Life is measured relative to the ecosystem in which we live in[1]. Can you suggest a mechanism by which an intelligent robot would be physically self-modifying within our ecosystem? No? Then we probably don't need to answer the question for another 20 years.
Who mentioned robots? A self aware software program capable of self modification would be capable of 'growth'.
Ignoring the DREADFUL pun and moving swiftly on...
So? Can you figure out how an intelligent robot could in theory
Again, why necessarily a robot? There is no reason why self aware software should not be able to replicate itself in mere nanoseconds given the appropriate hardware which would not even need to be in the same country.
Your assumption seems to be that the entity as a whole is alive, rather think of any hardware involved as a shell to hold the actual living personality.
2. Metabolism - The uptake of food, conversion of food into energy and disposal of waste products
Electricity in, heat out.
3. Motion - Moving itself or having internal motion
Unless it were composed of purely solid state components there would be internal movement. I fail to see how this is relevant though, trees are not noted for walking about and are definitely 'alive'.
4. Reproduction - the ability to create more or less exact copies of itself
I am unable to have children, by your definition that makes me dead.
5. Stimulus response - the ability to measure properties of its surrounding environment and to act on certain conditions
A few sensors would more than adequately fulfil this requirement. Assembly line robots do this every day!
I guess there are many in Europe who had fathers in France who happily turned in Jews for the Nazis, or fathers in Germany who were proud SS members. Only those who think that such evil is OK would get so angry at imprisoning the modern equivalents of the nazis and SS.
Setting aside Godwins law and your completely inappropriate comparisms, the problem is that the US is bypassing the law and freedoms that Americans are so fond of shouting from the rooftops. Either the law applies equally to everyone or it is an instrument of tryanny. THAT is the problem.
They were mercenaries in the employ of a terrorist organization.
Um...no.
Some were in the employ of a sovereign government. Some were overseas volunteers fighting for something they believed in. Either way it makes no difference, what's happening in Guantanamo Bay is (along with the US attitude of 'can do no wrong' towards Israel) is the main reason many of us in Europe are disgusted with the current US administration.
So while I agree with your main point, you make it sound like America is the only country guilty of this, and it's not.
I think the point was less that America is the only country guilty of this (it certainly isn't) but that USA markets itself as the 'land of the free'. Other coutnries are not so vocal about their freedom or lack of it.
Definition time (as much as anything in the transgendered sphere can be defined...
Transvestite: Man who (usually) gets a kick out of dressing as a woman. Not necessarily a sexual kick and some would describe it as expressing their feminine or sensual side. Most TVs are straight men.
Drag Queen: Usually a gay man, normally very over the top in dress style (think Shirley Bassey gowns and serious makeup) and done as a form of entertainment.
Transsexual: Man or woman who is mentally the opposite gender to their body. Think man in a womans body (or vice-versa) to try and get the idea. May or may not undergo gender reassignment surgery but will probably live out their life as their 'preferred' gender both at home and at work.
This is not a good area for uncertain or inexact use of words;)
We've installed the Win2k patch 3 times on a test machine in an attempt to assess it and it still shows as vulnerable to the latest RPC/DCOM scanner from eEye.
Ok, is this like the Have I Got News For You guest presenter thing? Have we got SCO as guest editors or something? Whoever let this one through without a little edit was DEFINITELY on crack!
How did this obvious troll get modded up to 5?
No business pays people to read email all day. There are dozens of good free and commercial spam filters.
Guess again. The company I work for has a filter in place but NOTHING (exception: virus infected files) is discarded until a human being has checked it and either released or deleted. No matter how good a Bayesian filter may be it's still not good enough to guarantee it won't quarantine a £24 million bid proposal by mistake. What if the person sending the proposal at 1am then heaves a sigh of relief because it's gone and shuts down before the quarantine warning mail gets back to them? With an unmonitored system this would go unnoticed until they next read their mail!
This is why we have someone monitoring the crap filter 24/7, it's not the only thing they are doing but every hour or so they'll go through the servers and release/delete the crap.
And for those who say "It's the users problem if they don't phone to check delivery or request a receipt!", you obviously don't work front line support:/
Is there really no more to say or are people just looking for cheap Funny-karma?
You're obviously new here, based on the empirical evidence available my conclusion is that slashdot exists purely to enable bored geeks to make unfunny jokes that only another geek would laugh at.
Looking back over my recent posts this applies to me as much as anyone else:(
Here's your chance to come up with something convincing, because "It's in India" won't cut it. US Citizenship has nothing to do with your location on the planet.
"It's in India" DOES cut it I think you'll find. Once you are in India you are subject to Indian law and Indian trade practices, any US law/custom has nothing whatsoever to do with anything in India. If they want to pay you 50 Rupees a month they can, just as you can refuse to work for that sort of money.
Of course a name change means nothing on it's own, there is a paradigm shift going on as well though that DOES have meaning. It's a long way from complete but it's a step in the right direction.
Gradually it becomes "people doing things we don't approve of".
If a country ever gets to that stage a DNA database would be useless anyway. They'd simply pick people up off the streets on suspicion of being 'bad people' and ignore the evidence (or lack of it). Take the mutawwa'in as a prime example., they beat people and lock them up with little or no evidence and for little or no reason. If the regular police service (remember that word, it's important) could get away with that I don't think they'd bother with a DNA database, do you?
Back to the word 'service', the US calls their police a force, the UK calls it a service. This is only a fairly recent change in terminology (and paradigm) that's not yet fully grasped by many (police documents still refer to the force quite regularly) but we're getting there. The police are there to serve the public (Protect and Serve?) and we are gradually moving back towards that thinking steadily. If a service designed to serve me can be improved by having access to a DNA database I have no problem with it. If it means more scrotes are taken off the streets and less innocents are locked away then I'm all for it!
Slashdot Mirror
Who mentioned robots? A self aware software program capable of self modification would be capable of 'growth'.
Ignoring the DREADFUL pun and moving swiftly on...
Again, why necessarily a robot? There is no reason why self aware software should not be able to replicate itself in mere nanoseconds given the appropriate hardware which would not even need to be in the same country.
Your assumption seems to be that the entity as a whole is alive, rather think of any hardware involved as a shell to hold the actual living personality.
Why could it not be self modifying?
Electricity in, heat out.
Unless it were composed of purely solid state components there would be internal movement. I fail to see how this is relevant though, trees are not noted for walking about and are definitely 'alive'.
I am unable to have children, by your definition that makes me dead.
A few sensors would more than adequately fulfil this requirement. Assembly line robots do this every day!
Funny, it was 4am on Friday as well when this comment was last posted...
Setting aside Godwins law and your completely inappropriate comparisms, the problem is that the US is bypassing the law and freedoms that Americans are so fond of shouting from the rooftops. Either the law applies equally to everyone or it is an instrument of tryanny. THAT is the problem.
Um...no.
Some were in the employ of a sovereign government. Some were overseas volunteers fighting for something they believed in. Either way it makes no difference, what's happening in Guantanamo Bay is (along with the US attitude of 'can do no wrong' towards Israel) is the main reason many of us in Europe are disgusted with the current US administration.
I think the point was less that America is the only country guilty of this (it certainly isn't) but that USA markets itself as the 'land of the free'. Other coutnries are not so vocal about their freedom or lack of it.
Definition time (as much as anything in the transgendered sphere can be defined...
;)
Transvestite: Man who (usually) gets a kick out of dressing as a woman. Not necessarily a sexual kick and some would describe it as expressing their feminine or sensual side. Most TVs are straight men.
Drag Queen: Usually a gay man, normally very over the top in dress style (think Shirley Bassey gowns and serious makeup) and done as a form of entertainment.
Transsexual: Man or woman who is mentally the opposite gender to their body. Think man in a womans body (or vice-versa) to try and get the idea. May or may not undergo gender reassignment surgery but will probably live out their life as their 'preferred' gender both at home and at work.
This is not a good area for uncertain or inexact use of words
There's an evil bit joke somewhere in there, I just can't bring myself to make it...
Row numbers.
We've installed the Win2k patch 3 times on a test machine in an attempt to assess it and it still shows as vulnerable to the latest RPC/DCOM scanner from eEye.
Ok, is this like the Have I Got News For You guest presenter thing? Have we got SCO as guest editors or something? Whoever let this one through without a little edit was DEFINITELY on crack!
I can see the headlines at the end of the case now...
IBM wins!
Flawless victory!
Fatality!
I just migrated a site from mysql to psql, I discovered in the process that it's not just migrating from MS to linux that sucks :/
Guess again. The company I work for has a filter in place but NOTHING (exception: virus infected files) is discarded until a human being has checked it and either released or deleted. No matter how good a Bayesian filter may be it's still not good enough to guarantee it won't quarantine a £24 million bid proposal by mistake. What if the person sending the proposal at 1am then heaves a sigh of relief because it's gone and shuts down before the quarantine warning mail gets back to them? With an unmonitored system this would go unnoticed until they next read their mail!
This is why we have someone monitoring the crap filter 24/7, it's not the only thing they are doing but every hour or so they'll go through the servers and release/delete the crap.
And for those who say "It's the users problem if they don't phone to check delivery or request a receipt!", you obviously don't work front line support :/
You're obviously new here, based on the empirical evidence available my conclusion is that slashdot exists purely to enable bored geeks to make unfunny jokes that only another geek would laugh at.
Looking back over my recent posts this applies to me as much as anyone else :(
Correct use of irony on slashdot is not allowed, it confuses the grammar nazis ;)
"It's in India" DOES cut it I think you'll find. Once you are in India you are subject to Indian law and Indian trade practices, any US law/custom has nothing whatsoever to do with anything in India. If they want to pay you 50 Rupees a month they can, just as you can refuse to work for that sort of money.
Welcome to the global free market.
SCO: "Give me money." Linux user: "Prove you have a right to it first by winning your lawsuit against IBM." SCO: "Damn :/"
Your analogy is false, I can have ice cream AND chocolate. One in no way affects the other.
Of course a name change means nothing on it's own, there is a paradigm shift going on as well though that DOES have meaning. It's a long way from complete but it's a step in the right direction.
If a country ever gets to that stage a DNA database would be useless anyway. They'd simply pick people up off the streets on suspicion of being 'bad people' and ignore the evidence (or lack of it). Take the mutawwa'in as a prime example., they beat people and lock them up with little or no evidence and for little or no reason. If the regular police service (remember that word, it's important) could get away with that I don't think they'd bother with a DNA database, do you?
Back to the word 'service', the US calls their police a force, the UK calls it a service. This is only a fairly recent change in terminology (and paradigm) that's not yet fully grasped by many (police documents still refer to the force quite regularly) but we're getting there. The police are there to serve the public (Protect and Serve?) and we are gradually moving back towards that thinking steadily. If a service designed to serve me can be improved by having access to a DNA database I have no problem with it. If it means more scrotes are taken off the streets and less innocents are locked away then I'm all for it!
...it all goes right, this is a GOOD thing :)
I like my privacy as much as the next person, I like seeing evil bastards locked up even more though.
...and the creators turned the login questions off for his account. I see no reason why Yahoo!/Hotmail can't do the same.