There have been numerous $20 DRM-free indy games that were pirated just as much as everything else.
There is no reward for companies that go DRM-free.
There is some. They save money by not investing in useless technology that harms their customers. Sure, they may be pirated as much as everything else, but who cares about that? It means that not having DRM is just as effective at preventing piracy as having DRM.
DRM-companies seem to think that successful business is about control, and that includes stopping piracy and controlling users, both legitimate and illegitimate, as much as possible. They're wrong. In the end, any sane business model is based in increasing revenue and reducing costs. Increasing revenue is done by attracting and pleasing customers, and reducing costs is done by not wasting money on useless and harmful investments. There is plenty of real rewards for companies that go DRM free.
For a lot of people, working with a publisher is harder or just not as good an option as marketing it yourself. Self-publishing and self-marketing is easier than ever, and there definitely is a market outside the established publisher mainstream. (Just don't expect to get rich.)
What Kurzweil says is pretty reasonable, he used the total amount of information in the genome to get an upper limit estimate of the amount of library code needed to simulate a brain.
And then he throws all that away again by making some wild assumptions about how far it can be compressed, and how a line of code would be a good representation of that highly compressed data.
Not so mention the fact that you also need a highly detailed and accurate physics simulation for that approach to work. Because, you know, our DNA has evolved to produce a functioning brain within our physical reality. If you want to simulate that process in the logical environment of a computer, you first need an accurate physics simulation. And who knows just how detailed that simulation needs to be?
Myers goes off in a tangent about biochemistry which has nothing to do with the argument.
Not with Kurzweil's argument perhaps, but it has everything to do with his prediction. He points out just how much we don't know about the brain, and still won't know in 10 years time, and really do need to know if you actually plan to reverse engineer the brain out of our genetic code. Unless you want to build a complete universe to run the simulation, perhaps.
Sure, the brain is not a magical mystery box, but 10 years is really not a lot of time. If he adds another 0 to the end, I have no problem with his prediction.
No it's not. If it was possible to do in a million lines of code, it would have been done by now.
That's silly. He's not claiming that just any million lines of code will do. You need to understand how the brain works in order to write the right million lines of (probably ridiculously compact and completely unreadable) code.
What I thought when I read TFA was: maybe the brain actually can be described by a million lines of code. In the same way the Mandelbrot fractal can be described by a single formula.
A million lines of code wouldn't describe a working brain, it would describe the tools that, given enough time and food, would create a working brain.
Consider how Deep Thought couldn't calculate the Ultimate Question, but could describe a machine that would be able to calculate it.
Maybe Austrians declared themselves to be the center of EU?
Could be. The center of the EU has moved eastward recently, but for a long time, it looked a lot like the center of the EU was in Switzerland. That'd be a nice bit of irony, wouldn't it?
The worst, most sensationalist Dutch newspaper, with screaming headlines and unreadable layout, publishes on broad sheet, whereas some reasonable quality newspapers publish in tabloid size.
I think the border between Europe and Asia is officially around 66 degrees east, somewhere near the Ural mountains. The western part of Russia is a lot smaller than the eastern part, but it's still a lot bigger than any other European country.
Have you ever seen a map of Europe? Like, ever? How would the UK be at the center? I can forgive you for Germany, since it's right next to Austria. France is next to Germany, so not quite. Russia is almost as bad as UK.
Russia is bigger than you think. Actually, it's smaller now than it used to be, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if by some measurements, the center of Europe is in Belarus.
Seriously? Ever hear of Vienna (in Austria), one of the most important cities in European cultural history? Mozart? Strauss? Freud? Schrödinger? and many others.
Can you tell us your ulterior motive for leaving out Hitler, or do I have to manufacture one?
I don't think he's quite as big a source of pride as the other ones.
Gosling is obviously stating that Microsoft is a horrible company, but the rest of the industry has become so much worse recently that Microsoft seems benign in comparison (i.e., it is a sad truth).
It's true. I admit I've recently been thinking less bad about Microsoft. I'm not going to be a fan any time soon, but MS seems to have remained rather stationary on the Evil scale (possibly even edging slightly away from the evil end, but that might be an illusion), while everybody else seems to be in a hurry to overtake them and dive off the deep end of the scale.
10 years ago I didn't think it was possible, but in the mean time many companies have proven that it is indeed possible to be far more evil than Microsoft.
I don't think a lot of people here are upset about exposing military and political decisions and procedures. What upsets people (me at least) is endangering the lives of civilians and soldiers on the ground.
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There have been numerous $20 DRM-free indy games that were pirated just as much as everything else.
There is no reward for companies that go DRM-free.
There is some. They save money by not investing in useless technology that harms their customers. Sure, they may be pirated as much as everything else, but who cares about that? It means that not having DRM is just as effective at preventing piracy as having DRM.
DRM-companies seem to think that successful business is about control, and that includes stopping piracy and controlling users, both legitimate and illegitimate, as much as possible. They're wrong. In the end, any sane business model is based in increasing revenue and reducing costs. Increasing revenue is done by attracting and pleasing customers, and reducing costs is done by not wasting money on useless and harmful investments. There is plenty of real rewards for companies that go DRM free.
I can do it more accurately than that. And without any false positives whatsoever! (I might have a few misses, but that's a minority.)
For a lot of people, working with a publisher is harder or just not as good an option as marketing it yourself. Self-publishing and self-marketing is easier than ever, and there definitely is a market outside the established publisher mainstream. (Just don't expect to get rich.)
What Kurzweil says is pretty reasonable, he used the total amount of information in the genome to get an upper limit estimate of the amount of library code needed to simulate a brain.
And then he throws all that away again by making some wild assumptions about how far it can be compressed, and how a line of code would be a good representation of that highly compressed data.
Not so mention the fact that you also need a highly detailed and accurate physics simulation for that approach to work. Because, you know, our DNA has evolved to produce a functioning brain within our physical reality. If you want to simulate that process in the logical environment of a computer, you first need an accurate physics simulation. And who knows just how detailed that simulation needs to be?
Myers goes off in a tangent about biochemistry which has nothing to do with the argument.
Not with Kurzweil's argument perhaps, but it has everything to do with his prediction. He points out just how much we don't know about the brain, and still won't know in 10 years time, and really do need to know if you actually plan to reverse engineer the brain out of our genetic code. Unless you want to build a complete universe to run the simulation, perhaps.
Sure, the brain is not a magical mystery box, but 10 years is really not a lot of time. If he adds another 0 to the end, I have no problem with his prediction.
No it's not. If it was possible to do in a million lines of code, it would have been done by now.
That's silly. He's not claiming that just any million lines of code will do. You need to understand how the brain works in order to write the right million lines of (probably ridiculously compact and completely unreadable) code.
I guess the GP is from Kansas.
I had my wife do the development work. (I was just there for the kick-off meeting.)
Don't underestimate the amount of time and work it takes to get the end result up and running properly, though. That could take years.
Who the hell is Ray,
Some guy that's wrong.
and what is the claim?
Who cares? It's wrong anyway.
What I thought when I read TFA was: maybe the brain actually can be described by a million lines of code. In the same way the Mandelbrot fractal can be described by a single formula.
A million lines of code wouldn't describe a working brain, it would describe the tools that, given enough time and food, would create a working brain.
Consider how Deep Thought couldn't calculate the Ultimate Question, but could describe a machine that would be able to calculate it.
To simplify it so a computer science guy can get it, Kurzweil has everything completely wrong.
Best summary I've ever read. (Though a bit more respect for our ability to get it would have been nice.)
What's so crazy about that?
A single line of code has more redundancy than our genes. There are very good reasons why duplicated genes survive.
Maybe Austrians declared themselves to be the center of EU?
Could be. The center of the EU has moved eastward recently, but for a long time, it looked a lot like the center of the EU was in Switzerland. That'd be a nice bit of irony, wouldn't it?
The worst, most sensationalist Dutch newspaper, with screaming headlines and unreadable layout, publishes on broad sheet, whereas some reasonable quality newspapers publish in tabloid size.
Is that why he suddenly dyed his hair and looks like Ewan McGregor?
I think the border between Europe and Asia is officially around 66 degrees east, somewhere near the Ural mountains. The western part of Russia is a lot smaller than the eastern part, but it's still a lot bigger than any other European country.
Non sequitur on so many levels.
Have you ever seen a map of Europe? Like, ever? How would the UK be at the center? I can forgive you for Germany, since it's right next to Austria. France is next to Germany, so not quite. Russia is almost as bad as UK.
Russia is bigger than you think. Actually, it's smaller now than it used to be, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if by some measurements, the center of Europe is in Belarus.
Can you tell us your ulterior motive for leaving out Hitler, or do I have to manufacture one?
I don't think he's quite as big a source of pride as the other ones.
You'd be amazed how many churches have been dedicated to a lady. Most of them to the same one, even.
Gosling is obviously stating that Microsoft is a horrible company, but the rest of the industry has become so much worse recently that Microsoft seems benign in comparison (i.e., it is a sad truth).
It's true. I admit I've recently been thinking less bad about Microsoft. I'm not going to be a fan any time soon, but MS seems to have remained rather stationary on the Evil scale (possibly even edging slightly away from the evil end, but that might be an illusion), while everybody else seems to be in a hurry to overtake them and dive off the deep end of the scale.
10 years ago I didn't think it was possible, but in the mean time many companies have proven that it is indeed possible to be far more evil than Microsoft.
They mocked it by submitting completely ridiculous patents. And USPTO made even more of a mockery of itself by granting those patents.
It was on Slashdot last Monday.
And how about Economics, Politics, Aeronautics, and Quantum Mechanics?
No it's not. There's a huge difference between: "this is secret and should never be exposed" and "this should be exposed in a responsible manner".
I don't think a lot of people here are upset about exposing military and political decisions and procedures. What upsets people (me at least) is endangering the lives of civilians and soldiers on the ground.