You know, I've been wishing for something like this for a long time. I get bored out of my mind on traditional aerobic exercise equipment, and especially on days with crappy weather, I have no choice for getting a good aerobic workout indoors (except the obvious, uh...alternative, which is difficult when my fiance is several thousand miles away). For the same reason I enjoy playing DDR [konami.co.jp] and Konami's excellent Mocap Boxing [konami.co.uk] game. I play DDR at home as a workout alternative to treadmills, but Mocap Boxing is too expensive to do every day, but I still go play 5-6 games every once in a while. That game makes my arms really tired, but it's a great workout and really fun.
Heh...I just made a post like this in a different thread. Konami has made attempts at the video game/exercise crossover, but not with DDR. They've done traditional "treadmill games" as have been available for quite some time. I honestly think DDR is a very serious cultural entry in video games, bringing in the competetive spirit of fighting games, dance culture, and a kickass workout. I bike and lift weights, too, but the DDR is a more intense workout and is the only workout that I enjoy and will virtually never slack off on.
BTW, if Mocap Boxing makes your arms tired, you need to punch less with your arms. I find I have much better endurance at it when I don't just jab (which uses mostly arms) but add in hooks, crosses, and uppercuts, which use your back muscles more extensively. My arms are much less tired then, my shoulders and back get a workout, and because I use the larger muscle groups there, the workout is more cardiovascular.
Anyway, I gotta say- Konami's on their game (no pun intended) with their non-standard interface stuff. It's a pity they haven't capitalized on it as far as they could.
Konami has had something like that out for a while, and this goes back even further to when NordicTrack offered an interface from your NordicTrack to your computer to play a game by skiing on the thing and playing with controllers on the handles.
The problem I've seen in the past is that, in order to encourage pedalling/skiing/etc, the game invariably is a game where you make a character go faster or slower based on your exercise pattern. You know something? If I'm running in a hamster wheel, I don't want to see how my work is aiding a fictional character who is likewise running. I'm trying to ignore the drudgery of my workout, not be reminded of it! I'd rather watch the TV in the gym or read. At least then my mind is elsewhere.
Honestly, I'm amazed Konami hasn't leveraged its Dance Dance Revolution product line for gym use. Dance Dance Revolution is, thus far, the only video game I play where I get a workout and enjoy doing it. I could imagine that Konami could sell conversion kits for the aerobics rooms in gyms that would allow people to have an experience similar to DDR. There's such a strong culture built around that game series that I would think it'd be ripe for spinoffs in markets other than the pure video game market.
Technically, showing the OT-III materials from the Fishman Affadavit isn't the act of a cultist. The Co$ actively attacks people who promote the dissemination of those materials.
If you're going to be an ass, be informed.
I think it has to do with observing your thinking processes, really. I interviewed with MS. For the record, I was asked the "weighted ball" question and did get it right, but I don't think they're looking for you to sit in silence and spit out the correct answer. I was encouraged to verbally noodle everything out because they told me they wanted to "hear how I think."
Honestly, if I as an undergrad with little formal physics training can answer what is really a "how do you find the non-obvious odd-man-out of a group given the ability to only equate groups" puzzle noodling it out verbally, then I don't see where the big deal is. Really, the test is in the non-lateral thinking that, for your second weighing, you can remove half of the quantity from each end of the balence.
For the record, I blew another puzzle involving figuring out which switch lights which lightbulb in a panel of three consecutive lightbulbs when I cannot see the lightbulbs without shutting off the lights first. It might have had some effects on my not getting the job, though I think what most likely did it was my discovery that I was interviewing for what was essentially telephone tech support (albeit to the big customers of MS) and, in anger, being honest with them about my opinion of Microsoft products.
Two comics I have enjoyed, though their distribution might be limited, are Hopeless Savages and Gloom Cookie. Neither has been violent or all that hard to read, though Gloom Cookie gets a bit spooky at times. My local comic book store has The Simpons comic books...surely that might work for your child, too.
Failing that, why not try manga? There are lots of choices in manga out there that have a low violence quotient and are aimed at children. Pokemon is available in manga format. In fact, you may have an easier time finding manga fitting your requirements, as manga tends to be, in my experience, available for a wider audience.
Oh, and many regular bookstores sell comic book formats of children's literature, literary classics, and The Bible. Don't forget about that option.
BTW, kudos on allowing your child to read comics. To quote an ad I once saw in a comic book...
"Attention Parents! This is a quick reminder that your children don't read television, but they do read comic books. In fact, comic books may be the only literature your children buy with their own money."
Marvel and DC are in the position of being more and more dependant on merchandising monies.
I think I recall hearing an interview on NPR where one of the muckety-mucks at Marvel said that they actually lose money on the comic books, but they use them to test the market. If a comic sells, they will hustle the merchandise and movie deals that actually make them money.
Don't forget Continuity Comics, too! Blaze of brief glory in the 80's, marginal success in converting "Bucky O'Hare" to cartoon format, and then a fade to obscurity.
I think that the music market is actually becoming increasingly independent, though. Part of the reason why is because there are now independent labels and redistributors who are creating enough unity in their base of artists to actually have some voice. I think some good examples of these are Projekt and Young God Records, both of which cater to goth, ambient, ethereal, industrial, and avant-garde artists. The Projekt model, AFAIK, is to provide marketing and redistribution aid to artists who work in their genres, whereas Young God is a more traditional label that provides aid in production as well as in distribution.
Point being, though, that Projekt CDs are easily available at most Borders stores and I've been able to find Young God products in Virgin Megastores, Borders, and other places. The tide is starting to turn somewhat in favor of indie labels; however, you may never see them in mass retail distribution because of the costs involved in retail store distribution in the music industry. Newsletters from Projekt spell it out- the reason they're not in more stores is because, generally, they rarely make money going that route (in fact, they tend to lose money per unit that way). The only function of selling through traditional retail venues for them is to get their foot in the door with consumers. The hope is that, once you have a CD by a Projekt artist, you'll like it enough to shop the website. Coincidentally, that's why the CDs from that label that are arguably the most available in stores are compilation CDs.
Honestly, I think the biggest reason for there being more diversity in comic books vs music has to do with the economics of the situation. I am not a comic book artist, so someone might be able to speak about the costs there, but I am a musician and I'm working on independently producing my first album. I expect that, by the time I'm ready to begin recording, I'll have already spent $2,500, not counting the cost of time from myself, my guitarist, my vocalist, or my instrumentalists, who are all volunteering for the love of the art. Granted, a lot of this money is inital outlays I won't have to make again, but there can be a serious barrier to entry in this respect. I'm lucky enough to have so many musicians around me who don't demand payment. I shudder to think at the financial hit many other indie artists take.
Assuming I get my work complete, distribution will be a perpetual uphill fight, and my best hope is to end up at an indie label with a good distribution model already in place. I'll never be able to count on sales in retail stores (except possibly deals I make locally). Most music stores are franchises or chains and have a formula for profitability. The costs of distribution through these channels are easy for major labels to accept, and if a band's got good placement already, there's a lower risk to the store and thus lower costs of using the store as a distribution channel. As an indie artist with comparatively little market presence, I'm a high risk and, as I don't have deep pockets, I probably won't be able to afford the costs stores will put on me. Labels with a good online model, though, care less. Their risk is mostly the cost of putting together a couple of webpages and having a copy or two of my CD on hand. Thus, indie music is more heavily sold online through genre-focused channels. This makes perfect sense, given the genre orientation music consumption tends to follow.
Again, I'm not nearly as savvy with comics, but I can safely say that I have never once in my life shopped at a franchised comic book store. I'm sure such a concept exists...I've just never seen it. Every comic book store I've ever been to was privately owned by a couple of local businessmen. Because of this, they have tended to not have formulas of success and the decision to carry an indie comic tends to be based more on the quality of the comic and the owner's feelings about the comic.
I'm not certain there are any good answers to those questions, which is why I feel it's not productive or honest to go about just assuming that human beings are these special self-aware beings with special "minds" operating on "deeper" principles and whatnot. Such notions should be proven, demonstrated, concluded, etc. They should not be assumed. Their continuing assumption in many Western systems of thought is, to me, just a holdover from Christianity and secularized Christian values.
Buck up there, RealMike. There might be a lot of people scoffing at your post, but I've found that a gaggle of engineers isn't always the best place to find people willing to ask deeper questions. "Proof proof proof, now now now, diagram diagram diagram" they mutter.
As an engineer, philosopher, occultist, and someone who's taken issue with RealMike, I sincerely resent this statement. I do think, however, that because I prefer rigor to things that "feel deep", many would assume I want proof now in diagram form.
The original point that we don't know what happens in the brain, we don't really understand consciousness -- that is certainly isn't getting a fair shake around here.
There may not be a universal model of consciousness, but thanks to the work of people like Daniel Dennett, reasonable modes of inquiry and discourse are forming. Regardless of that, though, I don't know that understanding the "nature" of consciousness is necessarily all that paramount.
We ARE self-aware.
This is where rigor comes in. It's not clear to me that humans are necessarily self-aware. It may be that humans perceive self-awareness, though, as an illusion of the intelligence their brains give them.
We spend 6-8 hours a night DREAMING.
Not all sleeping time is spent dreaming, so you're off unless "we" spend 10-12 hours a night asleep. I get a good 4-6 hours a night, myself...
Either way, that's not uniquely human. Dreaming seems to be pretty nominal for mammals and, from what I understand avians.
We can get measurably better taking PLACEBOS.
For certain symptoms in certain cases (especially pain control and minor injury), yes.
But the fact is that YOU exist, you have a brain which shapes your moods, shapes your perception, shapes your store of information... but it isn't YOU. That goes deeper than brain.
A lot of this is rather debatable, honestly. You're dogmatically setting up a consciousness/brain duality so that consciousness escapes the same demands of inquiry, which I consider to be a very serious pitfall on the road to understanding the human condition. DesCartes' duality of self still lingers unchecked in statements like yours, but it's still circular, evades the problem, and considered by many modern minds to be thoroughly problematic.
I'm all for going to a deeper level, but I say that a good reason is needed for it. A really good reason. Inventing "deeper levels" that evade standard modes of inquiry to enforce one's perceptions or dogma is not a good reason.
Sensory input only explains so much. There is still brain activity even in states of total sensory deprivation for instance.
Indeed. This is a guess based on limited knowledge (some readings of Dennet, random papers, etc, etc), but there's an excessive amount of processing going on. A popular neural memory model I've seen requires restimulation of different neural patterns to keep the connections fresh. I think this type of necessary restimulation goes a long way to understanding the random memories one suddenly remembers, as well as dreams and some kinds of abnormal psychology. That's total speculation on my behalf, but it fits what I know for now.
Well like I said, these tests were done in controlled conditions (or so this book said, obviously I wasn't there) and were reasonably repeatable with the same person.
I used to trust the term "controlled conditions", but I've seen the term massively abused by those needing to prove something. Many parapsychologists claim "controlled conditions" when you could drive a Mack truck through their holes. I'd need to read the protocol completely and see better repeatability before this would mean anything to me.
You aren't distinguishing between mind and brain. "Mind" is a higher level concept, of something that isn't necessarily rooted in the physical. "Brain" is the thing inside your skull.
I see nothing higher or lower about the terms. "Brain" is the third-person perspective. "Mind" is the first-person perspective. You experience your mind and its processes. Others do not and cannot, and can only study your brain and its activities and ask for your testamonials about your mind.
If brains drive bodies, what drives the brains? Sensory input doesn't explain it all.
Brains drive themselves. Parts of the brain regulate overall activities for other parts. Patterns of behavior form as a result of memory and learned inference rules, which themselves are memories.
Yet science has not (to my knowledge) always explained what causes those neurons to fire, has it? Sure, neurons fire because other neurons connected to them fire... that only goes so far.
Yep, and it goes as far as your sensory input. If you look at the development of neural systems in organisms, you can see the growth from simple neural nets in hydras up to complex information processors in humans. The engineering drive is the same- process input data and control the body. Neurons fire because they're connected to other firing neurons and because they have rules about upon which inputs they send their output. Where does the first input come from? Well, from stimulation of the retinas or the ear canal or the skin or any place where there's a nerve ending. These are organs designed to send an electrical charge on their "bus" back to nerve clusters in the spinal cord and brain for processing.
One of the things that I've found most fascinating is the theory that the mind can influence things at the subatomic level. During the 60s/70s, the USSR did some experiments with people who rumour said had strong psychokinetic abilities (ESP). Now, the Ruskies were into all kinds of bizarre things, they researched things that Western science wrote off as ridiculous.
On the contrary, the US dumped millions of dollars into researching remove viewing as a means of gathering covert data. The "experiments" and "projects" were failures, just as the Soviet ones were.
Anyway, they found some pretty interesting things. Like, they didn't find anybody that could move objects with their mind, or anything like that. But, they did find a few who could apparently alter the rate of nuclear decay. As you're probably aware (you read slashdot after all), subatomic decay is essentially random according to todays science. What they found was that these "psychics" could, in controlled conditions, speed up or slow down a number of a screen that measured decay. I can't recall if they were told what the number meant or not, but they could seemingly control the process at will.
I recall hearing somewhere that anyone could achieve results similar to this test without any effort at all. Systems on the edge of chaos are funny- one butterfly beats its wings, and the resulting probabilities collapse differently. IIRC, though, these tests have very poor reliability and don't amount to much.
Interesting. Could the mind impose itself onto low level randomness? If so, that could be the missing link between mind and body.
They found that link a very long time ago. It runs down your back in a bone sheath.
If mind can affect quantum probabilities, and our brains are in a state of quantum instability.... aah. You have mind controlling body. Such a thing would answer many questions.
Again, this doesn't take quantum hoodoo to explain. Brains are built to control bodies. They communicate through a bus of several major nerves that service the major sensory organs and muscles (read: I/O devices) of the body.
Of course, if there's no free will, then there's precious little to be thrown off of.
Of course, the soul is not requisite for free will, depending on your concept of "free will", but to go further is inviting a semantics argument that I really am not interested in.
Hrm. Mine apologies. I must be going on old data, since I could have sowrn I read something on their site about refusing to deal with WinForms and how even.NET developers hated the API. I could have drank from the wrong Kool-Aid bowl today.
Of course, that was going on a reading from several weeks back...things might have changed in that time.
So, you have to differentiate between a baseline CLR environment, and the actual programming APIs that would be used to build on top of this..NET is not the CLR...NET is the CLR, APIs, Libraries, and so forth.. therefore only a small part of the environment is open.
Agreed. MS is hiding several parts of.NET, providing an open standard only for a handful of low level components. I have ECMA standard 335 (or is it 355), the standard for CLI and CLR, and it really doesn't cover much at all.
It certainly doesn't cover WinForms, so good luck seeing portability for GUI applications written in VS.NET!
Open standards are nice, but played the right way, are bullocks. In this case, Microsoft has decided to include all sorts of references and links to non-standard APIs and libraries, and they are under no obligation to release them. I have reason to suspect, too, that a third party who replicates the behavior of something like WinForms in their own.NET implementation (without MS permission) would find themselves on the business end of charges of reverse-engineering.
Of course, this can make for a delicious "Tower of Babel" situation as other parties (Mono, etc) start creating their own APIs to fill in the gap between the ECMA standard and what's needed to get things done. The only difference is that the Mono libraries for their APIs will probably be available for a Windows port (if they're not 100% MSIL code already), whereas MS' APIs won't be.
Ever heard of Mono? Ever heard of Apache.Net? You need to do some more homework....MS only implemented.Net on their platform, but other groups are doing so on other platforms.
A CIL interpreter does not a.NET environment make. It's the APIs that are considered "common" and are shipped with MS.NET that are also relevent. Mono doesn't support WinForms, for example. Does Apache.Net? Since WinForms is the de facto GUI kit for MS.NET programs, good luck trying to get it to run on Mono. Last I checked, Mono was refusing to implement WinForms. Thus, Mono is refusing to have seamless portability from MS.NET for all applications.
Hrmm...some thoughts and questions.
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AI in Sci-Fi
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All italicized text comes from the source article.
A possible obstacle to an AI achieving superior, comprehensive awareness is Gödel's incompleteness theorem--namely, that no formal system can prove its own consistency. An AI computes at enormous speed but simply cannot possess complete awareness of itself.
Infinite regress could definitely ensure if an AI was out to model its own processes, as the process of the model would have to be modelled, etc...but can one compare consciousness with a formal axoimatic system? I see people abuse Godel all the time...is this genuinely a valid use here?
Conscious awareness lags behind what happens. You jerk your hand away from a hot surface before you consciously feel the pain. However, we do not realize this because of what Libet called subjective antedating. The brain puts events in order after the event. "I feel that I consciously did such and such," but tests prove otherwise.
I hear this, and maybe it's true, but I remain relatively unsure of exactly what's meant when people say this. Granted I'm not a neurologist, but I seem to recall reading that, when you place your hand on a hot stove, your spinal cord sends the signal to pull away before the pain signal reaches the brain, but my own experience doesn't reorder this. My reactions to pain, in my subjective order of events, *always* come before I recognize the pain.
But, on a much broader point, I can understand the idea of "preparatory neurological activity" for a specific activity. This makes perfect sense. But doesn't the conscious choice to act actually trigger the activity? In other words, all of the "readying" is tossed out if the choice isn't made, right? Then why is it logical or productive to say that the action starts before the decision? I'm not getting this, I guess, which is why I'm not a neurologist or psychologist. Isn't this like suggesting that, because certain runtime preparations go on before a program's jump to main, that main really isn't the beginning of the program. This just seems like a very vacuous point.
He was wrong. People have sought in vain for the seat of the self. Is it in the frontal lobes? Is it in the pineal gland? In fact, it is nowhere. No independent, sovereign self sits somewhere, receiving sense impressions, making decisions, and issuing commands. Instead of having any central controller, our brain consists of a number of systems, each of them semi-independent and semi-intelligent, acting in unison. Daniel Dennett puts this viewpoint very neatly in his 1991 book Consciousness Explained.
I've read this book, and a lot of it's good, but wasn't there also something in New Scientist showing that a "center of identity" responsible for processing concepts of "self" and of "identity" had been found. Did this dissipate?
Before I proceed, I think I might say that I think both of us are taking the other a little too far- I took you too far in thinking you believed more SF belonged in this "good stuff" pile than any sapient creature would allow, and you have taken me too far in thinking that I believe there is nothing new under the sun.;)
Take classical music, for instance. There was no doubt a LOT of junk when it was current. But what survived is part of the cream of that crop: Bach, for instance.
Admittedly, classical music to me is just that stuff that NPR plays too much of that I mostly ignore. Are you speaking from fact here or speculation? I'm too ignorant about classical music to know. It was my understanding that the class of musical production we call "classical" was tightly controlled in European schools and only a handful of masters for each generation actually rose to the top. The rest didn't produce at all. I could be completely wrong, so if you know better, feel free to correct me.
But "the good stuff" in SF is precicely the stuff that meets the original criterion of this thread's base article: "fiction as a way of talking about 'the real world.'". That's what classic SF IS, and HAS BEEN since at least Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.
Interestingly, a casual scan of the great literary works of history in my mind suggest that all good literature is a way of talking about 'the real world.' Most, if not all, of the critically acclaimed works, deal with the human experience through a fictional device. SF happens to use devices rooted in technology. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but it seems to hold very well.
And "fiction as a way of talking about the 'real world'" didn't start with SF. It's just that SF is now the specialized fictional form optimized specifically for that purpose.
It is well specialized for that, as is historical fictions that pursue the present-day reprocussions of a historical event unfolding a different way.
If Frankenstein were written today it would be shelved with the SF, and no arguments (except maybe whether it should be in the "fantasy" subseection B-) ).
Dr. Frankenstein animated the moster through means that had the aesthetic of science, thus it'd prolly not appear under "fantasy." Actually, to digress for a moment, I have never understood the reason why fantasy and SF don't have their own separate sections in a bookstore. Maybe I'm dumb, but I see as much of a similarity between a Xanth novel and 2001 as I do between 2001 and Tom Clancy's latest claptrap. Why not throw Clancy in there, too? Is there some sort of tradition of putting the swords and sorcery in with the SF?
Anyway...it has been a nice exchange, and I'm sorry I took you a little too far at first. Honestly, though...didn't you mention something about an "art school" hegemony that marginalizes non-conformist literature? Information you have about that would be beneficial to me.
Ahem...I think it's worth pointing out that what you say is true for only some SF literature. Truly, a lot of the works from Gibson, Stephenson, Herbert, Clarke, etc. have been the kinds of work that have shaped minds, but the works of these writers exist surrounded by a deluge of SF adventure tripe. To paraphrase the forward of an HP Lovecraft anthology I own, it's as if, at some point, all the pulp western writers started replacing Lazy X Ranch with Planet X...six-shooters with laser pistols. I shy away from the majority of the SF selections at any bookstore because they're just hollow adventure tales.
I think it's wiser to look at the greats of SF the way one would look at the greats of any other literary mode. SF or not, I think the moral rallying power is universal across quality literature.
The lessons are, in many ways, universal. Indeed, there are strong motif types running through SF that can connect to early human myths and non-SF literature. Consider a bog-standard SF story about thinking machines that go amok. This well connects back to Frankenstein, which, depending on one's perspective, may or may not be SF, and also connects back to early myths about golems.
What it may be is that SF is really the new wrapper for old tale types. We live in an age of technology rather than gods and magic, and so the tales are now told with technology. In the end, the thematic messages are the same.
As for some sort of "art school" establishment telling people to fall in line, I'd be curious to see you make all of classic literature fall under this heading. Literature is far too varied to be painted with a brush that broad.
This administration has some of finest strategic minds in country. Bush may be unreliable, but Colin Powell's integrity is unquestioned. even as a general, he was extremely conservative and patient. he refused to make hasty decisions on unreliable or unconfirmed information, and I can't imagine that his nature has changed since then. I think we have to have some amount of faith that the US is in possession of still-classified information that Saddam definitely has something up his sleeve.
You know something? Of everyone in that administration, it's Powell that I trust above the others (though that really doesn't say much), and I did see the snippets of his presentation to the UN, and he did sound very convinced of his case. A coworker also told me that he had a bit of a dissenting voice prior to this "war is inevitable" rhetoric, and has since been very quiet. This leads me to conclude that a conversation between him and Bush with the phrase "I hired you; I can fire you" was used.
Then again, I recall it requiring Bush doing a lot of cajoling to get Powell to work for him in the first place.
...and count up from them. This is much like the NASA timing system for launches. All launches are slated to occur at T-Time, hence the notation of "T-minus ten" for the countdown of a shuttle launch. Events like SRB separation happen at "T-plus" something.
Likewise, at "M-Minute minus ten", it might be a good time for everyone to say their final prayers, and at "M-Minute plus ten", it'd be a good time to start calling for the medics.
Science is perfectly capable of answering "why" questions. Granted, the answers that it provides are necessarily incomplete, pointing to deeper questions, but an incomplete answer is still an answer. There are NO complete answers to ANY question, inside or outside the realm of science.
This may depend on what one is looking for in a "why" question. My interpretation of the original post stating that science doesn't address "why" questions is that science cannot answer the "why" in a more existential sense. Scientific models certainly explain why two billiard balls have the trajectories they do after they collide, but this can be seen as a "how" question...as in "How do these billiard balls interact when they collide?"
In my (most likely deluded) opinion, a critical shift in science came when scientists stopped trying to ascribe reasons and meanings to the events of the natural world and instead studied their mechanics. The world Aristotle gave the West was based on the need to seek meaning and purpose behind the natural world, and it was well surpassed when scientists left his mode of inquiry for a more dispassionate study of the mechanics things.
So, I think this is mostly an argument where semantics severely get in the way. IMHO, science models action, not meaning, which is what is meant by "how, not why".
Strangely enough, a lot of people like that wind up really good at games, because it's just something they find themselves in front of long enough to excel at. I think that's kind of the point of the parent poster. If instead of saying, "fuck it, I'll go play EQ" they said, "I'll spend an hour on my guitar tonight, and an hour writing, and an hour beating off" they are quite likely to eventually find themselves very good at guitar and writing. You can't help but improve if you do something enough.
I definitely understand where you're coming from with this, but I think you imply a bit of a dichotomy here where you're either playing games all of the time or you're "being productive" all of the time. Really, I think there's a better balance to be struck. I work an 8-hour day and have a 2-hour commute. At home, I'm either working on material for an album I'm writing with my guitarist (who lives in Boston...I live in Tampa) and/or trying to get together the resources needed so we can record and mix the thing or I'm working on one of a myriad of programming projects that I'm making myself do alone for the educational purposes. I'm also reading the textbooks for my first semester of graduate school now so that I'll know the material in advance. My girlfriend, with whom I live, is likewise quite active.
I think that, after you reach a certain point of "doing stuff", some of that stuff ought to be of the kind that, rather than seeming like a mental task to do (like, say, learning about compiler design), is a bit of a mental vacation. At least, this is true for me. If I don't, then I get burned out, and all of my projects suffer. I have a copy of Ghost Recon I enjoy, but the amount of time it takes to complete missions is prohibitive for me to get a good mental vacation of it in my free time. On top of that, I spend so much time in front of a glowing screen already that getting away from the computer is refreshing to me.
In a way, games with a less than standard notion of time are actually boons to people who try to stay as busy as possible. My girlfriend and I often comment on how we'd enjoy using a little free time to play an RPG, but that neither paper-and-dice nor LARP roleplaying offerings we've seen haven't seemed like much fun, nor do we have the kind of schedule to get with other people at the same time every week to play. A game that leaves room for us to play at times best fit for us and that's mentally engaging, and more immersive than your standard RPG is exactly what we want.
Coincidentally, we both played "Killer" in our undergraduate years. Same reasons- we were busy, so a game that is played "at all times" fitted our schedules better; the game was challenging in ways far removed from our work; and there was a feeling of immersion that was pleasant.
Slashdot Mirror
NordicTrack offered this for their cross-country ski machines years before that website went up.
Heh...I just made a post like this in a different thread. Konami has made attempts at the video game/exercise crossover, but not with DDR. They've done traditional "treadmill games" as have been available for quite some time. I honestly think DDR is a very serious cultural entry in video games, bringing in the competetive spirit of fighting games, dance culture, and a kickass workout. I bike and lift weights, too, but the DDR is a more intense workout and is the only workout that I enjoy and will virtually never slack off on.
BTW, if Mocap Boxing makes your arms tired, you need to punch less with your arms. I find I have much better endurance at it when I don't just jab (which uses mostly arms) but add in hooks, crosses, and uppercuts, which use your back muscles more extensively. My arms are much less tired then, my shoulders and back get a workout, and because I use the larger muscle groups there, the workout is more cardiovascular.
Anyway, I gotta say- Konami's on their game (no pun intended) with their non-standard interface stuff. It's a pity they haven't capitalized on it as far as they could.
The problem I've seen in the past is that, in order to encourage pedalling/skiing/etc, the game invariably is a game where you make a character go faster or slower based on your exercise pattern. You know something? If I'm running in a hamster wheel, I don't want to see how my work is aiding a fictional character who is likewise running. I'm trying to ignore the drudgery of my workout, not be reminded of it! I'd rather watch the TV in the gym or read. At least then my mind is elsewhere.
Honestly, I'm amazed Konami hasn't leveraged its Dance Dance Revolution product line for gym use. Dance Dance Revolution is, thus far, the only video game I play where I get a workout and enjoy doing it. I could imagine that Konami could sell conversion kits for the aerobics rooms in gyms that would allow people to have an experience similar to DDR. There's such a strong culture built around that game series that I would think it'd be ripe for spinoffs in markets other than the pure video game market.
Technically, showing the OT-III materials from the Fishman Affadavit isn't the act of a cultist. The Co$ actively attacks people who promote the dissemination of those materials. If you're going to be an ass, be informed.
Honestly, if I as an undergrad with little formal physics training can answer what is really a "how do you find the non-obvious odd-man-out of a group given the ability to only equate groups" puzzle noodling it out verbally, then I don't see where the big deal is. Really, the test is in the non-lateral thinking that, for your second weighing, you can remove half of the quantity from each end of the balence.
For the record, I blew another puzzle involving figuring out which switch lights which lightbulb in a panel of three consecutive lightbulbs when I cannot see the lightbulbs without shutting off the lights first. It might have had some effects on my not getting the job, though I think what most likely did it was my discovery that I was interviewing for what was essentially telephone tech support (albeit to the big customers of MS) and, in anger, being honest with them about my opinion of Microsoft products.
Failing that, why not try manga? There are lots of choices in manga out there that have a low violence quotient and are aimed at children. Pokemon is available in manga format. In fact, you may have an easier time finding manga fitting your requirements, as manga tends to be, in my experience, available for a wider audience.
Oh, and many regular bookstores sell comic book formats of children's literature, literary classics, and The Bible. Don't forget about that option.
BTW, kudos on allowing your child to read comics. To quote an ad I once saw in a comic book...
"Attention Parents! This is a quick reminder that your children don't read television, but they do read comic books. In fact, comic books may be the only literature your children buy with their own money."
I think I recall hearing an interview on NPR where one of the muckety-mucks at Marvel said that they actually lose money on the comic books, but they use them to test the market. If a comic sells, they will hustle the merchandise and movie deals that actually make them money.
I kinda miss Continuity Comics.
Point being, though, that Projekt CDs are easily available at most Borders stores and I've been able to find Young God products in Virgin Megastores, Borders, and other places. The tide is starting to turn somewhat in favor of indie labels; however, you may never see them in mass retail distribution because of the costs involved in retail store distribution in the music industry. Newsletters from Projekt spell it out- the reason they're not in more stores is because, generally, they rarely make money going that route (in fact, they tend to lose money per unit that way). The only function of selling through traditional retail venues for them is to get their foot in the door with consumers. The hope is that, once you have a CD by a Projekt artist, you'll like it enough to shop the website. Coincidentally, that's why the CDs from that label that are arguably the most available in stores are compilation CDs.
Honestly, I think the biggest reason for there being more diversity in comic books vs music has to do with the economics of the situation. I am not a comic book artist, so someone might be able to speak about the costs there, but I am a musician and I'm working on independently producing my first album. I expect that, by the time I'm ready to begin recording, I'll have already spent $2,500, not counting the cost of time from myself, my guitarist, my vocalist, or my instrumentalists, who are all volunteering for the love of the art. Granted, a lot of this money is inital outlays I won't have to make again, but there can be a serious barrier to entry in this respect. I'm lucky enough to have so many musicians around me who don't demand payment. I shudder to think at the financial hit many other indie artists take.
Assuming I get my work complete, distribution will be a perpetual uphill fight, and my best hope is to end up at an indie label with a good distribution model already in place. I'll never be able to count on sales in retail stores (except possibly deals I make locally). Most music stores are franchises or chains and have a formula for profitability. The costs of distribution through these channels are easy for major labels to accept, and if a band's got good placement already, there's a lower risk to the store and thus lower costs of using the store as a distribution channel. As an indie artist with comparatively little market presence, I'm a high risk and, as I don't have deep pockets, I probably won't be able to afford the costs stores will put on me. Labels with a good online model, though, care less. Their risk is mostly the cost of putting together a couple of webpages and having a copy or two of my CD on hand. Thus, indie music is more heavily sold online through genre-focused channels. This makes perfect sense, given the genre orientation music consumption tends to follow.
Again, I'm not nearly as savvy with comics, but I can safely say that I have never once in my life shopped at a franchised comic book store. I'm sure such a concept exists...I've just never seen it. Every comic book store I've ever been to was privately owned by a couple of local businessmen. Because of this, they have tended to not have formulas of success and the decision to carry an indie comic tends to be based more on the quality of the comic and the owner's feelings about the comic.
I'm not certain there are any good answers to those questions, which is why I feel it's not productive or honest to go about just assuming that human beings are these special self-aware beings with special "minds" operating on "deeper" principles and whatnot. Such notions should be proven, demonstrated, concluded, etc. They should not be assumed. Their continuing assumption in many Western systems of thought is, to me, just a holdover from Christianity and secularized Christian values.
You forgot... 3) Rely on people overlooking this problematic construct because it jibes with everyday experience and "common sense". 4) ??? 5) Profit!
As an engineer, philosopher, occultist, and someone who's taken issue with RealMike, I sincerely resent this statement. I do think, however, that because I prefer rigor to things that "feel deep", many would assume I want proof now in diagram form.
The original point that we don't know what happens in the brain, we don't really understand consciousness -- that is certainly isn't getting a fair shake around here.
There may not be a universal model of consciousness, but thanks to the work of people like Daniel Dennett, reasonable modes of inquiry and discourse are forming. Regardless of that, though, I don't know that understanding the "nature" of consciousness is necessarily all that paramount.
We ARE self-aware.
This is where rigor comes in. It's not clear to me that humans are necessarily self-aware. It may be that humans perceive self-awareness, though, as an illusion of the intelligence their brains give them.
We spend 6-8 hours a night DREAMING.
Not all sleeping time is spent dreaming, so you're off unless "we" spend 10-12 hours a night asleep. I get a good 4-6 hours a night, myself...
Either way, that's not uniquely human. Dreaming seems to be pretty nominal for mammals and, from what I understand avians.
We can get measurably better taking PLACEBOS.
For certain symptoms in certain cases (especially pain control and minor injury), yes.
But the fact is that YOU exist, you have a brain which shapes your moods, shapes your perception, shapes your store of information ... but it isn't YOU. That goes deeper than brain.
A lot of this is rather debatable, honestly. You're dogmatically setting up a consciousness/brain duality so that consciousness escapes the same demands of inquiry, which I consider to be a very serious pitfall on the road to understanding the human condition. DesCartes' duality of self still lingers unchecked in statements like yours, but it's still circular, evades the problem, and considered by many modern minds to be thoroughly problematic.
I'm all for going to a deeper level, but I say that a good reason is needed for it. A really good reason. Inventing "deeper levels" that evade standard modes of inquiry to enforce one's perceptions or dogma is not a good reason.
Indeed. This is a guess based on limited knowledge (some readings of Dennet, random papers, etc, etc), but there's an excessive amount of processing going on. A popular neural memory model I've seen requires restimulation of different neural patterns to keep the connections fresh. I think this type of necessary restimulation goes a long way to understanding the random memories one suddenly remembers, as well as dreams and some kinds of abnormal psychology. That's total speculation on my behalf, but it fits what I know for now.
Well like I said, these tests were done in controlled conditions (or so this book said, obviously I wasn't there) and were reasonably repeatable with the same person.
I used to trust the term "controlled conditions", but I've seen the term massively abused by those needing to prove something. Many parapsychologists claim "controlled conditions" when you could drive a Mack truck through their holes. I'd need to read the protocol completely and see better repeatability before this would mean anything to me.
You aren't distinguishing between mind and brain. "Mind" is a higher level concept, of something that isn't necessarily rooted in the physical. "Brain" is the thing inside your skull.
I see nothing higher or lower about the terms. "Brain" is the third-person perspective. "Mind" is the first-person perspective. You experience your mind and its processes. Others do not and cannot, and can only study your brain and its activities and ask for your testamonials about your mind.
If brains drive bodies, what drives the brains? Sensory input doesn't explain it all.
Brains drive themselves. Parts of the brain regulate overall activities for other parts. Patterns of behavior form as a result of memory and learned inference rules, which themselves are memories.
Yep, and it goes as far as your sensory input. If you look at the development of neural systems in organisms, you can see the growth from simple neural nets in hydras up to complex information processors in humans. The engineering drive is the same- process input data and control the body. Neurons fire because they're connected to other firing neurons and because they have rules about upon which inputs they send their output. Where does the first input come from? Well, from stimulation of the retinas or the ear canal or the skin or any place where there's a nerve ending. These are organs designed to send an electrical charge on their "bus" back to nerve clusters in the spinal cord and brain for processing.
One of the things that I've found most fascinating is the theory that the mind can influence things at the subatomic level. During the 60s/70s, the USSR did some experiments with people who rumour said had strong psychokinetic abilities (ESP). Now, the Ruskies were into all kinds of bizarre things, they researched things that Western science wrote off as ridiculous.
On the contrary, the US dumped millions of dollars into researching remove viewing as a means of gathering covert data. The "experiments" and "projects" were failures, just as the Soviet ones were.
Anyway, they found some pretty interesting things. Like, they didn't find anybody that could move objects with their mind, or anything like that. But, they did find a few who could apparently alter the rate of nuclear decay. As you're probably aware (you read slashdot after all), subatomic decay is essentially random according to todays science. What they found was that these "psychics" could, in controlled conditions, speed up or slow down a number of a screen that measured decay. I can't recall if they were told what the number meant or not, but they could seemingly control the process at will.
I recall hearing somewhere that anyone could achieve results similar to this test without any effort at all. Systems on the edge of chaos are funny- one butterfly beats its wings, and the resulting probabilities collapse differently. IIRC, though, these tests have very poor reliability and don't amount to much.
Interesting. Could the mind impose itself onto low level randomness? If so, that could be the missing link between mind and body.
They found that link a very long time ago. It runs down your back in a bone sheath.
If mind can affect quantum probabilities, and our brains are in a state of quantum instability .... aah. You have mind controlling body. Such a thing would answer many questions.
Again, this doesn't take quantum hoodoo to explain. Brains are built to control bodies. They communicate through a bus of several major nerves that service the major sensory organs and muscles (read: I/O devices) of the body.
Of course, the soul is not requisite for free will, depending on your concept of "free will", but to go further is inviting a semantics argument that I really am not interested in.
Of course, that was going on a reading from several weeks back...things might have changed in that time.
Agreed. MS is hiding several parts of .NET, providing an open standard only for a handful of low level components. I have ECMA standard 335 (or is it 355), the standard for CLI and CLR, and it really doesn't cover much at all.
It certainly doesn't cover WinForms, so good luck seeing portability for GUI applications written in VS.NET!
Open standards are nice, but played the right way, are bullocks. In this case, Microsoft has decided to include all sorts of references and links to non-standard APIs and libraries, and they are under no obligation to release them. I have reason to suspect, too, that a third party who replicates the behavior of something like WinForms in their own .NET implementation (without MS permission) would find themselves on the business end of charges of reverse-engineering.
Of course, this can make for a delicious "Tower of Babel" situation as other parties (Mono, etc) start creating their own APIs to fill in the gap between the ECMA standard and what's needed to get things done. The only difference is that the Mono libraries for their APIs will probably be available for a Windows port (if they're not 100% MSIL code already), whereas MS' APIs won't be.
A CIL interpreter does not a .NET environment make. It's the APIs that are considered "common" and are shipped with MS .NET that are also relevent. Mono doesn't support WinForms, for example. Does Apache.Net? Since WinForms is the de facto GUI kit for MS .NET programs, good luck trying to get it to run on Mono. Last I checked, Mono was refusing to implement WinForms. Thus, Mono is refusing to have seamless portability from MS .NET for all applications.
A possible obstacle to an AI achieving superior, comprehensive awareness is Gödel's incompleteness theorem--namely, that no formal system can prove its own consistency. An AI computes at enormous speed but simply cannot possess complete awareness of itself.
Infinite regress could definitely ensure if an AI was out to model its own processes, as the process of the model would have to be modelled, etc...but can one compare consciousness with a formal axoimatic system? I see people abuse Godel all the time...is this genuinely a valid use here?
Conscious awareness lags behind what happens. You jerk your hand away from a hot surface before you consciously feel the pain. However, we do not realize this because of what Libet called subjective antedating. The brain puts events in order after the event. "I feel that I consciously did such and such," but tests prove otherwise.
I hear this, and maybe it's true, but I remain relatively unsure of exactly what's meant when people say this. Granted I'm not a neurologist, but I seem to recall reading that, when you place your hand on a hot stove, your spinal cord sends the signal to pull away before the pain signal reaches the brain, but my own experience doesn't reorder this. My reactions to pain, in my subjective order of events, *always* come before I recognize the pain.
But, on a much broader point, I can understand the idea of "preparatory neurological activity" for a specific activity. This makes perfect sense. But doesn't the conscious choice to act actually trigger the activity? In other words, all of the "readying" is tossed out if the choice isn't made, right? Then why is it logical or productive to say that the action starts before the decision? I'm not getting this, I guess, which is why I'm not a neurologist or psychologist. Isn't this like suggesting that, because certain runtime preparations go on before a program's jump to main, that main really isn't the beginning of the program. This just seems like a very vacuous point.
He was wrong. People have sought in vain for the seat of the self. Is it in the frontal lobes? Is it in the pineal gland? In fact, it is nowhere. No independent, sovereign self sits somewhere, receiving sense impressions, making decisions, and issuing commands. Instead of having any central controller, our brain consists of a number of systems, each of them semi-independent and semi-intelligent, acting in unison. Daniel Dennett puts this viewpoint very neatly in his 1991 book Consciousness Explained.
I've read this book, and a lot of it's good, but wasn't there also something in New Scientist showing that a "center of identity" responsible for processing concepts of "self" and of "identity" had been found. Did this dissipate?
Take classical music, for instance. There was no doubt a LOT of junk when it was current. But what survived is part of the cream of that crop: Bach, for instance.
Admittedly, classical music to me is just that stuff that NPR plays too much of that I mostly ignore. Are you speaking from fact here or speculation? I'm too ignorant about classical music to know. It was my understanding that the class of musical production we call "classical" was tightly controlled in European schools and only a handful of masters for each generation actually rose to the top. The rest didn't produce at all. I could be completely wrong, so if you know better, feel free to correct me.
But "the good stuff" in SF is precicely the stuff that meets the original criterion of this thread's base article: "fiction as a way of talking about 'the real world.'". That's what classic SF IS, and HAS BEEN since at least Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.
Interestingly, a casual scan of the great literary works of history in my mind suggest that all good literature is a way of talking about 'the real world.' Most, if not all, of the critically acclaimed works, deal with the human experience through a fictional device. SF happens to use devices rooted in technology. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but it seems to hold very well.
And "fiction as a way of talking about the 'real world'" didn't start with SF. It's just that SF is now the specialized fictional form optimized specifically for that purpose.
It is well specialized for that, as is historical fictions that pursue the present-day reprocussions of a historical event unfolding a different way.
If Frankenstein were written today it would be shelved with the SF, and no arguments (except maybe whether it should be in the "fantasy" subseection B-) ).
Dr. Frankenstein animated the moster through means that had the aesthetic of science, thus it'd prolly not appear under "fantasy." Actually, to digress for a moment, I have never understood the reason why fantasy and SF don't have their own separate sections in a bookstore. Maybe I'm dumb, but I see as much of a similarity between a Xanth novel and 2001 as I do between 2001 and Tom Clancy's latest claptrap. Why not throw Clancy in there, too? Is there some sort of tradition of putting the swords and sorcery in with the SF?
Anyway...it has been a nice exchange, and I'm sorry I took you a little too far at first. Honestly, though...didn't you mention something about an "art school" hegemony that marginalizes non-conformist literature? Information you have about that would be beneficial to me.
I think it's wiser to look at the greats of SF the way one would look at the greats of any other literary mode. SF or not, I think the moral rallying power is universal across quality literature.
The lessons are, in many ways, universal. Indeed, there are strong motif types running through SF that can connect to early human myths and non-SF literature. Consider a bog-standard SF story about thinking machines that go amok. This well connects back to Frankenstein, which, depending on one's perspective, may or may not be SF, and also connects back to early myths about golems.
What it may be is that SF is really the new wrapper for old tale types. We live in an age of technology rather than gods and magic, and so the tales are now told with technology. In the end, the thematic messages are the same.
As for some sort of "art school" establishment telling people to fall in line, I'd be curious to see you make all of classic literature fall under this heading. Literature is far too varied to be painted with a brush that broad.
You know something? Of everyone in that administration, it's Powell that I trust above the others (though that really doesn't say much), and I did see the snippets of his presentation to the UN, and he did sound very convinced of his case. A coworker also told me that he had a bit of a dissenting voice prior to this "war is inevitable" rhetoric, and has since been very quiet. This leads me to conclude that a conversation between him and Bush with the phrase "I hired you; I can fire you" was used.
Then again, I recall it requiring Bush doing a lot of cajoling to get Powell to work for him in the first place.
Likewise, at "M-Minute minus ten", it might be a good time for everyone to say their final prayers, and at "M-Minute plus ten", it'd be a good time to start calling for the medics.
This may depend on what one is looking for in a "why" question. My interpretation of the original post stating that science doesn't address "why" questions is that science cannot answer the "why" in a more existential sense. Scientific models certainly explain why two billiard balls have the trajectories they do after they collide, but this can be seen as a "how" question...as in "How do these billiard balls interact when they collide?"
In my (most likely deluded) opinion, a critical shift in science came when scientists stopped trying to ascribe reasons and meanings to the events of the natural world and instead studied their mechanics. The world Aristotle gave the West was based on the need to seek meaning and purpose behind the natural world, and it was well surpassed when scientists left his mode of inquiry for a more dispassionate study of the mechanics things.
So, I think this is mostly an argument where semantics severely get in the way. IMHO, science models action, not meaning, which is what is meant by "how, not why".
I definitely understand where you're coming from with this, but I think you imply a bit of a dichotomy here where you're either playing games all of the time or you're "being productive" all of the time. Really, I think there's a better balance to be struck. I work an 8-hour day and have a 2-hour commute. At home, I'm either working on material for an album I'm writing with my guitarist (who lives in Boston...I live in Tampa) and/or trying to get together the resources needed so we can record and mix the thing or I'm working on one of a myriad of programming projects that I'm making myself do alone for the educational purposes. I'm also reading the textbooks for my first semester of graduate school now so that I'll know the material in advance. My girlfriend, with whom I live, is likewise quite active.
I think that, after you reach a certain point of "doing stuff", some of that stuff ought to be of the kind that, rather than seeming like a mental task to do (like, say, learning about compiler design), is a bit of a mental vacation. At least, this is true for me. If I don't, then I get burned out, and all of my projects suffer. I have a copy of Ghost Recon I enjoy, but the amount of time it takes to complete missions is prohibitive for me to get a good mental vacation of it in my free time. On top of that, I spend so much time in front of a glowing screen already that getting away from the computer is refreshing to me.
In a way, games with a less than standard notion of time are actually boons to people who try to stay as busy as possible. My girlfriend and I often comment on how we'd enjoy using a little free time to play an RPG, but that neither paper-and-dice nor LARP roleplaying offerings we've seen haven't seemed like much fun, nor do we have the kind of schedule to get with other people at the same time every week to play. A game that leaves room for us to play at times best fit for us and that's mentally engaging, and more immersive than your standard RPG is exactly what we want.
Coincidentally, we both played "Killer" in our undergraduate years. Same reasons- we were busy, so a game that is played "at all times" fitted our schedules better; the game was challenging in ways far removed from our work; and there was a feeling of immersion that was pleasant.
*shrug*