"I'd also be looking as seriously parallel processing."
If you haven't seen this it might interest you. Note that it's a simulation for use in studying the physiology of the mammalian brain, not an AI experiment. Any ghost in the machine would have to emerge by itself in pretty much the same way mind emerges from brain function.
"So you're saying that Chinese state security has never stopped a single terrorist attack? Not even once?"
YES!!!! Sure they got a few and if you count the rebranded dead civilians then they got thousands. Not a single one was from eaves dropping and I dare you, nay triple dare your trollish arse to prove otherwise!
"Why don't they take a cheap car and put a sexy face on it?"
For the same reason they don't put a beak on a Datsun and call it a flying car. Sex sells but so do other things such as efficiency, cuteness, novelty, and plain old 'cheap-n-nasty-but-does-the-job' (such as the mini I once owned that had a large yellow smiley face covering the drivers door).
I'm sort of a half-caste nerd so here's something I've observed about superficial people: If you buy a car that is (say) a BMW wanna-be, then guess what, the people who judge you by what your car looks like will see you as a "wanna-be". If the car is a "sexy car" wanna-be... well...
Sure terrorists need to be taken seriously but you only have to look at public communications in China to see what is wrong with your proposal, they have totalitarian control over their people and yet amazingly their omnipresent Orwellian state security armed with a complete knowledge of all electronic communications still can't stop terror attacks.
Thank God that nobody takes you seriously. To some people here your zeal to remove their rights just so you can delude yourself into feeling safe makes YOU the enemy.
"I disagree that following procedures is more important than saving lives in a terrorist attack"
So by that logic the cops who followed that kid from Brazil into the London underground and shot him point blank in the head did the "right thing", after all he was wearing a backpack.
Your parinoia over terrorists will ruin far more lives than they could ever hope to save.
Similar laws were in effect in Australia, until the gold boom ~30yrs ago you were forced to sell gold to the government for a fixed price. The fact that the market price was skyrocketing killed those laws.
I'm not saying that having a portion of your investments in the form of gold as hedge against economic calamity is a bad idea, but translating that into a return to the gold standard is just silly - the bank notes were still made of paper even when the gold standard was in effect.
"when the fiat economy crashes"
Yep, there will be a crash sooner or later that will be worse than the 30's, but my crystal ball doesn't give me a date so it's entirely possible I might not see such a crash in my lifetime.
If there is a global calamity then we are in big trouble with respect to famine, etc. In such circumstances most people who survive will have at first traded in food, then gold (or some other rare token), then the new "fait currency". If there isn't a crash then a chunk of gold is just a lot of work locked up in expensive jewellry, earning nothing. The most rational way to deal with gold is like everything else, buy low and sell high no matter what you use to pay for it.
Retroactive law is for political prisoners. To point this out in Australia was to be branded a "Hicks supporter" by the then prime minster (Howard), never mind that most "Hicks supporters" thought he was a dickhead and were actually supporting the rule of law.
To a much lesser degree I think the same thing is at work here because deep-down everyone (including me) likes to see a bully getting bullied in turn.
Excellent points, but "perpetual copywright" is a tad extreme and some sort of "publish or it's public" clause would seem to be in order because collectively this stuff is our culture and copyright owners are given a monoply as an incentive to enhance it for everyone.
If your not willing to permit access to previously published works then I think you have gone too far. As a baby-boomer from the first TV generation I think opening the corporate vaults that contain old cartoons, news-reels, sitcoms, poltical adverts, etc, would clear up many long standing arguments over "the good old days". I'm sure Google would be happy to to pay for the conversion, hosting, etc, and maybe even throw a few bucks back to the owners. OTOH the owners might feel some of the content paints a less than flattering picture (NSFW) of them in hindsight.
"That might make sense with some formats, but how exactly am I going to take a physical book and turn it into an e-book?"
Theoretically why sould I care who coverted it and put it on the net, I bought the license for the IP with the second hand book and most likely the person who converted it and put it on the net did likewise, who is being "damaged" in that narrow case? As a baby-boomer with a large stack of vinyl and tape in the shed, this concept might be worth investgating...
"The sad thing about the greenies is that they would be the first to tell the Religious Right, "stay out of my life!" on abortion or gay marriage or sex on TV or the Internet, but they are the first to tell others how to run their lives in a green way, whether anyone asked them or not."
At the age of 50 I'm certainly aware that political ideaology is no match for real life pragmatisim in a Darwinian environment. I am not Irish but for conceptually similar political reasoning I am unashamed to be "green". I ask you to please refrain from lumping all greenies (evironmentists) together under the greenpeace banner. Some of it's later day actions are a huge cringe factor to the rest of us and have been successfully used by many politicains/corporations to put rational people with genuine concerns into the political "nut-job" basket.
As a scientifically literate "greenie" I am happy to inform you that I do not want to "tell you what to do", the caveate being that whatever you ARE doing has no material affect on me. If what you are doing is offensive to me (but not directed at me) I will ignore you, if you befowl OUR planet I consider that a material affect on me and reserve the right to "interfere" by finding/pointing out what you are doing and petitioning society to find an effective solution. Even if that solution is to take your company away by force as a defensive measure.
Note - The link is an extreme example, I don't think GP self-promotion is a "defensive measure" but the jury did and that's what counts, I am compelled to begrudgingly accept the referee's decision not because I think it's justice servered but because imperfect democracy trumps a perfect free market.
Like most humans (including "greenies") enviromentalisim is only part of my world view. If you want to label my politics I would say "socially liberal, fiscally conservative, strong advocate of science based policy" - To me the science requirement would seem to automatically imply the environmentalisim, it would also reduce the influence of the creationists, the eco-warriors, the French secret service that sunk their boat, the managers of Exonn and their chief anti-scientist Fred Singer, Neo-cons at the UN, Senator Inhofe and his fans, in fact a whole bunch of cliques within large organizations who do no actual work in society other than trying to "tell you what to do" by unilateral force or deception....OTOH....Each and every one of us has a point in our worldview beyond which "telling someone what to do" is our only reasonable option.
Indeed, the only reason gold is valuable is because it takes a lot of work (or luck) to get a small amount, doesn't make any difference if you are digging the hole or selling the shovels. How usefull it is for anything other than primative accounting depends on it's physical properties.
I know it's common in India to wear you wealth as gold jewelry (in the New Guinea Highlands they use cowrie shells) but this is due to a mistrust (or lack) of financial institutions such as banks. I'm wondering how many of the numerous gold standard advocates here on slashdot actually have chunks of gold instead of (say) term deposits?
Not sure if you have head of them but there are free services on the internet called search engines. Instead of simply spitting out what I spoonfed you perhaps you could try one and come up with an intelligent comment.
Oh for God's sake, I have been trying to convince slashdotters about the reality of AGW for 8yrs now and have been following the science since the early eighties. I was ridiculed and modded to hell until the tide of public opinion started to change about two years ago and now that you have jumped on the bandwagon you start attacking me as naive?
"I need more than just the bleatings of a CEO in trouble to convince me that an oil company is fighting global warming"
Did you read the rest of the link? - The previous CEO was the one "in trouble". Oxburgh put the wind up Shell in the short time he was there, so much so that on more than one occasion his corporate minders tried to cut interviews short when he started talking about global warming. He was also the first CEO from ANY industry to propose a limit on CO2 concentration, the limit he proposed was 450ppm and it is now accepted by everyone except the US as the ideal target in the UN negotiations. He also played a part in setting up the Stern review which was the first serious report by hard-nosed economists to advocate early and concerted action to reduce CO2 emmission to a sustainable level. I could go on, but in short he has done far more for the cause than you or I could ever hope to achive.
And just for the record I was not trying to convince anyone that Shell are "fighting global warming", I was trying to make a psuedo-skeptics head explode by pointing out a highly respected scientist that advocates emmision controls AND was chairman of an oil company. However since we are on the subject, most oil companies can now see the writing on the wall and are desprately trying to diverify their energy portfolio so as to adapt to the new reality. Even Exonn seems to have ceased it's disinformation campaign, with a bit of luck the lack of funds will finally consign Fred Singer to the dustbin of crooked scientist. I can only hope that the coal industry will catch on soon but until recently they have been very successfull at shifting the blame to oil.
"One can only assume that Shell are trying to clean-up their image after fucking up over a period of time."
That's exactly what they were doing and you don't have to assume anything because is says as much in the link. However the reason the previous CEO and board of directors were "in trouble" had nothing to do with global warming.
"Maybe you shouldn't be so naive."
Maybe you should practice your comprehension skills, try reading what I was replying to, and do some research before shooting your mouth off. As for naivity, I can tell you from experience you won't change the world by shouting at it, it may make you feel better but all you are doing is encouraging people to ignore your very real concerns.
After she stopped laughing at your jelly-bean my daughter would rip it off just to see if she could make your balls drop. Scum sucking soft-cocks like yourself are the reason so many slashdotters despise environmentalist.
While I am as cynical as the next slashdotter about corporations, Shell have donated submersible time for researchers to gather their own information at this (and other) sites. Without that generous donation the researchers concerned would have squat.
This video was just something the oilmen spotted and thought was interesting enough to film.
Excellent point, after playing a key role in WW2 Alan Turing was hounded by the authorities for his homosexuality, was bullied into chemical castration, and eventually commited suicide.
Few people (even in the computer industry) know about the debt we all owe him.
Yes, the only exception I can think of is Letterman that is screened the night after it is broadcast in the US ( a sensible reconsiliation of time zones ). I had to laugh at channel 10's recent "streamed direct from the US" advertising campaign, since it still got here several days after screening in the US I can only assume the "stream" is routed through both voyager spacecraft.
Slashdot Mirror
"I'd also be looking as seriously parallel processing."
If you haven't seen this it might interest you. Note that it's a simulation for use in studying the physiology of the mammalian brain, not an AI experiment. Any ghost in the machine would have to emerge by itself in pretty much the same way mind emerges from brain function.
"So you're saying that Chinese state security has never stopped a single terrorist attack? Not even once?"
:oP
YES!!!! Sure they got a few and if you count the rebranded dead civilians then they got thousands. Not a single one was from eaves dropping and I dare you, nay triple dare your trollish arse to prove otherwise!
"Either way, I disagree."
No you don't.
"Why don't they take a cheap car and put a sexy face on it?"
For the same reason they don't put a beak on a Datsun and call it a flying car. Sex sells but so do other things such as efficiency, cuteness, novelty, and plain old 'cheap-n-nasty-but-does-the-job' (such as the mini I once owned that had a large yellow smiley face covering the drivers door).
I'm sort of a half-caste nerd so here's something I've observed about superficial people: If you buy a car that is (say) a BMW wanna-be, then guess what, the people who judge you by what your car looks like will see you as a "wanna-be". If the car is a "sexy car" wanna-be... well...
If God doesn't need money then why does he insist on sending his minnions to my front door to beg for it, is it some kind of test?
Sure terrorists need to be taken seriously but you only have to look at public communications in China to see what is wrong with your proposal, they have totalitarian control over their people and yet amazingly their omnipresent Orwellian state security armed with a complete knowledge of all electronic communications still can't stop terror attacks.
Thank God that nobody takes you seriously. To some people here your zeal to remove their rights just so you can delude yourself into feeling safe makes YOU the enemy.
"I disagree that following procedures is more important than saving lives in a terrorist attack"
So by that logic the cops who followed that kid from Brazil into the London underground and shot him point blank in the head did the "right thing", after all he was wearing a backpack.
Your parinoia over terrorists will ruin far more lives than they could ever hope to save.
The "planetary cycles" are different in Northern Cal?
Similar laws were in effect in Australia, until the gold boom ~30yrs ago you were forced to sell gold to the government for a fixed price. The fact that the market price was skyrocketing killed those laws.
I'm not saying that having a portion of your investments in the form of gold as hedge against economic calamity is a bad idea, but translating that into a return to the gold standard is just silly - the bank notes were still made of paper even when the gold standard was in effect.
"when the fiat economy crashes"
Yep, there will be a crash sooner or later that will be worse than the 30's, but my crystal ball doesn't give me a date so it's entirely possible I might not see such a crash in my lifetime.
If there is a global calamity then we are in big trouble with respect to famine, etc. In such circumstances most people who survive will have at first traded in food, then gold (or some other rare token), then the new "fait currency". If there isn't a crash then a chunk of gold is just a lot of work locked up in expensive jewellry, earning nothing. The most rational way to deal with gold is like everything else, buy low and sell high no matter what you use to pay for it.
The alternative to legislation is anarchy. If you are not advocating anarchy then what's your point?
Retroactive law is for political prisoners. To point this out in Australia was to be branded a "Hicks supporter" by the then prime minster (Howard), never mind that most "Hicks supporters" thought he was a dickhead and were actually supporting the rule of law.
To a much lesser degree I think the same thing is at work here because deep-down everyone (including me) likes to see a bully getting bullied in turn.
Excellent points, but "perpetual copywright" is a tad extreme and some sort of "publish or it's public" clause would seem to be in order because collectively this stuff is our culture and copyright owners are given a monoply as an incentive to enhance it for everyone.
If your not willing to permit access to previously published works then I think you have gone too far. As a baby-boomer from the first TV generation I think opening the corporate vaults that contain old cartoons, news-reels, sitcoms, poltical adverts, etc, would clear up many long standing arguments over "the good old days". I'm sure Google would be happy to to pay for the conversion, hosting, etc, and maybe even throw a few bucks back to the owners. OTOH the owners might feel some of the content paints a less than flattering picture (NSFW) of them in hindsight.
Obig: Get off my lawn!
"That might make sense with some formats, but how exactly am I going to take a physical book and turn it into an e-book?"
Theoretically why sould I care who coverted it and put it on the net, I bought the license for the IP with the second hand book and most likely the person who converted it and put it on the net did likewise, who is being "damaged" in that narrow case? As a baby-boomer with a large stack of vinyl and tape in the shed, this concept might be worth investgating...
"The sad thing about the greenies is that they would be the first to tell the Religious Right, "stay out of my life!" on abortion or gay marriage or sex on TV or the Internet, but they are the first to tell others how to run their lives in a green way, whether anyone asked them or not."
At the age of 50 I'm certainly aware that political ideaology is no match for real life pragmatisim in a Darwinian environment. I am not Irish but for conceptually similar political reasoning I am unashamed to be "green". I ask you to please refrain from lumping all greenies (evironmentists) together under the greenpeace banner. Some of it's later day actions are a huge cringe factor to the rest of us and have been successfully used by many politicains/corporations to put rational people with genuine concerns into the political "nut-job" basket.
As a scientifically literate "greenie" I am happy to inform you that I do not want to "tell you what to do", the caveate being that whatever you ARE doing has no material affect on me. If what you are doing is offensive to me (but not directed at me) I will ignore you, if you befowl OUR planet I consider that a material affect on me and reserve the right to "interfere" by finding/pointing out what you are doing and petitioning society to find an effective solution. Even if that solution is to take your company away by force as a defensive measure.
Note - The link is an extreme example, I don't think GP self-promotion is a "defensive measure" but the jury did and that's what counts, I am compelled to begrudgingly accept the referee's decision not because I think it's justice servered but because imperfect democracy trumps a perfect free market.
Like most humans (including "greenies") enviromentalisim is only part of my world view. If you want to label my politics I would say "socially liberal, fiscally conservative, strong advocate of science based policy" - To me the science requirement would seem to automatically imply the environmentalisim, it would also reduce the influence of the creationists, the eco-warriors, the French secret service that sunk their boat, the managers of Exonn and their chief anti-scientist Fred Singer, Neo-cons at the UN, Senator Inhofe and his fans, in fact a whole bunch of cliques within large organizations who do no actual work in society other than trying to "tell you what to do" by unilateral force or deception....OTOH....Each and every one of us has a point in our worldview beyond which "telling someone what to do" is our only reasonable option.
Indeed, the only reason gold is valuable is because it takes a lot of work (or luck) to get a small amount, doesn't make any difference if you are digging the hole or selling the shovels. How usefull it is for anything other than primative accounting depends on it's physical properties.
I know it's common in India to wear you wealth as gold jewelry (in the New Guinea Highlands they use cowrie shells) but this is due to a mistrust (or lack) of financial institutions such as banks. I'm wondering how many of the numerous gold standard advocates here on slashdot actually have chunks of gold instead of (say) term deposits?
Hear,hear. And while they are at it, how about they reinstate NASA's original mission statement.
Offtopic, freaky coincidence: When I linked to RC the top story was "mind the gap", I go there today and find Fred Singer is the top story.
Not sure if you have head of them but there are free services on the internet called search engines. Instead of simply spitting out what I spoonfed you perhaps you could try one and come up with an intelligent comment.
Oh for God's sake, I have been trying to convince slashdotters about the reality of AGW for 8yrs now and have been following the science since the early eighties. I was ridiculed and modded to hell until the tide of public opinion started to change about two years ago and now that you have jumped on the bandwagon you start attacking me as naive?
"I need more than just the bleatings of a CEO in trouble to convince me that an oil company is fighting global warming"
Did you read the rest of the link? - The previous CEO was the one "in trouble". Oxburgh put the wind up Shell in the short time he was there, so much so that on more than one occasion his corporate minders tried to cut interviews short when he started talking about global warming. He was also the first CEO from ANY industry to propose a limit on CO2 concentration, the limit he proposed was 450ppm and it is now accepted by everyone except the US as the ideal target in the UN negotiations. He also played a part in setting up the Stern review which was the first serious report by hard-nosed economists to advocate early and concerted action to reduce CO2 emmission to a sustainable level. I could go on, but in short he has done far more for the cause than you or I could ever hope to achive.
And just for the record I was not trying to convince anyone that Shell are "fighting global warming", I was trying to make a psuedo-skeptics head explode by pointing out a highly respected scientist that advocates emmision controls AND was chairman of an oil company. However since we are on the subject, most oil companies can now see the writing on the wall and are desprately trying to diverify their energy portfolio so as to adapt to the new reality. Even Exonn seems to have ceased it's disinformation campaign, with a bit of luck the lack of funds will finally consign Fred Singer to the dustbin of crooked scientist. I can only hope that the coal industry will catch on soon but until recently they have been very successfull at shifting the blame to oil.
"One can only assume that Shell are trying to clean-up their image after fucking up over a period of time."
That's exactly what they were doing and you don't have to assume anything because is says as much in the link. However the reason the previous CEO and board of directors were "in trouble" had nothing to do with global warming.
"Maybe you shouldn't be so naive."
Maybe you should practice your comprehension skills, try reading what I was replying to, and do some research before shooting your mouth off. As for naivity, I can tell you from experience you won't change the world by shouting at it, it may make you feel better but all you are doing is encouraging people to ignore your very real concerns.
After she stopped laughing at your jelly-bean my daughter would rip it off just to see if she could make your balls drop. Scum sucking soft-cocks like yourself are the reason so many slashdotters despise environmentalist.
"The oil drillers actually believe in science...unlike the environmentalists with their superstition
Warning, this could cause your politically biased head to explode.
While I am as cynical as the next slashdotter about corporations, Shell have donated submersible time for researchers to gather their own information at this (and other) sites. Without that generous donation the researchers concerned would have squat.
This video was just something the oilmen spotted and thought was interesting enough to film.
An imaganitive fellow indeed, he also used a giant frypan to turn up the heat on his enemies.
Nope, it's open source.
Excellent point, after playing a key role in WW2 Alan Turing was hounded by the authorities for his homosexuality, was bullied into chemical castration, and eventually commited suicide.
Few people (even in the computer industry) know about the debt we all owe him.
Yes, the only exception I can think of is Letterman that is screened the night after it is broadcast in the US ( a sensible reconsiliation of time zones ). I had to laugh at channel 10's recent "streamed direct from the US" advertising campaign, since it still got here several days after screening in the US I can only assume the "stream" is routed through both voyager spacecraft.