Agreed, and good point. The technology described here does seem noble and promising. But when i imagine statements like "out of a sci-fi movie" and "replace human activity" resonating in the mind of a non-tech - think "2001," Steven Spielberg's "A.I.," et cetera - I must take issue with the spin they are trying to put on the story. It's misleading, and worth noting because AI is constantly misrepresented and misunderstood by the press.
"some fear that the concept suggests an ominous encroachment out of a sci-fi movie. Cognitive psychologist Chris Forsythe, who leads the Sandia team, insists that the machines are designed to augment -- not replace -- human activity.
This sort of writing is the result of either a sensational and poorly informed writer, or a company hyping its product way beyond its capabilities. AI has not even reached the Bronze Age yet, and the idea that a concept like this threatens to make humans obsolete is laughable.
The government cites a reduction in crime and help in tracking down terrorists as a benefit of this system. But as with gun control, it is only the law-abiding citizens that get penalized - criminals can buy black market/unregistered firearms, and terrorists can drive older cars that don't feature the new chip.
There's no doubt that in our current predicament it's enormously satisfying to read such a punchy, relevant and direct bit of writing. But after all these months, and all this press, it seems to me that SCO is a straw man we're all knocking down over and over again, and while it's really easy and fun too it's not getting us anywhere.
There is nothing we can say to Darl McBride or his company that will cause him to rub his eyes and exclaim "Whaaaa?!" He knows precisely what he's doing. He will continue his absurd crusade no matter what we say. He will keep making incredible statements with a shit-eating grin on his face, because his stock-pumping scheme is working, and he and his executives have already made millions doing this. He will ride it until there are no more dollars to be squeezed out of the situation, then he will move on to something else or retire and buy a carribean island.
Of course we should be fighting this tooth and nail. But I don't think letters appealing to Mr. McBride's sense of reason or morality are going to get us anywhere.
I've watched this damned robot climb stairs ever since they built it. Oooh. Ahhh. Up the stairs. Down the stairs. In slow motion, while fantasy techno music plays, as if this robot walking up the stairs is going to solve world hunger.
A similar bit of footage on my website, featuring me climbing up and down stairs to the theme song from "Beyond 2000," has been surprisingly unpopular. Sure, if a damned robot does it it's special. Will we cheer and marvel when they take all our jobs?
More information: http://unite-and-resist.cloudmakers.org/whois.html
Rape? Oh man, the AC's are just bursting to reply to this one. Could you explain? (I only know one definition for that word, but it seems you're using another.)
Agreed. It always makes me suspicious to see statements like "a combination of software and hardware able to think as a person." News flash: we have to understand our own cognitive processes before we can model them. And we really, really, don't. We don't even have a firm definition for concepts like induction.
That's why "Cognitive Psychology," A.K.A. "Cognitive Neuroscience," is not yet a hard science - it's much closer to psychology or sociology.
I work in aviation, another "over-regulated" industry. In the case of Food and Drugs, as with aircraft, Too Much Regulation is a Good Thing. Sometimes it's astonishing the amount of paperwork involved for my company to repair, for example, a tiny composite step panel - 90% of the manhours relate to paperwork, not the repair itself.
If i'm going to be climbing into an aircraft that flies 30,000 feet in the air, or swallowing a pill that is going to be interacting with my body, I want to be damn sure that it has been tested more times than it has to be, certified and re-certified by several panels of experts. I want a paper trail telling me everywhere it's been, what went into it, and the middle name of the guy who screwed the lid on the bottle in the factory where it was made.
This is life and death, after all. There's a reason you don't see public beta versions of new drugs for sale.
Sell pills to people (via spam) that actually causes sterility instead of the virility the label promises. Once we take these mouth-breathers out of the gene pool spammers will have to call it quits.
Oooh that's cool! check this link out that it turned up:
http://www.liada.net/~secret/
all in spanish, but the documents are all about toxic substances, i think... and there's one JPEG that appears to be a sketch of a missle! Now that's top secret!
Do some homework. The P.T. Nikomas Gemilang factory in Indonesia, which makes a large portion of Nike's shoes, pays its workers well below the poverty line for that country. Workers at that factory have to leave their homes and live alone in low-rent housing because they can hardly afford to feed themselves, let alone take care of a family. In this case Nike's practices are despicable in the context of the local economy.
The first response I hear to a statement like this is: "Should Nike just pull out then, and leave all those people unemployed and starving?" No, of course not. But that doesn't mean i like to see a wealthy american corporation exploiting the poorest of the poor. I will vote with my dollars by not buying their shoes, spread the word, and hope that other moral people can overcome the ocean of advertising in front of them and do the same.
Take a trip through canada from east to west - Travel through labrador, quebec, ontario and alberta, etc - and you'll find we have a bunch of accents within our borders.
Personally, I develop in asp.net using a text editor. and my objects are written in SharpDevelop, a great open source c# IDE that also has a WYSIWIG windows forms builder. wouldn't do it any other way, and certainly wouldn't shell out all that $$ for VS.NET.
"...adding that.Net has now almost vanished from Microsoft's vocabulary."
What are they talking about? Next time you're signing out of hotmail, take a good look at that "Sign Out" button! It says "Sign Out (.net)"! And to think i used to sign out using outdated technologies.
Slashdot Mirror
For "Better than CD" quality Try any laptop computer with USB (and sufficient HD space) and one of these:
/
http://www.midiman.com/products/m-audio/transit
I don't completely hate microsoft.
I'm really really sory! I am ashamed to admit this even to myself! Please don't hate me!
Here is an article about one of their products. I think this product has merit, and would like to discuss my thoughts on the matter.
Please forgive me! I'm a bad person! I don't deserve nice things! I am filled with shame! Of course there are many superior open source alternatives!
dasmegabyte,
Agreed, and good point. The technology described here does seem noble and promising. But when i imagine statements like "out of a sci-fi movie" and "replace human activity" resonating in the mind of a non-tech - think "2001," Steven Spielberg's "A.I.," et cetera - I must take issue with the spin they are trying to put on the story. It's misleading, and worth noting because AI is constantly misrepresented and misunderstood by the press.
"some fear that the concept suggests an ominous encroachment out of a sci-fi movie. Cognitive psychologist Chris Forsythe, who leads the Sandia team, insists that the machines are designed to augment -- not replace -- human activity.
This sort of writing is the result of either a sensational and poorly informed writer, or a company hyping its product way beyond its capabilities. AI has not even reached the Bronze Age yet, and the idea that a concept like this threatens to make humans obsolete is laughable.
The government cites a reduction in crime and help in tracking down terrorists as a benefit of this system. But as with gun control, it is only the law-abiding citizens that get penalized - criminals can buy black market/unregistered firearms, and terrorists can drive older cars that don't feature the new chip.
There's no doubt that in our current predicament it's enormously satisfying to read such a punchy, relevant and direct bit of writing. But after all these months, and all this press, it seems to me that SCO is a straw man we're all knocking down over and over again, and while it's really easy and fun too it's not getting us anywhere.
There is nothing we can say to Darl McBride or his company that will cause him to rub his eyes and exclaim "Whaaaa?!" He knows precisely what he's doing. He will continue his absurd crusade no matter what we say. He will keep making incredible statements with a shit-eating grin on his face, because his stock-pumping scheme is working, and he and his executives have already made millions doing this. He will ride it until there are no more dollars to be squeezed out of the situation, then he will move on to something else or retire and buy a carribean island.
Of course we should be fighting this tooth and nail. But I don't think letters appealing to Mr. McBride's sense of reason or morality are going to get us anywhere.
I've watched this damned robot climb stairs ever since they built it. Oooh. Ahhh. Up the stairs. Down the stairs. In slow motion, while fantasy techno music plays, as if this robot walking up the stairs is going to solve world hunger.
A similar bit of footage on my website, featuring me climbing up and down stairs to the theme song from "Beyond 2000," has been surprisingly unpopular. Sure, if a damned robot does it it's special. Will we cheer and marvel when they take all our jobs?
More information: http://unite-and-resist.cloudmakers.org/whois.html
... do you see something like this:
uh huh... ... bullshit!!
(Score: 2, Insightful)
What is it about microsoft articles that cause the average IQ to plummet around here?
Rape? Oh man, the AC's are just bursting to reply to this one. Could you explain? (I only know one definition for that word, but it seems you're using another.)
Agreed. It always makes me suspicious to see statements like "a combination of software and hardware able to think as a person." News flash: we have to understand our own cognitive processes before we can model them. And we really, really, don't. We don't even have a firm definition for concepts like induction.
That's why "Cognitive Psychology," A.K.A. "Cognitive Neuroscience," is not yet a hard science - it's much closer to psychology or sociology.
I work in aviation, another "over-regulated" industry. In the case of Food and Drugs, as with aircraft, Too Much Regulation is a Good Thing. Sometimes it's astonishing the amount of paperwork involved for my company to repair, for example, a tiny composite step panel - 90% of the manhours relate to paperwork, not the repair itself.
If i'm going to be climbing into an aircraft that flies 30,000 feet in the air, or swallowing a pill that is going to be interacting with my body, I want to be damn sure that it has been tested more times than it has to be, certified and re-certified by several panels of experts. I want a paper trail telling me everywhere it's been, what went into it, and the middle name of the guy who screwed the lid on the bottle in the factory where it was made.
This is life and death, after all. There's a reason you don't see public beta versions of new drugs for sale.
a bit late to be adding this, but here's a composite image of earth from space - at night. Note the city lights blanketing most of the globe.
a rb le/Images/land_ocean_ice_lights_2048.jpg
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueM
Sell pills to people (via spam) that actually causes sterility instead of the virility the label promises. Once we take these mouth-breathers out of the gene pool spammers will have to call it quits.
Oooh that's cool! check this link out that it turned up:
http://www.liada.net/~secret/
all in spanish, but the documents are all about toxic substances, i think... and there's one JPEG that appears to be a sketch of a missle! Now that's top secret!
Do some homework. The P.T. Nikomas Gemilang factory in Indonesia, which makes a large portion of Nike's shoes, pays its workers well below the poverty line for that country. Workers at that factory have to leave their homes and live alone in low-rent housing because they can hardly afford to feed themselves, let alone take care of a family. In this case Nike's practices are despicable in the context of the local economy.
The first response I hear to a statement like this is: "Should Nike just pull out then, and leave all those people unemployed and starving?" No, of course not. But that doesn't mean i like to see a wealthy american corporation exploiting the poorest of the poor. I will vote with my dollars by not buying their shoes, spread the word, and hope that other moral people can overcome the ocean of advertising in front of them and do the same.
Take a trip through canada from east to west - Travel through labrador, quebec, ontario and alberta, etc - and you'll find we have a bunch of accents within our borders.
Why would four professional engineers be working in a technical support department?
'The wars of tomorrow will be fought by tiny robots on the tops of very high mountains. Your job will be to build and maintain these robots.'
that's actually what i was going for... :) ... early morning typo
You may as well just create a 1-2pm "Execute Powernap."
Personally, I develop in asp.net using a text editor. and my objects are written in SharpDevelop, a great open source c# IDE that also has a WYSIWIG windows forms builder. wouldn't do it any other way, and certainly wouldn't shell out all that $$ for VS.NET.
How dare you disagree with the general consensus! But you nailed it right on m00nun1t, i've experienced the same thing with ASP.NET.
"...adding that .Net has now almost vanished from Microsoft's vocabulary."
What are they talking about? Next time you're signing out of hotmail, take a good look at that "Sign Out" button! It says "Sign Out (.net)"! And to think i used to sign out using outdated technologies.
(sigh) how many times do i have to post this?
http://www.fal.net/_artic/scijoke.html
indeed, so ashamed you have to post as AC...