When we arrive at the point where we can easily contruct very deadly weapons, particularly with the subtlety of viruses, there should be very strict regulation and government supervision.
No, there should be very good education and instruction. People should be raised to be smart, caring, kind, inquisitve and compassionate. A normal healthy person would not create a virus to cause harm and a sick person should be treated. There will be no terrorism once we create a global society of abundance and freedom (to a large extent by using nanotech, AI and biotech). And other people would be happy to follow simple precautions.
Well, check out that PDF. They say we are pretty sure that ITER will work. Surely it must mean that fusion research no longer needs funding from DOE, doesn't it?
They don't have any plans for neuro science. In fact, they seem to only have plans for physics and physics alone. Don't take me wrong, but these people are a bunch of idiots. They should be spending the money on AI development, nanotech and some biotech (including neuroscience), not on faster and bigger colliders.
May be, but another benefit of having a projector is that you can play computer games on it. Console games are fine on TV, but with PC games you really lose in image quality.
Fine, what I meant to say then is: "IN MY OPINION, this is pointless and doesn't add any useful features to a scooter," and so on. Well, that is still too harsh.:) It would be fine, though, to say "FOR ME this device is pointless and doesn't add to a scooter any features useful TO ME". As it is, you still try to combat the facts, namely that Segway is useful to some people, because they bought it, they use it, they save money with it and they are happy with it. QED. Point proven.
In my experience, and especially my experience with motorized vehicles, that making things any more complex than they need to be is a bad thing in the long term.
Well, if you can make a self-balancing human transporter, smaller, cheaper and simplier than Segway, why don't you tell Kamen about your ideas? Surely he will appreciate your constructive criticism.
The Segway is indeed the only consumer vehicle I've ever seen that combines all the liabilities of two wheels with none of their benefits Well, if you don't see any benefits, you are either completely uninformed, or completely stupid. In the former case, please check at least Segway.Com and Book of Seg. In the latter case, please don't bother to reply and don't waste my time with your groundless assertions.
WTF???
I will repeat my argument, but with the main word now highlighted for your reading comfort: "but product X can do almost everything product Y can and it also has many other advantages, so don't buy Y." Do you see the point? All people have unique needs and for some people the benefits of Segway outweight the drawbacks. These people buy them. If you want to continue to ignore the fact that Segway has REAL benefits (some of them mentioned in my previous post), you just will make yourself look stupid.
Given bills like this, I think a RPG or a tactical nuke would probably get your point across much better. If you don't have access to one, consider a personal meeting in some dark street. A few knife stabs and the bill gets one less vote. Then cut the throat to make sure Ms. Feinstein is really dead.
This is very special case. Since MPs are the representatives of the people, they should basically stick their own opinions up their asses and defend the opinions of the voters. That's how representative democracy was supposed to work.
I won't say innovations - Segway is more an elegant piece of engineering than an innovation.
In fact, Segway is an innovation, a product innovation, to be exact. It is also an invention. Check the definitions.
As for the usefulness, give it some time and then judge it. Kamen might have made a mistake estimating the adoption rate (or rather he and the investors made a bet), but that doesn't mean the product is bad. Many people bought it, many people use it, I haven't saw a lot of negative comments from the owners (in fact I can't remember any of them). I don't really understand why is it so popular to bash it? Are Americans really so preoccupied with their cars?
It seems that almost everyone and their dog are out their with unique and "first ever" unmanned helicopters. Honda joins the fun with their Robocopter (Ananova)
Scientists say they have developed the world's first unmanned helicopter that's flown entirely by artificial intelligence. Honda says its miniature Robocopter can detect and negotiate obstacles on the way to its destination. After each flight it becomes more sophisticated by recording and comparing data about previous voyages. Spokesman Martin Moll said: ''The helicopter is amazing it really is a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. ''We hope that through the helicopter project we will be able to develop safer cars that can automatically find their way around obstacles and obstructions."
Look, there are thousands of people who bought the Segway already. I don't have extensive data on customer satisfaction, but my gut feeling is that most of them are pretty happy with the purchase. This means that even today, with short battery life, without infrastructure in most American cities, with relatively high price and all other problems Segways are useful even to private customers. They are useful, because people buy and use them - the definition of "useful" in liberal society with market economy. They can be even more useful for businesses regardless of the fact that Segway didn't made a lot of progress in this field so far.
Segway has some unique qualities - it's stupid to deny that. And the nature of the free market is that you can't argue "but product X can do almost everything product Y can and it also has many other advantages, so don't buy Y" to people. A scooter is not a replacement for Segway, it is only a substitute and not a very good one (one thing is it can't self-balance). You admit that it's not for you to decide what is useful and what is not, but in the next sentence you argue that Segway is pointless. Guess what, this is also not for you to decide. Some people see the point in having a self-balancing device on which you can stand and which can move you at 20kmph, while being very small and generally cool. You don't see the point, don't buy it, but don't try to argue that there is no point, because if at least one paying customer sees it, then it definitely exists.
Like he will tell you if he was. But, seriously speaking, I am gonna believe you on this one, because I already saw how much can PJ maim the book in TTT. After what he did to Faramir and the Ents, removing Saruman doesn't sound like a big deal anymore...
Oh, really? I hope that some hardcore fans will download a DVD from KaZaA/eDonkey instead, or buy a pirated DVD, or get it from a friend. I personally don't plan to go to the theatre to watch this crap and I will not pay a cent for an official DVD. Fuck this. And this is not some kind of gesture, I just no longer care enough about this lame attempt at filmmaking.
Why that defeatism, KFG? Everything that we humans can imagine can be built. Every problem that we face can be solved. It only takes a finite amount of time, money and effort. There is more than enough energy in a battery to power the whole NYC for a year*, the only question is how to get this energy and use it.:)
* with corresponding advances in various new energy efficient technologies.
Long post, but makes almost no sense. There are many advantages in both the Segway and the Embryo. Small footprint, low energy consumption, no parking required for Segway, etc. There are some risks as well. But what you mention is not a real risk. There is almost no danger to Segway riders, because they are not faster than a running person, while motorcycles can routinely go as fast as 100kmph even in cities. But the most important thing is that its not for you (or me) to decide whether something is useful. The market should do that. The problem is it can't do that, because the voice of one unhappy customer (in the form of a lawsuit) means more than voices of a thousand happy customers.
Votes must not be able to be forged. There must be an audit trail of every vote cast, when and where they are cast. Yet voting must be 100% anonymous.
Have you RTFA? It's not like the company fucked up by failing to provide an audit trail or 100% anonymity. They fucked up by not even being able to correctly count the votes. That's what the parent poster was talking about.
And even if they wern't, it would be putting money back into the economy which is never a bad thing...
This shows a serious lack of understanding of economic theory. Money never leaves the economy. In fact nothing matters less than that. What matters is mostly what people produce. If people spend their time making some cool consumer goods, someone will get to consume these, which is good. If they do some science, it is good because we will learn something. If people spend their time counting votes, this is not good, because less consumer goods will be made and we will not have as much scientific progress as possible. Spending resources on useless things is bad, even though jobs are created and money is returned back into the economy.
But extortion? He didn't just write on his site "Gamespy can pay me 10...0$ and I will remove the information", di he? The other feasible way is to contact the Gamespy, which he didn't.
I'd like to see net archives made by the British Library, by the Library of Congress, by the UN, by the EU, etc. Please don't forget China and Cuba. You can most likely rely on them for preserving articles like this.
You had a reply on China already. Here is my take on Russian education (I give "practical" lessons on something like "exchange markets" in one of the "universities"). Students use a calculator to multiply by ten. Then don't know how to build a graph of a function. They don't know jack shit. About anything. They are completely stupid and know nothing at all whatsoever and I REALLY mean it. They majority of kids graduating today from schools and from universities DON'T FUCKING KNOW ANYTHING AT ALL, their minds are completely blank, believe me. Students majoring in construction don't know the standard size of a brick, for fuck's sake! And don't believe anyone who says otherwise, like that Russian clown from Harvard or anybody else.
Russia is rated ~25th on most international studies on education quality (math, literacy, natural sciences, things like that), that is, behind almost all developed countries, somewhere with Mexico and Brazil.
Soviet education was quite good, Russian education simply no longer exists.
Japan might have its share of problems, but Japanese students sonsistently get top scores in math and natural sciences, together with South Koreans. Finns top the scores on literacy.
I am not a wedding photographer, I never had a wedding (although I attended one) and I don't plan to. But I have a question - why do these people expect to be able to earn their living working two days a week (ignoring for the moment their ridiculous claims of working 40 hours to process photos from one wedding)?
Macroeconomics is a complex thing. The money become capital, they are invested into Internet startups, but people do not spend money online. Money wasted. Just think how much better off we would be if instead of investing mindlessly, all VCs would start buying their groceries in WebVan.:)
News sites are designed for more or less constant load. No matter how great your server is, there is a limit to the number of page loads it can handle per minute. And with hundreds of thousands of slashdotters all hitting the same page at almost the same time this limit is often exceeded. Ars Technica can serve the whole Slashdot crowd if only visit could be evenly distributed over the day.
This about this. You can probably have almost a hundred of orgasms every month, but imagine a hundred slashdotters coming to your place and trying to fuck you all at once. That's what they just did to the Ars.:)
But modelling an exsisting escher piece in 3D is hard and creating a new escher-like piece is extremely hard.
One problem we face is that we think about virtual cameras as real cameras in virtual space. Some time ago I read a small article somewhere (/.?) about using complex shape cameras - you can have arbitrarily complex transformations for the light in the 3D space and the way it falls on the "camera". It's hard to explain, but there is actually nothing that prevents you from filming a scene from several points in space (or space/time) simultaneously in a single frame. There is a lot in 3D which was no explored yet - we barely touched the surface, while 2D, on the other hand, has almost exhausted its possibilities.
Slashdot Mirror
When we arrive at the point where we can easily contruct very deadly weapons, particularly with the subtlety of viruses, there should be very strict regulation and government supervision.
No, there should be very good education and instruction. People should be raised to be smart, caring, kind, inquisitve and compassionate. A normal healthy person would not create a virus to cause harm and a sick person should be treated. There will be no terrorism once we create a global society of abundance and freedom (to a large extent by using nanotech, AI and biotech). And other people would be happy to follow simple precautions.
Just shows that all the progress on Earth happens despite government actions, not because of them.
Well, check out that PDF. They say we are pretty sure that ITER will work. Surely it must mean that fusion research no longer needs funding from DOE, doesn't it?
They don't have any plans for neuro science. In fact, they seem to only have plans for physics and physics alone. Don't take me wrong, but these people are a bunch of idiots. They should be spending the money on AI development, nanotech and some biotech (including neuroscience), not on faster and bigger colliders.
May be, but another benefit of having a projector is that you can play computer games on it. Console games are fine on TV, but with PC games you really lose in image quality.
Fine, what I meant to say then is: "IN MY OPINION, this is pointless and doesn't add any useful features to a scooter," and so on. :) It would be fine, though, to say "FOR ME this device is pointless and doesn't add to a scooter any features useful TO ME". As it is, you still try to combat the facts, namely that Segway is useful to some people, because they bought it, they use it, they save money with it and they are happy with it. QED. Point proven.
Well, that is still too harsh.
In my experience, and especially my experience with motorized vehicles, that making things any more complex than they need to be is a bad thing in the long term.
Well, if you can make a self-balancing human transporter, smaller, cheaper and simplier than Segway, why don't you tell Kamen about your ideas? Surely he will appreciate your constructive criticism.
The Segway is indeed the only consumer vehicle I've ever seen that combines all the liabilities of two wheels with none of their benefits
Well, if you don't see any benefits, you are either completely uninformed, or completely stupid. In the former case, please check at least Segway.Com and Book of Seg. In the latter case, please don't bother to reply and don't waste my time with your groundless assertions.
WTF???
I will repeat my argument, but with the main word now highlighted for your reading comfort:
"but product X can do almost everything product Y can and it also has many other advantages, so don't buy Y."
Do you see the point? All people have unique needs and for some people the benefits of Segway outweight the drawbacks. These people buy them. If you want to continue to ignore the fact that Segway has REAL benefits (some of them mentioned in my previous post), you just will make yourself look stupid.
Given bills like this, I think a RPG or a tactical nuke would probably get your point across much better. If you don't have access to one, consider a personal meeting in some dark street. A few knife stabs and the bill gets one less vote. Then cut the throat to make sure Ms. Feinstein is really dead.
This is very special case. Since MPs are the representatives of the people, they should basically stick their own opinions up their asses and defend the opinions of the voters. That's how representative democracy was supposed to work.
I won't say innovations - Segway is more an elegant piece of engineering than an innovation.
In fact, Segway is an innovation, a product innovation, to be exact. It is also an invention. Check the definitions.
As for the usefulness, give it some time and then judge it. Kamen might have made a mistake estimating the adoption rate (or rather he and the investors made a bet), but that doesn't mean the product is bad. Many people bought it, many people use it, I haven't saw a lot of negative comments from the owners (in fact I can't remember any of them). I don't really understand why is it so popular to bash it? Are Americans really so preoccupied with their cars?
It seems that almost everyone and their dog are out their with unique and "first ever" unmanned helicopters. Honda joins the fun with their Robocopter (Ananova)
Scientists say they have developed the world's first unmanned helicopter that's flown entirely by artificial intelligence. Honda says its miniature Robocopter can detect and negotiate obstacles on the way to its destination. After each flight it becomes more sophisticated by recording and comparing data about previous voyages. Spokesman Martin Moll said: ''The helicopter is amazing it really is a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. ''We hope that through the helicopter project we will be able to develop safer cars that can automatically find their way around obstacles and obstructions."
Look, there are thousands of people who bought the Segway already. I don't have extensive data on customer satisfaction, but my gut feeling is that most of them are pretty happy with the purchase. This means that even today, with short battery life, without infrastructure in most American cities, with relatively high price and all other problems Segways are useful even to private customers. They are useful, because people buy and use them - the definition of "useful" in liberal society with market economy. They can be even more useful for businesses regardless of the fact that Segway didn't made a lot of progress in this field so far.
Segway has some unique qualities - it's stupid to deny that. And the nature of the free market is that you can't argue "but product X can do almost everything product Y can and it also has many other advantages, so don't buy Y" to people. A scooter is not a replacement for Segway, it is only a substitute and not a very good one (one thing is it can't self-balance). You admit that it's not for you to decide what is useful and what is not, but in the next sentence you argue that Segway is pointless. Guess what, this is also not for you to decide. Some people see the point in having a self-balancing device on which you can stand and which can move you at 20kmph, while being very small and generally cool. You don't see the point, don't buy it, but don't try to argue that there is no point, because if at least one paying customer sees it, then it definitely exists.
Like he will tell you if he was. But, seriously speaking, I am gonna believe you on this one, because I already saw how much can PJ maim the book in TTT. After what he did to Faramir and the Ents, removing Saruman doesn't sound like a big deal anymore...
Oh, really? I hope that some hardcore fans will download a DVD from KaZaA/eDonkey instead, or buy a pirated DVD, or get it from a friend. I personally don't plan to go to the theatre to watch this crap and I will not pay a cent for an official DVD. Fuck this. And this is not some kind of gesture, I just no longer care enough about this lame attempt at filmmaking.
1. You hate a Jedi.
2. The Jedi says: "You don't hate me. You love me. You want to have sex with me."
3. You no longer hate a Jedi.
Why that defeatism, KFG? Everything that we humans can imagine can be built. Every problem that we face can be solved. It only takes a finite amount of time, money and effort. There is more than enough energy in a battery to power the whole NYC for a year*, the only question is how to get this energy and use it. :)
* with corresponding advances in various new energy efficient technologies.
Long post, but makes almost no sense. There are many advantages in both the Segway and the Embryo. Small footprint, low energy consumption, no parking required for Segway, etc. There are some risks as well. But what you mention is not a real risk. There is almost no danger to Segway riders, because they are not faster than a running person, while motorcycles can routinely go as fast as 100kmph even in cities. But the most important thing is that its not for you (or me) to decide whether something is useful. The market should do that. The problem is it can't do that, because the voice of one unhappy customer (in the form of a lawsuit) means more than voices of a thousand happy customers.
It is harder than you think.
Votes must not be able to be forged. There must be an audit trail of every vote cast, when and where they are cast. Yet voting must be 100% anonymous.
Have you RTFA? It's not like the company fucked up by failing to provide an audit trail or 100% anonymity. They fucked up by not even being able to correctly count the votes. That's what the parent poster was talking about.
And even if they wern't, it would be putting money back into the economy which is never a bad thing...
This shows a serious lack of understanding of economic theory. Money never leaves the economy. In fact nothing matters less than that. What matters is mostly what people produce. If people spend their time making some cool consumer goods, someone will get to consume these, which is good. If they do some science, it is good because we will learn something. If people spend their time counting votes, this is not good, because less consumer goods will be made and we will not have as much scientific progress as possible. Spending resources on useless things is bad, even though jobs are created and money is returned back into the economy.
But extortion? He didn't just write on his site "Gamespy can pay me 10...0$ and I will remove the information", di he? The other feasible way is to contact the Gamespy, which he didn't.
I'd like to see net archives made by the British Library, by the Library of Congress, by the UN, by the EU, etc.
Please don't forget China and Cuba. You can most likely rely on them for preserving articles like this.
You had a reply on China already. Here is my take on Russian education (I give "practical" lessons on something like "exchange markets" in one of the "universities"). Students use a calculator to multiply by ten. Then don't know how to build a graph of a function. They don't know jack shit. About anything. They are completely stupid and know nothing at all whatsoever and I REALLY mean it. They majority of kids graduating today from schools and from universities DON'T FUCKING KNOW ANYTHING AT ALL, their minds are completely blank, believe me. Students majoring in construction don't know the standard size of a brick, for fuck's sake! And don't believe anyone who says otherwise, like that Russian clown from Harvard or anybody else.
:(
Russia is rated ~25th on most international studies on education quality (math, literacy, natural sciences, things like that), that is, behind almost all developed countries, somewhere with Mexico and Brazil.
Soviet education was quite good, Russian education simply no longer exists.
Japan might have its share of problems, but Japanese students sonsistently get top scores in math and natural sciences, together with South Koreans. Finns top the scores on literacy.
P.S. Sorry to ruin it for you.
I am not a wedding photographer, I never had a wedding (although I attended one) and I don't plan to. But I have a question - why do these people expect to be able to earn their living working two days a week (ignoring for the moment their ridiculous claims of working 40 hours to process photos from one wedding)?
Macroeconomics is a complex thing. The money become capital, they are invested into Internet startups, but people do not spend money online. Money wasted. Just think how much better off we would be if instead of investing mindlessly, all VCs would start buying their groceries in WebVan. :)
News sites are designed for more or less constant load. No matter how great your server is, there is a limit to the number of page loads it can handle per minute. And with hundreds of thousands of slashdotters all hitting the same page at almost the same time this limit is often exceeded. Ars Technica can serve the whole Slashdot crowd if only visit could be evenly distributed over the day.
:)
This about this. You can probably have almost a hundred of orgasms every month, but imagine a hundred slashdotters coming to your place and trying to fuck you all at once. That's what they just did to the Ars.
But modelling an exsisting escher piece in 3D is hard and creating a new escher-like piece is extremely hard.
One problem we face is that we think about virtual cameras as real cameras in virtual space. Some time ago I read a small article somewhere (/.?) about using complex shape cameras - you can have arbitrarily complex transformations for the light in the 3D space and the way it falls on the "camera". It's hard to explain, but there is actually nothing that prevents you from filming a scene from several points in space (or space/time) simultaneously in a single frame. There is a lot in 3D which was no explored yet - we barely touched the surface, while 2D, on the other hand, has almost exhausted its possibilities.