Of course, even if money from piracy funds terrorism, this assumes you're going to buy the copies these piracy groups make. Why should I buy something pirated in another country.... when I can copy it myself in the privacy(or not) of my own home?
I don't think terrorism is a good thing, but I'm getting sick of all the reports:
"Sometimes, _________ is used to fund terrorism, so _________ is evil."
Drugs are bad because buying them funds terrorism. Yep, that's right. Even when it's homegrown.:P
I know that all those media conglomerates are the true source of funding for these things. So I'm going to buy my movies from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and friends from now on.
I'm sure I could find just as sketchy of a connection between the media companies and terrorism as they can find between [insert comman activity here] and terrorism.
This is why I want the penultimate filtering technology: the glasses from 'They Live,' rigged to filter out any advertising you happen to see, even in real life.
>Your cheques don't have to pass through bank clearing houses? Any cheque payed
>into a UK bank account only gets added to your actual funds 2-3 days later, >once it's passed through checks.
Give me a break. In this age of the internet, fiber-optic networks, widely available broadband internet access, instant transfers of millions/billions of $$$ between banks, you truly think that it would really take 2-3 days to find out whether the person/company who wrote the check has the funds to cover it?
Some people call me cynical. I call them naive.
Re:Er... correct me if I'm wrong, but...
on
Fun With Wine
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· Score: 1
Nesting is very important in debugging programs like this. If they're each supposed to be emulating a certain environment, they can find flaws in the emulation and correct them. Same goes for compilers.. once it can compile itself correctly it's considered fairly stable.
A system as a whole can not be described using only components of that system itself.
Components of a system can not know about the system, otherwise they would be *outside* the system.
The brain will never be able to understand the brain:)
Possibly, but nothing says that a group of brains could never understand the brain. Or a computer (advanced AI or something). Also, within Conway's "Game Of Life" there is a pattern out there that can simulate a Game of Life cell.
The brain (in fact, a single neuron) is amazingly complex. We haven't even come close to understanding everything that goes on inside of one. New processes are being discovered constantly. I'm reminded of an experiment I read about online... too lazy to go Googling for it, but it was about genetic algorithms and evolutionary stuff. They programmed an FPGA with random bits and gradually evolved it into a circuit that could detect a tone. They then looked at the circuit it had produced... and they couldn't figure it out. It used things like quantum tunneling and capacitative effects of nearby circuits to do its work.
If these experimenters had put this circuit into a different type of FPGA, even if they copied every gate and connection.. It wouldn't have worked because of capacitance differences and other things. Now, realize that we are far more complex than this circuit was. Also realize that billions of years of evolutionary processes might have found and applied many things we haven't found. So, honestly I believe that for the forseeable future, this is pretty much going to stay in the realm of sci-fi.
Having said that, I think downloading my brain into a computer would be the coolest thing since sliced bread. Be immortal, shock and amaze your friends, etc. But it seems to me that a more attainable goal would be brain interfacing. As another post to this article said, the brain seems to last far longer than the body. Why not find a way to hook stuff up to the brain so you can be reasonably functional even though you no longer have a physical body. Hook you up to the net, let you share ideas, continuing to contribute to society. Or do a job that doesn't require physical activity.
in what way would it be wrong of me to forcibly extract it, drop it in a blender, and puree it?
Umm... "wrong" is a social, psychological concept in the first place. So it's based in that "will" and in the minds that create it. Nowhere else. If I kill someone and no one knows about it, there is no universal police that come down and punish me, no bolt of lightning from the heavens. So there is no universal "wrong" or "right" per se. There is only wrong and right in a societal and personal belief basis.
Your thoughts, your will, everything you believe you are, is illusory. If the brain, this lump of protein, is the last great answer, then morality is likewise an illusion.
Yes. See above.
It would be no more quantitively "wrong" for me to kill you and rape your sister than it would be for one rock to fall and shatter another.
True. Once again, see above, specifically the "no bolt of lightning" thing. It's only "wrong" because society frowns on it. If the rocks believed that crushing another rock was wrong, they would punish each other if they crushed another rock. But we probably wouldn't go around punishing criminal rocks (unless we communicated with them regularly and they were socially connected with us. In which case their values would become part of our values and... well, you get the point.)
We, as a society, wouldn't last too long or develop very well if we ran around killing each other and destroying stuff. That is probably why it seems morally wrong to do so. I believe I'm generally a good person, but I don't do or not do things because I believe in some universal sense of "wrong or right". I do or not do things because I believe my actions might harm someone or society. I know that my moral compass is guided by the society I grew up in, my parents and my friends, my teachers, and even my enemies. I also know that by someone else's moral compass, some of my actions may be completely wrong.
I don't believe there is a true "right and wrong", but if we don't try to uphold some sense of good and bad, society would, in a word, rot.
Re:Mankind's preconceptions of life...
on
Life on Pluto?
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· Score: 1
The whole problem is we can't know what other ways life might form. It might use anything to live off of, if it has a chance of forming. We're never going to figure out what it might use in other places because we can't simulate every possibility. So we can only look for what we know, because we don't know for sure what conditions might possibly create life in other forms.
Imagine, if we can find possibly suitable conditions for OUR kind of life in so many places, how many OTHER places might have completely different forms of life?
When you read the article for the "Light may have speeded up" link, the title of the article is "Light may have slowed down" instead. Plus the date is 1 August 2001, not 15 August 2001. AND, the Black Hole theory article is dated 2 August 2002
I doubt they would deploy this into regular medical use if it was going to harm the person in any way. I'm sure they have tested (or are going to test) this stuff for toxicity to humans before they start using it. I know you may be a licensed tatoo artist, and know about the dangers of putting something under your skin, but I'm sure these scientists know those things as well.
If I were you, I'd say the same thing to anyone who walks in my shop looking for a "cool new thing" to show off to their friends, but don't scare people from this idea, which could conceivably help many diabetics.
As a side note, I believe (don't quote me, please) that most blacklight fluorescent inks are safer than the "light-charged" type. That might be a solution... the user could just carry one of those handheld mini-blacklights and check the tatoo every once in a while, and the inks would be safer.
Someone mod parent up funny, please.
"Five monk exchange lumps.. it is magnificent"
Not to mention the completely out of place words, such as "bedspread" scattered through the post.
Babelfish can be useful, but sometimes... well, I think you get the picture.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, darn. at first glance I thought that was an IP address so we could blow up his computer.
03.25.02.shenzhou.ctv.104.jpg
03.25.02.shenzhou.ctv.105.jpg
shenzhou-control.jpg
Looks pretty nice :)
Old unices don't die, they just fade away.....
Yes. And naked.
I don't think terrorism is a good thing, but I'm getting sick of all the reports:
"Sometimes, _________ is used to fund terrorism, so _________ is evil."
Drugs are bad because buying them funds terrorism. Yep, that's right. Even when it's homegrown. :P
I know that all those media conglomerates are the true source of funding for these things. So I'm going to buy my movies from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and friends from now on.
I'm sure I could find just as sketchy of a connection between the media companies and terrorism as they can find between [insert comman activity here] and terrorism.
Yeah, but they'll have some explaining to do when the data shows they were all at the local donut shop for 2 hours :)
Strange, seeing as how it came from the "jamie-has-the-munchies dept."
What was the address for the patent office again?
*scribble* *scribble*
*twitch* There's something wrong with a girl manning. ;)
Stealing $50 != Stealing $5000
>into a UK bank account only gets added to your actual funds 2-3 days later,
>once it's passed through checks.
Give me a break. In this age of the internet, fiber-optic networks, widely available broadband internet access, instant transfers of millions/billions of $$$ between banks, you truly think that it would really take 2-3 days to find out whether the person/company who wrote the check has the funds to cover it?
Some people call me cynical. I call them naive.
Nesting is very important in debugging programs like this. If they're each supposed to be emulating a certain environment, they can find flaws in the emulation and correct them. Same goes for compilers.. once it can compile itself correctly it's considered fairly stable.
The brain will never be able to understand the brain :)
Possibly, but nothing says that a group of brains could never understand the brain. Or a computer (advanced AI or something). Also, within Conway's "Game Of Life" there is a pattern out there that can simulate a Game of Life cell.
If these experimenters had put this circuit into a different type of FPGA, even if they copied every gate and connection.. It wouldn't have worked because of capacitance differences and other things. Now, realize that we are far more complex than this circuit was. Also realize that billions of years of evolutionary processes might have found and applied many things we haven't found. So, honestly I believe that for the forseeable future, this is pretty much going to stay in the realm of sci-fi.
Having said that, I think downloading my brain into a computer would be the coolest thing since sliced bread. Be immortal, shock and amaze your friends, etc. But it seems to me that a more attainable goal would be brain interfacing. As another post to this article said, the brain seems to last far longer than the body. Why not find a way to hook stuff up to the brain so you can be reasonably functional even though you no longer have a physical body. Hook you up to the net, let you share ideas, continuing to contribute to society. Or do a job that doesn't require physical activity.
Umm... "wrong" is a social, psychological concept in the first place. So it's based in that "will" and in the minds that create it. Nowhere else. If I kill someone and no one knows about it, there is no universal police that come down and punish me, no bolt of lightning from the heavens. So there is no universal "wrong" or "right" per se. There is only wrong and right in a societal and personal belief basis.
Your thoughts, your will, everything you believe you are, is illusory. If the brain, this lump of protein, is the last great answer, then morality is likewise an illusion.
Yes. See above.
It would be no more quantitively "wrong" for me to kill you and rape your sister than it would be for one rock to fall and shatter another.
True. Once again, see above, specifically the "no bolt of lightning" thing. It's only "wrong" because society frowns on it. If the rocks believed that crushing another rock was wrong, they would punish each other if they crushed another rock. But we probably wouldn't go around punishing criminal rocks (unless we communicated with them regularly and they were socially connected with us. In which case their values would become part of our values and... well, you get the point.)
We, as a society, wouldn't last too long or develop very well if we ran around killing each other and destroying stuff. That is probably why it seems morally wrong to do so. I believe I'm generally a good person, but I don't do or not do things because I believe in some universal sense of "wrong or right". I do or not do things because I believe my actions might harm someone or society. I know that my moral compass is guided by the society I grew up in, my parents and my friends, my teachers, and even my enemies. I also know that by someone else's moral compass, some of my actions may be completely wrong.
I don't believe there is a true "right and wrong", but if we don't try to uphold some sense of good and bad, society would, in a word, rot.
Imagine, if we can find possibly suitable conditions for OUR kind of life in so many places, how many OTHER places might have completely different forms of life?
Slashdot is taking news from this site?
The end is truly near.
Hmm. Come to think of it, if I happen to be dialing the right number, that might come in handy!
Come on, people, we can do better than this!
The only problem would be figuring out how to fit a network card into the PCI slots.
Oh, you meant records? Sorry, I was thinking of my couch...
If I were you, I'd say the same thing to anyone who walks in my shop looking for a "cool new thing" to show off to their friends, but don't scare people from this idea, which could conceivably help many diabetics.
As a side note, I believe (don't quote me, please) that most blacklight fluorescent inks are safer than the "light-charged" type. That might be a solution... the user could just carry one of those handheld mini-blacklights and check the tatoo every once in a while, and the inks would be safer.
Someone mod parent up funny, please. "Five monk exchange lumps.. it is magnificent" Not to mention the completely out of place words, such as "bedspread" scattered through the post. Babelfish can be useful, but sometimes... well, I think you get the picture.