If you want to do serious work, you'd want a notebook. If you just want to jot down some notes or a phone number, you'd want a pen and paper or maybe a PDA. What is the point of this?
Friend: Let me give you my new number. Got a pen?
Me: Uh, hang on a sec. Let me get out my tablet. Just have to boot it up here...just a minute more. Okay. I've got to open Outlook...
New contact...new number. Damn, it's not recognizing my handwriting. Wait, wait. Okay. Done. Now let me give you my number.
Friend: *writes it on back of hand with a pen that costs a quarter, never needs to be recharged, and fits in a shirt pocket*
High-end computer systems may surpass the computational ability of the standard human brain within 20 years.
The problem is that people have been saying that since Babbage. Take it easy. It's not going to happen in our lifetimes. In fact, it may never happen. At any rate, if an intelligent machine could ever be built it won't be a digital computer. So if you think we're ready to move away from digital computing in the next 20 years then I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you.
I was just about to post the same thing. What are these 'classified' computers and where are they? What can they do? Who uses them and for what? Is there a supercomputer underneath the Pentagon that is on the verge of self-awareness? How much more advanced can these computers possibly be that they have to be classifed by the government? I need to know!
I've installed Opera, Mozilla, Netscape and all the rest but I always end up going back to IE because I can't give up my Google Toolbar. And as for spellcheckers, ieSpell checks any webpage for spelling including form fields like the comment box I'm typing in now.
I'm sure most slashdotters want all "intellectual property" laws abolished.
I'm sure they don't. Seems to me that the people who want all intellectual property laws abolished are the ones who have no intellectual property of their own. Why should authors, programmers, musicians, architects, graphic designers, inventors have to give up their creations into the public domain without any compensation? I agree that sometimes these lawsuits go too far and I'd also like to see copyright terms shortened instead of extended but advocating "the abolishment of all intellectual property laws" is just silly, childish, and nonsensical. That wouldn't even work in a Communist country. What is the incentive for people to create if they can't expect compensation?
If you can strip out all of the characters and plot from a story and it's still interesting, it's probably sci-fi.
That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I think what you meant to say is that the mark of good sci-fi is being able to strip all of the technical aspects out of the story and still be left with a good story. Characters and plot come first. Always. Otherwise, you're reading a manual. And your two examples contradict each other. Why am I reading 20,000 Leagues for the technical stuff but watching Star Wars for the story? Huh?
I agree. The libraries in my city are all about community projects and book clubs and getting people together. Hence 'public' library. Mike Benham probably has his public library confused with his local Barnes and Noble.
It's a recording dude. His handler pushed the button when it was time for him to say his little speech. He can 'speak' in any language he wants. You make it sound like the robot thought it would be a nice gesture if he spoke in Czech instead of his native Japanese.
Games today, especially PC games, have way too much detail and too many variables to be any fun anymore. For example, I really admire the Simcity series and appreciate how much detail is in a game like Simcity 4. But there are so many variables that you don't have any control over the game anymore. (Not to mention the fact you need 2GB of RAM just to get the thing to run at a half decent speed.)
You might say "But that's the whole point with a city simulation; chaos. Maybe. But once you realize that no one player could possibly micromanage so many details it gets frustrating and boring. Simcity 4 should be played by a computer. I remember being a kid and picking up Simcity for the SNES and I got right into it. It was easy but that didn't mean it wasn't interesting.
Shite. Look at any game on the NES. When you were a kid you threw the manual and the box away. You didn't need a manual to figure out how to play Excitebike or Balloon Fight. Now I have to keep a library of game manuals and a separate library of strategy manuals just to play a game like Civilization III.
The only genre that hasn't been affected by this is the FPS. Once you've learned WASD you're all set. I love that feeling of loading a brand new game and just knowing how to play it. The last time I felt that way I was playing Medal of Honor.
Then of course there's the in game tutorial which has become standard. Except for the tutorial in Black and White (which doubled as an introduction) which was really well done I get so bored listening to and reading the instructions. I just want to play.
It's still not so bad on the consoles. I have a Cube and I love it. Games like Pikmin and Animal Cracker have short little manuals on the interface; the rest of the game is up to you. Miyamoto is a genius like that. One or two buttons and that's all you need to know to interface with the game. F-Zero is out Tuesday. Will I have to read the manual? No. I'll even bet I know what the manual will say: A: Accelerator. B: Boost. L/R: Hard Steer. Simple. Will I be hooked on it for months? Yes.
Exactly! Who reads reviews except to get the release dates? I buy a game if I like what I read on the back of the box or because I've played the game at a buddy's house. For example, F-Zero is out Tuesday for the GC. I will buy it. Have I read any reviews for it? No.
I have rights! The Constitution protects me! Blah blah blah blah blah. These cases are civil lawsuits and will be decided by civil courts. The Constitution doesn't even enter into it. A judge would laugh you out of court if you tried to argue that the Fourth Amendment prevents the RIAA from serving you with a subpoena. This isn't the Supreme Court kids. And the RIAA isn't the Federal Government. Bringing up the Bill of Rights into a civil lawsuit makes about as much sense as killing flies with a sledgehammer.
Nowhere is it enshrined that it's my right to keep secret the names of the books I checked out from a public library. Same with rental videos because my local privately-owned video store can do whatever they want with my rental lists; they can sell them, post them in the window, mail them to their friends. Don't like it? Don't rent there. Don't want to give your name and address to the library so you can check out books? Don't use the library. Don't want the RIAA breathing down your neck because you d/led a few songs off of Kazaa? Here's an idea: Don't do it! What amendment in the Bill of Rights guarantees us a Right to Privacy? I see the Fourth Amendment there but it only applies to search and seizures performed by the government. Not private groups like the RIAA. Please explain.
First there was the setback of a New England judge throwing out an attempt to uncover the names of students at MIT accused of piracy.
I assume you mean this 'setback':
But Judge Joseph L Tauro said because the subpoenas were issued in Washington, DC they cannot be served in Massachusetts.
This really isn't a 'setback' at all. It was simple a procedural error. Those subpoenas will be filed again but this time in Massachusetts. Then they will be served.
Then there's this from the article:
"This is more invasive than someone having secret access to the library books you check out or the videos you rent,"
LMAO! So in other words, not very invasive at all. Besides, last time I looked checking books out of the library and renting videos was legal. Maybe because both are paid for! (Libraries operate on taxes in case you didn't know. That's what makes it a Public Library.)
Trying to rebuild a face from nothing more than a skull is nonsense. It'd be like trying to recreate my whole body from a skeleton. How do you know how much I weigh, what color I am, if I have a hairy back, or whatever? Skulls and other bones aren't like fingerprints or snowflakes. And yet faces are unique. So how can a unique face be built from a generic skull? Even when they had artists doing this with clay most cops knew it was pretty much useless. They only use this technique if they have absolutely nothing else to go on like DNA, or dental charts.
While I applaud the M$ goal of making computers as easy to use as toasters, a ever widening gap is occuring thanks to pretty UIs that leaves those of us who know how things work under the hood in a separate world.
Scared of losing your job maybe? At any rate, I hope most computer geeks are more imaginative and progressive than you are. I'll bet in 50 years the only people who will be in the know about how a computer works will be the computers who design and build them. And that's how it should be.
Why should your sister have to know what saving to the hard drive means? Who really cares where or how it is saved? Why shouldn't that be left up to the computer? For example, if every Monday morning I put my Microvault into a USB port and move my schoolwork for the week onto it then after 2 or 3 weeks my computer should be able to see what I'm doing. Then, the next time I put the Vault in, it should move my files for me. Better yet, I should be able to simply say to my computer "Computer, I'm going to school. Send my completed homework to my school terminal but not the Illustrator stuff. You can just dump that. Oh, and e-mail Professor Longjohns and tell him I need an extension. And can you make sure I have a bus ticket for the way home? Thanks." We're nowhere near that scenario. Why not? Because techies like you want to fuck around with a command line like it's 1956. Get off'n your ass and start thinking bigger! These systems won't be built if you can't tear yourself away from a prompt! We need you nerds to get this done before I die!
I want the computer itself to be invisible and its operations seamless. Even having a box on my desk is an anachronism. It should be in the walls, the ceiling; all around me. Displays should be my cupboards, the TV, my wallpaper, a piece of paper I left on my kitchen table. I imagine your sister wants the same thing.
One could focus on the consumer not understanding the computer but I say that techs and engineers don't understand what people really want: an information processing appliance that just works.
...to make our point very clear that their governing laws and policys have absolutely no meaning to us here in Palestine, we will continue to add even more movies for FREE.
Admitting that they enable the distribution of pirated movies won't really help their cause. Whatever their cause may be.
Adam is nowhere near a revolutionary robot. It was programmed to recharge itself. It 'learned' two facts: red walls don't recharge, green flowers do recharge. Wow. What is that, 3 lines of code within one IF loop? It moves around randomly and when it touches a wall its energy goes down. When it happens to touch a flower its energy goes up. Now that it knows that its learning is complete. It can't learn anything more. To me, a truly learning robot can learn anything if left alone long enough. Like how to speak, how to pick up a cheque at a restaurant, what the difference between red and blue is, how to get to the store and back. And it would have to learn it all from scratch like a baby would. Adam is way too specialized. He's useless. You might argue that baby steps like this will pay off in the long run but they've been building robots like this since the 1980s. It's If that's a learning robot so is my Roomba.
The difference being that we can see the moon. Since we can see it, it was easy to suppose that there must be a way to get there if we only tried hard enough. But in the field of AI it's quite a different story. AI research is 60 years old now and the best we can do is emulate the intelligence of a cockroach. We're nowhere near building a robot that can simulate the intelligence of a 5 year old human. In fact, it may very well be impossible. (Personally, I believe that an intelligent digital computer will never be possible.) If that is the case then spending millions or even billions won't make much of a difference. Granted, even if the project fails a lot of new and useful technology will be created in the process. But overall I think I'd be more excited to hear that the US is going to commit to landing on Mars by 200x.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously. And those 1 to 2% of consumers probably built their own PC anyway and therefore didn't pay for an MS license. Let's get real here.
All squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. Therefore, unless the monitor is circular or triangular, it's bloody rectangular.
Friend: Let me give you my new number. Got a pen?
Me: Uh, hang on a sec. Let me get out my tablet. Just have to boot it up here...just a minute more. Okay. I've got to open Outlook... New contact...new number. Damn, it's not recognizing my handwriting. Wait, wait. Okay. Done. Now let me give you my number.
Friend: *writes it on back of hand with a pen that costs a quarter, never needs to be recharged, and fits in a shirt pocket*
The problem is that people have been saying that since Babbage. Take it easy. It's not going to happen in our lifetimes. In fact, it may never happen. At any rate, if an intelligent machine could ever be built it won't be a digital computer. So if you think we're ready to move away from digital computing in the next 20 years then I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you.
But a shredder doesn't prevent people from stealing your mail. A PO Box or a lockable mailbox is a good idea.
I was just about to post the same thing. What are these 'classified' computers and where are they? What can they do? Who uses them and for what? Is there a supercomputer underneath the Pentagon that is on the verge of self-awareness? How much more advanced can these computers possibly be that they have to be classifed by the government? I need to know!
I've installed Opera, Mozilla, Netscape and all the rest but I always end up going back to IE because I can't give up my Google Toolbar. And as for spellcheckers, ieSpell checks any webpage for spelling including form fields like the comment box I'm typing in now.
Why not put your money where your mouth is?
I'm sure they don't. Seems to me that the people who want all intellectual property laws abolished are the ones who have no intellectual property of their own. Why should authors, programmers, musicians, architects, graphic designers, inventors have to give up their creations into the public domain without any compensation? I agree that sometimes these lawsuits go too far and I'd also like to see copyright terms shortened instead of extended but advocating "the abolishment of all intellectual property laws" is just silly, childish, and nonsensical. That wouldn't even work in a Communist country. What is the incentive for people to create if they can't expect compensation?
That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I think what you meant to say is that the mark of good sci-fi is being able to strip all of the technical aspects out of the story and still be left with a good story. Characters and plot come first. Always. Otherwise, you're reading a manual. And your two examples contradict each other. Why am I reading 20,000 Leagues for the technical stuff but watching Star Wars for the story? Huh?
I agree. The libraries in my city are all about community projects and book clubs and getting people together. Hence 'public' library. Mike Benham probably has his public library confused with his local Barnes and Noble.
It's a recording dude. His handler pushed the button when it was time for him to say his little speech. He can 'speak' in any language he wants. You make it sound like the robot thought it would be a nice gesture if he spoke in Czech instead of his native Japanese.
The one thing he's missing is a switch so he can hook up more than 2 consoles at a time. Or maybe a TV with more inputs.
You might say "But that's the whole point with a city simulation; chaos. Maybe. But once you realize that no one player could possibly micromanage so many details it gets frustrating and boring. Simcity 4 should be played by a computer. I remember being a kid and picking up Simcity for the SNES and I got right into it. It was easy but that didn't mean it wasn't interesting.
Shite. Look at any game on the NES. When you were a kid you threw the manual and the box away. You didn't need a manual to figure out how to play Excitebike or Balloon Fight. Now I have to keep a library of game manuals and a separate library of strategy manuals just to play a game like Civilization III.
The only genre that hasn't been affected by this is the FPS. Once you've learned WASD you're all set. I love that feeling of loading a brand new game and just knowing how to play it. The last time I felt that way I was playing Medal of Honor.
Then of course there's the in game tutorial which has become standard. Except for the tutorial in Black and White (which doubled as an introduction) which was really well done I get so bored listening to and reading the instructions. I just want to play.
It's still not so bad on the consoles. I have a Cube and I love it. Games like Pikmin and Animal Cracker have short little manuals on the interface; the rest of the game is up to you. Miyamoto is a genius like that. One or two buttons and that's all you need to know to interface with the game. F-Zero is out Tuesday. Will I have to read the manual? No. I'll even bet I know what the manual will say: A: Accelerator. B: Boost. L/R: Hard Steer. Simple. Will I be hooked on it for months? Yes.
How about the effect on the theatre? Bring your gas masks boys.
Exactly! Who reads reviews except to get the release dates? I buy a game if I like what I read on the back of the box or because I've played the game at a buddy's house. For example, F-Zero is out Tuesday for the GC. I will buy it. Have I read any reviews for it? No.
I have rights! The Constitution protects me! Blah blah blah blah blah. These cases are civil lawsuits and will be decided by civil courts. The Constitution doesn't even enter into it. A judge would laugh you out of court if you tried to argue that the Fourth Amendment prevents the RIAA from serving you with a subpoena. This isn't the Supreme Court kids. And the RIAA isn't the Federal Government. Bringing up the Bill of Rights into a civil lawsuit makes about as much sense as killing flies with a sledgehammer.
Nowhere is it enshrined that it's my right to keep secret the names of the books I checked out from a public library. Same with rental videos because my local privately-owned video store can do whatever they want with my rental lists; they can sell them, post them in the window, mail them to their friends. Don't like it? Don't rent there. Don't want to give your name and address to the library so you can check out books? Don't use the library. Don't want the RIAA breathing down your neck because you d/led a few songs off of Kazaa? Here's an idea: Don't do it! What amendment in the Bill of Rights guarantees us a Right to Privacy? I see the Fourth Amendment there but it only applies to search and seizures performed by the government. Not private groups like the RIAA. Please explain.
I assume you mean this 'setback':
But Judge Joseph L Tauro said because the subpoenas were issued in Washington, DC they cannot be served in Massachusetts.
This really isn't a 'setback' at all. It was simple a procedural error. Those subpoenas will be filed again but this time in Massachusetts. Then they will be served.
Then there's this from the article:
"This is more invasive than someone having secret access to the library books you check out or the videos you rent,"
LMAO! So in other words, not very invasive at all. Besides, last time I looked checking books out of the library and renting videos was legal. Maybe because both are paid for! (Libraries operate on taxes in case you didn't know. That's what makes it a Public Library.)
Trying to rebuild a face from nothing more than a skull is nonsense. It'd be like trying to recreate my whole body from a skeleton. How do you know how much I weigh, what color I am, if I have a hairy back, or whatever? Skulls and other bones aren't like fingerprints or snowflakes. And yet faces are unique. So how can a unique face be built from a generic skull? Even when they had artists doing this with clay most cops knew it was pretty much useless. They only use this technique if they have absolutely nothing else to go on like DNA, or dental charts.
Scared of losing your job maybe? At any rate, I hope most computer geeks are more imaginative and progressive than you are. I'll bet in 50 years the only people who will be in the know about how a computer works will be the computers who design and build them. And that's how it should be.
Why should your sister have to know what saving to the hard drive means? Who really cares where or how it is saved? Why shouldn't that be left up to the computer? For example, if every Monday morning I put my Microvault into a USB port and move my schoolwork for the week onto it then after 2 or 3 weeks my computer should be able to see what I'm doing. Then, the next time I put the Vault in, it should move my files for me. Better yet, I should be able to simply say to my computer "Computer, I'm going to school. Send my completed homework to my school terminal but not the Illustrator stuff. You can just dump that. Oh, and e-mail Professor Longjohns and tell him I need an extension. And can you make sure I have a bus ticket for the way home? Thanks." We're nowhere near that scenario. Why not? Because techies like you want to fuck around with a command line like it's 1956. Get off'n your ass and start thinking bigger! These systems won't be built if you can't tear yourself away from a prompt! We need you nerds to get this done before I die!
I want the computer itself to be invisible and its operations seamless. Even having a box on my desk is an anachronism. It should be in the walls, the ceiling; all around me. Displays should be my cupboards, the TV, my wallpaper, a piece of paper I left on my kitchen table. I imagine your sister wants the same thing.
One could focus on the consumer not understanding the computer but I say that techs and engineers don't understand what people really want: an information processing appliance that just works.
It's all fun and games until private computer networks at nuclear power plants have their safety monitoring systems disabled for nearly five hours.
Admitting that they enable the distribution of pirated movies won't really help their cause. Whatever their cause may be.
Adam is nowhere near a revolutionary robot. It was programmed to recharge itself. It 'learned' two facts: red walls don't recharge, green flowers do recharge. Wow. What is that, 3 lines of code within one IF loop? It moves around randomly and when it touches a wall its energy goes down. When it happens to touch a flower its energy goes up. Now that it knows that its learning is complete. It can't learn anything more. To me, a truly learning robot can learn anything if left alone long enough. Like how to speak, how to pick up a cheque at a restaurant, what the difference between red and blue is, how to get to the store and back. And it would have to learn it all from scratch like a baby would. Adam is way too specialized. He's useless. You might argue that baby steps like this will pay off in the long run but they've been building robots like this since the 1980s. It's If that's a learning robot so is my Roomba.
The difference being that we can see the moon. Since we can see it, it was easy to suppose that there must be a way to get there if we only tried hard enough. But in the field of AI it's quite a different story. AI research is 60 years old now and the best we can do is emulate the intelligence of a cockroach. We're nowhere near building a robot that can simulate the intelligence of a 5 year old human. In fact, it may very well be impossible. (Personally, I believe that an intelligent digital computer will never be possible.) If that is the case then spending millions or even billions won't make much of a difference. Granted, even if the project fails a lot of new and useful technology will be created in the process. But overall I think I'd be more excited to hear that the US is going to commit to landing on Mars by 200x.