What about the next 3 Star Wars films? He could keep the "machine" moving forward and make three more. We're all tired of the prequels. Get someone else to direct the next three films, and he can spend $200M on each.
50 TV series! Bring back Firefly! He can spend his money there...and be a silent backer...ok, maybe not.
There are several "known" spy satellites that pass over the United States. Some of which belong to our European allies. That doesn't mean they can't spy on us. Oh, they "turn the moff" when they pass over North America.
Ok. Fair enough. And, the security person overreacted. However, too bad cooler heads didn't prevail. The security person should have overlooked what was written on the bag.
So, to recap, this person felt inconvenienced that he had to place his belongings in a plastic bag, take off his shoes, open his laptop, and walk through the metal detector. Therefore, he felt compelled to write a message on the plastic bag...more power to him...
Just get on the freakin' airplane. Save your "Kip is an Idiot" message for your personal blog when you're at home. I was in that line 5 people behind you, and you caused the boarding to take a good 30 minutes longer, you idiot! If you want to get all "freedom of speech" on us, pick a flight traveling to Great Bend, Kansas, or some other place that nobody cares if the flight is delayed. Nothing against Great Bend of course. It's a nice godforsaken place.
[...] in around 2015-2020, you could say that we won't need people to write software, because you just explain what you want to a computer and it will write it for you, and there's no reason then to have people working in that job.
Maybe not, but I'll have the job debugging all the mistakes the androids will have in their code. They'll be outsourcing debug work to us humans.
Yes. It's a deliberately provocative point, because the AI field is pretty much split down the middle in terms of whether these things are achievable or not. I'm in the 30-40% camp that believes that there's really not anything magical about the human brain.
We're getting a greater understanding of neuroscience, and starting to get some of these concepts built into the way that computers will work, and computers don't have to be a grey box with a whole stack of silicon chips in it - there's no reason why they couldn't use organic techniques if necessary. So there's really no reason at all why we can't do the same things that a brain does.
The other side of AI says that "my brain is magic, and I'm really smart and you can't possibly produce a robot as clever as me". I don't subscribe to that one - I think that's nonsense.
Simulating a brain in 20-25 years in a humanlike android? There is still so much to discover about the human brain, that it will still take 100 years to come close to anything that can truly learn on it's own...and that's if we're lucky..or unlucky, depending on how you look at it.
This idea just doesn't seem possible. A 60,000 mile tether, strong enough to carry a satellite sitting on a robot elevator all the way up into space. And then successfully deploying the satellite off the elevator. And this would be cheaper than rockets that send satellites into orbit now?
A space elevator sounds great, it just seems far-fetched. A 100 meter test. Only 96,560,540 more meters to go.
I just got VoIP two months ago through my "local" cable company, and the voice quality has been excellent. And, the bill was even better! So far, so good.
An interesting side not if you're a Verizon phone and DSL customer. Simply mention the fact that you're dropping DSL for cable and they first try and scare you by saying you are on a shared network and will certainly be targeted by intruders. If you can put up with their speach, then they'll offer at least one free month, and in my case, $10 less per month to stay with their DSL.
Then, finally, the second call to cancel phone service they give a speech about unreliable 911 service and dropped calls with VoIP. If you can patiently wait for that speech to conclude, they'll offer another discount to keep you as a land-line customer. In my case, it was $10 again! No rebates on long-distance though...
Bottom line, call up your phone company now, and say you want to cancel DSL and/or land-line service. You will certainly get a free month and a monthly discount.
I think it must be impossible. I haven't read enough spoilers. I've played Nethack for years. I've never ascended to win. It really is a great game. I have a little icon on my desktop and I play from time-to-time. I prefer being a Wizard or a Tourist.
> ethics, [...] dreams
AD&D got it right wayyyy back in the 70's. Explore, slash & cast, grab the booty. Explore some more. Drink some beer, have some chips, stay up all weekend and get no sleep. The quality of the game was really dictated by the creativity of the dungeon master and the players. Much better than the WOW or NWN, etc., that we have online now. Pen & paper AD&D will always live as the best role-playing creation of all-time!
Isn't "social network" when used in the context of MySpace actually indeed a "portal". I know an awful lot of people, and OLDER people at that (mid 20's to 30) that have MySpace.com as their browser's start page. The only really obvious item lacking on MySpace is "NEWS". And, that is probably a welcome escape for a lot of people...
MySpace is their "social portal", but they jump to Google News for their "News Portal"...
My father clicks on all sorts of things. He falls for the "Button" that looks like a windows button. The "speed up my PC" button, which installs spyware and actually makes it slower. He clicks on things that blink. He clicks on EVERYTHING. He opens spam. Bascially, if you're over 60, and use a PC, you're the one doing the clicking.
I spend a few hours a year cleaning his PC and making it usable again. I installed tinyPersonalFirewall a couple of years ago, and that helps with a lot of stuff.
It is basically a response to the objections of a grand total of 51 people in "the class". An incredibly small number of objections.
From the document: "The assertion that Google has done nothing wrong was echoed by advertisers that opted out of the settlement." "Unlike Retailers, Pay per click advertisers can limit the money risked for each click and for each day...Businesses should treat pay-per-click advertising like any other advertising...If it's costing more to advertise than your resulting profit, STOP ADVERTISING."
And, regarding the "click fraud detection", there is only a small portion of this document that mentions the review process by Dr. Tuzhilin. It does mention that the click fraud detection methods by Google were confirmed to be reasonable.
And finally, it was interesting to see read the jabs taken at the lawyers who brought the class action lawsuit to begin with...and the copy-cat cases from California, obviously a bunch of ambulance chasers.
All of these at once:
* A little piece of hair, saliva, blood sample (for DNA)
* A finderprint scan, but it must have a warm pulse
* An eyeball scan
* A voice print
That might do it. Throw in a univeral ID chip too. Analyze it all in under 5 seconds, and you're into the ATM booth...
Okay, I watched the 1 hour demo. It really looks impressive. I admit. The shared content does make sense. Other players planets and creatures, and items, are shared among everyone, throught the Spore database. And the Spore online databsae sounds like it would be smart, resorting content, delivering the best based on criteria. It was explained pretty well in the demo. I'm sold. A great creative universe. When can I buy it? Dammit! Another year!
I read it - sounds interesting - but come on...
on
What Spore May Spawn
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Sounds like an interesting game to play. It mentions the "space phase" as the "business end" of the game. The database of content created by players can be shared between other players. Not sure exactly what this means. Maybe as simple as evolved planets can be visited by others, and tens of thousands of users will be able to have quite unique planets, none too similar. And technology can be passed from race to race.
Does this mean that my "planet", which I spent 2 months building after I spent 3 months evolving my race, can be wiped out by an evil player who simply wants to nuke everything in site? I hope I have time to spend 2 months on defense systems...
Another year to release...wow. Nothing ever lives up to the hype.
Can I buy a movie that will be full-screen DVD quality and play it through my Tivo Desktop to my television? That would be cool. TivoToGo http://www.tivo.com/4.9.4.1.asp, is compatible with iPod, but would it be compatible with iPod video downloads (iTunes), rather than recorded programs? I don't want to buy and watch a 2+ hour movie on a tiny iPod screen, if that's where this is going. Oh, and I'm not buying, I'm renting according to the article. Not as good, but I'd try it.
I guess a high quality download would be too big. Would it? How big is a 2 hour feature film download at good or very good quality?
Microsoft, by cracking down, could effectively decrease the spam sites, the results would be fewer AdWords and microAds displayed and clicked, and could lower revenue for Google and Yahoo.
A side effect is better search results, which would increase use of Google again. Where is MSN Search in all of this...I don't know. But fewer of those crap sites, the better.
This research actually make sense. We should call these people "Watchers". They can look over thousands of photographs of wanted persons, and then sit them in front of sensitive security camera feeds, played at 2X or 3X normal speed. Every hour, review the still images of those portions of the video that the watcher's brain triggered. When multiple watchers trigger the same still images, make those the highest priority to investigate.
Even non-sensitive feeds can be used. McDonalds and Burger King drive through camera's could be routed to thousands of "watchers". ATM cameras, traffic cameras, etc.
How to keep Watchers from going insane is another story...have them work 1 day on, 1 day off, etc...
"To get a fuller understanding of such networks, Barabási and colleagues decided to study the visiting patterns on a popular Hungarian news and entertainment portal..."
I didn't know that popular Hungarian sites existed.
That's the first flaw in this study. They need a better cross-section of sites, preferably not popular Hungarian sites...
Why have the French taken so much interest in iTunes and music downloads to the iPod? Where is the French interest in this? Are iPod's hard to come by in France? And some other players don't have a rich selection of music available from their online music stores?
Perhaps everyone in France should just download Tunebite http://www.tunebite.com/, and convert their protected iTunes downloads to readily playable mp3's. Or is there some sort of tax involved in all of this that the French gov't is after...
Slashdot Mirror
What about the next 3 Star Wars films? He could keep the "machine" moving forward and make three more. We're all tired of the prequels. Get someone else to direct the next three films, and he can spend $200M on each.
50 TV series! Bring back Firefly! He can spend his money there...and be a silent backer...ok, maybe not.
Is there a way to put a Google widget on a page of your own WITHOUT getting the google footnote and link auto-inserted by google?
n .googlepages.com/treefrog.xml&synd=open&w=320&h=20 0&title=__MSG_title__&.lang=de&.country=ALL&border =%23ffffff%7C3px%2C1px+solid+%23999999&output=js"> </script>
Here is a treefrog, if slashdot would allow it:
<script src="http://gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://abowma
Of course, slashdot will not allow it, but you can paste into your own html page, and presto...a widget, with the annoying google footer...
There are several "known" spy satellites that pass over the United States. Some of which belong to our European allies. That doesn't mean they can't spy on us. Oh, they "turn the moff" when they pass over North America.
Ok. Fair enough. And, the security person overreacted. However, too bad cooler heads didn't prevail. The security person should have overlooked what was written on the bag.
So, to recap, this person felt inconvenienced that he had to place his belongings in a plastic bag, take off his shoes, open his laptop, and walk through the metal detector. Therefore, he felt compelled to write a message on the plastic bag...more power to him...
WHy must you express your freedom of speech on a plastic bag in an airport security line?
Just get on the freakin' airplane. Save your "Kip is an Idiot" message for your personal blog when you're at home. I was in that line 5 people behind you, and you caused the boarding to take a good 30 minutes longer, you idiot! If you want to get all "freedom of speech" on us, pick a flight traveling to Great Bend, Kansas, or some other place that nobody cares if the flight is delayed. Nothing against Great Bend of course. It's a nice godforsaken place.
[...] in around 2015-2020, you could say that we won't need people to write software, because you just explain what you want to a computer and it will write it for you, and there's no reason then to have people working in that job.
Maybe not, but I'll have the job debugging all the mistakes the androids will have in their code. They'll be outsourcing debug work to us humans.
Yes. It's a deliberately provocative point, because the AI field is pretty much split down the middle in terms of whether these things are achievable or not. I'm in the 30-40% camp that believes that there's really not anything magical about the human brain.
We're getting a greater understanding of neuroscience, and starting to get some of these concepts built into the way that computers will work, and computers don't have to be a grey box with a whole stack of silicon chips in it - there's no reason why they couldn't use organic techniques if necessary. So there's really no reason at all why we can't do the same things that a brain does.
The other side of AI says that "my brain is magic, and I'm really smart and you can't possibly produce a robot as clever as me". I don't subscribe to that one - I think that's nonsense.
Simulating a brain in 20-25 years in a humanlike android? There is still so much to discover about the human brain, that it will still take 100 years to come close to anything that can truly learn on it's own...and that's if we're lucky..or unlucky, depending on how you look at it.
This idea just doesn't seem possible. A 60,000 mile tether, strong enough to carry a satellite sitting on a robot elevator all the way up into space. And then successfully deploying the satellite off the elevator. And this would be cheaper than rockets that send satellites into orbit now?
A space elevator sounds great, it just seems far-fetched. A 100 meter test. Only 96,560,540 more meters to go.
I just got VoIP two months ago through my "local" cable company, and the voice quality has been excellent. And, the bill was even better! So far, so good.
An interesting side not if you're a Verizon phone and DSL customer. Simply mention the fact that you're dropping DSL for cable and they first try and scare you by saying you are on a shared network and will certainly be targeted by intruders. If you can put up with their speach, then they'll offer at least one free month, and in my case, $10 less per month to stay with their DSL.
Then, finally, the second call to cancel phone service they give a speech about unreliable 911 service and dropped calls with VoIP. If you can patiently wait for that speech to conclude, they'll offer another discount to keep you as a land-line customer. In my case, it was $10 again! No rebates on long-distance though...
Bottom line, call up your phone company now, and say you want to cancel DSL and/or land-line service. You will certainly get a free month and a monthly discount.
I think it must be impossible. I haven't read enough spoilers. I've played Nethack for years. I've never ascended to win. It really is a great game. I have a little icon on my desktop and I play from time-to-time. I prefer being a Wizard or a Tourist.
> ethics, [...] dreams AD&D got it right wayyyy back in the 70's. Explore, slash & cast, grab the booty. Explore some more. Drink some beer, have some chips, stay up all weekend and get no sleep. The quality of the game was really dictated by the creativity of the dungeon master and the players. Much better than the WOW or NWN, etc., that we have online now. Pen & paper AD&D will always live as the best role-playing creation of all-time!
Isn't "social network" when used in the context of MySpace actually indeed a "portal". I know an awful lot of people, and OLDER people at that (mid 20's to 30) that have MySpace.com as their browser's start page. The only really obvious item lacking on MySpace is "NEWS". And, that is probably a welcome escape for a lot of people...
MySpace is their "social portal", but they jump to Google News for their "News Portal"...
"Greenbaum said the family believes Hawke buried gold in the White Mountains 130 miles north of Boston."
A clue! Buried treasure up in the White Mountains! There is going to be some serious treasure hunting going on up there...
My father clicks on all sorts of things. He falls for the "Button" that looks like a windows button. The "speed up my PC" button, which installs spyware and actually makes it slower. He clicks on things that blink. He clicks on EVERYTHING. He opens spam. Bascially, if you're over 60, and use a PC, you're the one doing the clicking.
I spend a few hours a year cleaning his PC and making it usable again. I installed tinyPersonalFirewall a couple of years ago, and that helps with a lot of stuff.
The last link is actually very good, and an easy read. Surprising for a legal document. It is "Googles Omnibus Response to Objections". I suggest giving it a read (PDF) http://googleblog.blogspot.com/pdf/objections_resp onse.pdf
It is basically a response to the objections of a grand total of 51 people in "the class". An incredibly small number of objections.
From the document:
"The assertion that Google has done nothing wrong was echoed by advertisers that opted out of the settlement."
"Unlike Retailers, Pay per click advertisers can limit the money risked for each click and for each day...Businesses should treat pay-per-click advertising like any other advertising...If it's costing more to advertise than your resulting profit, STOP ADVERTISING."
And, regarding the "click fraud detection", there is only a small portion of this document that mentions the review process by Dr. Tuzhilin. It does mention that the click fraud detection methods by Google were confirmed to be reasonable.
And finally, it was interesting to see read the jabs taken at the lawyers who brought the class action lawsuit to begin with...and the copy-cat cases from California, obviously a bunch of ambulance chasers.
All of these at once:
* A little piece of hair, saliva, blood sample (for DNA)
* A finderprint scan, but it must have a warm pulse
* An eyeball scan
* A voice print
That might do it. Throw in a univeral ID chip too. Analyze it all in under 5 seconds, and you're into the ATM booth...
Okay, I watched the 1 hour demo. It really looks impressive. I admit. The shared content does make sense. Other players planets and creatures, and items, are shared among everyone, throught the Spore database. And the Spore online databsae sounds like it would be smart, resorting content, delivering the best based on criteria. It was explained pretty well in the demo. I'm sold. A great creative universe. When can I buy it? Dammit! Another year!
Sounds like an interesting game to play. It mentions the "space phase" as the "business end" of the game. The database of content created by players can be shared between other players. Not sure exactly what this means. Maybe as simple as evolved planets can be visited by others, and tens of thousands of users will be able to have quite unique planets, none too similar. And technology can be passed from race to race.
Does this mean that my "planet", which I spent 2 months building after I spent 3 months evolving my race, can be wiped out by an evil player who simply wants to nuke everything in site? I hope I have time to spend 2 months on defense systems...
Another year to release...wow. Nothing ever lives up to the hype.
Can I buy a movie that will be full-screen DVD quality and play it through my Tivo Desktop to my television? That would be cool. TivoToGo http://www.tivo.com/4.9.4.1.asp, is compatible with iPod, but would it be compatible with iPod video downloads (iTunes), rather than recorded programs? I don't want to buy and watch a 2+ hour movie on a tiny iPod screen, if that's where this is going. Oh, and I'm not buying, I'm renting according to the article. Not as good, but I'd try it. I guess a high quality download would be too big. Would it? How big is a 2 hour feature film download at good or very good quality?
At first is sounded like this could compete with Zigbee http://www.zigbee.org/en/index.asp or Z-Wave http://www.z-wavealliance.org/content/modules/Star t/ technologies. Then again, what is this good for? The battery is...wait, no battery. Power comes from the device that reads/writes this grain-of-rice sized wireless/memory device...
Microsoft, by cracking down, could effectively decrease the spam sites, the results would be fewer AdWords and microAds displayed and clicked, and could lower revenue for Google and Yahoo.
A side effect is better search results, which would increase use of Google again. Where is MSN Search in all of this...I don't know. But fewer of those crap sites, the better.
This research actually make sense. We should call these people "Watchers". They can look over thousands of photographs of wanted persons, and then sit them in front of sensitive security camera feeds, played at 2X or 3X normal speed. Every hour, review the still images of those portions of the video that the watcher's brain triggered. When multiple watchers trigger the same still images, make those the highest priority to investigate.
Even non-sensitive feeds can be used. McDonalds and Burger King drive through camera's could be routed to thousands of "watchers". ATM cameras, traffic cameras, etc.
How to keep Watchers from going insane is another story...have them work 1 day on, 1 day off, etc...
"To get a fuller understanding of such networks, Barabási and colleagues decided to study the visiting patterns on a popular Hungarian news and entertainment portal..."
I didn't know that popular Hungarian sites existed.
That's the first flaw in this study. They need a better cross-section of sites, preferably not popular Hungarian sites...
Why have the French taken so much interest in iTunes and music downloads to the iPod? Where is the French interest in this? Are iPod's hard to come by in France? And some other players don't have a rich selection of music available from their online music stores?
Perhaps everyone in France should just download Tunebite http://www.tunebite.com/, and convert their protected iTunes downloads to readily playable mp3's. Or is there some sort of tax involved in all of this that the French gov't is after...