A quarter of those questioned said they played for more than 41 hours a week.
But Dr Davies does not think this is unhealthy.
He said: "Most people I know spend about 3-4 hours a night watching TV... so in many cases it is just a substitution of entertainment rather than some unfortunate development in their lifestyle."
Most people he knows watch three to four hours of TV per night? Sheesh! Get a social group!
Three to four hours of TV per night will turn your brain to cheese, people!
Find a good tax preparer -- someone you trust who knows what they are doing. Such a person is worth the money.
I work with a guy who loves to prepare taxes, he's saved me lots of $$$ and has been an excellent source of financial advice. I get my hundred dollars worth, that's for sure.
A news report on the Space Elevator comes on the TV.
Kent: But there's already one big winner: Our state school system, which gets fully half the profits from the Space Elevator.
Skinner: [talking with his teachers] Just think what we can buy with that money... History books that know how the Korean War came out. Math books that don't have that base six crap in them! And a state-of-the-art detention hall [holds up a scale model] where unruly children are sent to Space Elevator detention.
Teacher: [to no one in particular] Space Elevators. Always with the Space Elevators...
It will get worse: someday, the Virtual Playmate will automatically scan your retina, compile a dossier on your softcore porn habits, and generate a customized list of turn-ons.
"My turn-ons include long walks on the beach... and [Posting Comments to SlashDot]."
Interesting detail from article: creation of a new letter for the base-pair alphabet:
While Evans and others are working on machines that could expand researchers' ability to write genes, chemists at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, are expanding the genetic alphabet itself. "Our repertoire of bases is naturally limited," to the familiar DNA letters A, T, C, and G, says Scripps chemist Floyd Romesberg. Because these letters tell an organism which proteins to make, the types of proteins that can be specified by the genome are limited as well. Getting, say, a bacterium to make novel types of proteins would require adding new DNA letters.
That's exactly what Romesberg's lab has done. Building on the pioneering work of biologist Steven Benner at the University of Florida, Romesberg and his colleagues have created a letter in the form of the chemical fluorobenzene. This artificial DNA letter looks nothing like a natural one, he says, so the challenge is to trick the cell's DNA replication and translation machinery into recognizing it. So far, the Scripps researchers have synthesized short fragments of DNA that incorporate the new letter and have successfully created an enzyme that can replicate the modified code. The next step is to design a system for translating the code into a completely unnatural protein--a novel drug, for instance.
"Authors" is a widely-used expression meaning "those who thought of the idea and made it happen."
For example, ancient historians such as Polybius used the phrase "authors of the rebellion" to denote a group of people who had rebelled against the ruling authority.
Considering Microsoft's capitalization, that means that future Windows XP licenses will cost.000001 US/cent more in order to recoup the Corel adventure losses...
Sure, Microsoft's cost works out to.000001 US/cent per license count. But MS will actually charge $9.99 more per license count. Why? For the same reason a dog licks its balls: because it can.
Skinner is a predictable man; of all the Simpsons characters, perhaps the easiest to parody.
I'm guessing he was raised in a box by some eminent behaviorist.
Principal Skinner on Space Elevators
on
The Space Elevator
·
· Score: 2, Funny
A news report on the Space Elevator comes on the TV.
Kent: But there's already one big winner: Our state school system,
which gets fully half the profits from the Space Elevator.
Skinner: [talking with his teachers]
Just think what we can buy with that money...
History books that know how the Korean War came out.
Math books that don't have that base six crap in them!
And a state-of-the-art detention hall [holds up a scale model]
where unruly children are sent to Space Elevator detention.
Teacher: [to no one in particular] Space Elevators. Always with the Space Elevators...
See "The Gernsbach Continuum" by William Gibson -- short story circa 1980, in which the streamlined technotronic future imagined by Hugo Gernsbach breaks into the real world. (The story appears in Gibson's excellent Burning Chrome collection.)
"Perhaps nowhere was the postwar craving for the futuristic more evident than on Miami Beach where, during the 1950s and 1960s, wildly inventive hotel designs emerged to satiate the requirements of the prosperous new middle-class on vacation. Resort area architects attempted to realize through their buildings what we of a more cynical age now concede to be science fiction. These architects created a unique futuristic look in Miami Beach that became known as Miami Modern--MiMO."
Yet another related screed about hyper-modernist architecture, one of my favorite essays by Tom Wolfe: "Las Vegas (What?) Las Vegas (Can't hear You! Too noisy) Las Vegas!!!"
The way to write a hit song is to imitate what you here on the radio. So said Frank Zappa, in an interview shortly before his death. Listen to the current hits, and imitate them: nothing more, nothing less.
I'm not convinced that Shalmaneser's "I won't accept the data" moment actually defines his awakening as an intelligent being. Rather, it defines the first evidence available to people of Shalamaneser's wakeup. Shal may have been intelligent sooner, without people recognizing his awareness.
I think the funniest moment in the book is at the end, when Shal thinks the same thing as drug-addled Bennie Noakes: "Christ, what an imagination I've got!"
Perhaps "extremely annoyed" is what distinguishes human intelligence from machine intelligence?
In John Brunner's non-novel Stand on Zanzibar, cranky sociologist Chad Mulligan declares that supercomputer Shalmaneser is now intelligent because Shalmaneser has displayed the quality of "bloody-mindedness". Not the same as "annoyance", of course, but in the same emotional realm....
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone (myself included) loves to denigrate someone else's vices.
... I suppose that's every bit as brain-rotting as TV (except without the commercials) ....
....
Me, I play a fair bit of Unreal Tournament
Further confessions: everyone who has kicked a vice loves to denigrate those who still indulge. Me, I'm a former TV-holic
Three to four hours of TV per night will turn your brain to cheese, people!
Find a good tax preparer -- someone you trust who knows what they are doing. Such a person is worth the money.
I work with a guy who loves to prepare taxes, he's saved me lots of $$$ and has been an excellent source of financial advice. I get my hundred dollars worth, that's for sure.
A news report on the Space Elevator comes on the TV.
Kent: But there's already one big winner: Our state school system, which gets fully half the profits from the Space Elevator.
Skinner: [talking with his teachers] Just think what we can buy with that money... History books that know how the Korean War came out. Math books that don't have that base six crap in them! And a state-of-the-art detention hall [holds up a scale model] where unruly children are sent to Space Elevator detention.
Teacher: [to no one in particular] Space Elevators. Always with the Space Elevators
Distinguish between a weapon and a tool. Give examples. Then argue the other side, using the same examples.
It will get worse: someday, the Virtual Playmate will automatically scan your retina, compile a dossier on your softcore porn habits, and generate a customized list of turn-ons.
... and [Posting Comments to SlashDot]."
"My turn-ons include long walks on the beach
Those Playmate Turn-On blurbs are probably fake, too.
Oh, and so are her tits.
"Authors" is a widely-used expression meaning "those who thought of the idea and made it happen."
For example, ancient historians such as Polybius used the phrase "authors of the rebellion" to denote a group of people who had rebelled against the ruling authority.
I suppose 10% of my spam is valuable ... if I get 10% of 14.5 million ($US) from that Nigerian oil minister ....
Forty percent? That's nothing. Sturgeon's Law states that ninety percent of everything is crap.
I'm saying Microsoft is like an enormous dog, licking itself.
Considering Microsoft's capitalization, that means that future Windows XP licenses will cost .000001 US/cent more in order to recoup the Corel adventure losses...
.000001 US/cent per license count. But MS will actually charge $9.99 more per license count. Why? For the same reason a dog licks its balls: because it can.
Sure, Microsoft's cost works out to
"The Tao of Linux" is a fine piece of work. Wise and funny ... as the Tao of anything should be!
Skinner is a predictable man; of all the Simpsons characters, perhaps the easiest to parody.
I'm guessing he was raised in a box by some eminent behaviorist.
A news report on the Space Elevator comes on the TV.
Kent: But there's already one big winner: Our state school system, which gets fully half the profits from the Space Elevator.
Skinner: [talking with his teachers] Just think what we can buy with that money... History books that know how the Korean War came out. Math books that don't have that base six crap in them! And a state-of-the-art detention hall [holds up a scale model] where unruly children are sent to Space Elevator detention.
Teacher: [to no one in particular] Space Elevators. Always with the Space Elevators
</Obligatory Simpsons Reference>
[With apologies to Dog of Death episode.]
See "The Gernsbach Continuum" by William Gibson -- short story circa 1980, in which the streamlined technotronic future imagined by Hugo Gernsbach breaks into the real world. (The story appears in Gibson's excellent Burning Chrome collection.)
On a related theme, see Miami Modern. Excerpt:
"Perhaps nowhere was the postwar craving for the futuristic more evident than on Miami Beach where, during the 1950s and 1960s, wildly inventive hotel designs emerged to satiate the requirements of the prosperous new middle-class on vacation. Resort area architects attempted to realize through their buildings what we of a more cynical age now concede to be science fiction. These architects created a unique futuristic look in Miami Beach that became known as Miami Modern--MiMO."
Yet another related screed about hyper-modernist architecture, one of my favorite essays by Tom Wolfe: "Las Vegas (What?) Las Vegas (Can't hear You! Too noisy) Las Vegas!!!"
Of course it's targeted at children. Only a child would expect to win the lottery.
"The Lottery: When You Need Millions of Dollars, Right Away!"
We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
Woodstock by Joni Mitchell
Stardust, by Mitchell Parish and Hoagy Carmichael -- the most beautiful song ever written.
The way to write a hit song is to imitate what you here on the radio. So said Frank Zappa, in an interview shortly before his death. Listen to the current hits, and imitate them: nothing more, nothing less.
Very interesting point. I wasn't familiar with the phrase Friendly AI, but it makes perfect sense. I'd rather have a friend than a slave.
Brunner makes another good point, in his novel "A Maze of Stars".
What do we want from AI? Two contradictory qualities:
(1) Independence of thought (not pre-programmed solutions)
(2) Obedience to our will
And what do we call a being which has independence of thought, yet obeys our will?
A slave.
I'm not convinced that Shalmaneser's "I won't accept the data" moment actually defines his awakening as an intelligent being. Rather, it defines the first evidence available to people of Shalamaneser's wakeup. Shal may have been intelligent sooner, without people recognizing his awareness.
I think the funniest moment in the book is at the end, when Shal thinks the same thing as drug-addled Bennie Noakes: "Christ, what an imagination I've got!"
"... extremely annoyed AI Researchers ..."
....
Perhaps "extremely annoyed" is what distinguishes human intelligence from machine intelligence?
In John Brunner's non-novel Stand on Zanzibar, cranky sociologist Chad Mulligan declares that supercomputer Shalmaneser is now intelligent because Shalmaneser has displayed the quality of "bloody-mindedness". Not the same as "annoyance", of course, but in the same emotional realm