I agree that second hand smoke causes cancer. but your car exauhst also causes cancer. So if I cant smoke outdoors than you shouldent be able to drive your car outdoors. If you want to drive your car in your own private garage thats fine by me, but don't pollute my air. Dont tell me that driving is a nececity. No one forced you to live 15 miles from your work. Why should I be required to go home to smoke when all you have to do is stand up wind of me.
It pisses me off too. but alot of things piss me off. That dosent mean I get to arrest people for pissing me off. I do however get to arrest people for destroying or damaging my property.
"Everything is being taught in order to pass a test"
Well of course, how else is a teacher supposed to assign grades and asses performence. Sould everybody just get gold stars. Even grading a paper is a form of testing. If the students fail to learn, then the problem is a badly written test, not the existence of a test.
Through human language and communication we have essentially created an immortal collective conciousness. Each individual human is only a small step above an animal in terms of intellegence, except we have the ability to tranferr thoughts before we die. Writing a diary is a crude way of achiving immortality because it transfurs your thoughts into another medium wich can be later run in someone elses brain when they read it. Alot of information is lost in the writing process however.
true immortality will be acheved only when uploading is invented. Untill then there will only be one copy of your conciousness. When this happens lifespans will be in billions of years not thousands. The conciousness or sole or ghost is simply a collection of your long term memorys and the information stored in how your neurons are interconnected. Theoretically this information could be copied onto a computer and run in a simulation. If you were to communicate with this simulation and it could recall all of the same memorys you have now, it would be you. If your memorys are erased you are essentially killed even if your body is still alive.
Technically death actually occurs when the information is destroyed, such as cremation, bacterial decomposition,alshimers or a bullet. So in order to actually prevent death all someone has to do is make sure that the information stored in the layout of ther neurons and the chemical build up of there synapsys is not destroyed. This is called cryogenics. Cryogenicists goals should to figure out what information needs to be stored. Then they need to figure how to preserve this information, not nececarily the actual physical brain. Even if cell walls are poped open by ice crystals the information is still recoverable.(allthough that brain will never be able to function again without extensive repairs)
The information is useless unless it can be run again, ethere in a computer or in a meat brain. A brain with no way of reccecitating a conciousness is like a book that cant be translated : completly useless(see voinach manuscript). In order to upload a brain there are several possible ways. (see wikinfo)
1 The black box idea is to simply tap the brain at the spinal colum and map the respons to stimuli.The black box method wont work because there are two many possible combinations of stimuli and as the stimuli are applied the brain will change.
2. Another way to do it would be some type of electromagnetc immaging system.(just about all pop science fiction uses this idea)EMI probably will never acheve the resolution ncecary. besids EMI only can see the active parts of the brain. If a uploader was to use an EMI the patient would have to activly recall all of his memorys(like that jim cary movie). This might be circumvented with some type of chemical tagging system.
3. Nanobots might be able to go through the brain and catalog each neuron and its connections.
4. A more achevable technology (50 years from now mayby)would be to put the brain in a meat slicer and scan each slice. The slices would have to be about the thickness of hal a neuron. The brain would have to be solidified to increase the accuracy of the slicing. The origonal copy would be destroyd. the synamps connections would somehow have to be chemmicaly tagged so a scanner could distinguish them from the rest of the meat.
Once the information is recoverd there needs to be a computer fast enough to run the simulation. Currently computer requires a large number of electrons to transmit a bit. A quanom computer could use one electron to transmitt several bits by assigning a different value to each spin state. Current processors have smaller capacitors than a neuron. The main problem is they cant print a 3lb 3dimensinal chip that can rewrite its archetectur on the fly. Once in a computer the simulation could be tweaked to improve memory(ther would no longer be a size limit). The trivial brain functons like heart beat, and oter reflexes could be discarded.
The human brain has a built in mechanism for for
this is the most retarted idea ive ever hered. Why don't they just tax gasoline. The amout of gas you use is proportional to how much you drive. If you own a big gas guzzler than you can afford to pay more at the pump. Im supprised they could find a tax as regressive as a gas tax and make it even MORE regressive. sheesh
RFID is a stupid idea for personal identification. For the simple reason it has a range of a few feet. In order for someone to steal your id all the have to do is walk within a few feet of you with a reader or leave a reader near a door entrance that uses RFID. If you want to take someones credit card number you physically have to steal there wallet. It is usefull for cattle and other merchandise because the reader can remain stationary. With a bar code, the reader and the bar code have to be alligned properly. RFID is usefull for domestic pets because dog tags can fall off.
I dont think open source system(moveon.org) can compete with a think tank system(protest warrior, project for a new american century). When you get a bunch of like minded people together they start to adrss issues that will alienate other voters. The reason the democrats lost is because of the gay marrage issue. With a little planning kerry would have realized that the crunchy hippie vote was locked in. While 30% of union members voted republican.
An example is creatonism. A large voter block(43% of americans don't believe in evolution) of evangelicals tried for years to remove evolution from the schools. Discovery Institute with only a few hundred members managed to come up with intellegent design. And they made some headway.
The democrats need to get there shit together and step up there tactics.
This simulation sounds like a bad idea. As with any mathamatecal model, it is only as good as the assumptions made, regardless of the resolution.
This is exactly the kind of thinking that screwed us up in vietnam. Our foregn policy was being decided by mathmaticians when it should have been decided by historians.
I get the impression this is planning for the next Faluja. Our problems in Iraq are not due to bad tactics, they are caused by bad strategy. I dont care how well your soldiers are trained; in urban combat the best kill ratio you can hope for is 10 to 1. We don't need more teraflops we need some good old fashoned common sense.
http://www.exile.ru/archive/by_author/gary_brecher.html/
The reason Penny Arcade got an cease and desist letter was because "Strawberry Shortcake" is a copyrighted name. The current strip cleverly does not show "American Greetings" but obscures the 'n' and the 's' to make it "america greeting" wich is not a copyrighted name. What PA should have done initally is simply altered there strip so that "Strawberry Shortcake" was misspelled, then stuck there toungs out at AG's lawyers.
Re:Slashdot goes to war
on
Nuke-Lobbing
·
· Score: 1
Give me a break. Right wingers bitch about "All that is wrong with America" just as much, if not more, than liberals. They just complain about different stuff like: how creationism is not being taught in schools, how welfare is robbing us of our taxes, how america has become morally degregated, or how we don't have enogh guns. Besides all the posts I saw were more on the subject of "All that is wrong with thermoneuclear combat" not america per se. Show me one person that thinks that a nuke war is a good idea and ill show you a lunatic. Another problem with leberals is they dont curse enough like you republicans. When the F#$% did the Slashdot become the misinformed redneck channel.
Slashdot Mirror
knives are often used to stab people but they are still accepatable solution for cutting celery and cucumbers. Same with guns - hunting, etc...
I agree that second hand smoke causes cancer. but your car exauhst also causes cancer. So if I cant smoke outdoors than you shouldent be able to drive your car outdoors. If you want to drive your car in your own private garage thats fine by me, but don't pollute my air. Dont tell me that driving is a nececity. No one forced you to live 15 miles from your work. Why should I be required to go home to smoke when all you have to do is stand up wind of me.
It pisses me off too. but alot of things piss me off. That dosent mean I get to arrest people for pissing me off. I do however get to arrest people for destroying or damaging my property.
"Everything is being taught in order to pass a test" Well of course, how else is a teacher supposed to assign grades and asses performence. Sould everybody just get gold stars. Even grading a paper is a form of testing. If the students fail to learn, then the problem is a badly written test, not the existence of a test.
well techicnically your boss could fire you for talking smack or cursing at a customer etc.
Through human language and communication we have essentially created an immortal collective conciousness. Each individual human is only a small step above an animal in terms of intellegence, except we have the ability to tranferr thoughts before we die. Writing a diary is a crude way of achiving immortality because it transfurs your thoughts into another medium wich can be later run in someone elses brain when they read it. Alot of information is lost in the writing process however. true immortality will be acheved only when uploading is invented. Untill then there will only be one copy of your conciousness. When this happens lifespans will be in billions of years not thousands. The conciousness or sole or ghost is simply a collection of your long term memorys and the information stored in how your neurons are interconnected. Theoretically this information could be copied onto a computer and run in a simulation. If you were to communicate with this simulation and it could recall all of the same memorys you have now, it would be you. If your memorys are erased you are essentially killed even if your body is still alive. Technically death actually occurs when the information is destroyed, such as cremation, bacterial decomposition,alshimers or a bullet. So in order to actually prevent death all someone has to do is make sure that the information stored in the layout of ther neurons and the chemical build up of there synapsys is not destroyed. This is called cryogenics. Cryogenicists goals should to figure out what information needs to be stored. Then they need to figure how to preserve this information, not nececarily the actual physical brain. Even if cell walls are poped open by ice crystals the information is still recoverable.(allthough that brain will never be able to function again without extensive repairs) The information is useless unless it can be run again, ethere in a computer or in a meat brain. A brain with no way of reccecitating a conciousness is like a book that cant be translated : completly useless(see voinach manuscript). In order to upload a brain there are several possible ways. (see wikinfo) 1 The black box idea is to simply tap the brain at the spinal colum and map the respons to stimuli.The black box method wont work because there are two many possible combinations of stimuli and as the stimuli are applied the brain will change. 2. Another way to do it would be some type of electromagnetc immaging system.(just about all pop science fiction uses this idea)EMI probably will never acheve the resolution ncecary. besids EMI only can see the active parts of the brain. If a uploader was to use an EMI the patient would have to activly recall all of his memorys(like that jim cary movie). This might be circumvented with some type of chemical tagging system. 3. Nanobots might be able to go through the brain and catalog each neuron and its connections. 4. A more achevable technology (50 years from now mayby)would be to put the brain in a meat slicer and scan each slice. The slices would have to be about the thickness of hal a neuron. The brain would have to be solidified to increase the accuracy of the slicing. The origonal copy would be destroyd. the synamps connections would somehow have to be chemmicaly tagged so a scanner could distinguish them from the rest of the meat. Once the information is recoverd there needs to be a computer fast enough to run the simulation. Currently computer requires a large number of electrons to transmit a bit. A quanom computer could use one electron to transmitt several bits by assigning a different value to each spin state. Current processors have smaller capacitors than a neuron. The main problem is they cant print a 3lb 3dimensinal chip that can rewrite its archetectur on the fly. Once in a computer the simulation could be tweaked to improve memory(ther would no longer be a size limit). The trivial brain functons like heart beat, and oter reflexes could be discarded. The human brain has a built in mechanism for for
this is the most retarted idea ive ever hered. Why don't they just tax gasoline. The amout of gas you use is proportional to how much you drive. If you own a big gas guzzler than you can afford to pay more at the pump. Im supprised they could find a tax as regressive as a gas tax and make it even MORE regressive. sheesh
RFID is a stupid idea for personal identification. For the simple reason it has a range of a few feet. In order for someone to steal your id all the have to do is walk within a few feet of you with a reader or leave a reader near a door entrance that uses RFID. If you want to take someones credit card number you physically have to steal there wallet. It is usefull for cattle and other merchandise because the reader can remain stationary. With a bar code, the reader and the bar code have to be alligned properly. RFID is usefull for domestic pets because dog tags can fall off.
I dont think open source system(moveon.org) can compete with a think tank system(protest warrior, project for a new american century). When you get a bunch of like minded people together they start to adrss issues that will alienate other voters. The reason the democrats lost is because of the gay marrage issue. With a little planning kerry would have realized that the crunchy hippie vote was locked in. While 30% of union members voted republican. An example is creatonism. A large voter block(43% of americans don't believe in evolution) of evangelicals tried for years to remove evolution from the schools. Discovery Institute with only a few hundred members managed to come up with intellegent design. And they made some headway. The democrats need to get there shit together and step up there tactics.
This simulation sounds like a bad idea. As with any mathamatecal model, it is only as good as the assumptions made, regardless of the resolution. This is exactly the kind of thinking that screwed us up in vietnam. Our foregn policy was being decided by mathmaticians when it should have been decided by historians. I get the impression this is planning for the next Faluja. Our problems in Iraq are not due to bad tactics, they are caused by bad strategy. I dont care how well your soldiers are trained; in urban combat the best kill ratio you can hope for is 10 to 1. We don't need more teraflops we need some good old fashoned common sense. http://www.exile.ru/archive/by_author/gary_brecher .html/
The reason Penny Arcade got an cease and desist letter was because "Strawberry Shortcake" is a copyrighted name. The current strip cleverly does not show "American Greetings" but obscures the 'n' and the 's' to make it "america greeting" wich is not a copyrighted name. What PA should have done initally is simply altered there strip so that "Strawberry Shortcake" was misspelled, then stuck there toungs out at AG's lawyers.
Give me a break. Right wingers bitch about "All that is wrong with America" just as much, if not more, than liberals. They just complain about different stuff like: how creationism is not being taught in schools, how welfare is robbing us of our taxes, how america has become morally degregated, or how we don't have enogh guns. Besides all the posts I saw were more on the subject of "All that is wrong with thermoneuclear combat" not america per se. Show me one person that thinks that a nuke war is a good idea and ill show you a lunatic. Another problem with leberals is they dont curse enough like you republicans. When the F#$% did the Slashdot become the misinformed redneck channel.