of sexual maturity is linked to health, and in the first world is happening earlier and earlier. I don't think trying to keep them from seeing sex is very helpful. To do some of your precious research, coutnries with the lowest teen pregnancies and STD rates turn out to be much more open about it than places like the USA and the UK with all their hangups.
To deny it would be to say that the people *don't* know what's best for themselves.
They don't. Seriously.
Go read an economics textbook. The free market relies on people making rational decisions. Unfortunately, people don't. Particularly they will make choices that benefit themselves in the short term, but when many people make those choices its detrimental (game theory covers this).
There are some types of good and services that are very hard to provide by the free market. Education, defense and law enforcement are classic examples along with things like street lighting. Generally things that provide a benefit above the individual level. It would be in the individuals interest not to contribute, since the difference in what they would recieve would usually be nothing (it is not like police can ignore criminals because they robbed someone who doesn't pay 'police tax'). However if nobody pays, no police at all.
They are either hard to charge for (how do you bill individual people for the police?), or require a lot of forward planning/saving that people are historically pretty bad at doing.
The most successful economies are usually mixed economies, where the free market handles the bits it can, and the government (or other organisations the bits it can't.
The free market isn't some magic cure all, its just an economic system that in some circumstances works better than any other system we have found.
Er, Google did improve on the relevance of the seache results. That's why people use it. If all seach systems where equivilent it wouldn't matter which engine you used.
If Google's system is much better than most others, becuase of the work they put in to make it better, don't they deserve to be protected from other people ripping it off?
Did anyone really expect Google to take the moral high ground?
What is inherently immoral about taking out a patent for technology you have developed? Or why do you think not taking a patent is the 'moral high ground'?
If you aren't abusing the system (which Google doesn't seem to be doing) then nothing wrong is being done.
Lawrence had ordained that Prime Intellect could not, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. But he had not realized how much harm his super-intelligent creation could perceive...
Yet apparently the laws given to the machine are:
Embedded in this SIAI's hard-coding are Asimov's three laws of Robotics, given in the MoPI as:
Thou shalt not harm a human
Thou shalt not disobey a human's order that does not cause the harm of a human
Thou shalt seek to ensure your own survival, unless it contradicts the first two laws.
The first law given here is missing the "or through inaction allow a human to come to harm" part referenced in the summary. If those are the laws given in the book, the AI shouldn't care a damn about people trying to kill themselves, since its laws don't mention that.
Either the book has messed up, or the "reviewer" has.
Under the WoD more skill means more dice to throw at the target number, so for a given task a more skilled person is more likely to succeed.
The difficulty can change for a task, but it will affect anyone attempting that task.
The only problem was the botch mechanic, under some circumstances higher skill meant more likely to succeed, but also more likely to botch. The Revised botch rules pretty much fixed that though.
The Aeon sysetm is certainly faster, but having played both I don't see it shifting the balance between stats and luck at all.
You can't patent or copyright RPG design.
You can copyright terms you use, but people can quite legally take all the mechanics and rename them and use the elsewhere.
Mant
In TPM and ATC the jedi fight like samuri. Back with the original trilogy the jedi seemed to me to fight like duelers (mukateers or something), and even then their movements were slower, as if each jedi put a lot of thought into each single move.
The here irony is the fighting style in the original trilogy is derived mostly from Kendo, which comes from the fighting style of the samurai.
In the new movies they decided to add different styles, I remember read how one of the original consultants was less than happy with the results. For Maul they just made stuff up since his weapon doesn't really correspond well with any historical ones (most staff type weapons were held towards one end to take advatage of reach).
I suspect the main reason for the change is the western audience is much more familiar with martial arts in movies (or at least, movie-style martial arts that often don't have too much in common with real fighting techniques), and films like the Matrix have really raised the bar in terms of audience expectations.
Slightly more seriously, I think 'at what point do we want out armed forces questioning thier orders?' is a valid question. Military forces simply won't function if orders are not obeyed, but historically unquestioning following has lead to some very bad things. 'I was only obeying orders' has been used as a justifiction for many horrors.
I think he is mostly making jokes about the politicians who sent them (Invading Iraq to Keep Approval Ratings High) rather than the actual soldiers.
Mant
Oops. OK once again, properly formatted. Way to mess the post up.
It seems possible that our disciplines of science and natural history might actually be driven farther apart, as we lose any reliable base indicators on which to base assumptions about the past.
AFAIK natural history is science. Besides if you read the article you would realise we don't loose anything, because the experiment can show what alpha was. If you know how a constant has changed you can take it into account so your indicator is fine, although the maths becomes more complex.
For some in the scientific orthodoxy, this is anathema and they will fight it tooth and nail to the bitter end, for it forces them to accept a reality that they have long denied. The liberals constantly tell us that because of the relatively slow travel of light from distant galaxies, it must have been traveling for long periods of time, and the universe must therefore be quite old (billions and billions... you know the drill).
What has being a liberal got to do with anything? Can only liberals be scientists? Non-liberals must be Creationists? Not to mention all kinds of other methods of dating planets, stars, rocks and the like.
Now their rationalizing will be laid bare and they must admit that the Bible has again withstood vigorous attempts at disproof, that they have a Creator and are therefore accountable to Him.
And all logic breaks down. How do you get to this from a possible slight change in alpha? Lets assume that we find the constants do change over time and it overthrows current thinking on the creation of the universe it doesn't prove Creationism or a Creator.
If you want to believe in Creationism as a matter of faith that's your choice. If you want to advocate it as science you need to do real science (work from evidence to conclusion, not backwards, actually have some evidence etc.) and simply attacking current theories doesn't really help.
Creationism doesn't have magic win by default clause, disproving another theory (technically Creationism isn't even a theory, its a hypothesis) does nothing at all to prove Creationism or that the Bible is literal truth.
[i]It seems possible that our disciplines of science and natural history might actually be driven farther apart, as we lose any reliable base indicators on which to base assumptions about the past.[/i]
AFAIK natural history is science. Besides if you read the article you would realise we don't loose anything, because the experiment can show what alpha [i]was[/i]. If you know how a constant has changed you can take it into account so your indicator is fine, although the maths becomes more complex.
[i]For some in the scientific orthodoxy, this is anathema and they will fight it tooth and nail to the bitter end, for it forces them to accept a reality that they have long denied. The liberals constantly tell us that because of the relatively slow travel of light from distant galaxies, it must have been traveling for long periods of time, and the universe must therefore be quite old (billions and billions... you know the drill).[/i]
What has being a liberal got to do with anything? Can only liberals be scientists? Non-liberals must be Creationists?
Not to mention all kinds of other methods of dating planets, stars, rocks and the like.
[i]Now their rationalizing will be laid bare and they must admit that the Bible has again withstood vigorous attempts at disproof, that they have a Creator and are therefore accountable to Him.[/i]
And all logic breaks down. How do you get to this from a possible slight change in alpha?
Lets assume that we find the constants do change over time and it overthrows current thinking on the creation of the universe it doesn't prove Creationism or a Creator.
If you want to believe in Creationism as a matter of faith that's your choice. If you want to advocate it as science you need to do real science (work from evidence to conclusion, not backwards, actually have some evidence etc.) and simply attacking current theories doesn't really help.
Creationism doesn't have magic win by default clause, disproving another theory (technically Creationism isn't even a theory, its a hypothesis) does nothing at all to prove Creationism or that the Bible is literal truth.
Mant
Slashdot Mirror
The things you can't do are burn at full speed, and use the built in ripper for MP3.
Winamp 5 uses Winamp 2 plugins, I'm ripping with my old LAME plugin to MP3 just fine on the free, non-Pro version.
Winamp does require you to be prepared to play around with some plugins to get the best out of it, by I find it well worth the effort.
Mant
As I said, it is fairly, blatantly clear (for the 15+-year-old crowd) that it's human against machine.
Except that all the guard and cops they were gunning down where people, and when shot in the Matrix they died. I think 15 year olds a smart enough to know this, since the movie expicitly tells you.
Mant
So, the experts that agree with you are the real ones, and those that don't just have an agenda. Funny that/
If your worried about a young child seeing sex in a movie, because its something they can't understand. 15-17 year old? Hell, its nothing new to them, many of them have already had sex.
15-17 year olds aren't children. They aren't adults either, which is why they, and society, has a lot of problems figuiring out how they fit.
There is evidendnce that the onset of sexual maturity is linked to health, and in the first world is happening earlier and earlier. I don't think trying to keep them from seeing sex is very helpful. To do some of your precious research, coutnries with the lowest teen pregnancies and STD rates turn out to be much more open about it than places like the USA and the UK with all their hangups.
Mant
To deny it would be to say that the people *don't* know what's best for themselves.
They don't. Seriously.
Go read an economics textbook. The free market relies on people making rational decisions. Unfortunately, people don't. Particularly they will make choices that benefit themselves in the short term, but when many people make those choices its detrimental (game theory covers this).
There are some types of good and services that are very hard to provide by the free market. Education, defense and law enforcement are classic examples along with things like street lighting. Generally things that provide a benefit above the individual level. It would be in the individuals interest not to contribute, since the difference in what they would recieve would usually be nothing (it is not like police can ignore criminals because they robbed someone who doesn't pay 'police tax'). However if nobody pays, no police at all.
They are either hard to charge for (how do you bill individual people for the police?), or require a lot of forward planning/saving that people are historically pretty bad at doing.
The most successful economies are usually mixed economies, where the free market handles the bits it can, and the government (or other organisations the bits it can't.
The free market isn't some magic cure all, its just an economic system that in some circumstances works better than any other system we have found.
Mant
Viewing isn't an event that happens in isolation of the rest of the world.
One person viewing one peice of child porn doesn't hurt that one child anymore.
Legalising its distrubtion though would lead to much more being produced, and many more children being harmed.
Indeed anything thay increases its distrubtion is likey to lead to more being created, and more children being harmed.
Mant
I wasn't aware the the general consensus of opinion on /. was that all patents are bad, only that stupid ones on obvious things were bad.
My bad.
Mant
No one can improve on basic relevance
Er, Google did improve on the relevance of the seache results. That's why people use it. If all seach systems where equivilent it wouldn't matter which engine you used.
If Google's system is much better than most others, becuase of the work they put in to make it better, don't they deserve to be protected from other people ripping it off?
Mant
Did anyone really expect Google to take the moral high ground?
What is inherently immoral about taking out a patent for technology you have developed? Or why do you think not taking a patent is the 'moral high ground'?
If you aren't abusing the system (which Google doesn't seem to be doing) then nothing wrong is being done.
Mant
I know they have. The problem is, that "impact" hasn't necessarily been positive. Whether you like it or not.
As opposed to all the positive impact by white guys like Hitler and Stalin and their organisations, that also didn't have women or blacks.
Sorry, I have I just knocked your idols?
Mant
OK, first we have
Lawrence had ordained that Prime Intellect could not, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. But he had not realized how much harm his super-intelligent creation could perceive ...
Yet apparently the laws given to the machine are:
Embedded in this SIAI's hard-coding are Asimov's three laws of Robotics, given in the MoPI as:
The first law given here is missing the "or through inaction allow a human to come to harm" part referenced in the summary. If those are the laws given in the book, the AI shouldn't care a damn about people trying to kill themselves, since its laws don't mention that.
Either the book has messed up, or the "reviewer" has.
Mant
Under the WoD more skill means more dice to throw at the target number, so for a given task a more skilled person is more likely to succeed. The difficulty can change for a task, but it will affect anyone attempting that task. The only problem was the botch mechanic, under some circumstances higher skill meant more likely to succeed, but also more likely to botch. The Revised botch rules pretty much fixed that though. The Aeon sysetm is certainly faster, but having played both I don't see it shifting the balance between stats and luck at all.
HOL is being repritned, although I think not by WW (who didn't create the game originally)
You can't patent or copyright RPG design. You can copyright terms you use, but people can quite legally take all the mechanics and rename them and use the elsewhere. Mant
He completely disregarded all the background the fans had created for the various characters in the movie ( for example Boba Fetts story )
Why on earth should he care or follow the background the fans created? They are his characters and his story.
Mant
In TPM and ATC the jedi fight like samuri. Back with the original trilogy the jedi seemed to me to fight like duelers (mukateers or something), and even then their movements were slower, as if each jedi put a lot of thought into each single move.
The here irony is the fighting style in the original trilogy is derived mostly from Kendo, which comes from the fighting style of the samurai.
In the new movies they decided to add different styles, I remember read how one of the original consultants was less than happy with the results. For Maul they just made stuff up since his weapon doesn't really correspond well with any historical ones (most staff type weapons were held towards one end to take advatage of reach).
I suspect the main reason for the change is the western audience is much more familiar with martial arts in movies (or at least, movie-style martial arts that often don't have too much in common with real fighting techniques), and films like the Matrix have really raised the bar in terms of audience expectations.
Mant
Gotta love the irony:
Speaking as a solider
by Anonymous Coward
Slightly more seriously, I think 'at what point do we want out armed forces questioning thier orders?' is a valid question. Military forces simply won't function if orders are not obeyed, but historically unquestioning following has lead to some very bad things. 'I was only obeying orders' has been used as a justifiction for many horrors.
Mant
I think he is mostly making jokes about the politicians who sent them (Invading Iraq to Keep Approval Ratings High) rather than the actual soldiers. Mant
Oops. OK once again, properly formatted. Way to mess the post up.
It seems possible that our disciplines of science and natural history might actually be driven farther apart, as we lose any reliable base indicators on which to base assumptions about the past.
AFAIK natural history is science. Besides if you read the article you would realise we don't loose anything, because the experiment can show what alpha was. If you know how a constant has changed you can take it into account so your indicator is fine, although the maths becomes more complex.
For some in the scientific orthodoxy, this is anathema and they will fight it tooth and nail to the bitter end, for it forces them to accept a reality that they have long denied. The liberals constantly tell us that because of the relatively slow travel of light from distant galaxies, it must have been traveling for long periods of time, and the universe must therefore be quite old (billions and billions... you know the drill).
What has being a liberal got to do with anything? Can only liberals be scientists? Non-liberals must be Creationists? Not to mention all kinds of other methods of dating planets, stars, rocks and the like.
Now their rationalizing will be laid bare and they must admit that the Bible has again withstood vigorous attempts at disproof, that they have a Creator and are therefore accountable to Him.
And all logic breaks down. How do you get to this from a possible slight change in alpha? Lets assume that we find the constants do change over time and it overthrows current thinking on the creation of the universe it doesn't prove Creationism or a Creator.
If you want to believe in Creationism as a matter of faith that's your choice. If you want to advocate it as science you need to do real science (work from evidence to conclusion, not backwards, actually have some evidence etc.) and simply attacking current theories doesn't really help.
Creationism doesn't have magic win by default clause, disproving another theory (technically Creationism isn't even a theory, its a hypothesis) does nothing at all to prove Creationism or that the Bible is literal truth.
Mant
[i]It seems possible that our disciplines of science and natural history might actually be driven farther apart, as we lose any reliable base indicators on which to base assumptions about the past.[/i] AFAIK natural history is science. Besides if you read the article you would realise we don't loose anything, because the experiment can show what alpha [i]was[/i]. If you know how a constant has changed you can take it into account so your indicator is fine, although the maths becomes more complex. [i]For some in the scientific orthodoxy, this is anathema and they will fight it tooth and nail to the bitter end, for it forces them to accept a reality that they have long denied. The liberals constantly tell us that because of the relatively slow travel of light from distant galaxies, it must have been traveling for long periods of time, and the universe must therefore be quite old (billions and billions... you know the drill).[/i] What has being a liberal got to do with anything? Can only liberals be scientists? Non-liberals must be Creationists? Not to mention all kinds of other methods of dating planets, stars, rocks and the like. [i]Now their rationalizing will be laid bare and they must admit that the Bible has again withstood vigorous attempts at disproof, that they have a Creator and are therefore accountable to Him.[/i] And all logic breaks down. How do you get to this from a possible slight change in alpha? Lets assume that we find the constants do change over time and it overthrows current thinking on the creation of the universe it doesn't prove Creationism or a Creator. If you want to believe in Creationism as a matter of faith that's your choice. If you want to advocate it as science you need to do real science (work from evidence to conclusion, not backwards, actually have some evidence etc.) and simply attacking current theories doesn't really help. Creationism doesn't have magic win by default clause, disproving another theory (technically Creationism isn't even a theory, its a hypothesis) does nothing at all to prove Creationism or that the Bible is literal truth. Mant