"If necessary, the plant will also be able to supply heat and desalinate seawater."
Presumably supplying heat by, er, going critical and blowing up, desalinating seawater by, er, vaporising it and turning it into an enormous cloud of steam?
Next it will be 'better to end than mend', rocket planes and personal 'epsilon' servants with no brain to speak of. I just hope I qualify for 'beta' or better! Sod being a gamma...
Seriously though, the human race *is* rapidly approaching that choice-point where we either embrace eugenics or go with natural reproduction and just live with genetic disorders.
In a sense, those genetic disorders are our species insurance for the future.
Evolution is very much a search through genetic space and we never really know what it will turn up.
The thing is, the more genetic diversity your population can support, the more chances of finding favorable mutations.
If we were able to wipe out genetic 'defects' we would also reduce the diversity of the evolutionary search space thereby reducing the possible ways that future generations might be able to respond to a changing universe.
We would be locking ourselves into the use of technology to control our evolution and, frankly, I don't believe we have enough of a clue about evolution and genetics to risk that at this early stage.
I think it works something along the lines of most of the guys think its a site for finding f*** and forget types, while most of the women think that its a site for finding relationships.
Actually, now I come to think of it, that describes pretty well the entire world...
falun gong is either a CIA-run propaganda machine or a cult like any other but where the cult leader is a disaffected (but now wealthy) Chinese person living in America.
Or both.
Either way, its got nothing to do with democracy or any freedom other than the freedom to send money to some guy in America.
I'm still trying to work out exactly what definition of 'free' they mean.
Can't be 'free as in beer' cos you have to pay for *everything*
Can't be 'free as in freedom' cos you can't do jack shit without being charged under DMCA or whatever and being sent off to gitmo by homeland security.
Can it be 'free as in swinging freely' and what they really mean is capital punishment for all?
Or 'free as in free time' that Americans are all at a loose end and don't really know what to do with themselves?
"And why can't they achieve this by posting you a discount coupon (off the cost of a new cartridge) for every returned empty cartridge? Hell, it'd actually give people a real financial incentive to actually return the cartridges"
Even better idea; let people in third world countries return the spent munition cartridges left over from the US war on tourism and maybe they can dig themselves out of debt on the proceeds?
"Either that, or buy an assault rifle and start a revolution -- seriously, this shit's gotta stop!"
I've often said that the only reason I would consider going to the USA would be to help in the next revolution. Unfortunately that wouldn't look so good on the visa application.
Just let me know when you are going to be starting... I'll bring my copy of 'Toward a Citizens Militia'.
"Is Microsoft really nothing more than a wanking session for two really pathetic men?"
Shit, that would apply to virtually all corporations, most governments (including the democratic ones and especially ones where there are effectively only two parties) and all military organisations above squad level. Did I miss anything?
What will be really interesting will be when its exposed to actual natural languages as used by actual, normal, human beings (as opposed to pedants and linguists).
Many english speakers (and writers) appear to actively avoid using the actual *official* rules of english grammar (and I'm sure this is true or other languages and their native speakers too).
I've always assumed that natural language comprehension (as it happens in the human brain) is mostly massively parallel guesswork based on context since (having worked with non-native speakers whose english is *appaling* and yet who I manage to understand pretty well most of the time).
Presumably, this 'gadget' will barf if there really are no rules in such natural language usage...
Or will it just 'pretend' that it found rules? (which is what I imagine that linguists like Chomsky do).
(I don't think I count as a 'linguist' but I did it to stage 3 at university).
this is true hence I did phrase my initial comment a little carefuly.
If you have a client who is supposed to be making a couple grand an hour off of a system you build for them -- which they pay you big bucks to build and maintain for them -- and your resident passionate-about-technology geek thinks 'oh shiny new technology, must convince client to buy it so I can play with it' thats every bit as bad as a pointy haired boss deciding which database server to get 'because the purple ones have more RAM'.
Floodplains are great to have within your city radius, sure.
What I was *actually* trying to get around was the 'too many cities' bug/feature where the game can only cope with something like 500-odd cities.
So I disabled cities on jungle, floodplain, swamp, desert and tundra.
I like playing on an enormous, custom Earth map against lots and lots of computer civs.
Also, in Ancient Egypt (IIRC from my classical studies days) cities were not actually built *on* the Nile floodplain. There were villages on the floodplain, but these were built on artificial raised mounds (which still exist and still have villages on them, though it doesn't flood any more due to the dam).
In my experience, problems with production systems in the wee small hours are due to overenthusiastic deployment of software and systems that are inadequately tested.
"Or becoming a hacker because I wanted to meet Sandra Bullock. Man, what a time-waster this has turned out to be."
Which reminds me of that recent movie poster of her... I could have sworn that Sandra had cleavage. What, did they airbrush it out or was I imagining things in the first place?
"That's probably one of my bigger pet peeves. People in technology jobs who are not passionate about technology."
One of my pet peeves is people who work in technology jobs who are passionate about technology to the point where they will convince a client to go for the latest, most bleeding-edge technologies for their most critical, sensitive, 'must never go down' applications.
I prefer a cautious approach when it involves getting woken up at 3am on a regular basis because some *geek* decided to use something that had never been properly tested, had only just been released, that noone else in the company has ever used, for some production system... thats when I get that murderous blood-rage for people who are 'passionate about technology'.
"would suggest this took place outside of US Bankruptcy jursidiction."
There are places in the world outside of US jurisdiction??
My God, man!
Surely Congress is acting to repair this legal loophole as we speak? (except for handy places to keep out of US jurisdiction, like Gitmo, for example).
Slashdot Mirror
"people who constantly bitch about politicians but never vote"
I rarely bitch about politicians; I bitch about voting and how democracy is a sham and is really 'mediacracy' (rule by media) and don't vote.
Is that ok?
I agree with the rest of what you say
Wow who would have thought it:
"If necessary, the plant will also be able to supply heat and desalinate seawater."
Presumably supplying heat by, er, going critical and blowing up, desalinating seawater by, er, vaporising it and turning it into an enormous cloud of steam?
Brave New World, here we come
I always wanted to play 'find the zipper'!
Next it will be 'better to end than mend', rocket planes and personal 'epsilon' servants with no brain to speak of. I just hope I qualify for 'beta' or better! Sod being a gamma...
Seriously though, the human race *is* rapidly approaching that choice-point where we either embrace eugenics or go with natural reproduction and just live with genetic disorders.
In a sense, those genetic disorders are our species insurance for the future.
Evolution is very much a search through genetic space and we never really know what it will turn up.
The thing is, the more genetic diversity your population can support, the more chances of finding favorable mutations.
If we were able to wipe out genetic 'defects' we would also reduce the diversity of the evolutionary search space thereby reducing the possible ways that future generations might be able to respond to a changing universe.
We would be locking ourselves into the use of technology to control our evolution and, frankly, I don't believe we have enough of a clue about evolution and genetics to risk that at this early stage.
I think it works something along the lines of most of the guys think its a site for finding f*** and forget types, while most of the women think that its a site for finding relationships.
Actually, now I come to think of it, that describes pretty well the entire world...
falun gong is either a CIA-run propaganda machine or a cult like any other but where the cult leader is a disaffected (but now wealthy) Chinese person living in America.
Or both.
Either way, its got nothing to do with democracy or any freedom other than the freedom to send money to some guy in America.
"Windows Vista: 2 Gigabytes of RAM recommended"
And thats just for the OS; before you run any applications.
Once you have a full set of 'system tray' applications, you'll need a 64bit architecture just to be able to meet the memory requirements.
"The enteric nervous system (in the lining of your gut) contains an estimated ~100 million neurons. A second brain in your stomach."
There is Ancient Chinese Wisdom here.
The Chinese character for 'brain' is etymologically the character for 'stomach'.
Hence we have the computer as, literaly, 'electronic stomach'.
Wisdom indeed.
"I wouldn't put my face on an online sex partner site."
I wasn't so much referring to the explicitly 'sex partner' sites. There are such things as 'dating sites' which do make a distinction.
I agree with your comments on coming back to haunt though! The entire internet is potentially a 'past coming back to haunt' experience!
is an organ for cooling the blood.
We actually think with our stomachs.
Obviously the cooling needs of the human body are still increasing over time. Probably linked to global warming.
Land of the free, dude! Land of the free!
I'm still trying to work out exactly what definition of 'free' they mean.
Can't be 'free as in beer' cos you have to pay for *everything*
Can't be 'free as in freedom' cos you can't do jack shit without being charged under DMCA or whatever and being sent off to gitmo by homeland security.
Can it be 'free as in swinging freely' and what they really mean is capital punishment for all?
Or 'free as in free time' that Americans are all at a loose end and don't really know what to do with themselves?
I give up.
"And why can't they achieve this by posting you a discount coupon (off the cost of a new cartridge) for every returned empty cartridge? Hell, it'd actually give people a real financial incentive to actually return the cartridges"
Even better idea; let people in third world countries return the spent munition cartridges left over from the US war on tourism and maybe they can dig themselves out of debt on the proceeds?
"Either that, or buy an assault rifle and start a revolution -- seriously, this shit's gotta stop!"
I've often said that the only reason I would consider going to the USA would be to help in the next revolution. Unfortunately that wouldn't look so good on the visa application.
Just let me know when you are going to be starting... I'll bring my copy of 'Toward a Citizens Militia'.
And we keep trying to tell Daniel "Nothing of the host survives!"
Maybe he will listen when a 3 meter long goa'uld snakes out of his former lovers carcase leaving an empty husk behind (like with these grasshoppers).
O'Neil: "See, Daniel? *Nothing* of the host survives! Give it up you self-righteous little twerp!"
Teal'c: "Indeed"
"Is Microsoft really nothing more than a wanking session for two really pathetic men?"
Shit, that would apply to virtually all corporations, most governments (including the democratic ones and especially ones where there are effectively only two parties) and all military organisations above squad level. Did I miss anything?
What will be really interesting will be when its exposed to actual natural languages as used by actual, normal, human beings (as opposed to pedants and linguists).
Many english speakers (and writers) appear to actively avoid using the actual *official* rules of english grammar (and I'm sure this is true or other languages and their native speakers too).
I've always assumed that natural language comprehension (as it happens in the human brain) is mostly massively parallel guesswork based on context since (having worked with non-native speakers whose english is *appaling* and yet who I manage to understand pretty well most of the time).
Presumably, this 'gadget' will barf if there really are no rules in such natural language usage...
Or will it just 'pretend' that it found rules? (which is what I imagine that linguists like Chomsky do).
(I don't think I count as a 'linguist' but I did it to stage 3 at university).
this is true hence I did phrase my initial comment a little carefuly.
If you have a client who is supposed to be making a couple grand an hour off of a system you build for them -- which they pay you big bucks to build and maintain for them -- and your resident passionate-about-technology geek thinks 'oh shiny new technology, must convince client to buy it so I can play with it' thats every bit as bad as a pointy haired boss deciding which database server to get 'because the purple ones have more RAM'.
Thats what I'm getting at.
Floodplains are great to have within your city radius, sure.
What I was *actually* trying to get around was the 'too many cities' bug/feature where the game can only cope with something like 500-odd cities.
So I disabled cities on jungle, floodplain, swamp, desert and tundra.
I like playing on an enormous, custom Earth map against lots and lots of computer civs.
Also, in Ancient Egypt (IIRC from my classical studies days) cities were not actually built *on* the Nile floodplain. There were villages on the floodplain, but these were built on artificial raised mounds (which still exist and still have villages on them, though it doesn't flood any more due to the dam).
In my experience, problems with production systems in the wee small hours are due to overenthusiastic deployment of software and systems that are inadequately tested.
*overenthusiastic*
"what can be done to prevent and/or lessen such disasters in the future?"
Well what I do in Civ3 is to disallow building cities on floodplains and swamps. Helps heaps.
"the passionate people are more than happy to be waken up at 3am if something has gone wrong"
And they are usually the people who cause the problem in the first place.
When you work with sensitive systems they should *not* go wrong at 3am.
It should never be a *happy time* to get up at 3am to fix something. You should get mad as hell, fix it then make sure that it doesn't break again.
If you are *happy* to get up at 3am to fix it, you have less incentive to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Eager Beavers typically cause more problems than they fix.
"Or becoming a hacker because I wanted to meet Sandra Bullock. Man, what a time-waster this has turned out to be."
Which reminds me of that recent movie poster of her... I could have sworn that Sandra had cleavage. What, did they airbrush it out or was I imagining things in the first place?
"That's probably one of my bigger pet peeves. People in technology jobs who are not passionate about technology."
One of my pet peeves is people who work in technology jobs who are passionate about technology to the point where they will convince a client to go for the latest, most bleeding-edge technologies for their most critical, sensitive, 'must never go down' applications.
I prefer a cautious approach when it involves getting woken up at 3am on a regular basis because some *geek* decided to use something that had never been properly tested, had only just been released, that noone else in the company has ever used, for some production system... thats when I get that murderous blood-rage for people who are 'passionate about technology'.
Yeah sure.
But when you have a doobie, brother, things spin every whichway!
Light it up and smoke it, *then* watch the record spin.
and compare the womens and the mens ads.
Do I need say any more?
Ok you insisted, in two words:
'dick pics'
At least a guy has two heads to think with. Trouble is its usually the smaller of the two that prevails.
"would suggest this took place outside of US Bankruptcy jursidiction."
;)
There are places in the world outside of US jurisdiction??
My God, man!
Surely Congress is acting to repair this legal loophole as we speak? (except for handy places to keep out of US jurisdiction, like Gitmo, for example).
Ouch, troll or what?