Does the fact that some moron was viewing the page at the time Rob was updating it - mean that the same moron is cool or what!?
No... But since I reloaded 3 times before posting that I figured I might as well... Humph, I wanted to be marked 'Flamebait' or 'Troll' though, it's kind of demeaning to have the first post of the first thread marked 'Redundant'.... Oh well.
Now, for an on topic blurb: Do you think this guy enjoys some kind of 'celebrity' status in his home town? Or did he just happen to catch a blurb in the local paper?
I have to agree with this. THIS is peer review. I thought this was what made Linux so much better than MS, someone found a hole, how we can fix it! That's the whole point of having open source software, isn't it? How can you complain about this exploit being the fault of PCweek and still advocate peer review and testing? People should be yelling at Red Hat for letting this kind of thing stay in their out of the box install. Admitted they did release the fix for it long before it was used... But as long as the hole is fixed in the next versions default install then the process is working, right?
Could you use one of these to sort of fire off a big burst of laser into the room, then intercept them all as they bounce back and get a kind of image of the room? This could be really useful in robot navigation. Let the robot map the entire room at once. Then again, maybe they already do that...
Aren't those the same lenses you can use to incinerate objects at 30 feet away by merely putting the sun between it, and the object in question?! I know somebody that had a lens like that - he actually heated the pavement up so much that it kinda-sorta liquified. Of course, the lense was about 30" in diameter too...
Anyway... you may want to keep your monitor away from direct sunlight if you use one of these, lest you burn a hole through the tube!!!
Here is a link to someone who has done some fairly destructive things with a Fresnel.
You may be able to see a bigger screen, but it does nothing for resolution. I don't think that this will harm the large monitor industry any. Trinitron (and the like) still rule the stores!
Would running at higher resolution help combat some of the quality loss? I tend to run things at ungodly high resolution (Desktop at 1600x1200, Quake2 at 1024x768) but I can always use a more immersive environment...
Well, first, overclocking has to do with increasing the frequency of the basic 'pulse' of the chip, thus making all operations a bit faster. There is no direct connection with increasing the voltage supplied to the chip. If you just increase the voltage supplied to the CPU, it will not run faster.
Forgive my miswording, sorry about that. Though as you say here:
Second, if you stick electrodes into a human brain and send appropriate current through appropriate parts, you can get strange and interesting results. A typical effect is being able to remember with perfect clarity a scene that you thought you forgot completely. A Spanish researcher named Delgado (?) did a fair amount of experimentation around 20 years ago. I don't think a lot of people work on it now, mostly for ethical reasons. Most of the work is being done with people who are heavily mentally ill.
Apparently pure current can have an affect on the brain. So it is theoretically possible that what I conjectured is applicable.
Suppose you had a cake recipe that said "...bake at 250F for 30 minutes". If you cranked up your oven to 750F, could you bake the same cake in 10 minutes? No, you'd probably end up with something that was charred on the outside and undercooked on the inside. I suspect that "overclocking the brain" would lead to a similar result
Ahhh, but what if you only pushed it up to say... 260F? You could bake it for 27 minutes and it would come out fine, and voila! you saved 3 minutes.>:) I'm not talking about plugging your head into the wall. I'm talking about a minute signal boost of the electrical impulses flowing through your brain.
My guess is no. The brain works so well because it remembers its state. If it were to reset at the drop of a voltage, we'd all wake up every moring to a brand new experience.
Hmmm... So, assuming someone found a way to do this, you could nudge the signal a little, keep the signal steady for a few days/weeks/months, then boost it again once the brain was adjusted to it. I wonder if what kind of behavioral patterns this would lead to. I wonder if anyone has tried it? *heads for google* Heck, if the principle is sound then in theory that would be a way to remove aggressive behaviour from our society (or brainwash the masses into obeying my every whim...).
In the same breath, i can't help but think of the possibilities of integrating a peice of incredibly fast, single-task peice of hardware into a "slow" or "underdeveloped" portion of the brain, and improving it (the brain). I'm not talking about replacing the entirety of the pink mush, but rather, improving where improvement seems to be needed.
It seems like you would have a LOT of concerns about rejection when implanting something into the brain... I imagine the possibility is there and the technology is almost there, but would even this much of a change in some 'unused' brain portion result in a personality change because of the interference?
If you can manage it, there's a Nobel prize in it for you. Of course, ECT will fry the brain in a random way, but that's not what you were on about, I suspect. As for governmental intervention: sounds like the CIA's MK-ULTRA experiments (sort of).
Hmmm... I think I'll go buy a couple of white rats and some general anesthetic... Where's my exacto knife and my electrical tape...>:)
I doubt I could do anything like this by jacking a Rat into a 9v Battery or anything... That'd just toast his head. Someone would need a way to barely increase the voltage until a noticeable difference occured without a significant risk of toasted the subjects brain. I don't think I have the equipment for that in my basement just yet...
Another question, would the persons personality revert to 'normal' if you removed the extra power? I would so love to test this if I only knew of a safe way of boosting the signal through the brain...
You'd turn into a jerry springer fan. The brain's cognitive strengths come from the fact that it's not a binary system; synapeses can be more than just on or off. To that extent, the brain's a lot like a quantum computer (is that in someone's sig?). If you increase the signal, you're changing the contents of the brain, not making it faster.
Hmmm... Any idea to what extent you would alter someones personality by minutely adjusting the signal to the brain? If what you say is right and altering the signal alters the contents and by extension the personality of someone then you could potentially 'adjust' anyone away from 'undesirable' behaviour with a simple voltage regulator type implant device... Unless the results are unpredictable. I wonder if the government has tried this one on an unsuspecting populace yet?
As I was reading the review of this book I had a thought, just a tiny one. The brain is made up of synapses, neurons, etc... These things run off of electrical current much like the processor in the 'puters we have everywhere. Sooo... What happens if you boost the electrical charge, just a little bit mind you. Would you be able to theoretically 'overlock' your brain? What kind of effect would this have on your thought processes? I doubt it's possible even if I understood more about the workings of the brain than I do, but it's still an interesting idea. We are, after all, only electrical impulses at the base of our thought.
Lessee... Say an inch tall and 5 inches wide by 6 inches long... 30 cubic inches... 24 and change per cubic foot, call it 28 if 4 are placed vertically in the empty space... So 56 in 2 cubic feet... 112 in 4 cubic feet... Mmmm.... Fill a room with them, that's a lot of processing power for the size. >:)
BTW, as for "not proven". Nothing in science is proven. It's all theories which explain what we observe. If we observe something which isn't explained by the current theory, then someone will make up a new theory. At the moment at least, all observations are consistant with Einstein's theories.
Except for this latest observation involving long range probes... right? >:) Just because everything we have seen before agreed does not mean everything we see in the future will.
Like a Kryptonite-Master super lock. (Takes 6 years to break through with a hacksaw and you can put a bullet through it, without breaking.)
Tell me again why the cops don't take a skillsaw to the FUCKING WALL and cut it open??? Yeesh... WTF is the point to having a lock as strong as a tank if the walls are made out of wood/tin/equally flimsy crap???
"If the police ask you keep the demand to hand over the key secret, telling anyone would render you liable to 5 years in jail."
Urgh. It took me about 6 passes to parse this sentence. At a minimum, there needs to be a "to" inserted after the first "you." At best, it needs to be re-written entirely.
Actually. there is an unerstood 'That' after 'ask'. So it would read' "If the police ask that you keep the demand to hand over the key secret, telling anyone would render you liable to 5 years in jail."
I do know that a lot of stuff is going on that I would be interested in if I could find out more about it. Think about the things that Slashdot doesn't cover that you get sent by friends who thought that you might be interested in it.
You can solve this with existing tech. At this moment I am: A. Listening to a radio station from England B. Watching the CNN ticker update through news stories. C. Watching my Pointcast ticker roll by with Wired, Zdnet and a couple other Tech news headlines and stories on it.
I can customize all of these and tailor them to my interests. I absorb volumes of information everyday, some of it is work related, most if it is just because I like knowing what is happening. We don't need some all knowing AI to filter our lives, we can do it ourselves with 'dumb' software.
You know, I've liked Katz's stuff in the past. Really. I've defended him against those who would seek to have him banished from the realm that is/. Now, I'm not so sure. Has Katz finally lost his mind?
Okay, the Cybercylsm thing is a bit stupid. It sounds just like information overload taken to new, cool hardware. No big deal, but I don't know anyone with this problem, nor have I ever heard of anyone with it. As an uber-geek myself, I like having the latest toys (or at least playing with the latest toys), but damn few of these get used in an everyday life scenario. This is just reality.
And what the hell was this article about? I read it twice, much slower the second time, and I still can't grasp it. Clotho seems to me to be a ridiculous idea. Admittedly it's only a concept, but it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Is it filtering your information input? Is it not letting you find out about new cool stuff? How does a web site stop word of mouth? (which is where almost everyone finds out about this type of stuff). What the hell are you getting at? Because a lot of use Katz readers are in the dark on this one, buddy.
I'm not SURE about this, but I THINK it was Katz pimping his new portal site to get a lot of start up hits for his IPO next month.
This thing read like an infomercial/corporate BS marketing scam. I got the distinct impression that Katz was trying to pimp something, I wasn't exactly sure what since the Clotho.org he was pimping doesn't exist... Hrmmm... Maybe Transmeta is working with Katz to save us all from the 'Cyberclasm'??? Heheheheh....*uncontrolled giggling*
? I don't happen to think so, but, then, I'm not going to turn down a large paycheck because I don't want a label (unless, maybe the label was 'squirell humping hamburger face'..)
What the hell is "evolutionary momentum." What other affects can you attribute to this new discovery you've made? In fact I think we're going to have our enlarged frontal lobes shrink and the lizard part will increase in size, it's the "evolutionary slingshot" hypothesis. Excellent, we can be like Lamarck and Darwin!
The only way to settle this is.... TRIAL BY COMBAT! The way things should have been decided the first time around! You have 24 hours for one of you to crack the others home PC.>:)
Does anyone know if Tesla left behind enough records to duplicate his inventions? I know the Tesla Coil can be duplicated, but I heard about a lot of crazy stuff he made that used electricity in super efficient fashion. It would be nice if those plans were still around somewhere, even if some oil company bought them... As long as they exist there is a chance of us getting them.
The article a week or so ago mentioned that the part of the brain that allows for "social" functioning in an autistic person is smaller than that of the average person. I would ahve to say that it does make sense that maybe autism should simply be defined as a non-average distribution of brain functions. Basically, we got 100 points to allocate to our character, and autistics only used 10 towards user interface, and the other 90 went toward processor power. Sound right to you?
Lessee... So the Typical Geek would be:
Str:15 Int: 40 Wis: 15 Dex: 20 Cha: 10
Low Wisdom because of that lack of mundane concerns like showering or matching our clothing, a slightly higher Strength since we do have to carry around those 40-50lb monitors and boxes. A pretty good Dexterity for manipulating those little jumpers and fishing screws out from under a motherboard, low Charisma because we can't be bothered to be nice to everyone we meet, we have more important things to do, and extremely high Intelligence because we have excellent problem solving skills and memory for information. >:)
Slashdot Mirror
Does the fact that some moron was viewing the page at the time Rob was updating it - mean that the same moron is cool or what!?
No... But since I reloaded 3 times before posting that I figured I might as well... Humph, I wanted to be marked 'Flamebait' or 'Troll' though, it's kind of demeaning to have the first post of the first thread marked 'Redundant'.... Oh well.
Now, for an on topic blurb:
Do you think this guy enjoys some kind of 'celebrity' status in his home town? Or did he just happen to catch a blurb in the local paper?
Kintanon
I have to agree with this. THIS is peer review. I thought this was what made Linux so much better than MS, someone found a hole, how we can fix it!
That's the whole point of having open source software, isn't it? How can you complain about this exploit being the fault of PCweek and still advocate peer review and testing? People should be yelling at Red Hat for letting this kind of thing stay in their out of the box install. Admitted they did release the fix for it long before it was used... But as long as the hole is fixed in the next versions default install then the process is working, right?
Kintanon
Could you use one of these to sort of fire off a big burst of laser into the room, then intercept them all as they bounce back and get a kind of image of the room? This could be really useful in robot navigation. Let the robot map the entire room at once.
Then again, maybe they already do that...
Kintanon
http://users.intercomm.com/ajones/fresnel/fresnel. htm
Is another link, this one provides more links including where to buy high quality Fresnels.
Kintanon
Aren't those the same lenses you can use to incinerate objects at 30 feet away by merely putting the sun between it, and the object in question?!
I know somebody that had a lens like that - he actually heated the pavement up so much that it kinda-sorta liquified. Of course, the lense was about 30" in diameter too...
Anyway... you may want to keep your monitor away from direct sunlight if you use one of these, lest you burn a hole through the tube!!!
Here is a link to someone who has done some fairly destructive things with a Fresnel.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bclee/lens.html
Kintanon
You may be able to see a bigger screen, but it does nothing for resolution. I don't think that this will harm the large monitor industry any. Trinitron (and the like) still rule the stores!
Would running at higher resolution help combat some of the quality loss? I tend to run things at ungodly high resolution (Desktop at 1600x1200, Quake2 at 1024x768) but I can always use a more immersive environment...
Kintanon
Well, first, overclocking has to do with increasing the frequency of the basic 'pulse' of the chip, thus making all operations a bit faster. There is no direct connection with increasing the voltage supplied to the chip. If you just increase the voltage supplied to the CPU, it will not run faster.
Forgive my miswording, sorry about that.
Though as you say here:
Second, if you stick electrodes into a human brain and send appropriate current through appropriate parts, you can get strange and interesting results. A typical effect is being able to remember with perfect clarity a scene that you thought you forgot completely. A Spanish researcher named Delgado (?) did a fair amount of experimentation around 20 years ago. I don't think a lot of people work on it now, mostly for ethical reasons. Most of the work is being done with people who are heavily mentally ill.
Apparently pure current can have an affect on the brain. So it is theoretically possible that what I conjectured is applicable.
Kintanon
Suppose you had a cake recipe that said "...bake at 250F for 30 minutes". If you cranked up your oven to 750F, could you bake the same cake in 10 minutes? No, you'd probably end up with something that was charred on the outside and undercooked on the inside. I suspect that "overclocking the brain" would lead to a similar result
Ahhh, but what if you only pushed it up to say... 260F? You could bake it for 27 minutes and it would come out fine, and voila! you saved 3 minutes.>:) I'm not talking about plugging your head into the wall. I'm talking about a minute signal boost of the electrical impulses flowing through your brain.
Kintanon
My guess is no. The brain works so well because it remembers its state. If it were to reset at the drop of a voltage, we'd all wake up every moring to a brand new experience.
Hmmm... So, assuming someone found a way to do this, you could nudge the signal a little, keep the signal steady for a few days/weeks/months, then boost it again once the brain was adjusted to it. I wonder if what kind of behavioral patterns this would lead to. I wonder if anyone has tried it? *heads for google*
Heck, if the principle is sound then in theory that would be a way to remove aggressive behaviour from our society (or brainwash the masses into obeying my every whim...).
Kintanon
In the same breath, i can't help but think of the possibilities of integrating a peice of incredibly fast, single-task peice of hardware into a "slow" or "underdeveloped" portion of the brain, and improving it (the brain). I'm not talking about replacing the entirety of the pink mush, but rather, improving where improvement seems to be needed.
It seems like you would have a LOT of concerns about rejection when implanting something into the brain... I imagine the possibility is there and the technology is almost there, but would even this much of a change in some 'unused' brain portion result in a personality change because of the interference?
Kintanon
If you can manage it, there's a Nobel prize in it for you.
Of course, ECT will fry the brain in a random way, but that's not what you were on about, I suspect.
As for governmental intervention: sounds like the CIA's MK-ULTRA experiments (sort of).
Hmmm... I think I'll go buy a couple of white rats and some general anesthetic... Where's my exacto knife and my electrical tape...>:)
I doubt I could do anything like this by jacking a Rat into a 9v Battery or anything... That'd just toast his head. Someone would need a way to barely increase the voltage until a noticeable difference occured without a significant risk of toasted the subjects brain. I don't think I have the equipment for that in my basement just yet...
Another question, would the persons personality revert to 'normal' if you removed the extra power?
I would so love to test this if I only knew of a safe way of boosting the signal through the brain...
Kintanon
You'd turn into a jerry springer fan. The brain's cognitive strengths come from the fact that it's not a binary system; synapeses can be more than just on or off. To that extent, the brain's a lot like a quantum computer (is that in someone's sig?).
If you increase the signal, you're changing the contents of the brain, not making it faster.
Hmmm... Any idea to what extent you would alter someones personality by minutely adjusting the signal to the brain? If what you say is right and altering the signal alters the contents and by extension the personality of someone then you could potentially 'adjust' anyone away from 'undesirable' behaviour with a simple voltage regulator type implant device... Unless the results are unpredictable. I wonder if the government has tried this one on an unsuspecting populace yet?
Kintanon
As I was reading the review of this book I had a thought, just a tiny one. The brain is made up of synapses, neurons, etc... These things run off of electrical current much like the processor in the 'puters we have everywhere. Sooo... What happens if you boost the electrical charge, just a little bit mind you. Would you be able to theoretically 'overlock' your brain? What kind of effect would this have on your thought processes?
I doubt it's possible even if I understood more about the workings of the brain than I do, but it's still an interesting idea. We are, after all, only electrical impulses at the base of our thought.
Kintanon
2) Can you Beowulf some together?
I was going to ask that! >:)
Lessee... Say an inch tall and 5 inches wide by 6 inches long... 30 cubic inches... 24 and change per cubic foot, call it 28 if 4 are placed vertically in the empty space... So 56 in 2 cubic feet... 112 in 4 cubic feet... Mmmm.... Fill a room with them, that's a lot of processing power for the size. >:)
Kintanon
Even Bill Gates probably likes puppies
Yes, he likes them in a light white wine sauce with a side of fluffy little kitten.
Kintanon
BTW, as for "not proven". Nothing in science is proven. It's all theories which explain what we observe. If we observe something which isn't explained by the current theory, then someone will make up a new theory. At the moment at least, all observations are consistant with Einstein's theories.
Except for this latest observation involving long range probes... right? >:)
Just because everything we have seen before agreed does not mean everything we see in the future will.
Kintanon
Like a Kryptonite-Master super lock. (Takes 6 years to break through with a hacksaw and you can put a bullet through it, without breaking.)
Tell me again why the cops don't take a skillsaw to the FUCKING WALL and cut it open??? Yeesh... WTF is the point to having a lock as strong as a tank if the walls are made out of wood/tin/equally flimsy crap???
Kintanon
"If the police ask you keep the demand to hand
over the key secret, telling anyone would
render you liable to 5 years in jail."
Urgh. It took me about 6 passes to parse this sentence. At a minimum, there needs to be a "to" inserted after the first "you." At best, it needs to be re-written entirely.
Actually. there is an unerstood 'That' after 'ask'. So it would read'
"If the police ask that you keep the demand to hand over the key secret, telling anyone would
render you liable to 5 years in jail."
Makes perfect sense now, eh?
Kintanon
I do know that a lot of stuff is going on that I would be interested in if I could find out more about it. Think about the things that Slashdot doesn't cover that you get sent by friends who thought that you might be interested in it.
You can solve this with existing tech. At this moment I am:
A. Listening to a radio station from England
B. Watching the CNN ticker update through news stories.
C. Watching my Pointcast ticker roll by with Wired, Zdnet and a couple other Tech news headlines and stories on it.
I can customize all of these and tailor them to my interests. I absorb volumes of information everyday, some of it is work related, most if it is just because I like knowing what is happening. We don't need some all knowing AI to filter our lives, we can do it ourselves with 'dumb' software.
Kintanon
You know, I've liked Katz's stuff in the past. Really. I've defended him against those who would seek to have him banished from the realm that is /. Now, I'm not so sure. Has Katz finally lost his mind?
Okay, the Cybercylsm thing is a bit stupid. It sounds just like information overload taken to new, cool hardware. No big deal, but I don't know anyone with this problem, nor have I ever heard of anyone with it. As an uber-geek myself, I like having the latest toys (or at least playing with the latest toys), but damn few of these get used in an everyday life scenario. This is just reality.
And what the hell was this article about? I read it twice, much slower the second time, and I still can't grasp it. Clotho seems to me to be a ridiculous idea. Admittedly it's only a concept, but it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Is it filtering your information input? Is it not letting you find out about new cool stuff? How does a web site stop word of mouth? (which is where almost everyone finds out about this type of stuff). What the hell are you getting at? Because a lot of use Katz readers are in the dark on this one, buddy.
I'm not SURE about this, but I THINK it was Katz pimping his new portal site to get a lot of start up hits for his IPO next month.
This thing read like an infomercial/corporate BS marketing scam. I got the distinct impression that Katz was trying to pimp something, I wasn't exactly sure what since the Clotho.org he was pimping doesn't exist... Hrmmm... Maybe Transmeta is working with Katz to save us all from the 'Cyberclasm'??? Heheheheh....*uncontrolled giggling*
Kintanon
actually it was more related to pinging a firewall till it goes down...then allowing easier entry.
what can you do about that?
Seems like the easiest thing to do would be to ignore pings for 30 seconds if you recieve more than X in a given time frame.
Kintanon
? I don't happen to think so, but, then, I'm not going to turn down a large paycheck because I don't want a label (unless, maybe the label was 'squirell humping hamburger face'..)
Hey! For 6 figures I'll take that label! >:)
Kintanon
What the hell is "evolutionary momentum." What other affects can you attribute to this new discovery you've made? In fact I think we're going to have our enlarged frontal lobes shrink and the lizard part will increase in size, it's the "evolutionary slingshot" hypothesis. Excellent, we can be like Lamarck and Darwin!
The only way to settle this is.... TRIAL BY COMBAT! The way things should have been decided the first time around! You have 24 hours for one of you to crack the others home PC.>:)
Kintanon
Does anyone know if Tesla left behind enough records to duplicate his inventions? I know the Tesla Coil can be duplicated, but I heard about a lot of crazy stuff he made that used electricity in super efficient fashion. It would be nice if those plans were still around somewhere, even if some oil company bought them... As long as they exist there is a chance of us getting them.
Kintanon
The article a week or so ago mentioned that the part of the brain that allows for "social" functioning in an autistic person is smaller than that of the average person. I would ahve to say that it does make sense that maybe autism should simply be defined as a non-average distribution of brain functions. Basically, we got 100 points to allocate to our character, and autistics only used 10 towards user interface, and the other 90 went toward processor power. Sound right to you?
Lessee... So the Typical Geek would be:
Str:15
Int: 40
Wis: 15
Dex: 20
Cha: 10
Low Wisdom because of that lack of mundane concerns like showering or matching our clothing, a slightly higher Strength since we do have to carry around those 40-50lb monitors and boxes. A pretty good Dexterity for manipulating those little jumpers and fishing screws out from under a motherboard, low Charisma because we can't be bothered to be nice to everyone we meet, we have more important things to do, and extremely high Intelligence because we have excellent problem solving skills and memory for information.
>:)
Kintanon