Even if it turns out to be practical, there is still the problem faced by the ceramic superconductors: even if you can get them to ambient temperatures, they still are brittle, rigid, and unmalleable and therefore totally unlike wires
In your post, you seem to be referering to the notion of replacing conventional power lines with superconductors, and quite rightly note that ceramics make poor wires.
Wires aren't the only use for superconductors, though. They can also be used as to store electricity, by inducing a current in a coil which then keeps "looping" forever, until the electricity is used. Even without room temperature superconductors, one company, American Superconductors, sells a product based on this principle that helps regulate spikes and surges in power grids. You can read one of their press releases here, if you like.
If a room temperature superconductor were in fact to be discovered, (and we haven't yet had verification that it has been), it might well be a very big deal. If we can store a lot of energy in a single loop, and we can make a lot of loops in a small amount of space (which may or may not be viable -- time will tell), then suddenly technologies which aren't viable today because of batteries become a lot more viable.
I, for one, would love an electric car. It's cold and snowy in the winter where I live, and I'd like to own a car that I know won't stall when it's cold out, like ones based on batteries do. I'd love the whisper quiet engine, and the immediate response to my commands, without waiting for the engine to "rev up".
Right now, the existing electrical cars aren't bad, but they don't travel far enough on a single electrical charge: energy density is the problem. If room temperature superconductors provide a viable alternative, then I, for one, would welcome the invention, even if we never use it directly in power lines from the power grid.
And yes, wind power is a good idea. So is geothermal energy (check out what Iceland is doing with that), and lots of other renewable energy alternatives. However, one problem with all these solutions is that a great deal of energy is wasted because we just don't have very good ways to store it: if room temperature superconductors offer superior storage solutions, then it's a benefit for everyone, no matter what your prefered method of power generation.
that Hollywood needs Digital Rights Management legislation because copyright laws lack teeth, and there are no effective means to deal with copyright violations online.
Catching copyright violators will be a good thing for copyright reform: suddenly the same people who currently just ignore the laws will press to see them changed. Still better, the legitimate calls for copyright reform won't be drowned out or confused by the wails of spoiled teenagers who just want to grab free music.
Copyright needs reforming, nationally and internationally. Grabbing all the music you can in violation of copyright doesn't help the cause of those who actually want to do something about the problem. Enforcing the existing laws, and getting rid of the violators can only help the cause of copyright in the long run. -- Ytrew
Actually, I think you can, in at least one limited case. Jukeboxes, specifically. There may be others, but this (admitted limited) example is the only one I can think of off the top of my head.
Are you saying that if people are out, and fancy listening to music, they'll go buy some, when they have the same music at home already? No, of course not -
I disagree. When machines like jukeboxes get played at all, the question of whether the person already has the song at home doesn't count for much. Jukeboxes get played for social reasons, not financial ones. It's an old tradition to play something romantic for a loved one in a public place; jukeboxes, and radio requests are a more modern take on the ancient troubadour's notion of romance.
There are a couple of jukeboxes in the restaurants nearby where I work. The only people ever I see use them are groups of bored friends, and guys who want to make their girlfriends happy. In neither cases is the cost of the song (less than a dollar) very important. It's worth a few dollars during an outing to have fun with your friends. I suspect if music in general was cheaper, it would be more popular. -- Ytrew
Passwordqwerty suggests creating an program to automatically generate copywritten works for the benefit of the public domain.
As much as I like the idea, I don't think it's even marginally feasible.
The claim is: As the sentences become larger, the combinations of words goes up exponentially, but then so does computer power.
The exponent on the number of words in English is much bigger than the exponent for computer power. You wouldn't be able to copyright anything on the scale of even a short slashdot post, let alone anything like Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Here's why:
Suppose that there were only 1,000 words in English, and that we only want to store works the size of a small slashdot posting. I count 146 words in the parent post. That gives us 10^(3*146) = 10 ^ 438 combinations of words to store.
In many countries (mine included), you need to "fix" a work in a reproducable medium to claim copyright on it. This implies that we need to store every generated work somehow, to prove our title to it, so that we can put in the public domain for everyone to enjoy.
Let's say everyone on earth (10^10 people) helps out with one computer each. We divide by 10^10: everyone must store 10^428 combinations. We'll ignore encoding words into bits, and say that we have 10^428 bits to store.
Suppose that everyone today can afford 100 gb of storage, and that the cost of storage halves each year. Therefore, everyone on earth will need the equivalent of 10 ^ 428 / 10 ^12 = 10 ^ 416 modern 100 gb disk drives.
When can we afford this? Every ten years, we get about 10^3 times more storage. Dividing 416 by 3, we find that in about 138 decades, or 1,380 years, we'll finally have enough.
To recap, in over thousand years time, with 100% worldwide pariticipation, we could place all works the size of a short paragraph, written in a tiny subset of English, into the public domain.
This totally ignores the time it takes to generate these works, and the lawsuits that could occur if a work was automatically generated that infringed copyright.
I submit that we'll have better luck trying to re-write the copyright laws within our own lifetimes. -- Ytrew
History proves over and over that single individuals can make a world-changing difference.
That notion is called the 'great man theory' of history. I'm not at all convinced that it's true. Certainly, individuals can affect the world on a small timescale, but would similar events have happened over the next few hundred years, regardless of the individuals involved? Perhaps. I'm inclined to think so.
Would the mongols have taken over asia with Gengis Kahn?
Probably. There was a will for unity among the clans; it was finally filled by Temujin (Genghis Khan).
Would Europe have been carved up the way it was without Hitler?
In some fashion, probably. The so-called "war guilt" clause of the WWI surrender ("it's all Germany's fault") was at least as much a cause of WWII as Hitler. Add to that the impossible reparations demands, and suddenly you've got a nation of poor, angry people who think the rest of the world hates them. That's a good recipe for war right there.
And hell, what if Lincoln had not been elected President? We might have TWO "United States of Americas" occupying our current continent.
Or your states might have merged later on.
As one of my friends pointed out, one of biggest effects on history has been... weather. Countless battles were won or lost because of fog, storms, or frozen harbours. Bad harvests often trigger war, because people have no food to eat or trade. People often get sick in unexpected weather. Tornados, floods, hurricanes and hailstorms can wipe out cities even today.
Victor Hugo argues in _Les Miserables_ that Napolean lost the battle of Waterloo because the mud made the bombs land softly without exploding properly. If it had been sunny, he claims, Napolean would have carried the day. (I'm not sure I agree, but the notion is entertaining.)
What if Lee Harvey Oswald had missed?
Or what if it had rained, and the parade was cancelled?
At most, you would have had a different man (Kennedy) representing the will of the American people. And if he had failed to represent the will of the people in a blatant enough way, you would have replaced him. Democracy especially doesn't depend on it's figureheads.
What if what's-his-name didn't get assassinated, causing WW/I?
Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria was killed by a Serbian terrorist. If they hadn't killed him, they would have killed someone else.
Austria was going to depose the Serbian government back then, but Russia said "leave Serbia alone". Germany said, "stay out of it, Russia". Then all hell broke loose. When the dust cleared, everyone else decided that the whole sordid mess was "all Germany's fault", and tried to get Germany to pay for all the war expenses. This bankrupt Germany, and led directly to WW/II.
There was a lot of conflict in Serbia way back then. WWI was supposed to resolve that situation once and for all ("the war to end all wars").
Back in 2000, or so the UN deposed the Serbian government. There had been a lot of conflict in Serbia right before that, too. So much for "the war to end all wars".
What if Ghandi hadn't been born?
India would have remained a British colony until some other person protested as loudly as Ghandi did. Are you suggesting that in 200 or so years, it wouldn't have become independant?
I submit that environmental forces shape history as much, or more, than any human individual. What if the black plague hadn't led to a manpower shortage in Europe? Would the industrial revolution have happened anyway? What if the black plague (or another plague) had killed all of Europe? Who would have moved in to fill the gap? After how long?
If you want to create something, create something original. Don't depend on the work somebody else did decades ago to be your only creative outlet.
Quite right. I noticed you wrote this message in your own invented language, rather than making a derivative work in "English", a piece of the public's intellectual property.
Oh, wait: you *did* use English? But the public shouldn't derive works from you, even though you get to do it?
Doesn't sound fair to me.
Is it so wrong to make money off of things?
Yes, if you damage other people by doing so! Copyright removes people's rights to freely express themselves; it's a special monopoly priveledge, not a right.
Henry Ford started building cars almost 100 years ago. Does that give me the right to go down to my local Ford dealer and take a free 2003 Excursion off the lot?
No, but it gives you the right to create your own version of the model T in your back yard, without being sued for it. It lets you make scale models, add modern features, or generally add creative
enhancements for your own enjoyment, or that of
others. It lets you manufacture new Model-Ts for fun, or to cater to a niche market of history buffs, even though Ford no longer produces them.
You probably can't do any of this (legally) with a modern car, since the manufaturer may well argue that the artists who developed the body made an artistic work, and it's thus under copyright. Then again, the manufacturer may not care, until you make enough money to be worth suing.
Then why do you have the right to make Mickey Mouse cartoons?
Because I'm claiming the right to make my own creations, not taking something from Disney. I'm not taking away their pictures or sculptures or balloons; I'm making new ones, on my time, out of my resources. They may look like something Disney once made, but these ones were made by me.
You seem to think that Disney should be able to tell me what I can and can't do with my own property, and worse, that that right shouldn't expire, ever.
Care to explain that one? I don't understand.
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Ytrew
How can you be so sure that when writing your own songs, you didn't unconsciously copy somebody else's musical work? George Harrison got in big trouble for that.
In general, you can't. That's a major flaw in copyright law, but the problem is not unique to garage bands: the same risk applies to every artist. As you pointed out, even musicians with a "name" can get into trouble for accidental infringement.
It's a hard problem: the very act of creating your song may be illegal! You can't examine the legality of a song that doesn't exist yet, so you can't check beforehand to see whether it will be legal or not. The best defense from a legal perspective is probably one of the worst from an artistic perspective: don't listen to any music, ever, so that it never enters your subconcious, or becomes one of your "influences". This isn't very practical in North America, where music is everywhere.
However, the situation may not be as bad as it sounds. In some countries, copyright law is written to consider "intent": honest cases of "accidental infringement" may be considered a valid defense. It might still be difficult to prove that your infringement was accidental, however, and that you qualify for that defense.
In any case, my original point stands. It is possible (if difficult) to create non-infringing works, and it is legal to put them on a peer to peer network if the author wants them there.
And then RIAA gets nailed under Anti-Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) or maybe anti-trust. That would be wonderful. Bring 'em on.
And as we all know, their respective anti-trust convictions cost IBM and Microsoft so much in punitive damages that they both filed for Chapter 11 shortly thereafter!
And, look: hordes of flying pigs! Wow! This is a wonderful world you live in! Can I come visit more often!
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Ytrew
Look, seriously, what legitimate uses are there for P2P networks? There aren't any.
I just thought of two off the top of my head: I'm sure there must be others.
What if I'm a member of a garage band, who really wants to let people hear my music? Suppose I'm one of those people who's passionate about the music itself, and the "message it can send to the people?" I might want to put my music out for the people to listen to for free an a P2P network. It might not make me money directly, but it may ( or may not, depending on how popular the music is), give me a new fan base outside of my home town. It also well give the band some personal gratification to know that "their music is out there", if that's something that matters to them.
There are other potential motivations. Suppose I'm part of the Famous Dead Composer's Society, and I want classical music to become more popular? I might put together a group of people willing to play a nice string quartet or so forth, and put it on a P2P network so that other people can hear it for free.
There are lots of legitimate uses: what if I don't *want* to spend the money to register a domain and host it? I paid about $200 this Christmas to have my Mom's domain and hosting taken care of, and I could have spent that money elsewhere.
I do agree that the predominant use of such networks is copyright infringement, and I agree that such infringement is wrong, and the laws should either be more strictly enforced to prevent it, or changed. I personally favour change of the existing copyright law, but that's another issue.
In summary, I like the theory of peering networks, but I don't like their predominant application in practice (copyright infringements). I do, however, disagree with the notion that there is no legitimate uses of such a network. I feel that legitimate uses exist, but are rare in practice.
Yes, you too can believe anything and everything that is posted on the internet! Especially when someone claims it was created by MSFT! Anyone can whip up some slides, take pictures of them, and post them on a random web site.
However, it's not legal to knowingly present false statements about a company as if they were fact. If the statements are provably false, Microsoft can sue for libel.
I am not a lawyer. If I were, this sentence would be too expensive to be worth reading. -- Ytrew
I am not one to defend Corporate America, but if you were Eisner, wouldnt you do the same? If one of the cornerstones of your business were to all of a sudden become freely reproducible, wouldnt you try to stop that from happening?
By trying to get the terms of my agreement under copyright law changed retroactively? No!
If I were the CEO of Disney, and I were to accept that the government could retroactively change the laws, I'd be worried, not happy.
I'd especially worry about what other laws the government might decide to make retroactive changes to. Like, say, suddenly declaring retroactive taxes way back to the Declaration of Independance, or other such nasty things.
But then again, if I were somehow Eisner, I wouldn't be a very ethical person, and I'd be sure to pay out enough in campaign contributions to ensure that nothing like that ever happened to my company. -- Ytrew
Well, but you have to see it from their perspective. They created content (or signed acts that created content) that brings in millions of dollars a year. Why should they have to suddenly at some arbitrary date no longer be able to exploit their intellectual property?
Well, because their so called "intellectual property", if you insist upon the term, is built out of our intellectual property. If you believe in intellectual property, you have to face up to a commonly ignored fact: the public owns most of the world's "intellectual property" rights! Words, language, drawing techniques, characterization, folklore: all these count as "intellectual property". Everything ever created is, by overwhelming evidence, an derivative work of some work in the public domain. Hence, under the standard "intellectual property" rules, the public gets to dictate the terms under which our "intellectual property" can be used. In the US, (and many other countries), copyright law is those set of terms.
Disney owes the public: they were allowed to use our intellectual property, granted a decades long monopoly on their derived work, and now they want to back out of the agreement that says they have to return the results to the public's domain. That's not fair.
A honest businessman, (if such a mythical creature existed), wouldn't try to get the courts or the law changed to back out of a contract when it came payment time. Eisner is, and that's why people are upset.
It's like building a house and after 95 years of owning your house suddenly becomes a historical landmark and you're evicted by the county
No, it's like building a house on public lands with public funds, with the express understanding that after those 95 years pass, you have to give the house back to the public. Then, when you've enjoyed the benefits of the agreement, and it comes time to pay, you then cry "Foul!", and try to get the law changed so that you don't have to live up to your side of the bargain.
Even if you accept the notion of "intellectual property" (and I don't), this reasoning is still flawed. It ignores the rights of the public; the silent majority stakeholders.
I wouldn't be suprised if in the future copyright expiration in the USA is abolished entirely.
I don't think anyone in the general public today thinks copyrights are important enough to ammend the US constitution. Many people don't pay much attention to politics, much less "intellectual property" disputes, but most people in the USA get very upset when you mention changing their constitution.
Don't get me wrong, I don't support this by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just trying to play Devil's advocate.
Your points are both well argued, and insightful. I just don't agree with them.:-) And I think that it's a good thing to be able to understand the arguments on all sides of a debate, as well as seek out the counter-arguments that go along with them. Thank you for the opportunity for an polite and insightful discussion; it's something all too rare on Slashdot these days. -- Ytrew
You'd think that there'd be LESS stress with an elecronic keyboard than a mechanical one.
Well, the mechanical typewriter is what she found more comfortable to type on, so she'll have less strain on her wrists.
But you're right, she'll have much less stress in her life if she uses the electronic keyboard. It has a backspace key.
If you've ever spent twenty minutes trying to type one stupid page perfectly in typing class, you'll know what I mean. Backspace is your friend.
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Ytrew
Re:I'd only point out that. . .
on
Tai Chi Robots
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Anyone who thinks their flying pyjama dance lesson will help them against someone larger and scarier is living in a fantasy world.
I disagree. It doesn't matter if someone is stronger than you, if you can hurt them, and they can't hurt you.
EVERY pugilistic event has weight classes. Wonder why?
To make it sporting, and to keep it safe, of course. Weight classes keep the event friendly: so that the competitors can apply roughly equal brute force, and skill can be applied safely. It prevents a well skilled, but smaller person from having to apply a dangerous amount of force to win against someone bigger, and prevents a big person from harming a less skilled, smaller person as well.
When I did ground fighting with people smaller and weaker than me[1], the ones who were experts did kick my ass, because they could move faster, and use my motion against me. But I beat the other novices and intermediate fighters, because I had a thirty to fifty pound mass advantage. Mass and strength are important. So are skill and conditioning.
Wouldn't the bantamweight with superior technique outclass the 300lb behemoth? No, the behemoth would pound the bantamweight into a red smear.
If he ever got his hands on him, maybe. In a real fight for his life, the lightweight guy might just break the big guy's foot with a snap kick, then take advantage of the pain and loss of balance to break the knee on the other leg. Elapsed time: a few miliseconds, for someone skilled in the art, with reason to use it. Once the big guy can't stand, he's lost. The little guy can walk away, or run behind him, and kick him in the back of the head, or wait for him to pass out from shock.
If the big guy never gets the chance to apply his strength, it can't help him. The "art" in martial arts can be described as: "how not to get pounded in a red smear by someone bigger". It's not hard to beat up a small person of equal skill; martial arts assumes you're fighting someone your size or bigger.
Martial arts of any sort is not a silver bullet, but it's foolish to assume that brute force will always prevail. What good is brute force if your opponent isn't there when you punch at them? I'd rather have Mike Tyson punch at my head, and miss[1], than have a teenage girl punch me in the groin, and hit. -- Ytrew
[1] Unfortunately, Mike Tyson probably wouldn't miss. But then, he's put years of training in boxing, a sport with strong martial applications.
I disagree strongly with the previous poster that learning multiplication tables is a waste of time --- the procedure described is exactly the one that I used (made up on my own) and still use. I memorized the diagonal elements of the table --- 6 x 6, 7 x 7, and so on, and added to get the rest. (6 x 7 = 36 + 6 = 42) Sounds fine, until you try to learn division, particularly long division.
I'm curious; what was your difficulty with division? If you have a ten by ten grid of the "times table" in front of you, I found it fairly easy to read, and to do "long division". I was only frustrated when the teachers yelled at me for using it.;-)
I'm confused by the word "especially" in front of "long division" -- how does "long division" differ from any other kind of division, except notationally? "Short divison" was taught to me as a shorthand notation where the digits were overwritten and subtractions were implicit; "long division" simply consumed more space, and made the subtractions explicit. I found it much easier, personally.
And what about factoring?
Factoring is a hard problem; it's at the heart of modern cryptography. Memorizing times times tables doesn't really help: you need to memorize all the primes below the number you're considering, and try each in turn. This approach scales very badly, since there are an infinite number of primes. I solved my "factoring" homework in grade 9 by writing a computer program; which is exactly what I would do in adult life, if faced with a complex factoring problem. We built computers to use them.
I finally came to the conclusion that "I was no good at math", a belief that some of my teachers had no problem reinforcing because "girls don't need to be good at math".
It sounds like your teachers weren't teaching you a proper understanding of the algorithms involved, but rather emphasising "results". I don't agree with that at any level of education. Answers without a sound understanding are meaningless. Given that you had sexist teachers to compound the problem, I don't blame you for looking back negatively towards the way you were educated: but I think that indicates poor teaching, not necessarilly a failing of the method by which you learned.
've played with a math education series that Stanford U sells for math learning at home, and it teaches math on the conceptual level and problem solving during the lessons, but every one of them is followed by timed drill on basic math facts (in the form of video games). They've found that quick recall of math facts makes a (positive) difference.
I would have quit such a game: I didn't like my time being wasted as a child, and I knew that it's pointless. Mental arithmetic doesn't scale. It's a poor solution to a problem that's better solved with technology, and even children know it.
If you doubt me, multiply pi by e, in your head, to 8 decimal places. You might be able to do it, but don't tell me it was "easy". It's three buttons on a calculator.
Kids are capable of substantial memorization feats and are often proud of their ability to recite facts.
There are better things to memorize than lookup tables: why not fundamental principles of physics or chemistry (or even math?) If a child remembers a fact, they have one fact. If they remember a principle, they can generate many facts, reason about new things, and uncover new principles. In both cases, they can be proud of their memorization ability; but if they memorize a principle, they are also empowered; they can seek out and learn new facts on their own. That's the very goal of teaching: to teach the skills that empower self-learning throughout life.
Basic math facts are worth the effort of memorization.
I can't agree. Math "facts" are occasionally useful, but there are so many other ideas, concepts, and principles which are far more useful to memorize, and to teach.
Further, from a philosophical point of view, I think we do children a disservice when we tell them to memorize facts rather than understand them as larger implications of base concepts. Rote memorization is a close cousin to rote belief; but fair, balanced reasoning is a major part of a citizen's role within a democracy. If we don't teach children to seek for reasons and proofs for their "facts", we may end up with excessively credulous adults, who fail to ask the questions they should ask, and who believe without understanding why. I don't think that's a good thing. -- Ytrew
She's in first grade, and she has almost no math abilities. If you ask her to add numbers together without paper - even simple stuff - she resorts to her fingers.
That's a valid solution to the problem, isn't it? I agree with your daughter on this one.
When I was in first grade, my teacher used flash cards to teach us the simple stuff: adding and subtracting numbers under 20. We later learned how to extend those skills to include more complex operations; it seems once you learn the simple stuff, you can build on it and apply it to the complex math.
Really? I disagree. Rote memorization of base-10 lookup tables, and a blind application of base-10 compution algorithms doesn't teach mathematics. At best, it teaches a hazy understanding of rote arithmetic.
Pushing buttons on a calculator with understanding is better than scratching away with a pen and paper to duplicate the same answers without understanding of the algorithms involved, nor their correctness.
To teach higher mathematics, you have to find a way to spark the imagination, generate creativity, and develop the problem solving skills necessary to create new algorithms and discover new mathematical insights: "the complex math", as you put it. That's a lot harder than teaching someone that 2+2 must equal four, "because it just does".
Two plus two equals four because of the nature of addition. You take two, and apply the successor function (ie. you count) two times, and the result is your answer. Your daughter is right on the money with her counting on her fingers: it's what we adults do at a more abstract level, without realizing it. Integer arithmetic is based upon counting; much of what you think of as "math" is just shortcuts to avoid counting by hand so much.
Children don't need to think in terms of the Peano axioms, and successor functions as such, but I think they should be taught to view addition and subtraction in terms of counting, and multiplication and division in terms of addition and subtraction.
After that, rules can be taught in terms of equivalences: shortcuts that avoid the time to count out the answer. Viewed in that light, calculators and computers are very handy: they just encode rules the students already know, except they're faster and make fewer computation mistakes.
I don't know if that approach will work for all students, but it certainly worked well for me. I hated all the time we wasted "drilling" times tables: I knew how to generate the tables by repeated addition, and saw little point in memorizing them at age 8. Today, I can do arithmetic in my head, but I still see little point -- there are better things that a child can be learning.
Teach your child about numbers: not times tables or arithmetic charts. Your child doesn't need to be able to memorize these arithmetic tables. A computer or calculator can do that for her. She needs to understand the nature of numbers: the concepts of groupings, abstractions, deductive reasoning, counting as the basis for number theory -- the real basics.
If you want your child to become a mathematician, it's good that you're willing to start early. However, be advised that most mathematicans I know (self included) never bothered much over mere arithmetic: it's the development and analysis of proofs, theorems, and complicated theoretical construct that takes the real work. That's the real "complex math"[1], and it's very hard indeed!
Or so says a mathematician from his own personal bias. -- Ytrew
[1] Please, no puns about the complex numbers. Thanks!
i.e., at least up to this point in time, there is no "self animating" force in any electronic entity that I am aware of.
You're a machine (or at least, a physical mechanism) made of hydrocarbons. Presumably, you think you have a "self-animating" force. I'm not sure I agree, but let's say you do.
How do we detect the "ghost" in you? Where is it? How do we tell? If you can't find it in you, but you think it exists, how can you, in all fairness, know it's not in an "electronic entity"?
Even if the sheer processing capability could be duplicated, at a similar scale, with similar power requirements, with today's technologies
But, we're no where near close to the brain's storage capacity with today's technologies! I think the figures are about 10^25 neurons, with about 10^50 possible connections. (they can, and do, "re-wire" themselves in about a minute). It's been a few years since I talked to a neuroscientist, but those are the figures I recall.
It's hard to compare bytes to neurons. If, for sake of argument, we say that 1 neuron (not conenction) encodes one bit of information, then we have 10^24 bytes, since 8 is roughly ten. Umm... Giga is 10^9 bytes. Terra is 10^12, I think. I don't know what 10^24 is, but I'm pretty sure we don't have anything that can store 10^24 bytes yet. Supposing we get Terrabytes on our desktop in the next five to ten years, we're about half way through the exponents we need.:-)
there is still no true intelligence in the circuitry that is as flexible as the mind, which can make split-second decisions (good or bad) based on literally thousands of experiences and factors -- without requiring a "full data set" in order to arrive at the "best decision".
I'm not sure humans always make the "best decision". We just make decisions, and sometimes, they're bad. Sometimes, they're good. Chess playing programs can examine thousands of factors in a split-second, too -- and they quite often make a better decision than their human opponents. I'm not that impressed that humans can make decisions "without full data": machines can use probabilistic guesses as well, albeit with far less memory capacity than the human brain. But with trillion times more memory? I'd say even current algorithms might be able to compete with humans in certain areas, though it would probably depend on what you were comparing.
How do you program or develop electronic logic like that? Into mobile, autonomous units capable of effective action?
There are a number of approaches that can be developed: if the brain is the (huge and complex) finite state machine that it appears to be, the approach taken by the researchers in the article may provide some good clues: scan brains, find out how they're built, set up a state machine in software that is similar, and see if it does similar things.
There are some robots which are very simple, but which do some very interesting things. Mark Tilden made a robot which taught itself to walk every time it was turned on -- he didn't have to program in how each leg worked; instead, he let it recognize forward motion, and evolve it's own solution. Similarly, we may not have to program human intelligence, we just have to build a machine that can work towards it, and recognize progress. That's still a very daunting task, but it's far more workable.
And you still have to define "effective action". That's a whole grey area that's worth a topic on it's own.:-)
The best example I can think of is "a WTC tower is falling down, what do I do?
I don't think that's a good example for human intelligence. Most animals have a reasonably intelligent response to a large object approaching at a rapid speed: they get out of the way as fast as they can! Humans who don't learn this tend to die at highway crossings.:-)
Different lifeforms have typical responses to a given type of crisis situation: they may or may not be "effective action", depending upon the situation. Rabbits run, then suddenly "freeze", trying to hide. This works well in brush and thickets, but badly on roadways. Moose tend to flee along the clearest path. This might sound reasonable, but they often get killed by trains, because the train tracks often run along the clearest path in the forest, and the moose is afraid to slow down to turn, because the train is "chasing" it. Humans build train tracks where moose roam, and often get killed when the train derails after hitting a moose.;-)
Not in our lifetime, methinks
You may be right, but I think great progress can be made. We can build machines that "learn": that adapt their programming based upon their environment. Given that it takes 18 years or so to "program" a human being to function society, I think making a chess playing program that can compete with grand master was a good acomplishment for just 50 years or so of modern computing. We're making progress in visual processing, and speech recognition software has quietly crept into cellphone dialers and children's toys. If hardware advances can keep up,I think we can expect great things in the future. -- Ytrew
Well, basically, yeah. Given that only one entity can have the name, the question arises of who is more entitled to it.
The usual rule is the person who is currently renting something is entitled to use it.;-)
Domain name lookups are esentially listings rented by ICANN; Uzi Nissan paid money for his listing, and then Nissan Motors decided to sue to take it away. The court was wrong.
If both are using it for commercial purposes, then the entity that has more to gain from it is more entitled to it.
I disagree. It's expropriation of property rights that you're talking about, for corporate, not public, gain. That's a textbook definition of corruption -- taking from the poor to give to the rich.
Imagine if this happened in the real world! People would howl bloody murder if their address was taken away! Companies already name streets after themselves: there's 1 Microsoft Way in Redmond, 1 Blue Jay Way at the Sky Dome... if this became a trend, should I get evicted from my house at 1 Victoria Street because "Victoria's Secret" has customers who are too lazy to read a map?
Your answer would seem to be "yes" -- after all, they have "more to gain" from owning that particular address than I do.
So big companies do, indeed, have first rights to the best domain names.
How do you know the big companies have more to gain than small companies? Can you prove that a smaller company, (say, Microsoft in the early days), won't eventually out-compete a large company (say, IBM?)
I notice also that non-profit organizations don't seem to fit into your worldview. Should they be denied web pages, because you only value profit in your metric? Should freedom of speech exist only if you have enough money to merit it?
Do you really think that the rich should have more rights because they're rich? -- AC
Slashdot Mirror
In your post, you seem to be referering to the notion of replacing conventional power lines with superconductors, and quite rightly note that ceramics make poor wires.
Wires aren't the only use for superconductors, though. They can also be used as to store electricity, by inducing a current in a coil which then keeps "looping" forever, until the electricity is used. Even without room temperature superconductors, one company, American Superconductors, sells a product based on this principle that helps regulate spikes and surges in power grids. You can read one of their press releases here, if you like.
If a room temperature superconductor were in fact to be discovered, (and we haven't yet had verification that it has been), it might well be a very big deal. If we can store a lot of energy in a single loop, and we can make a lot of loops in a small amount of space (which may or may not be viable -- time will tell), then suddenly technologies which aren't viable today because of batteries become a lot more viable.
I, for one, would love an electric car. It's cold and snowy in the winter where I live, and I'd like to own a car that I know won't stall when it's cold out, like ones based on batteries do. I'd love the whisper quiet engine, and the immediate response to my commands, without waiting for the engine to "rev up".
Right now, the existing electrical cars aren't bad, but they don't travel far enough on a single electrical charge: energy density is the problem. If room temperature superconductors provide a viable alternative, then I, for one, would welcome the invention, even if we never use it directly in power lines from the power grid.
And yes, wind power is a good idea. So is geothermal energy (check out what Iceland is doing with that), and lots of other renewable energy alternatives. However, one problem with all these solutions is that a great deal of energy is wasted because we just don't have very good ways to store it: if room temperature superconductors offer superior storage solutions, then it's a benefit for everyone, no matter what your prefered method of power generation.
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Ytrew
that Hollywood needs Digital Rights Management legislation because copyright laws lack teeth, and there are no effective means to deal with copyright violations online.
Catching copyright violators will be a good thing for copyright reform: suddenly the same people who currently just ignore the laws will press to see them changed. Still better, the legitimate calls for copyright reform won't be drowned out or confused by the wails of spoiled teenagers who just want to grab free music.
Copyright needs reforming, nationally and internationally. Grabbing all the music you can in violation of copyright doesn't help the cause of those who actually want to do something about the problem. Enforcing the existing laws, and getting rid of the violators can only help the cause of copyright in the long run.
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Ytrew
You cannot extend that to music.
Actually, I think you can, in at least one limited case. Jukeboxes, specifically. There may be others, but this (admitted limited) example is the only one I can think of off the top of my head.
Are you saying that if people are out, and fancy listening to music, they'll go buy some, when they have the same music at home already? No, of course not -
I disagree. When machines like jukeboxes get played at all, the question of whether the person already has the song at home doesn't count for much. Jukeboxes get played for social reasons, not financial ones. It's an old tradition to play something romantic for a loved one in a public place; jukeboxes, and radio requests are a more modern take on the ancient troubadour's notion of romance.
There are a couple of jukeboxes in the restaurants nearby where I work. The only people ever I see use them are groups of bored friends, and guys who want to make their girlfriends happy. In neither cases is the cost of the song (less than a dollar) very important. It's worth a few dollars during an outing to have fun with your friends. I suspect if music in general was cheaper, it would be more popular.
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Ytrew
Passwordqwerty suggests creating an program to automatically generate copywritten works for the benefit of the public domain.
As much as I like the idea, I don't think it's even marginally feasible.
The claim is: As the sentences become larger, the combinations of words goes up exponentially, but then so does computer power.
The exponent on the number of words in English is much bigger than the exponent for computer power. You wouldn't be able to copyright anything on the scale of even a short slashdot post, let alone anything like Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Here's why:
Suppose that there were only 1,000 words in English, and that we only want to store works the size of a small slashdot posting. I count 146 words in the parent post. That gives us 10^(3*146) = 10 ^ 438 combinations of words to store.
In many countries (mine included), you need to "fix" a work in a reproducable medium to claim copyright on it. This implies that we need to store every generated work somehow, to prove our title to it, so that we can put in the public domain for everyone to enjoy.
Let's say everyone on earth (10^10 people) helps out with one computer each. We divide by 10^10: everyone must store 10^428 combinations. We'll ignore encoding words into bits, and say that we have 10^428 bits to store.
Suppose that everyone today can afford 100 gb of storage, and that the cost of storage halves each year. Therefore, everyone on earth will need the equivalent of 10 ^ 428 / 10 ^12 = 10 ^ 416 modern 100 gb disk drives.
When can we afford this? Every ten years, we get about 10^3 times more storage. Dividing 416 by 3, we find that in about 138 decades, or 1,380 years, we'll finally have enough.
To recap, in over thousand years time, with 100% worldwide pariticipation, we could place all works the size of a short paragraph, written in a tiny subset of English, into the public domain.
This totally ignores the time it takes to generate these works, and the lawsuits that could occur if
a work was automatically generated that infringed copyright.
I submit that we'll have better luck trying to re-write the copyright laws within our own lifetimes.
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Ytrew
History proves over and over that single individuals can make a world-changing difference.
... weather. Countless battles were won or lost because of fog, storms, or frozen harbours. Bad harvests often trigger war, because people have no food to eat or trade. People often get sick in unexpected weather. Tornados, floods, hurricanes and hailstorms can wipe out cities even today.
That notion is called the 'great man theory' of history. I'm not at all convinced that it's true. Certainly, individuals can affect the world on a small timescale, but would similar events have happened over the next few hundred years, regardless of the individuals involved? Perhaps. I'm inclined to think so.
Would the mongols have taken over asia with Gengis Kahn?
Probably. There was a will for unity among the clans; it was finally filled by Temujin (Genghis Khan).
Would Europe have been carved up the way it was without Hitler?
In some fashion, probably. The so-called "war guilt" clause of the WWI surrender ("it's all Germany's fault") was at least as much a cause of WWII as Hitler. Add to that the impossible reparations demands, and suddenly you've got a nation of poor, angry people who think the rest of the world hates them. That's a good recipe for war right there.
And hell, what if Lincoln had not been elected President? We might have TWO "United States of Americas" occupying our current continent.
Or your states might have merged later on.
As one of my friends pointed out, one of biggest effects on history has been
Victor Hugo argues in _Les Miserables_ that Napolean lost the battle of Waterloo because the mud made the bombs land softly without exploding properly. If it had been sunny, he claims, Napolean would have carried the day. (I'm not sure I agree, but the notion is entertaining.)
What if Lee Harvey Oswald had missed?
Or what if it had rained, and the parade was cancelled?
At most, you would have had a different man (Kennedy) representing the will of the American people. And if he had failed to represent the will of the people in a blatant enough way, you would have replaced him. Democracy especially doesn't depend on it's figureheads.
What if what's-his-name didn't get assassinated, causing WW/I?
Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria was killed by a Serbian terrorist. If they hadn't killed him, they would have killed someone else.
Austria was going to depose the Serbian government back then, but Russia said "leave Serbia alone". Germany said, "stay out of it, Russia". Then all hell broke loose. When the dust cleared, everyone else decided that the whole sordid mess was "all Germany's fault", and tried to get Germany to pay for all the war expenses. This bankrupt Germany, and led directly to WW/II.
There was a lot of conflict in Serbia way back then. WWI was supposed to resolve that situation once and for all ("the war to end all wars").
Back in 2000, or so the UN deposed the Serbian government. There had been a lot of conflict in Serbia right before that, too. So much for "the war to end all wars".
What if Ghandi hadn't been born?
India would have remained a British colony until some other person protested as loudly as Ghandi did. Are you suggesting that in 200 or so years, it wouldn't have become independant?
I submit that environmental forces shape history as much, or more, than any human individual. What if the black plague hadn't led to a manpower shortage in Europe? Would the industrial revolution have happened anyway? What if the black plague (or another plague) had killed all of Europe? Who would have moved in to fill the gap? After how long?
Points to ponder.
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Ytrew
If you want to create something, create something original. Don't depend on the work somebody else did decades ago to be your only creative outlet. Quite right. I noticed you wrote this message in your own invented language, rather than making a derivative work in "English", a piece of the public's intellectual property. Oh, wait: you *did* use English? But the public shouldn't derive works from you, even though you get to do it? Doesn't sound fair to me. Is it so wrong to make money off of things? Yes, if you damage other people by doing so! Copyright removes people's rights to freely express themselves; it's a special monopoly priveledge, not a right. Henry Ford started building cars almost 100 years ago. Does that give me the right to go down to my local Ford dealer and take a free 2003 Excursion off the lot? No, but it gives you the right to create your own version of the model T in your back yard, without being sued for it. It lets you make scale models, add modern features, or generally add creative enhancements for your own enjoyment, or that of others. It lets you manufacture new Model-Ts for fun, or to cater to a niche market of history buffs, even though Ford no longer produces them. You probably can't do any of this (legally) with a modern car, since the manufaturer may well argue that the artists who developed the body made an artistic work, and it's thus under copyright. Then again, the manufacturer may not care, until you make enough money to be worth suing. Then why do you have the right to make Mickey Mouse cartoons? Because I'm claiming the right to make my own creations, not taking something from Disney. I'm not taking away their pictures or sculptures or balloons; I'm making new ones, on my time, out of my resources. They may look like something Disney once made, but these ones were made by me. You seem to think that Disney should be able to tell me what I can and can't do with my own property, and worse, that that right shouldn't expire, ever. Care to explain that one? I don't understand. -- Ytrew
How can you be so sure that when writing your own songs, you didn't unconsciously copy somebody else's musical work? George Harrison got in big trouble for that.
In general, you can't. That's a major flaw in copyright law, but the problem is not unique to garage bands: the same risk applies to every artist. As you pointed out, even musicians with a "name" can get into trouble for accidental infringement.
It's a hard problem: the very act of creating your song may be illegal! You can't examine the legality of a song that doesn't exist yet, so you can't check beforehand to see whether it will be legal or not. The best defense from a legal perspective is probably one of the worst from an artistic perspective: don't listen to any music, ever, so that it never enters your subconcious, or becomes one of your "influences". This isn't very practical in North America, where music is everywhere.
However, the situation may not be as bad as it sounds. In some countries, copyright law is written to consider "intent": honest cases of "accidental infringement" may be considered a valid defense. It might still be difficult to prove that your infringement was accidental, however, and that you qualify for that defense.
In any case, my original point stands. It is possible (if difficult) to create non-infringing works, and it is legal to put them on a peer to peer network if the author wants them there.
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Ytrew
And then RIAA gets nailed under Anti-Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) or maybe anti-trust. That would be wonderful. Bring 'em on. And as we all know, their respective anti-trust convictions cost IBM and Microsoft so much in punitive damages that they both filed for Chapter 11 shortly thereafter! And, look: hordes of flying pigs! Wow! This is a wonderful world you live in! Can I come visit more often! -- Ytrew
Look, seriously, what legitimate uses are there for P2P networks? There aren't any.
I just thought of two off the top of my head: I'm sure there must be others.
What if I'm a member of a garage band, who really wants to let people hear my music? Suppose I'm one of those people who's passionate about the music itself, and the "message it can send to the people?" I might want to put my music out for the people to listen to for free an a P2P network. It might not make me money directly, but it may ( or may not, depending on how popular the music is), give me a new fan base outside of my home town. It also well give the band some personal gratification to know that "their music is out there", if that's something that matters to them.
There are other potential motivations. Suppose I'm part of the Famous Dead Composer's Society, and I want classical music to become more popular? I might put together a group of people willing to play a nice string quartet or so forth, and put it on a P2P network so that other people can hear it for free.
There are lots of legitimate uses: what if I don't *want* to spend the money to register a domain and host it? I paid about $200 this Christmas to have my Mom's domain and hosting taken care of, and I could have spent that money elsewhere.
I do agree that the predominant use of such networks is copyright infringement, and I agree that such infringement is wrong, and the laws should either be more strictly enforced to prevent it, or changed. I personally favour change of the existing copyright law, but that's another issue.
In summary, I like the theory of peering networks, but I don't like their predominant application in practice (copyright infringements). I do, however, disagree with the notion that there is no legitimate uses of such a network. I feel that legitimate uses exist, but are rare in practice.
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Ytrew
Yes, you too can believe anything and everything that is posted on the internet! Especially when someone claims it was created by MSFT! Anyone can whip up some slides, take pictures of them, and post them on a random web site.
However, it's not legal to knowingly present false statements about a company as if they were fact. If the statements are provably false, Microsoft can sue for libel.
I am not a lawyer. If I were, this sentence would be too expensive to be worth reading.
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Ytrew
I am not one to defend Corporate America, but if you were Eisner, wouldnt you do the same? If one of the cornerstones of your business were to all of a sudden become freely reproducible, wouldnt you try to stop that from happening?
By trying to get the terms of my agreement under copyright law changed retroactively? No!
If I were the CEO of Disney, and I were to accept that the government could retroactively change the laws, I'd be worried, not happy.
I'd especially worry about what other laws the government might decide to make retroactive changes to. Like, say, suddenly declaring retroactive taxes way back to the Declaration of Independance, or other such nasty things.
But then again, if I were somehow Eisner, I wouldn't be a very ethical person, and I'd be sure to pay out enough in campaign contributions to ensure that nothing like that ever happened to my company.
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Ytrew
Well, but you have to see it from their perspective. They created content (or signed acts that created content) that brings in millions of dollars a year. Why should they have to suddenly at some arbitrary date no longer be able to exploit their intellectual property?
:-) And I think that it's a good thing to be able to understand the arguments on all sides of a debate, as well as seek out the counter-arguments that go along with them. Thank you for the opportunity for an polite and insightful discussion; it's something all too rare on Slashdot these days.
Well, because their so called "intellectual property", if you insist upon the term, is built out of our intellectual property. If you believe in intellectual property, you have to face up to a commonly ignored fact: the public owns most of the world's "intellectual property" rights! Words, language, drawing techniques, characterization, folklore: all these count as "intellectual property". Everything ever created is, by overwhelming evidence, an derivative work of some work in the public domain. Hence, under the standard "intellectual property" rules, the public gets to dictate the terms under which our "intellectual property" can be used. In the US, (and many other countries), copyright law is those set of terms.
Disney owes the public: they were allowed to use our intellectual property, granted a decades long monopoly on their derived work, and now they want to back out of the agreement that says they have to return the results to the public's domain. That's not fair.
A honest businessman, (if such a mythical creature existed), wouldn't try to get the courts or the law changed to back out of a contract when it came payment time. Eisner is, and that's why people are upset.
It's like building a house and after 95 years of owning your house suddenly becomes a historical landmark and you're evicted by the county
No, it's like building a house on public lands with public funds, with the express understanding that after those 95 years pass, you have to give the house back to the public. Then, when you've enjoyed the benefits of the agreement, and it comes time to pay, you then cry "Foul!", and try to get the law changed so that you don't have to live up to your side of the bargain.
Even if you accept the notion of "intellectual property" (and I don't), this reasoning is still flawed. It ignores the rights of the public; the silent majority stakeholders.
I wouldn't be suprised if in the future copyright expiration in the USA is abolished entirely.
I don't think anyone in the general public today thinks copyrights are important enough to ammend the US constitution. Many people don't pay much attention to politics, much less "intellectual property" disputes, but most people in the USA get very upset when you mention changing their constitution.
Don't get me wrong, I don't support this by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just trying to play Devil's advocate.
Your points are both well argued, and insightful. I just don't agree with them.
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Ytrew
You'd think that there'd be LESS stress with an elecronic keyboard than a mechanical one. Well, the mechanical typewriter is what she found more comfortable to type on, so she'll have less strain on her wrists. But you're right, she'll have much less stress in her life if she uses the electronic keyboard. It has a backspace key. If you've ever spent twenty minutes trying to type one stupid page perfectly in typing class, you'll know what I mean. Backspace is your friend. -- Ytrew
Anyone who thinks their flying pyjama dance lesson will help them against someone larger and scarier is living in a fantasy world.
I disagree. It doesn't matter if someone is stronger than you, if you can hurt them, and they can't hurt you.
EVERY pugilistic event has weight classes. Wonder why?
To make it sporting, and to keep it safe, of course. Weight classes keep the event friendly: so that the competitors can apply roughly equal brute force, and skill can be applied safely. It prevents a well skilled, but smaller person from having to apply a dangerous amount of force to win against someone bigger, and prevents a big person from harming a less skilled, smaller person as well.
When I did ground fighting with people smaller and weaker than me[1], the ones who were experts did kick my ass, because they could move faster, and use my motion against me. But I beat the other novices and intermediate fighters, because I had a thirty to fifty pound mass advantage. Mass and strength are important. So are skill and conditioning.
Wouldn't the bantamweight with superior technique outclass the 300lb behemoth? No, the behemoth would pound the bantamweight into a red smear.
If he ever got his hands on him, maybe. In a real fight for his life, the lightweight guy might just break the big guy's foot with a snap kick, then take advantage of the pain and loss of balance to break the knee on the other leg. Elapsed time: a few miliseconds, for someone skilled in the art, with reason to use it. Once the big guy can't stand, he's lost. The little guy can walk away, or run behind him, and kick him in the back of the head, or wait for him to pass out from shock.
If the big guy never gets the chance to apply his strength, it can't help him. The "art" in martial arts can be described as: "how not to get pounded in a red smear by someone bigger". It's not hard to beat up a small person of equal skill; martial arts assumes you're fighting someone your size or bigger.
Martial arts of any sort is not a silver bullet, but it's foolish to assume that brute force will always prevail. What good is brute force if your opponent isn't there when you punch at them? I'd rather have Mike Tyson punch at my head, and miss[1], than have a teenage girl punch me in the groin, and hit.
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Ytrew
[1] Unfortunately, Mike Tyson probably wouldn't miss. But then, he's put years of training in boxing, a sport with strong martial applications.
I disagree strongly with the previous poster that learning multiplication tables is a waste of time --- the procedure described is exactly the one that I used (made up on my own) and still use. I memorized the diagonal elements of the table --- 6 x 6, 7 x 7, and so on, and added to get the rest. (6 x 7 = 36 + 6 = 42) Sounds fine, until you try to learn division, particularly long division.
;-)
I'm curious; what was your difficulty with division? If you have a ten by ten grid of the "times table" in front of you, I found it fairly easy to read, and to do "long division". I was only frustrated when the teachers yelled at me for using it.
I'm confused by the word "especially" in front of "long division" -- how does "long division" differ from any other kind of division, except notationally? "Short divison" was taught to me as a shorthand notation where the digits were overwritten and subtractions were implicit; "long division" simply consumed more space, and made the subtractions explicit. I found it much easier, personally.
And what about factoring?
Factoring is a hard problem; it's at the heart of modern cryptography. Memorizing times times tables doesn't really help: you need to memorize all the primes below the number you're considering, and try each in turn. This approach scales very badly, since there are an infinite number of primes. I solved my "factoring" homework in grade 9 by writing a computer program; which is exactly what I would do in adult life, if faced with a complex factoring problem. We built computers to use them.
I finally came to the conclusion that "I was no good at math", a belief that some of my teachers had no problem reinforcing because "girls don't need to be good at math".
It sounds like your teachers weren't teaching you a proper understanding of the algorithms involved, but rather emphasising "results". I don't agree with that at any level of education. Answers without a sound understanding are meaningless. Given that you had sexist teachers to compound the problem, I don't blame you for looking back negatively towards the way you were educated: but I think that indicates poor teaching, not necessarilly a failing of the method by which you learned.
've played with a math education series that Stanford U sells for math learning at home, and it teaches math on the conceptual level and problem solving during the lessons, but every one of them is followed by timed drill on basic math facts (in the form of video games). They've found that quick recall of math facts makes a (positive) difference.
I would have quit such a game: I didn't like my time being wasted as a child, and I knew that it's pointless. Mental arithmetic doesn't scale. It's a poor solution to a problem that's better solved with technology, and even children know it.
If you doubt me, multiply pi by e, in your head, to 8 decimal places. You might be able to do it, but don't tell me it was "easy". It's three buttons on a calculator.
Kids are capable of substantial memorization feats and are often proud of their ability to recite facts.
There are better things to memorize than lookup tables: why not fundamental principles of physics or chemistry (or even math?) If a child remembers a fact, they have one fact. If they remember a principle, they can generate many facts, reason about new things, and uncover new principles. In both cases, they can be proud of their memorization ability; but if they memorize a principle, they are also empowered; they can seek out and learn new facts on their own. That's the very goal of teaching: to teach the skills that empower self-learning throughout life.
Basic math facts are worth the effort of memorization.
I can't agree. Math "facts" are occasionally useful, but there are so many other ideas, concepts, and principles which are far more useful to memorize, and to teach.
Further, from a philosophical point of view, I think we do children a disservice when we tell them to memorize facts rather than understand them as larger implications of base concepts. Rote memorization is a close cousin to rote belief; but fair, balanced reasoning is a major part of a citizen's role within a democracy. If we don't teach children to seek for reasons and proofs for their "facts", we may end up with excessively credulous adults, who fail to ask the questions they should ask, and who believe without understanding why. I don't think that's a good thing.
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Ytrew
She's in first grade, and she has almost no math abilities. If you ask her to add numbers together without paper - even simple stuff - she resorts to her fingers.
That's a valid solution to the problem, isn't it? I agree with your daughter on this one.
When I was in first grade, my teacher used flash cards to teach us the simple stuff: adding and subtracting numbers under 20. We later learned how to extend those skills to include more complex operations; it seems once you learn the simple stuff, you can build on it and apply it to the complex math.
Really? I disagree. Rote memorization of base-10 lookup tables, and a blind application of base-10 compution algorithms doesn't teach mathematics. At best, it teaches a hazy understanding of rote arithmetic.
Pushing buttons on a calculator with understanding is better than scratching away with a pen and paper to duplicate the same answers without understanding of the algorithms involved, nor their correctness.
To teach higher mathematics, you have to find a way to spark the imagination, generate creativity, and develop the problem solving skills necessary to create new algorithms and discover new mathematical insights: "the complex math", as you put it. That's a lot harder than teaching someone that 2+2 must equal four, "because it just does".
Two plus two equals four because of the nature of addition. You take two, and apply the successor function (ie. you count) two times, and the result is your answer. Your daughter is right on the money with her counting on her fingers: it's what we adults do at a more abstract level, without realizing it. Integer arithmetic is based upon counting; much of what you think of as "math" is just shortcuts to avoid counting by hand so much.
Children don't need to think in terms of the Peano axioms, and successor functions as such, but I think they should be taught to view addition and subtraction in terms of counting, and multiplication and division in terms of addition and subtraction.
After that, rules can be taught in terms of equivalences: shortcuts that avoid the time to count out the answer. Viewed in that light, calculators and computers are very handy: they just encode rules the students already know, except they're faster and make fewer computation mistakes.
I don't know if that approach will work for all students, but it certainly worked well for me. I hated all the time we wasted "drilling" times tables: I knew how to generate the tables by repeated addition, and saw little point in memorizing them at age 8. Today, I can do arithmetic in my head, but I still see little point -- there are better things that a child can be learning.
Teach your child about numbers: not times tables or arithmetic charts. Your child doesn't need to be able to memorize these arithmetic tables. A computer or calculator can do that for her. She needs to understand the nature of numbers: the concepts of groupings, abstractions, deductive reasoning, counting as the basis for number theory -- the real basics.
If you want your child to become a mathematician, it's good that you're willing to start early. However, be advised that most mathematicans I know (self included) never bothered much over mere arithmetic: it's the development and analysis of proofs, theorems, and complicated theoretical construct that takes the real work. That's the real "complex math"[1], and it's very hard indeed!
Or so says a mathematician from his own personal bias.
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Ytrew
[1] Please, no puns about the complex numbers. Thanks!
i.e., at least up to this point in time, there is no "self animating" force in any electronic entity that I am aware of.
:-)
:-)
:-)
;-)
You're a machine (or at least, a physical mechanism) made of hydrocarbons. Presumably, you think you have a "self-animating" force. I'm not sure I agree, but let's say you do.
How do we detect the "ghost" in you? Where is it? How do we tell? If you can't find it in you, but you think it exists, how can you, in all fairness, know it's not in an "electronic entity"?
Even if the sheer processing capability could be duplicated, at a similar scale, with similar power requirements, with today's technologies
But, we're no where near close to the brain's storage capacity with today's technologies! I think the figures are about 10^25 neurons, with about 10^50 possible connections. (they can, and do, "re-wire" themselves in about a minute). It's been a few years since I talked to a neuroscientist, but those are the figures I recall.
It's hard to compare bytes to neurons. If, for sake of argument, we say that 1 neuron (not conenction) encodes one bit of information, then we have 10^24 bytes, since 8 is roughly ten. Umm... Giga is 10^9 bytes. Terra is 10^12, I think. I don't know what 10^24 is, but I'm pretty sure we don't have anything that can store 10^24 bytes yet. Supposing we get Terrabytes on our desktop in the next five to ten years, we're about half way through the exponents we need.
there is still no true intelligence in the circuitry that is as flexible as the mind, which can make split-second decisions (good or bad) based on literally thousands of experiences and factors -- without requiring a "full data set" in order to arrive at the "best decision".
I'm not sure humans always make the "best decision". We just make decisions, and sometimes, they're bad. Sometimes, they're good. Chess playing programs can examine thousands of factors in a split-second, too -- and they quite often make a better decision than their human opponents.
I'm not that impressed that humans can make decisions "without full data": machines can use probabilistic guesses as well, albeit with far less memory capacity than the human brain. But with trillion times more memory? I'd say even current algorithms might be able to compete with humans in certain areas, though it would probably depend on what you were comparing.
How do you program or develop electronic logic like that? Into mobile, autonomous units capable of effective action?
There are a number of approaches that can be developed: if the brain is the (huge and complex) finite state machine that it appears to be, the approach taken by the researchers in the article may provide some good clues: scan brains, find out how they're built, set up a state machine in software that is similar, and see if it does similar things.
There are some robots which are very simple, but which do some very interesting things. Mark Tilden made a robot which taught itself to walk every time it was turned on -- he didn't have to program in how each leg worked; instead, he let it recognize forward motion, and evolve it's own solution. Similarly, we may not have to program human intelligence, we just have to build a machine that can work towards it, and recognize progress. That's still a very daunting task, but it's far more workable.
And you still have to define "effective action". That's a whole grey area that's worth a topic on it's own.
The best example I can think of is "a WTC tower is falling down, what do I do?
I don't think that's a good example for human intelligence. Most animals have a reasonably intelligent response to a large object approaching at a rapid speed: they get out of the way as fast as they can! Humans who don't learn this tend to die at highway crossings.
Different lifeforms have typical responses to a given type of crisis situation: they may or may not be "effective action", depending upon the situation. Rabbits run, then suddenly "freeze", trying to hide. This works well in brush and thickets, but badly on roadways. Moose tend to flee along the clearest path. This might sound reasonable, but they often get killed by trains, because the train tracks often run along the clearest path in the forest, and the moose is afraid to slow down to turn, because the train is "chasing" it. Humans build train tracks where moose roam, and often get killed when the train derails after hitting a moose.
Not in our lifetime, methinks
You may be right, but I think great progress can be made. We can build machines that "learn": that adapt their programming based upon their environment. Given that it takes 18 years or so to "program" a human being to function society, I think making a chess playing program that can compete with grand master was a good acomplishment for just 50 years or so of modern computing. We're making progress in visual processing, and speech recognition software has quietly crept into cellphone dialers and children's toys. If hardware advances can keep up,I think we can expect great things in the future.
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Ytrew
Well, basically, yeah. Given that only one entity can have the name, the question arises of who is more entitled to it.
;-)
... if this became a trend, should I get evicted from my house at 1 Victoria Street because "Victoria's Secret" has customers who are too lazy to read a map?
The usual rule is the person who is currently renting something is entitled to use it.
Domain name lookups are esentially listings rented by ICANN; Uzi Nissan paid money for his listing, and then Nissan Motors decided to sue to take it away. The court was wrong.
If both are using it for commercial purposes, then the entity that has more to gain from it is more entitled to it.
I disagree. It's expropriation of property rights that you're talking about, for corporate, not public, gain. That's a textbook definition of corruption -- taking from the poor to give to the rich.
Imagine if this happened in the real world! People would howl bloody murder if their address was taken away! Companies already name streets after themselves: there's 1 Microsoft Way in Redmond, 1 Blue Jay Way at the Sky Dome
Your answer would seem to be "yes" -- after all, they have "more to gain" from owning that particular address than I do.
So big companies do, indeed, have first rights to the best domain names.
How do you know the big companies have more to gain than small companies? Can you prove that a smaller company, (say, Microsoft in the early days), won't eventually out-compete a large company (say, IBM?)
I notice also that non-profit organizations don't seem to fit into your worldview. Should they be denied web pages, because you only value profit in your metric? Should freedom of speech exist only if you have enough money to merit it?
Do you really think that the rich should have more rights because they're rich?
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AC