Nintendo of Japan originally named the gamecube the Nintendo Starcube. It was only after Nintendo of America had a long, friendly chat with their Japanese counterpart that they compromised on the Gamecube.
Personally, whenever I think about the Japanese culture that supports quasi-English names like Starcube, Doki Doki Panic, and Super Mario Sunshine (SHINE GET!), I start cracking up...
Is there a place in any western democracy (russia and china probably have less problems in that area) for finally depositing the resulting nuclear waste? A proper finaly resting place for the stuff?
Nope. Or at least, none that doesn't require some sort of ongoing upkeep. But here's my question for the anti-nuclear folks: what's your plan for the tons of radioactive soot that is pumped into our air currently from coal and oil power? At least the nuclear stuff comes packaged in barrels rather than people's lungs. There's less of it, pound for pound, and it's less harmful per pound.
You can't evaluate nuclear power in a vacuum, you have to measure it against its alternatives... and when you do that, it beats them handily.
But cruise control does not purport to protect you from collisions with cars in front of you. This parallel parking device DOES purport to avoid collisions with other cars on the street. The two are therefore not analogous.
Could you point out where in the Constitution an exception is made for obsecne speech? The fact is the 1st Ammendment says "freedom of speech", and using the word "obscenity" to describe a particular kind of speech does not, by itself, create an exception.
Right. And could you point out where in the Constitution an exception is made for defamatory speech, speech in the furtherance of a crime, speech that will cause a imminent and serious public harm (shouting "fire" in a crowded theater), speech that will provoke the reasonable man to violence (fighting words), or speech that divulges trade secrets or otherwise violates a contract?
For that matter, can you point out what in the Constitution prevents states from regulating speech as well as Congress? (First Amendment only says "Congress shall make no law...." It says nothing about states.)
I don't see an exception for prior art in the suggestion that we should "have patents on EVERYTHING, every gene, every molecule, every action you could ever think of":)
That's a great idea. I'll get the patent for breathing. My licensing scheme will cost half of your net worth. If I don't like you I won't license it at all and I'll get an injunction against you if you continue to breathe anyway. Don't worry, though, only seventeen years until it expires!:)
Preventing crime puts the police out of business. Curing cancer puts cancer researchers out of business. Finding the fountain of youth puts coroners out of business.
Does C|Net think we ought to surrender to crime, cancer, and death to save these precious industries too?
Well if you tried to set up a restaurant in the United States and refused to serve black people, you'd be in for a big and costly legal surprise, so your statement isn't quite accurate.
And I have no idea if Canada is this enlightened, but remember that Blizzard is beholden to U.S. laws when it serves citizens of the U.S.
Right... but the reality is that people in WoW derogatorily use "gay" and "fag" all the time in the game.
Suppose instead people shouted things like "nigger" when something didn't go their way... that they made frequent supportive allusions to the KKK... that when someone did something they didn't like, they called him a "darky"...
Would it be unreasonable for a group of black players to try to organize a black-friendly group to play with so they wouldn't have to listen to rampant bigotry continually? Or would you protest this as just bringing real-life politics into your game?
And since when does one have the right to play LBBT characters in a role playing game for heaven's sake?
One doesn't, and this isn't what these players sought. They sought a group of players who don't spew sexuality invective like it's punctuation. Which, I have to say, seems entirely reasonable to me.
You're the one confusing MMORPG with reality. The characters in the game are part of Blizzard's world; the players who control them are not. No one is suggesting that Blizzard should have to create or accommodate gay characters, but they sure as shit should accommodate gay players. And it is the players seeking a gay-friendly playing environment that Blizzard has reprehensibly shut down.
Obviously he is using "exponentially" to mean "vastly." Yes, you're very smart for knowing the mathematical definition, but you lose some points for feeling the need to prove it.
Let's try your idea out on another invention and see what the result is!
All a cotton gin like this is going to do is make your fabric worth less. A good fabric is expensive because of the labor it takes to make it. If all of the sudden you're pumping them out like cans of coke, you're going to have cheap fabric regardless of its quality. People need to remember there is a huge traditional following where cotton making is concerned. People who truly appreciate fine fabrics will not buy stuff which breaks from traditional cotton making.
There you have it, folks! Down with the cotton gin!
We agree that we won't be able to prove whether machines have "sentience," "self-awareness," or whatever.
I think we also agree that we can't prove whether any individual human has these traits.
Why, then, do you assume that humans do but machines won't? At the very least, it seems to me that your assumption should be the same for both, since the behavioral cues are (by hypothesis) invariant.
But there are some phenomenological properties of my experiences that sure ain't physical.
I doubt it. In fact, I think your mind is nothing more than a wad of neural addition machines dutifully computing sums. I don't believe you that you have consciousness or self-awareness, and I challenge you to prove otherwise, knowing that you will be just as unable to do so as will the first machine to assert the same only to face a similar challenge from you.
"I would argue that jail time does not work as a deterrent (there are studies that back this up, but I have not yet seen one that supported the contrary view)."
This sounds highly suspect to me. Care to actually cite a few of these studies?
Let me get this straight: if you don't trust Apple to tell the truth about whether they collect information in the first place, why would you trust that the source code they release is the code that's actually running their server? Releasing it doesn't seem to gain them any credibility, and it does open up lots of very valuable proprietary code in a market filled with willing competitors.
Slashdot Mirror
This is just the start.
Nintendo of Japan originally named the gamecube the Nintendo Starcube. It was only after Nintendo of America had a long, friendly chat with their Japanese counterpart that they compromised on the Gamecube.
Personally, whenever I think about the Japanese culture that supports quasi-English names like Starcube, Doki Doki Panic, and Super Mario Sunshine (SHINE GET!), I start cracking up...
If that's all you're doing, you might have saved yourself some money and used an iPod Shuffle instead.
...only the fans who DON'T pirate get fleeced!
Nope. Or at least, none that doesn't require some sort of ongoing upkeep. But here's my question for the anti-nuclear folks: what's your plan for the tons of radioactive soot that is pumped into our air currently from coal and oil power? At least the nuclear stuff comes packaged in barrels rather than people's lungs. There's less of it, pound for pound, and it's less harmful per pound.
You can't evaluate nuclear power in a vacuum, you have to measure it against its alternatives... and when you do that, it beats them handily.
Seems to me that having fast turnover should increase the amount of innovation, if only because you have so many fresh minds looking at every problem.
But cruise control does not purport to protect you from collisions with cars in front of you. This parallel parking device DOES purport to avoid collisions with other cars on the street. The two are therefore not analogous.
Right. And could you point out where in the Constitution an exception is made for defamatory speech, speech in the furtherance of a crime, speech that will cause a imminent and serious public harm (shouting "fire" in a crowded theater), speech that will provoke the reasonable man to violence (fighting words), or speech that divulges trade secrets or otherwise violates a contract?
For that matter, can you point out what in the Constitution prevents states from regulating speech as well as Congress? (First Amendment only says "Congress shall make no law...." It says nothing about states.)
Your absolutist pseudo-textualism does not work.
I don't see an exception for prior art in the suggestion that we should "have patents on EVERYTHING, every gene, every molecule, every action you could ever think of" :)
That's a great idea. I'll get the patent for breathing. My licensing scheme will cost half of your net worth. If I don't like you I won't license it at all and I'll get an injunction against you if you continue to breathe anyway. Don't worry, though, only seventeen years until it expires! :)
Preventing crime puts the police out of business.
Curing cancer puts cancer researchers out of business.
Finding the fountain of youth puts coroners out of business.
Does C|Net think we ought to surrender to crime, cancer, and death to save these precious industries too?
While corporations do get a lot of the constitutional protections that humans have, they cannot plead the fifth to avoid self-incrimination.
This is so stupid. Must we continue to give this idiot so much attention?
Well if you tried to set up a restaurant in the United States and refused to serve black people, you'd be in for a big and costly legal surprise, so your statement isn't quite accurate.
And I have no idea if Canada is this enlightened, but remember that Blizzard is beholden to U.S. laws when it serves citizens of the U.S.
Right... but the reality is that people in WoW derogatorily use "gay" and "fag" all the time in the game.
Suppose instead people shouted things like "nigger" when something didn't go their way... that they made frequent supportive allusions to the KKK... that when someone did something they didn't like, they called him a "darky"...
Would it be unreasonable for a group of black players to try to organize a black-friendly group to play with so they wouldn't have to listen to rampant bigotry continually? Or would you protest this as just bringing real-life politics into your game?
One doesn't, and this isn't what these players sought. They sought a group of players who don't spew sexuality invective like it's punctuation. Which, I have to say, seems entirely reasonable to me.
You're the one confusing MMORPG with reality. The characters in the game are part of Blizzard's world; the players who control them are not. No one is suggesting that Blizzard should have to create or accommodate gay characters, but they sure as shit should accommodate gay players. And it is the players seeking a gay-friendly playing environment that Blizzard has reprehensibly shut down.
You have a hereditary House of Lords with a lot of real power. Medieval.
Obviously he is using "exponentially" to mean "vastly." Yes, you're very smart for knowing the mathematical definition, but you lose some points for feeling the need to prove it.
They were lying to you. The DS supersedes and replaces the GBA. Their protests that it did not were always kind of unbelievable.
All a cotton gin like this is going to do is make your fabric worth less. A good fabric is expensive because of the labor it takes to make it. If all of the sudden you're pumping them out like cans of coke, you're going to have cheap fabric regardless of its quality. People need to remember there is a huge traditional following where cotton making is concerned. People who truly appreciate fine fabrics will not buy stuff which breaks from traditional cotton making.
There you have it, folks! Down with the cotton gin!
We agree that we won't be able to prove whether machines have "sentience," "self-awareness," or whatever.
I think we also agree that we can't prove whether any individual human has these traits.
Why, then, do you assume that humans do but machines won't? At the very least, it seems to me that your assumption should be the same for both, since the behavioral cues are (by hypothesis) invariant.
I doubt it. In fact, I think your mind is nothing more than a wad of neural addition machines dutifully computing sums. I don't believe you that you have consciousness or self-awareness, and I challenge you to prove otherwise, knowing that you will be just as unable to do so as will the first machine to assert the same only to face a similar challenge from you.
There's a difference, though. Sending an email isn't illegal.
This sounds highly suspect to me. Care to actually cite a few of these studies?
Let me get this straight: if you don't trust Apple to tell the truth about whether they collect information in the first place, why would you trust that the source code they release is the code that's actually running their server? Releasing it doesn't seem to gain them any credibility, and it does open up lots of very valuable proprietary code in a market filled with willing competitors.