Fermi's paradox doesn't do it for me, although it is a neat way of looking at the problem.
It's too neat, and that's my problem with it. There are just so many other variables. Like stick no FTL in there. Or no "cryo-sleep". Or not even any way of reliably going, say, past 0.3 C for any kind of duration. And let's face it, interstellar empires of the kind that Fermi was suprised weren't knocking on doors, need one or more of those things to exist. At least "life as we know it" "knocking on doors" type galactic empires. As far as "life not as we know it" goes, I'm not even sure we could detect them if they were living on the Moon. Their goals, communication methods, etc. would surely be truly alien.
I'm not convinced. Maybe everyone goes "Dyson". Or to achieve true technological mastery you must achieve a kind of "spiritual" way of working in large groups that knocks you out of the "galactic resource race", (another prerequisite for Fermi) think of your own reasons, we sure haven't figured any of even the stuff I've listed out yet. Not that these are even close to my favourite explanations. but they serve, I think.
There are other famous "equations" Sagan's or Baugher's, which tends to show nothing more, I guess, than that Clarke's famous axiom, which he attributes wisely to "Anonymous" is usually pretty spot on.
Instead of relying on super-powerful transmissions from the aliens, as we do now, we could detect, for the first time, signals at the same strength as our own and "listen" to most of our own galaxy for them.
This is truly new, and means a SETI "hit" comes into the realm of the probable, IMO. The link is to the "SETI" page on the SKA site. It's down a couple of levels and jargonized, so I don't think I deserve a redundant mod... but you're the boss!
Yeah, but generally their machines are sub-standard, it takes you half an hour to set up Half-Life (or whatever) how YOU like it (keyboard, mouse, etc), and their screens are filthy and the lowest quality.
I would LAN more...
on
Fragfest
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· Score: 3, Interesting
If it was easier to move my computer. I mean it's not that hard, just a pain. And moving any screen bigger than a 19 inch monitor just plain bites.
I've often thought a cool business plan would be to set up a "LAN Party" hall, with monitors and speakers, all the kiddies have to bring are their CPUs, keyboards and meece. $3 per person per hour, if you kept the room booked you could do pretty well.
Anyone know if this has been done, anywhere? Or does the whole idea suck for reasons not yet known to me?
After emailing a few times with the author of that most myth-seeming story, I have to say that I am now convinced.
He has made clear to me things that were not clear in the original link - far better explaining the motives behind the actions of the team. Motives which were the primary reason why I came out so strongly for "myth". He understands my objections, and I believe I understand his actions.
To quote and slightly paraphrase the less-than-perfect adaption of Carl Sagan's classic book: "I, for one, believe him."
Slightly glad I didn't take any bets!:)
How to Start an Urban Myth.
on
First Man To Mars?
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· Score: 5, Interesting
This week, kids, we learn how to start an urban myth. I'll summarise the steps you need and then expand in more detail.
1. Use an existing, well established "link story" that everyone knows is true. Insects bite people. Bill Gates talks about computers. People have had their ashes taken up on the Space Shuttle.
2. Put a "twist" in the tale that makes the average listener smile, and raise their eyebrows. Some insects lay things in you when they bite. Bill Gates said we'll only ever need 640K. Ashes don't only go on the shuttle (link left as an exercise for the reader).
3. Get a website. These days this is free (as in beer).
Ah bugger the lesson, I think you lot saw my point 4 paragraphs ago. I'll be happy to wager with anyone on how long it takes before this is credibly and totally debunked. I'm betting 72 hours.
Sorry, limekiller, I've appreciated your comments before on other issues, but in this case you're dead wrong.
Here are the numbers. The casino edge for the exact setup that I wrote about is less than one half of one percent. So, half the time (actually 49.5% of the time), you win. Slightly more often, you lose.
The link has an excellent discussion of the other figures surrounding this, like risk and deviation. Please note that perfect play is assumed, etc. This was the point of the other 80% of my orinal post.
But they aren't the facts...
on
MIT vs. Las Vegas
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· Score: 5, Insightful
The facts are that even an 8-deck, machine shuffled, heavily cut monster will, just by pure random chance, about half the time be weighted to the player.
The problem then becomes picking that time. Back-counting is part of the solution. So too is the fact that machine shuffling just isn't very good for the casinos, except in terms of hands/hour, which whilst it mostly favours the house, also favours the player under certain conditions.
Two more things.
1. The maths on all this is not trivial and most people think about the problem incorrectly (ie. there is no "random" in a finite set which has had discrete operations performed on it) and it effects their maths when they do try and tackle it this way.
2. I agree with you 100% about the distractions. The kind of brain which can hold a count, up to seven side counts, track shuffles through a machine on an 8-deck shoe, remember to effectively mask play, keep an active backcount going on surrounding tables, and still smile at the dealer and appear a lucky fool, act like a chronic smoker or toilet-goer to Wong in and out effectively, etc etc is extremely rare.
Also remember that most people who say they win at cards are LYING. I do not even play Blackjack, I can't do the above with my brain. I know hundreds of _gamblers_ some of whom lie about winning at cards. I only know one person who does, actually, win at cards.
From the article: NASA and contractor engineers are troubleshooting cracked bearings... it is not yet known what, if anything, must be done to resolve the issue.
My guess, and I should flag here that IANARS, is they'll have to replace those bearings...
Sigh.
Re:Someone posts a chess computer story...
on
Men vs. Machines
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· Score: 1
Yes I agree my language could have been more careful. It's been in interesting to watch the debate unfold. I've followed it carefully and clicked a lot of links and learned plenty - but I think my fundamental position, which is:
1. "Brute-force" as a discription of what "they" have achieved with Deep Blue, etc, is a very poor characterisation, usually used by critics of the effort. Expert system (even expert position analyses hardware for Deep Blue) is a much better name.
2. We are still at the beginning stages of understanding how to do this (witness the junior state of "Go" programs) and my point about fundamental research seems to hold up well.
Re:Chess-playing research seems to be a dead end
on
Men vs. Machines
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· Score: 1
I would say that that the research is still at the basic stage, because essentially creating these software "super tools" is a hard problem.
I do see your point, though, and you may well be right. Time will tell.
Re:Someone posts a chess computer story...
on
Men vs. Machines
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· Score: 2
You said: What a crock. This accomplishment is equivalent to saying the computer can count faster than a human and nothing more.
Maybe if you were, say, a programmer or a computer professional, or maybe even had read an IT industry magazine at some point you would understand a little about the fundamentals of this discussion.
This has nothing to do with "computers counting faster" and everything to do with expert systems, that is programming computers to make "clever" decisions based on states. If this was just brute-force then why do you think it costs so much money to put together one of these systems? Because they have teams of programmers and serious hardware. More hardware than is needed for a brute-force approach, actually, so what's all the extra hardware doing? If you think this is all as easy as that one class you took in highschool where you typed:
10 PRINT "Hello!" 20 GOTO 10
and then laughed in that odd, shrieking way you have, then you really should get hit with the clue stick.
Someone posts a chess computer story...
on
Men vs. Machines
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· Score: 5, Insightful
... and you instantly get a bunch of posts about how it's "not that impressive because the computer is trained to beat just that player".
Well, here's a heads up. That is exactly how human players prepare for matches against each other. They sit down and play through their opponents previous matches, and try to find weaknesses and holes to use against them.
The point of all this is equally questioned. People seem to think that creating large expert systems is a done deal, and no more research needs to be done into how to construct programs that use a set of variables to give advice, in this case which chess piece to move. Again, here's a clue:
This kind of stuff is fundamental, basic research. Absolutely vital and incredibly useful as we continue to learn about how to better realise and utilise computer technology.
>It is a challenge to get dimensional lumber out of hemp however
And so that's what you use timber for. I didn't say (actually, no-one is saying) never cut down trees, but cutting down old growth for pulp is just idiotic, when there are better, cheaper, cleaner alternatives, triply so if the government has to prop it up with my money!
And of course, that's what is happening. Using plantation timber for lumber? Go right ahead. Great use of resources.
Ah, so now in your books, Microsoft is `totalitarian'? That is amusing.
It is amusing, isn't it, especially since 'my books' have nothing to do with it - I was just using the dictionary definition I posted. Definition 2b. from memory. So yet another link you didn't click for fear of voiding your arguments eh, neocon? Newsflash: Totalitarian is also an adjective, and since companies are not governments it can hardly be the noun definition we're all talking about here, right? Simple logic.
And then you go on to say that running drug-trials in an attempt to find a better AIDS drug is `domineering'? don't forget totalitarian.
Wrong again sport. I didn't say that at all - the Boston Globe article did. Stings, doesn't it? You mean to say you actually support how the companies in that article were behaving in Africa?
Sigh. You should have a sig, and it should say "Anything you say can and will be ignored while I, neocon, make up stuff you didn't say and attack that instead."
Dear dear neocon you do make me laugh! If ever I can depend on someone to miss the forest for the trees it is you my fine fellow.
So the states having at least a case against Microsoft for anti-trust doesn't come under the definition of totalitarian? Did you follow that dictionary link or not!? And isn't, in fact, domineering a perfect word to describe "sharp" business practise, say, like Intel's? Both international American companies, both guilty of both these things both at home and abroad.
Boy you really bit on those 2 throwaway links - and here's what makes it so funny I especially picked those ones just for you! See, if you were actually as informed as you pretend to be, you would have put "domineering, totalitarian, american, company" or something like that into google, just like I did and found some sources of your own, just to make sure there was nothing out there to flaw your argument, or to make sure you'd get in pre-emptively if there was a source you believed that wasn't on your side on this one. Like say, the Boston Globe, that one stung a bit, didn't it? Illustrating in that excellent story that drug companies are acting in both a domineering (throwing their weight about) and totalitarian (running drug trials like that is the very definition, surely) fashion.
Did you do any of that? No, of course not, even when I explicitly suggested it in my previous post. Go away and do some homework you lightweight! LOL!
Note first that I am not supporting the original post, but if you set up a big target it's going to get hit. You said:
What would you consider to be examples of American `organizations' acting in a `totalitarian and domineering' manner overseas? What are your sources for these examples?
Here's a speech on the topic. A newspaper article is here originally published in the Boston Globe. There's a good essay on the subject here, although I am sure you'll pooh-pooh this one as you do anything associated with the UN, the author is extremely credible. I leave the rest of the trivial google searching you can use to do your own research to you.
Or to turn the whole thing on its head, since it is plain to even the metaphorical "Blind Freddy" that large companies get away with whatever they are not specifically prohibited from doing, and act in a totalitarian and domineering manner (click to look 'em up if you have trouble) whenever they possibly can (hence the extremely large amount of legislation existing to regulate corporate behaviour especially monopolistic behaviour) what point, exactly, are you attempting to make?
What is it like to browse the web in China? Just like browsing it elsewhere. Actually in most internet cafes except the very very cheapo ones, the links are excellent and the computers fast.
Unless I'm totally misinformed by US propaganda, I assume you can start up a website that criticizes your country's policies? Did you mean to say "can"? Let me first make it clear I am not a Chinese national. I am here studying. And there are plenty of sites in China that are critical of all aspects of Chinese life, including the government. Let me also be clear that there are certain things you couldn't say, but then again that is true for all countries. I don't imagine the US authorities would take a very "enlightened" view of a website that charted, say, the US President's movements and made suggestions as to how best assasinate him.
Doesn't China automatically filter all content into their country? Yes. Again, all countries have this capability, and if it's working right you wouldn't really know, would you! China's filtering tends to be a little scattershot. Some weeks they will filter cnn.com, for example, but then the next week it's back. It's all to do with what the government determines is "obscene" or "appropriate". Which of course is censorship, but then the US has censorship as well, as you know. It's not on the same scale of course. The filtering is totally ineffective. It's there so the government can maintain the illusion of control. The populace here would be extremely upset if, for example, it was easy for their kids to download pr0n at a net cafe. So the government makes big noises about their capabilities in stopping this. In reality they cannot. It's just not possible to packet sniff to that extent as we all know. So in a notional way censorship is absolute. But in a real sense nothing is censored at all.
I really would like to learn more. That's a great 'tude, that more/.'ers should have. Hope I've been a little bit helpful. Still amazing that with the amount of people here studying from elsewhere that "the news" about China hasn't somehow leaked out. And that news is that China is very open, but with occasional policies that are very hard for westerners to understand. I guess looking in the mirror, the US is very open, but with certain policies that are very hard for easterners to understand.....
Slashdot Mirror
Fermi's paradox doesn't do it for me, although it is a neat way of looking at the problem.
It's too neat, and that's my problem with it. There are just so many other variables. Like stick no FTL in there. Or no "cryo-sleep". Or not even any way of reliably going, say, past 0.3 C for any kind of duration. And let's face it, interstellar empires of the kind that Fermi was suprised weren't knocking on doors, need one or more of those things to exist. At least "life as we know it" "knocking on doors" type galactic empires. As far as "life not as we know it" goes, I'm not even sure we could detect them if they were living on the Moon. Their goals, communication methods, etc. would surely be truly alien.
I'm not convinced. Maybe everyone goes "Dyson". Or to achieve true technological mastery you must achieve a kind of "spiritual" way of working in large groups that knocks you out of the "galactic resource race", (another prerequisite for Fermi) think of your own reasons, we sure haven't figured any of even the stuff I've listed out yet. Not that these are even close to my favourite explanations. but they serve, I think.
There are other famous "equations" Sagan's or Baugher's, which tends to show nothing more, I guess, than that Clarke's famous axiom, which he attributes wisely to "Anonymous" is usually pretty spot on.
Instead of relying on super-powerful transmissions from the aliens, as we do now, we could detect, for the first time, signals at the same strength as our own and "listen" to most of our own galaxy for them.
This is truly new, and means a SETI "hit" comes into the realm of the probable, IMO. The link is to the "SETI" page on the SKA site. It's down a couple of levels and jargonized, so I don't think I deserve a redundant mod... but you're the boss!
Those mammoth jokes were both wooly bad.
*sound of moths hitting spotlights*
(thinks) Lucky I kept my day job!
I presume you were trolling for a couple of "Funny" mod points?
Agreed.
Yeah, but generally their machines are sub-standard, it takes you half an hour to set up Half-Life (or whatever) how YOU like it (keyboard, mouse, etc), and their screens are filthy and the lowest quality.
I've often thought a cool business plan would be to set up a "LAN Party" hall, with monitors and speakers, all the kiddies have to bring are their CPUs, keyboards and meece. $3 per person per hour, if you kept the room booked you could do pretty well.
Anyone know if this has been done, anywhere? Or does the whole idea suck for reasons not yet known to me?
He has made clear to me things that were not clear in the original link - far better explaining the motives behind the actions of the team. Motives which were the primary reason why I came out so strongly for "myth". He understands my objections, and I believe I understand his actions.
To quote and slightly paraphrase the less-than-perfect adaption of Carl Sagan's classic book: "I, for one, believe him."
Slightly glad I didn't take any bets! :)
1. Use an existing, well established "link story" that everyone knows is true. Insects bite people. Bill Gates talks about computers. People have had their ashes taken up on the Space Shuttle.
2. Put a "twist" in the tale that makes the average listener smile, and raise their eyebrows. Some insects lay things in you when they bite. Bill Gates said we'll only ever need 640K. Ashes don't only go on the shuttle (link left as an exercise for the reader).
3. Get a website. These days this is free (as in beer).
Ah bugger the lesson, I think you lot saw my point 4 paragraphs ago. I'll be happy to wager with anyone on how long it takes before this is credibly and totally debunked. I'm betting 72 hours.
Here are the numbers. The casino edge for the exact setup that I wrote about is less than one half of one percent. So, half the time (actually 49.5% of the time), you win. Slightly more often, you lose.
The link has an excellent discussion of the other figures surrounding this, like risk and deviation. Please note that perfect play is assumed, etc. This was the point of the other 80% of my orinal post.
The problem then becomes picking that time. Back-counting is part of the solution. So too is the fact that machine shuffling just isn't very good for the casinos, except in terms of hands/hour, which whilst it mostly favours the house, also favours the player under certain conditions.
Two more things.
1. The maths on all this is not trivial and most people think about the problem incorrectly (ie. there is no "random" in a finite set which has had discrete operations performed on it) and it effects their maths when they do try and tackle it this way.
2. I agree with you 100% about the distractions. The kind of brain which can hold a count, up to seven side counts, track shuffles through a machine on an 8-deck shoe, remember to effectively mask play, keep an active backcount going on surrounding tables, and still smile at the dealer and appear a lucky fool, act like a chronic smoker or toilet-goer to Wong in and out effectively, etc etc is extremely rare.
Also remember that most people who say they win at cards are LYING. I do not even play Blackjack, I can't do the above with my brain. I know hundreds of _gamblers_ some of whom lie about winning at cards. I only know one person who does, actually, win at cards.
From the article: NASA and contractor engineers are troubleshooting cracked bearings ... it is not yet known what, if anything, must be done to resolve the issue.
My guess, and I should flag here that IANARS, is they'll have to replace those bearings...
Sigh.
1. "Brute-force" as a discription of what "they" have achieved with Deep Blue, etc, is a very poor characterisation, usually used by critics of the effort. Expert system (even expert position analyses hardware for Deep Blue) is a much better name.
2. We are still at the beginning stages of understanding how to do this (witness the junior state of "Go" programs) and my point about fundamental research seems to hold up well.
I do see your point, though, and you may well be right. Time will tell.
Maybe if you were, say, a programmer or a computer professional, or maybe even had read an IT industry magazine at some point you would understand a little about the fundamentals of this discussion.
This has nothing to do with "computers counting faster" and everything to do with expert systems, that is programming computers to make "clever" decisions based on states. If this was just brute-force then why do you think it costs so much money to put together one of these systems? Because they have teams of programmers and serious hardware. More hardware than is needed for a brute-force approach, actually, so what's all the extra hardware doing? If you think this is all as easy as that one class you took in highschool where you typed:
10 PRINT "Hello!"
20 GOTO 10
and then laughed in that odd, shrieking way you have, then you really should get hit with the clue stick.
Well, here's a heads up. That is exactly how human players prepare for matches against each other. They sit down and play through their opponents previous matches, and try to find weaknesses and holes to use against them.
The point of all this is equally questioned. People seem to think that creating large expert systems is a done deal, and no more research needs to be done into how to construct programs that use a set of variables to give advice, in this case which chess piece to move. Again, here's a clue:
This kind of stuff is fundamental, basic research. Absolutely vital and incredibly useful as we continue to learn about how to better realise and utilise computer technology.
Insert old saw about dogs walking here.
And so that's what you use timber for. I didn't say (actually, no-one is saying) never cut down trees, but cutting down old growth for pulp is just idiotic, when there are better, cheaper, cleaner alternatives, triply so if the government has to prop it up with my money!
And of course, that's what is happening. Using plantation timber for lumber? Go right ahead. Great use of resources.
Why doesn't the government pull the money out and then we can all go straight to growing hemp for all our pulp needs?
And you could use the zero THC varieties, so don't go crazy with the "evil weed" bullshit, ok?
No, not just you! Glass Elevator was my favourite of the two....
It is amusing, isn't it, especially since 'my books' have nothing to do with it - I was just using the dictionary definition I posted. Definition 2b. from memory. So yet another link you didn't click for fear of voiding your arguments eh, neocon? Newsflash: Totalitarian is also an adjective, and since companies are not governments it can hardly be the noun definition we're all talking about here, right? Simple logic.
And then you go on to say that running drug-trials in an attempt to find a better AIDS drug is `domineering'? don't forget totalitarian.
Wrong again sport. I didn't say that at all - the Boston Globe article did. Stings, doesn't it? You mean to say you actually support how the companies in that article were behaving in Africa?
Sigh. You should have a sig, and it should say "Anything you say can and will be ignored while I, neocon, make up stuff you didn't say and attack that instead."
So the states having at least a case against Microsoft for anti-trust doesn't come under the definition of totalitarian? Did you follow that dictionary link or not!? And isn't, in fact, domineering a perfect word to describe "sharp" business practise, say, like Intel's? Both international American companies, both guilty of both these things both at home and abroad.
Boy you really bit on those 2 throwaway links - and here's what makes it so funny I especially picked those ones just for you! See, if you were actually as informed as you pretend to be, you would have put "domineering, totalitarian, american, company" or something like that into google, just like I did and found some sources of your own, just to make sure there was nothing out there to flaw your argument, or to make sure you'd get in pre-emptively if there was a source you believed that wasn't on your side on this one. Like say, the Boston Globe, that one stung a bit, didn't it? Illustrating in that excellent story that drug companies are acting in both a domineering (throwing their weight about) and totalitarian (running drug trials like that is the very definition, surely) fashion.
Did you do any of that? No, of course not, even when I explicitly suggested it in my previous post. Go away and do some homework you lightweight! LOL!
What would you consider to be examples of American `organizations' acting in a `totalitarian and domineering' manner overseas? What are your sources for these examples?
Here's a speech on the topic. A newspaper article is here originally published in the Boston Globe. There's a good essay on the subject here, although I am sure you'll pooh-pooh this one as you do anything associated with the UN, the author is extremely credible. I leave the rest of the trivial google searching you can use to do your own research to you.
Or to turn the whole thing on its head, since it is plain to even the metaphorical "Blind Freddy" that large companies get away with whatever they are not specifically prohibited from doing, and act in a totalitarian and domineering manner (click to look 'em up if you have trouble) whenever they possibly can (hence the extremely large amount of legislation existing to regulate corporate behaviour especially monopolistic behaviour) what point, exactly, are you attempting to make?
I guess the poster has never heard of Airbus Industrie.... click here to know more.
Well, you know I'm 30+ years old.....booboom tish.
Just like browsing it elsewhere. Actually in most internet cafes except the very very cheapo ones, the links are excellent and the computers fast.
Unless I'm totally misinformed by US propaganda, I assume you can start up a website that criticizes your country's policies?
Did you mean to say "can"? Let me first make it clear I am not a Chinese national. I am here studying. And there are plenty of sites in China that are critical of all aspects of Chinese life, including the government. Let me also be clear that there are certain things you couldn't say, but then again that is true for all countries. I don't imagine the US authorities would take a very "enlightened" view of a website that charted, say, the US President's movements and made suggestions as to how best assasinate him.
Doesn't China automatically filter all content into their country?
Yes. Again, all countries have this capability, and if it's working right you wouldn't really know, would you! China's filtering tends to be a little scattershot. Some weeks they will filter cnn.com, for example, but then the next week it's back. It's all to do with what the government determines is "obscene" or "appropriate". Which of course is censorship, but then the US has censorship as well, as you know. It's not on the same scale of course. The filtering is totally ineffective. It's there so the government can maintain the illusion of control. The populace here would be extremely upset if, for example, it was easy for their kids to download pr0n at a net cafe. So the government makes big noises about their capabilities in stopping this. In reality they cannot. It's just not possible to packet sniff to that extent as we all know. So in a notional way censorship is absolute. But in a real sense nothing is censored at all.
I really would like to learn more. /.'ers should have. Hope I've been a little bit helpful. Still amazing that with the amount of people here studying from elsewhere that "the news" about China hasn't somehow leaked out. And that news is that China is very open, but with occasional policies that are very hard for westerners to understand. I guess looking in the mirror, the US is very open, but with certain policies that are very hard for easterners to understand.....
That's a great 'tude, that more